The Poison on My Dinner Table

     As a home cook, culinary student, science enthusiast and mother the type of food I purchase has always

been very important to me.  As a child I became a victim of science and greed.  We ate mostly chicken as our protein at home.  When I reached puberty at  nine years old it came as a surprise to everyone.  I remember to this day telling my mother "Does that mean I can't play with barbies any more?"  She held me close and told me I could play with barbies all I wanted.  I wasn't the only one either.  Many of my friends developed early too.  I left Puerto Rico when I was eleven and a few years later my mother and I heard that they had closed down the factory where we had purchased all of our chicken. Authorities had found that they factory had been using unsafe levels of estrogen on the chickens.   

     This is one of the reasons I am picky about what I buy.  I just finished watching the movie GMO OMG and it reminded me again when one problem is mitigated another arises.  When I was in high school we talked about genetically modified organisms (GMOs).  We talked about the fact that they could help produce more food for a hungry world, we talked about how these new organisms could withstand pests better and therefore save the world from having a food shortage.  There was also a small group of people that were against them.  Who knows what ingesting something like that could do to you?  The only way we were going to know was to wait it out and see.  Now big corporations and greed stand in the way of myself and many other mothers' purchasing decisions.  The only way to get away from GMO's is to purchase organic non-processed foods.  This means that anything that comes out of a box has GMOs unless it is has the USDA's organic seal on it.  My mother and I pride ourselves in making everything from scratch.  We buy fresh produce, meats, dairy and baking ingredients to make everything we eat.  However, I discovered even that is not safe.

     I look at my raw materials including flour, sugar, syrup, milk, cream, cheese, fruit, vegetables and wonder what really is in those products I buy.  Even if I make everything myself my family is not safe.  Can you really be proud of the magnificent meal in front of you if your ingredients possibly contain poison?  One of the points the movie makes is that GMO corn kills pests that try to eat it.  Common sense dictates that if it kills insects it can probably hurt us too.  Yes, we are much bigger but at the end of the day we are part of the animal kingdom and chemicals are dangerous to us also.  Poison in organisms accumulates up the food chain.  If you eat enough of these small things (or eat enough things that eat these small things) they add up in your system until toxic levels are reached and they can hurt or even kill you.  That is a fact, feel free to check me on that one. 

     The only way to get away from this is to buy organic food.  However it is very expensive and unless you make a significant amount of money it can hike up your grocery bill to the point that you can't afford it.  As the movie points out even organic is not totally safe.  Plants reproduce by pollination.  Contaminated pollen can end up somewhere else just the same.  I'm sure organic farmers take their precautions, but even growing my own organic produce I can't be 100% sure that there are not any contaminants out there.  

     At the end of the day it boils down to one thing.  Safety.  Are these GMO's safe?  Many people around the world disagree.  Many European countries refuse to buy US food because of that reason.  It is a fact that if you go to many places in Europe their produce tastes better.  I have experienced this myself.  Even my poor attempts at organic gardening produced the sweetest strawberries I had ever tasted.  One of the chef's at school discussed at length that US produce does not taste as good. Taste buds were created as way for us to distinguish good food from bad food.  Maybe they have been telling us something all these years...

     Who knows in reality, nobody has done a long enough research about it. The movie highlighted a study by a French professor that showed an increase in cancer tumors in rats fed GMO corn and treated with roundup.  In female rats it attacked the mammary glands.  GMO's have been in our food chain for over fifteen years. Could that be the reason that breast cancer in women seems to be growing?  I would like to see somebody prove otherwise.  

     And at the end I am selfish and the real reason the movie hit me hard is because it rung a bell with my childhood experiences. My three year old is hardly talking. Professionals  have been telling me he has red flags for autism.  Autism has been on the rise for years now.  Now one 1 in 68 kids has one form of autism or another compared to 1 in 150 back in 2000.  If you look at the charts on the CDC website the rate of autism is rising.  Could GMO's also be to blame for this?  After all we are what we eat and back when I was a small child they were not on my food chain.  Autism was rare when I was a child.  

    We have been in and out of therapies for months and he is getting better, but I am still wondering if my child is a victim of corporate greed just as I was.  Is his developmental delay caused by the food I have been feeding him?

     So to all of the people that are owners of our food supply.  Look around you, does your wife have cancer?  Will she in the future?  Do you have a child with autism?  Will your babies or grand babies develop normally? Was there a mother missing out of a wedding or graduation? Was there one of your brother's or sister's kids that was not able to make memories with yours because they were different?  Money and greed in this world are powerful, but you can't take them to your grave. Look at your own life.  All you can take is your memories.  Who's memories did you sabotage?  Where you part of your family's own misfortune?

     In the end I am just one person.  And these are just my opinions.  Watch the movie.  More importantly do your own research.  If you have the power to conduct the studies do so.  Let us know for sure if GMO's are safe or not.  Help all mothers' out there put safe food on the table for their children.

An Ode to My College Days

The Southern Living Cookbook Bible...

