Introducing a New Weekly Blog
The Yoga Philosophy, Lifestyle, and Practice
As viewed by Beryl Bender Birch
I have been a yoga teacher and yoga practitioner, as well as a teacher of yoga teachers for nearly 40 years. I have written three books about yoga, Power Yoga (l995), Beyond Power Yoga (2000), and Boomer Yoga (2009). I have traveled the country, and a good part of the world, teaching yoga, so it seemed fairly natural, that when I thought about blogging, the topic would be yoga. The nice thing about the subject of yoga, is that by one stretch or another, it can encompass almost anything by way of philosophical, political, environmental, or psychological inquiry. I do love to write about things like global warming or dog sledding or quantum physics, and I can generally find a way to make that applicable to the very broad subject of yoga.
Since classical yoga is actually a set of instructions on how to live your life and find peace and happiness, it is rather a broad subject, so I am able pretty easily to come up with dozens of topics, from things like Yoga and Food all the way to the Relationship between Science and Spirituality (Yoga).
The first few weekly posts will be on real food and the changing landscape of the American diet. After that, who knows where we will go. Maybe to the Gulf Coast.
I hope this blog will serve to educate the community in general on the nature and scope of yoga, which is huge, and generate curiosity about our world and eventual participation in community service projects of all varieties. If you have questions or ideas or comments, please feel free to email or twitter or facebook us!!! www.berylbenderbirch.com
7/20/2010
Taking Yoga Off your Mat and out into your World!
It’s time for dinner – do you know where your Tofu came from? Practicing yoga isn’t just about stretching out your hamstrings or snatching up the latest yoga fashions so you’ll look cool at your local studio – it’s about paying attention. It’s about paying attention to what is going on in the world and making a difference. Yoga means making an effort to practice truthfulness, and non-stealing, and non violence and non-greediness. It means caring about stuff – looking behind the glossy finish.
Take tofu for instance – made from soybeans. Do you know where your tofu burger came from? I’ve watched all kinds of good Americans who wanted to eat less meat and be more environmentally conscious, switch from eating lots of meat to eating lots of tofu and soy chips and soy milk and soy burgers and soy turkey and soy cheese and bacon!! Tofu is made from soybeans and soy enjoys an ancient and wonderful history as an important source of protein in a country like, say, Japan? So what could possibly be wrong with that?
Almost all soybeans grown in this country are from genetically modified seeds! At the moment, there are 4 genetically modified crops in the US, soybeans, corn, cotton, and wheat and they were all developed, not to increase yield in order to feed and clothe our exponentially growing world population, as the chemical companies that developed them claim, but to make money for those same companies (and to hell with the risks to the consumer!)
Well, that leads us to a couple of questions. What does genetically modified mean and why would you want to genetically modify such a perfect seed? Well, it means that food “scientists” have mucked around with the genetic engineering of the plant’s DNA to achieve a particular trait – kind of like breeding certain qualities in and out of a purebred line of dogs.
You most likely don’t know this but almost all soybean seeds in this country are owned by a sweet little behemoth company by the name of Monsanto. Monsanto is a chemical company and famous for such outstanding contributions to our culture as DDT, Agent Orange, bovine growth hormone, and a product called Round Up. I first heard about Round Up in the late 80’s when all my neighbors on a 4 acre lot of land I owned in Bozeman Montana, wanted me to spray the land with Round Up to kill an invasive weed species that was growing out of control on the property.
In l998, as the demand for soybeans grew, due to the growing population and the industrialization of our food chain which was making more and more manufactured products out of soy, Monsanto came up with a “Round Up Ready”, genetically modified soybean seed that would yield plants that could withstand the spraying of Round Up. Brilliant!!! Farmers needed an herbicide to kill weeds in their soy fields, so Monsanto not only sold them the weed killer, but came up with a soybean that could withstand the poison herbicide and then sold them that too. Good ol’ Round Up – killed every weed out there except the Round Up Ready Soybean!! And since it was genetically modified, Monsanto could own the seed. (At that time, in l998, 2% of soybeans in the United States contained Monsanto’s patented gene. By 2008, 90% of soybeans in the US were genetically modified and contained the Monsanto gene.)
