Healthful Resolutions

With the new year comes many resolutions. Most commonly people resolve to lose weight, eat better, be more fit, etc. I thought this might be a good opportunity to reflect on some things I learned while completing my Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition from Cornell's online learning program (eCornell).

First I'd like to review the program itself, as I had a hard time finding much feedback when I was deciding whether or not to sign up. It's not a cheap program and I wondered whether I could just read The China Study to get the same knowledge. The short answer is yes. The vast majority of the course was redundant and some of it (especially in the first course) seemed to get into way too much scientific detail and not enough practical information.

The third (of the three) courses definitely deals with the most hands-on information and was what I liked the best. In particular it touched on school lunch programs and my favorite unit was an awesome practical guide to understanding nutritional labels on packaged food.

Part of my problem with the program is that I don't think I do well with online learning, or at least not in the way it was designed here. Each module is an audio lecture with little visual stimulus. (Strike one: I'm not an auditory learner.) After each lecture you either take a short multiple choice quiz (Strike two: I despise multiple choice and true/false quizzes. These were particularly poorly written and don't test key concepts.) or you have to briefly answer a question in the discussion forum.

The forums were Strike three. If you came late to questions (it's entirely on your time with no deadlines within each course) you found yourself basically re-stating everything that had already been said or struggling to make a new point. And nobody was going to follow up with any constructive feedback, questions or responses because they'd moved on to the next module. It made a dialogue difficult and that is what I have always thrived on in classes. I need group discussion. On the plus side, the professor for the first two courses was great. He always followed up with comments and answered questions. The final professor was fine, I just didn't hear from her as much.

Perhaps another criticism is that the program should be called "Non-Animal Nutrition" to be more accurate. The majority of it was focused on the things that are bad for you in meat and dairy, and far less on the things actually good for you in veggies. I often wondered to myself, "well, what can I eat?" when learning that soy milk, tofu and tempeh - foods most people would certainly rank as health foods - are considered processed and should be kept at a minimum in the plant-based diet.

Through the course I cut caffeine, refined sugar, refined flour, and vegetable oils out of my already vegan diet, and focused much more on whole foods. Basically, I shopped in the bulk section. I went about a month on this diet. The problem is that it's pretty unsustainable for anyone with a social life. While vegan food is pretty easy to come by in restaurants these days, it's often in the form of pastas, stir-fries, baked goods. There was no way I was going to New York, for example, without sampling their finest vegan foods.

The course seems to rely on the idea that a varied enough diet of plant-based whole foods will give you everything you need. But it doesn't address how to handle those with other health concerns like food allergies, digestive diseases, etc. It worked more on converting people towards a specific diet and less on helping those already on this diet to maintain optimal health and get enough of a variety of nutrients.

So one of my resolutions for 2010 is to work to maintain this balance in my diet -- cooking whole foods at home, allowing for indulgences when I dine out. It's all about what's personally sustainable.

Vegetables, yo! They're hella good for you!

I ended up signing up for the Plant-Based Nutrition course I was pondering a few months back. I have rather mixed feelings about it which I'll save for another day, but tonight I found myself in a class discussion of how to reach out to teens about nutrition. A classmate of mine had, I kid you not, written a "rap" to appeal to a young audience. I won't quote the lyrics, but the lead in was a list of diseases like Cancer and Diabetes, that can be prevented with a plant-based diets.

I can distinctly remember my 6th grade English teacher rapping a lesson one day. Even as an eleven year old white girl in the suburbs, I was pretty sure this was the lamest thing ever. Jason Schwartzman parodies this ridiculous trope of connecting with urban youth in a very special "Yo Teach" episode.

As I told my classmate, teenagers are actually pretty savvy about knowing when adults are co-opting their forms of expression in order to teach them a lesson.

At any rate, this is to say nothing of the bigger point which is that warning an eighteen year old about preventing heart disease is about as productive as warning your six year old about saving for retirement. You may plant a tiny seed, but they are not at an age where they're thinking that long term.

When I think back to high school it's almost infuriating that I ate after school at McDonald's and Dunkin Donuts on a very regular basis, yet I had the energy to dance in the Color Guard, perform in every school play, and stay on the honor roll while being ridiculously skinny. And now, ten plus years later with my vegan diet my BMI puts me at just slightly overweight.

I don't want to emphasize weight too much, but it's worth noting that since going vegan not only have I gained significant weight, but my skin has gotten worse, I've developed joint pain (I may have patellar tendonitis in my knee) and those superficial signs of aging are starting to appear. Wrinkles not just around my eyes, but on my hands too. Joy.

Of course many of these changes are just symptomatic of aging, but even in a relatively healthy vegan diet, there are certainly changes I can make (and am!) to my lifestyle to help slow and reverse these things. More on this to come. But my point is, it wasn't until I started actually experiencing these things that I started to care about the health aspect of my veganism.

So for people who do want to reach out to teens and young adults I would suggest appealing to them with tangible concepts that are relevant to their lives. Focus on the increased energy to help them in sports or dance. Mood-elevating benefits, boosts to cognitive function, clearer skin, shinier hair.

Just, for the love of god, don't rap about it. Don't spray it in graffiti. Don't hire kid actors in urban streetwear. Don't text them health tips. Don't try to use their lingo. You'd be amazed by how much kids will respect you when you're just real and honest with them.

Meatless, Communist Mondays

I read this article on Huffington Post this morning and as usual when I read ridiculous things, I've been stewing and unable to get it out of my head.