     Sometimes I find it funny that it took me so long to get this far.  I've been cooking and baking for people for so long.  My first full blown cooking experience happened in college.  Back then when most college students were concerned about what frat party to go to or which major to stick to I was thinking about what meals I was going to make for my roommates that week.
     Much like any kid just out of high school I was terrified to go to college.  This was the first time away from my parents for a long time and living away from home.  For me that also meant having to feed myself. My Mom had always cooked.  I only did that on special occasions.  Why cook if she was going to?  Well she wouldn't be there anymore so I was going to have to feed myself.
     I was one of the lucky ones.  Our school "dorms" were more like apartments.  We had two bedrooms with a kitchen and a living room/ dinning room set up.  They also came equipped with a full size fridge and two burners. That summer vacation before college I went with my mother and bought some kitchen equipment.  To add to my small kitchen we bought one frying pan and two pots, a toaster oven, and an array of small kitchen gadgets.  Also my mother let me borrow her Southern Living cookbook.  It was six books in one!  There was a thirty minute meal section, a section for chicken dishes, a section for healthy cooking, a section for desserts and a few others I don't recall.  In the end it had so many recipes that I figured if I could just follow them I would feed myself just fine.
     The first week of school I picked out my recipes and made myself dinner. Jennifer who lived in the same room as I saw what I was cooking and within that first week was offed me to go half on the groceries if I cooked for her too.  I had no problem with this.  It was actually easier to cook for more people.  Within a month my other two roommates joined in and I became the only person I know to this day that cooked for their roommates in college.  I made roasted chicken, stir fry, pastas, cookies and cakes all with just two burners and a toaster oven.  It was really something I looked forward to each day, seeing them enjoy something I had made.
     Really, what brought this reminiscing on?  A BLT Salad out of that same book.  I was flipping through it today to get ideas for my grocery list and I decided to make that salad that they used to enjoy so much.  It is a simple recipe: lettuce, tomato, bacon pieces, boiled eggs and chicken with a BBQ sauce/mayo dressing.  It was always that dressing that I had to make extra of because they loved it so much.  Really it was a great book to start my journey.  It was simple and the recipes were always a hit.  So to my old college roommates thank you so much for allowing me to share my first attempts with you. Jennifer, Kelly and Karissa I hope everything is going well with your lives and much happiness to you always.  

Bananas Over a Picky Eater

Or Really Plantains

      Every mother dreams of having a child that will eat everything.  Let's face it though this is rarely the case.  Mine is a lover of fruit, milk, juice and really anything sugary.  From time to time he will surprise me and eat something out of the ordinary.  A few weeks back I made Chicken Enchiladas Mexican style and he loved them.  He ate every bite!  It made me feel so happy.  Unfortunately,  I can't feed him those everyday.  Mommy, Daddy and Grandma can't take all those fried tortillas.

     So in an effort to come up with something that he might eat today I looked no further than the ripe plantains sitting on my kitchen counter.  Yes, they look like a bananas, but they are not.  People that grew up in the Caribbean or South America are familiar with this type of fruit that is very similar to a banana.  If you have never heard of it never fear here is a crash course.

    Plantains are bigger, firmer bananas.  They can be eaten when green either fried, roasted or boiled.  They have a slight nutty flavor when green.  As the plantain ages it gets sweeter and softer just like a banana.  At this stage it can be eaten roasted, fried or as a dessert sweet.

     Since my kid loves bananas I figured I could use this to come up with a meal he might like.  I took a ripe plantain and cut the ends off.  I peeled it and cut a slice off the bottom to be able to lay it on a sheet tray.  I cut out the middle of the plantain to make what looks like a boat.  My mother used to make a dish that she called "canoes" when I was a child.  That dish had ground beef and American cheese.  I really liked it when I was a child, but seeing that my kid won't touch ground beef that didn't help me any.  So I decided to keep the idea but modify the contents. I took the plantain insides as well as some finely cut yellow pepper (red would have been better) and sauteed with chili powder, salt and pepper.  I set that mixture aside to wait for the chicken.  The canoes I placed in the oven to bake until they softened about 20 minutes.

     I roasted chicken in the oven and seasoned it with chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. After 30 minutes or so I took it out of the oven and let the meat rest.  Yes, you have to let meat rest after its cooked otherwise all the juices will run out of the meat and you will have dry meat.  (Yes this is also the main reason Thanksgiving turkey is usually dry)  Don't worry it won't get cold after ten minutes.  I then shredded the meat and mixed it with the yellow pepper and plantain mixture.  I stuffed the little canoes and topped them with goat cheese. Goat cheese tends to be a little salty and it brings a nice contrast to the sweet banana and spicy meat.   I placed them back in the oven just to melt the cheese for about 5 to 7 minutes.

     As Murphy's law would have it my kid got hungry the moment I started cooking.  He loved the shredded chicken and by the time I finished with dinner he was stuffed so he didn't actually really eat much of the dish.  Grandma and me enjoyed it very much and I am positive if I can catch his hunger early he would really like this dish.  They way I see it mission accomplished.  He ate something other than fruit and when feeding a three year old, beggars can't be choosers.