One more note: From l976 to l979 Clarence Thomas worked as an attorney for Monsanto. In l991 he was appointed as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court and subsequently wrote the majority opinion in a court case that allowed Monsanto to prevent the farmers from saving their own seeds. Essentially this meant that the farmers had to buy seeds from Monsanto every year in order to grow this genetically modified bean. Sweet!
I watch the kabillions of people out in the Hamptons this summer – more than I ever remember, partying, beach going, shopping, grilling and chilling. Hamptonites just want to have fun. I wonder how many have money invested in Mutual Funds that have stock in Monsanto and how many, as they clamor for parking at Main Beach, even give a hoot about what Monsanto does, as long as it makes enough money to pay the rent on their summer share. Yoga is about waking up!!!!!!!!! Are you in the dark? Consumers have a right to know. You have a right to know. When will it happen?
“You want to be in “production agriculture” you’re gonna be in bed with Monsanto – they own the soybean. There are going to control that product from seed to the supermarket!!”
---- a farmer quoted in the movie Food, Inc.
P.S. The source for most of the information in this article is the movie Food, Inc. It is a “must watch” for anyone who eats.
Next Month: “In Colorado it’s a felony if you are convicted under a “veggie libel law” so you could go to prison for criticizing the ground beef that is being produced in the state of Colorado! There is an effort in several farm states to make it illegal to publish a photo of any industrial food operation, any feed lot operation. At the same time they’ve also gotten bills passed that are called “cheeseburger bills” that make it very very difficult for you to sue them!! These companies have legions of attorneys?
----- Michael Pollan, Food, Inc.
7/12/2010
JUST PLANE YOGA
If you travel by plane a good deal for work, then unless you are fortunate enough to fly first class to places like Sydney and Tokyo and Mumbai and sleep the whole way on a reclining tempur-pedic mattress with cotton sheets and a glass of champagne or green tea at your side, then it’s quite possible that you, like me who also travels a great deal by plane for work, feel – as you disembark and stagger up the jet-way to the terminal at 5 AM – something akin to a sumo wrestler who just lost his last match. Everything aches. Your back hurts, your neck is stiff, and your legs and arms don’t seem to work too well, not to mention your brain which is still back in the USA on middle-of-the-night time!!
Ah, there is a remedy! Plane yoga. No, I am not talking about standing on your head in the back galley or getting the flight attendant to chant OM over the PA system. Much easier. Three little stretches that you can do – seated – with or without inviting the person seated next to you to join in! I do them about every 30 minutes every time I fly anywhere, even if it’s just a short flight from NYC to Baltimore or Philadelphia or Atlanta or Chicago. From what I experience and what I gather talking to people in airports and on flights, it seems that the three most areas of the body most affected by hours of sitting in an airplane are the neck, the hip joints, and the lower back. Here are three, relatively discreet little stretch/strength type movements you can do to loosen up the hip joints, stretch out the neck muscles, increase circulation to the legs and arms, and relieve pressure in the lower back and lumbar spine.
1) Face Up Dog Variation - Stretches the front of your body.
Take a deep breath in, stretch your arms out in front of you, fold your hands and interlace your fingers, and then exhale and stretch your arms up overhead. Keeping your fingers interlaced, reverse your hands, so your palms are facing up. Drop your head back (as long as it doesn’t bother your neck), arch your back, press your ribcage out and your buttocks forward, tighten your belly, straighten out your legs, and point your toes. Feel the shins stretch as the toes point. Look up and back. This is all done in one move and all happens pretty much at once. See if you can take three big conscious breaths here with your mouth closed. Then inhale and release the whole stretch on an exhale. Do it again. Be careful as you stretch your arms up over head and back, not to whack the person behind you in the head.
Benefits: Gets the circulation going, especially in the legs and arms. Relieves stress in the neck. By creating extension in the hip joints, it lessens tension in the hips and lower back caused by lengthy sitting. Deepens the breath and brings more oxygen to the brain and body.