So, yadda yadda yadda, a school district in Baltimore has implemented a "Meatless Monday" in its school cafeterias both as an effort to save money and serve healthier options. All of the local parents are down with it. So what's the controversy? Oh, waaaahhh, the poor meat industry is sad that people are waking up to the idea that Americans consume FAR too many animal products and that maybe it wouldn't kill them to skip it for one meal a day, one day a week.

But don't feel too bad for meat industry lobbyists, they've got everyone's favorite, completely rational and well-informed CNN anchor on their side: Lou Dobbs. Dobbs clearly agrees that this is a part of schools "indoctrinating" our youth. Indoctrinating them with what is unclear. Funny, weren't conservatives throwing that word around a few months ago when Obama was going to speak to school children? He was going to "indoctrinate" them with his lefty "stay in school" values.

Dobbs and his cohorts like Glenn Beck seem to want us living in some kind of idyllic 1950s suburbia (or at least their corporate sponsor's version thereof.) And yet they're putting down pretty traditional values like respecting the President, volunteering in your community, and you know, "EAT YOUR VEGETABLES."

The implication here is that schools are taking away children and parents' choice to eat meat. (I guess I forgot how pro-choice conservatives are known for being.) Somehow, they don't have a problem with the complete LACK of vegan or vegetarian choices for children, but once they can't get their uber-wholesome salisbury steak, the schools are suddenly a police state. And let's not also forget that parents still have the option to send their kids to school with home-made lunches.

I completely understand that this is not always an option for families, which is why I support the Physcians Comittee for Responsible Medicine and their efforts to get healthier vegetarian options into schools. But if parents really are outraged by this policy (which, to be clear, it doesn't seem that any of them are) then perhaps a little effort could be put in to your kid's lunch.

I won't even touch the fallacy presented by this video that meat is the only way to give your kids protein (and the idea that animal protein is a revered nutrient). Now that I'm taking a plant-based nutrition class I can't help but be appalled by how much misinformation the media puts out about health and diet.

Anyway, let's focus on the positive instead. Yay for Baltimore schools and let's just hope that more schools are working with great health directors who can provide reasoned, logical facts instead of political distortions brought about by corporate lobbyists.

A New Adventure!

Well, I was going to wait till next week to announce this, but I hate secrets, and even though many of you know we've been speculating about this for a while, it finally became official this week:

Tim and I are moving to Sydney, Australia in January!

For those of you who don't know us in real life, his company is based there. When I went to visit him on business in Sydney this past February I fell in love with it and talks quickly turned to, "Do you think you could live here?" "What neighborhood would you want to live in?"

Well, the answers were "yes" and "we're leaning towards Newtown, Glebe, Surry Hills, Paddington and Bondi." (If you have neighborhood advice feel free to comment. I was only there for 10 days so my experience in those neighborhoods was limited.) Anyway, Tim worked out the details at work and now the only thing we're waiting on is the visas which shouldn't be a problem. And assuming, you know, that these crazy red dust storms don't become a weather trend. Probably not great for my asthma.

I'm very excited for the move because, well, I've always enjoyed moving around and as much as I love San Francisco, my career here has proven to be less than I'd hoped for. I'm strongly considering starting with a completely clean slate in Sydney and going back to school for something brand new: nutrition. My interests have been shifting away from the arts and increasingly focused on food. I ended up signing up for that eCornell class in plant-based nutrition that I posted about a few weeks ago. That starts in October so it will be a good taste of what's to come.

Luckily I discovered that Sydney is actually very vegan-friendly, despite what Outback Steakhouse might have you thinking. Veg Table lists eight vegan restaurants, and with all of the Asian-influenced cuisine, we didn't have any trouble eating while there. And much like San Francisco the city hosts a regular Sydney Vegan Bake Sale. Maybe I'll post a Sydney vegan food round-up next week to gear up.

Anyway we've got a lot to sort out over the next 4 months. (Literally we're moving 4 months from today!) I just landed a part-time job that goes through the end of December, so the timing is perfect. I like it when things start aligning. It makes me feel like it's meant to be. While we're unsure how long we'll live there or whether or not we'll return to San Francisco eventually, we are pretty sure that our time in Australia is going to be an amazing new adventure!

(Photo via Shishberg)

Back to School?

I'm looking to bone up, so to speak, on my vegan nutrition. I'm thinking about enrolling in this program in plant-based nutrition through eCornell, a subsidiary of Cornell University. I don't suppose any members of my HUGE blog reading audience have taken it? Or know someone who has?

It's a chunk of change to spend on a course and I have to wonder if it really brings much more benefit than just reading The China Study. I've always been a bit skeptical of e-learning in general. Not that I don't think it's great for some people, but I've always preferred a discussion-based classroom experience to just reading on my own. Plus a friend of mine who's a Cornell alum inferred to me that the eCornell program is viewed there as just a money-maker/taker. Though it was first starting up when she graduated.

It's hard to find nutrition programs that focus on vegan nutrition.  I see plenty of vegan dieticians out there with nutrition degrees and I imagine that they either went vegan later or just had to suck it up and write about the healing powers of fish oil. 

Similarly with culinary school, I always wonder how vegan chefs make it through. Of course many chefs at major vegan restaurants are not actually vegan. (I'm looking at you, Eric Tucker.) But there are plenty of vegan personal chefs, etc. out there. Very curious how they all forged their career paths. Again, there are some great courses both online and off on vegan cooking, but few (if any?) that are actual degree programs.

As you might have guessed I've been exploring making a major career change/heading back to school. That's the thing to do when you're unemployed during a recession apparently. This is all further complicated by a potential move I might be making, but can't really talk about till it's finalized. But regardless if you know of other plant-based training programs in nutrition and or cooking, let me know about them in the comments.