Where's the beef? Back in Kitchen Stadium. What's in our food?

Where's the Beef?

So, just to clarify for those who are wondering, the school focuses on health-supportive cooking, the relationship between food and health, and a plant-based diet but believes that chefs should be aware and open to a wide range of options and eveyone has to make their own choices related to their diets and what they want to eat and serve others. However, they do have some direction and guidelines to help us ensure what we are serving is the best and most "natural" food for people, whatever it is, which means not harming people who eat it, that the harvesting and production of the food is not harming the environment and planet, and that workers and animals are not suffering. Our teachers are excellent as chefs first and foremost and range from vegetarians and vegans to those who eat everything, and they talk openly about what's worked for them or not. This is the only school of its kind in the world and has been growing in popularity and students, with the majority coming from out of town and different parts of the world.

These teachings about the relationship between food and health throughout our program have been eye-opening and interesting to date, with most students conducting human experiments on themselves to experience the effects of different food products and reading labels more carefully, and this includes moi. One of our books from the founder encourages readers to keep a food journal, which I have been trying to do, to list the foods we're eating and how we're feeling afterwards... indigestion, sleepy, good, up, down, uptight, etc...

Back to Kitchen Stadium...

So, we were back in the Iron Chef Kitchen Stadium or Hell's Kitchen this morning. Our team had three men and two women, including me. We had to prepare numerous grains and pastas in different ways, and then also create some dishes as well, within a time allotment for presentation and tasting by the chef. Within two hours we had to prepare short grain rice pressure-cooked, long grain rice boiled and steamed, wild rice soaked and boiled, brown basmati baked with herbs, kasha cooked stove top, soba noodles boiled and shocked, coucous stove-top and oven, bulgur steamed, and had to prepare collectively a baked kasha-potato loaf, tabouli, wild and long grain brown rice salad, and a soba noodles vegetables stir fry.

What's really interesting in this exercise is how you prepare and work as a team. This is not an easy feat with the youngest in our team being 19 to ages ranging in the 40s, each person having a different experience with cooking or no experience, different personalities and egos, totally different ways of working and organizing, and some better at handling the pressure and stress of working in a small kitchen area within a strict time allotment. Should we prep first and then cook? Should one person take care of each dish? Should a team of two take care of each dish? Should one person just put everything together? Everyone had a different way of looking at things and what should be done first or not. This was quite the exercise in patience, accommodation and communication. My yoga and meditation practice of deep breathing and just letting it go to have fun worked well with this. So, it was like jazz and as we started to work together through the list of what to do it and it all started unfolding very nicely to my surprise. I began to understand the complicated and stressful dynamics of kitchens. As Ramsey says in his shows, the main thing in the kitchen is communications and so far that's been right on. Also, when working with other people in a tight space with boiling items and sharp objects this is super important... like letting people know that you are coming through with sharp knives or a hot pot, or warning everyone not to touch something by the sink as it's just been in the oven and super hot, etc. etc.

The other thing I'm understanding and starting to appreciate is that we all come from different food backgrounds and have a variety of tastes. When we were putting together our dishes, we would all taste them and someone would say.. more sugar or more salt or more lemon juice or more oil or more pepper or more x food. However, we eventually came up with dishes that we all liked. When the time was up, the chef went around to review and critique our dishes with the class and he said our dishes were right on in look and taste, and we were all very happy and proud. This gave us a positive experience about working with food and in a team, and each experience, especially positive, helps to build the confidence levels for the next time in the kitchen, which is tomorrow.

This afternoon there was a fascinating lecture about the food we eat and what it means to eat "natural" food that's good for you, including food that is unprocessed, non-irradiated (regular electronic and nuclear beaming of food to kill most bacteria and pests but this has a lot of harmful effects to the food and people... for more info visit www.organicconsumers.org) , and free from genetic modification (which is used for higher yield and pest control but our bodies and environment cannot adopt this). The thing I didn't understand before is that GMO is everywhere and it's difficult to get rid of it or avoid it with large corporations such as Monsanto, the largest seed and pesticide producer in the US controlling enormous plots of land, having profit as their only motive, trying to eliminate small farmers, etc. Many people in the class seemed to know about the Saskatchewan farmer that Monsanto has been trying to sue and get rid of but I don't think I was aware of it or may have heard about it just in passing news.. for more info visit...http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

65-90% of soy is GMO, 65% of canola oil, 50% of corn, 50% of cotton seed, and a large percentrage of livestock, dairy and eggs contain GMO as well. This is a huge subject with numerous serious concerns and we learned the basics today, which were shocking and will definitely encourage me to change my eating habits and teach others. I'm beginning to understand slowly but surely why there is such an increase in disease, sickness and obesity among adults and children in North America despite our "wealth", knowledge and advancements and technologies of every kind and this is one the questions I wanted answered by coming to the school.

I guess films like Supersize Me and The Corporation touched upon the influence of big corporations. The instructor mentioned that in Supersize me, the filmmaker eating all the McDonalds food for 30 days became angry and cranky because he was eating fake foods with lots of excitotoxins (a grouping that attacks the neurons and the brain) in it and food with this in it makes you full for half hour and then creates serious withdraw symptoms later like drugs. By the way, did you know that the girlfriend of the filmmaker is the graduate of the school and helped him after his 30 days with a special cleansing diet. She's in his film.

Beautiful, delicious and satisfying meals...

We also started to learn what it means to create a balanced meal that is beautiful, delicious and satisfying and does not create ill effects, cravings, etc., and focuses on the quality of the food. This means a balanced meal with macro nutrients (fat, protein, carbs) and micro nutrients (vitamins, minerals, co-factors, enzymes, phytochemicals - natural chemicals from plants). More on this later as my head is exploding after all that I learned today... that's why I'm glad I took a yoga class tonight to help me.