2) Face Down Dog Variation – Stretches the back of your body
Put up your drop down table and grab your knees with your hands. Take a deep breath, inhale. Then big exhale and pulling against your knees with your hands, curl forward, rounding your spine and pushing your back into the back of your seat. Drop your head forward and press your chin into your chest. Pull your shoulders up around your ears and round them forward. Pull the ribcage in, tighten the belly, pull your heels back toward the bottom of your seat and dorsi-flex (toes up, heels down). Lift your toes. Squeeze your eyes closed and scrunch up your facial muscles. This is all done in one big move. See if you can take three big, conscious breaths here with your mouth closed. Then inhale and on the exhale, release the stretch. Do it again.
Benefits: Gets the circulation going, especially in the feet and hands, and legs and arms. Relieves stress in the neck and back. Stretches the calf muscles and prevents cramping in the feet and lower legs. Brings circulation to the eyes and face. Deepens the breath and brings oxygen to the brain and body.
3) Spinal Twist – Stretches/strengthens sides of body
Put your right ankle on your left knee, or as close to it as you can. Take a big inhale and grab your right knee with your left hand. Lean forward slightly and take hold of the arm rest to your right with your right hand, then big exhale and twist as far as you can to the right. Inhale again and as you exhale, pull with your left hand and reach your right arm up in the air. Push your right shoulder back, and look back over your right shoulder. Pull your belly in and take three big conscious breaths here with your mouth closed. Take a big inhale, then exhale and release the twist. Change sides.
Benefits: Relieves tension and pain in neck and middle and lower back (lumbar spine). Stretches out side body and stimulates digestion and elimination. Loosens hip joints, and stretches the gluteus (buttocks) muscles and the piriformis muscle (deep in the buttocks).
These are three great variations of stretching/strengthening moves based on yoga asanas (postures). They feel great. They are good for you. They reduce jet lag and fatigue from flying. They prevent pooling of blood and slowdown of circulation. All around good stuff. I do them all the time on planes and also in the car when I’m driving. Well, not actually while I’m driving, but when stopped at lights or stuck in non-moving traffic. I’ve had my “seat mates” on planes ask me to show them the details. Happy stretching.
Added 7/7/2010
Bring the Power of Plants into your Body
The great news is that the general population – at least the portion of the general population that reads and rents documentaries from Netflix or their local video store – is catching on to the idea of eating real food, slow food, pesticide free food, and nutritious organic, unprocessed, whole food. And that is thanks mostly to the enormous amount of material that is available now for us to learn about healthy eating and the relationship between what we eat and our health. It seems that there is a whole network of people – authors, teachers, yogis, farmers, grocers, doctors, chiropractors, nutritionists, ayurvedic practitioners, acupuncturists, and most of the folks involved with the field of integrative (or alternative) medicine – that are telling the same or similar stories through books, blogs, seminars, films, and workshops about the importance of eating real food and mostly plants!
There are several two outstanding books by Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food, and Omnivore’s Dilemma (which should be required reading for everyone on the planet and was picked by the NY Times in 2009 as one of the 10 best books of the year), that have been flying around the yoga community at large and both are excellent resources for inspiration and information. Pollan’s most recent book, Food Rules, is terrific. I’ve already bought about 15 copies and given them all out to friends and students. You can read the book in about 20 minutes and it has such sage advice as “If it comes in through the window of your car, it’s not food,” or “If it wasn’t an ingredient in your grandmother’s kitchen, it isn’t real food,” and “If an ingredient can’t be pronounced by a third grader, it’s not real food.” Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation is another important source for information on eating well. It’s important to note, these books are not diets or recommendations for eating low fat or high fat or low carb or high carb, just for eating real food.
There are also a number of films/documentaries that have been premiered at various film festivals – from Telluride and Sundance or East Hampton and New York City – such as Food, Inc and Fresh that provide a wealth of educational information on the benefits to your health of eating organic, real foods and the hidden horrors of the food industry and processed foods, an industry and food group unknown in your grandmother’s day. I had a student tell me that after she watched Food, Inc a month ago, she hasn’t eaten meat or any processed food since. After reading Omnivore’s Dilemma, I don’t know many people that haven’t altered their diet in one way or another.
Of course, not everyone wants to know or care what the source of their food is. But lots of us do care and do want to know. I found the information in Beautiful Truth incredibly powerful. It is kind of a funky home movie type production, but I was impressed with the information uncovered. For example, it was quite interesting to learn that 60% of processed foods are genetically modified, and that there are only four crops which are genetically engineered: corn, cotton, soy, and canola. And behind the idea of GMO’s (genertically modified foods), there are only five companies – Monsanto, Dupont, Bayer, Syngenta, and Dow. Very remarkable to note that none of them is an agricultural company – they are all drug companies, pretty clearly interested in engineering crops so that they can withstand more pesticides and herbicides – sold by the very same drug companies. The facts put forth by these same companies that GMO’s are tastier or provide higher yields than non genertically engineered food, are mostly advertising myth.
Get educated. Join the movement. Go organic and support your local organic farms like Green Thumb in Water Mill, Ecco Farms and Quail Hill in East Hampton, and the new organic farm behind Amagansett Farmer’s Market providing organic veggies to the Market. In the meantime, check out these documentaries. Your life will be definitely be touched if not transformed:
Beautiful Truth, a simple production about a young man’s project for school who does research on Dr. Max Gerson and discovers much hidden truth about substances like mercury, fluoride, MSG, aspartame, food irradiation, and GMO’s (genetically modified foods).
The Cove - an intriguing documentary shot by film makers who had to do real espionage to get their story told – about high toxicity (mercury) levels in fish from illegally slaughtered dolphins, that is then passed off to the Japanese public and school kids as whale meat.
King Corn – the story of corn and how it came to infiltrate almost every processed food on the market as high fructose corn syrup
The Botany of Desire – the natural history of apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes by Michael Pollan (again) who travels to Peru, Kazakhstan, and Amsterdam to shoot the film
And while you are working on eating healthier, try a yoga class to support your newfound wellness!!!
Added 6/20/2010
Real Food and Clean Eating: the Key to Longevity and Health – Part II
Well, I’m encouraged. We received lots of good feedback on my blog last month, Part I of Real Food. Not surprising since there wasn’t much to disagree with. I wrote about a “yoga” diet, or what I call the PAD (Pay Attention Diet), which in a nutshell is “pay attention to how what you eat makes you feel,” and then eat that! This presumes, of course, that you have some degree of body/mind awareness and are able to discern the difference between the way you feel when you eat a Big Mac and French fries at an airport because you are starving, and organic salads and veggies and perhaps quinoa or millet and a clean piece of fresh fish that you make at home. This is where the practice of yoga comes into it, as in yoga, the point is to learn to pay attention. So hopefully, if you have been doing some yoga practice, it has helped you to be more attuned to your body and to take greater responsibility for the state of your health.
I grew up in the 40’s and 50’s in rural New Jersey – the Ridgewood and Saddle River area. We lived on 4 acres with a little brook running thru the land. I remember, at age 4, sitting on the banks of the stream, picking wild water cress and eating it right there on the spot. Clean water. Clean watercress. No problem. I loved watercress then and still do!! We had a garden the size of an airplane hanger and my father had a little Gravely tractor that he drove around plowing this and turning over that. My job was to put the seeds in the ground in the spring with my mother. We grew everything. And I mean everything. I doubt if you could name a vegetable that we didn’t grow. So I grew up with kale and swiss chard and collard greens and mustard greens and string beans and peas and kohlrabi and cabbage. We ate fresh organic veggies every day from May through November. We didn’t realize they were “organic” back then, but we just didn’t use fertilizers. I was lucky. I didn’t grow up with fast food. I guess if I did I’d be eating Big Macs and Wendy’s today.
I remember, too, when the first smoldering of “fast” food came creeping in. A MacDonald’s opened on Route 17 in Ridgewood in l958. I was a sophomore in high school and as soon word hit the school that you could get French fries for ten cents and a hamburger for a quarter, we were all there at lunch time. It was heaven. No one could believe our good fortune. And back then, I imagine, the burgers and fries probably weren’t too bad and were made from grass fed beef (maybe) and real potatoes. It was the new age of television and was about the same time that products like Skippy’s peanut butter, Velveeta cheese, Heinz ketchup, and Campbell’s soups all came to market. Oh, and how could I forget frozen veggies. The housewives did seem pretty keen on all these things that made their domestic lives easier, quicker, and more, well, convenient!! But in our house, despite the introduction of a few things like macaroni and cheese (velveeta of course) we still held to the fresh veggies. Over the years, food got faster and faster. And foods came to be abbreviated and amended and processed and combined to make this new product or that new product.
I moved to California shortly after I graduated from college and was completely enchanted by the enormous produce sections in the super markets – every veggie imaginable, just like my childhood garden. It was then and there that I got turned on to organic farming and I have been an avid supporter ever since. But in the rest of the free world, outside of California, marketing of food products replaced sustenance. Things were made to taste good by adding fat or salt or sugar and then prettily packaged and heavily marketed.
And what happened slowly to the health of the country? We got fatter and sicker – more cancer, more heart disease, and more diabetes. Hmmmmmmmmm. Funny thing. Now I have grossly simplified this transformation of what we consider “food” over the past 50 years, but it is just astonishing to me how many people simply have no clue as to the relationship between their health and how they feel and what they eat. Good heavens, we’ve been talking about “we are what we eat” since the early 70’s. Much of the information out today about food and our health, like eating lower in fat and salt, avoiding trans fats, eating less in general, eating real food, avoiding pesticides and growth hormones by eating organic when possible, has been known for 30 or 40 years.
And finally, much of the information is just now becoming mainstream, and I think people are starting to listen, but we have a long way to go.
I remember years ago when John Bogosian started his food coop on the East End of Long Island and offered delivery of organic food products and produce, he could barely find 10 people to join. This was before Wild by Nature, before Pea Pod or Urban Organics delivered. I told him then, “hey people out here don’t care about organic. One set of folks just cares about asparagus and mesclan and Portobello mushrooms and shell steaks and the other set is just trying to serve up pizza and pasta and plain food and afford to feed their kids and get them to college. Nobody gives a s*&t about “organic” yet.”
Well, times are changing. We still can’t afford $5.99 for half a pint of organic raspberries, but we are moving toward more veggies and fruits, less trans fat, and greater awareness of how our food affects our health. We do the best we can. But please, organic or not, add more veggies, more fruit, more whole grains, more fresh nuts, and, if you eat fish, more fish (while we can). Try to minimize anything that’s been manufactured. That includes processed cereals, chicken stix, chips, snacks, toaster-woasters, frozen dinners, cookies, sodas, etc. Eat real food. Give your kids real food. The extra money you spend you will save on doctors’ bills down the road. Do the research. It pays. You don’t get enlightened overnight. Well, actually you do, but only after lifetimes of hard work.
Real Food and Clean Eating: the Key to Longevity and Health – Part I
Outside Magazine had an interesting article in their January/February issue entitled “Man vs. Food”. The author, John Bradley looked at 6 different food plans representing various options for would be dieters, from popular fads to clinical studies: The Abs Diet, the Paleo Diet for Athletes, the Mediterranean Prescription, the Okinawa Program, the advice of a personal nutritionist, and the USDA’s nutritional pyramid. He then spent 8 weeks trying out each one. Bradley charted his cholesterol, triglycerides, high and low density lipoprotein as well as his weight as he moved through each of the 6 food plans over the year long experiment. There were some minor variations, and one which was fairly significant. The Okinawa Program raised his cholesterol 43 points. But some of these variations he attributed to his ethnic and genetic makeup, which I tend to agree with. No one diet works for everyone. Some folks can eat tomatoes, no problem, for others, tomatoes make them break out in a rash – just imagine what is happening on the insdie.
In all the various dietary protocols that Bradley experimented with, there were some positive qualities to each, which is encouraging, (unlike some of the really stupid dietary recommendations that have been put forth over the years!). There were also quite a few similarities to some of the discoveries I have made about food and eating in my journey through this lifetime that have helped me to function at my highest level and feel my best.
As a yoga practitioner and teacher for the past 40 years, I have been primarily a vegan or vegetarian for most of that time. As an ardent advocate (for as many years) of eating locally grown, seasonal, and organic produce and just plain real food, I was happy to notice how each of these diets fell in line, vegetarian or not, to some degree with the cutting edge trend in the US toward greater health awareness and healthier eating, in many ways a throw back to the late 40’s and early 50’s when eating real food and local produce and proteins was really about the only choice we had, and was also a nod to a general way of eating that I could call the Yoga Diet. This isn’t a diet for weight loss, but a diet that encourages and supports the health and longevity of the eater. The Yoga Diet would be simple – it is a way of eating that encourages us to pay attention to what we eat and then pay attention to what and how much we eat makes us feel in terms of energy, strength, balance, and well-being.
However, since yoga doesn’t proselytize or theoretically encourage a “one size fits all” type of philosophy, it isn’t really correct or possible to refer to a Yoga Diet since there isn’t such a thing and there is no one diet that works for everyone!! But most yoga practitioners, although they don’t all eat alike, do tend toward clean, organic eating and, as they delve deeper into their practices, many tend to become vegetarian and vegan.
The practice of yoga teaches us to focus our attention, not just on the present moment as it appears in the world “out there”, but as it presents itself on the inside. As we learn to become more self aware, not by gazing at ourselves in the mirror, but by paying attention to what we think and how we feel, we start to notice associations between what we go through in a day and how we feel. When we apply this to eating we see that the trick is to learn to pay attention to how what we eat makes us feel. Maybe, a better name for this way of eating would be the Pay Attention Diet, or PAD since in order to know exactly how what you eat affects how you function and feel, you have to pay attention.
What I found particularly interesting about Bradley’s whole article was the conclusion that he reached which was this – you’ve got to figure out for yourself what works best by paying attention to how you feel after you eat whatever it is you eat!! The PAD!!! I got to wondering if maybe John Bradley wasn’t a yoga practitioner. The Okinawa diet, for example, didn’t work so well for his health. It might be fine for Okinawans, he concluded, but not for someone of European descent. The Mediterranean Prescription by Angelo Acquista is rich in whole grains, legumes, fish, olive oil, and fresh produce plus red wine, and this plan worked really well for Bradley.
In general what Bradley found and what most writers of books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Eating Animals, and the new wave of fresh food cook books conclude – is that the best way of nourishing ourselves is to eat lots of real food, food that is close to it’s source, the earth, food that isn’t processed – foods like whole grains, good fats, healthy carbs (like lots of fresh, organic if possible, vegetables and fruits), and the cleanest, leanest fish or meat we can. All tend to agree that avoiding “processed foods” and salty chips and snacks and dips and sugary drinks and desserts is key. Simple. Not really rocket science.
This goes along with what I’ve observed about my own diet and health and what I observe that most practitioners of yoga conclude – the closer they stick to natural and organic and unprocessed, the better they feel. Additionally though, there are specifics that work or don’t work for each of us. I, for example, can’t really eat wheat; it makes me too congested. But this isn’t universally true. Some people can eat whole wheat bread or pasta and be fine with it. Soy makes me cough and upsets my intestinal tract. But I’m fine with a little dairy, like yogurt or organic milk in my tea.
The best way to figure all this out is a little challenging but it really works. For two weeks eliminate all prepared and processed foods. That means no TV dinners, no chips, no sodas, no anything that has been “manufactured” and isn’t straight out of or off the ground. No coffee, no dairy, no nightshades, no wheat, no sugar, no soy, no alcohol, no eggs, no corn, and no sugar and no meat of any kind except the most organic, free range, grass fed meat or poultry. I did this for two weeks as an anti-inflammatory diet and actually felt great.
So what’s left to eat you might ask? Well as Bradley suggests, really quite a bit – most of it in the produce section obviously – squash, cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy, greens like kale and collard greens, salads, tons of veggies. Mix in an occasional serving of fish or turkey, find gluten free bread, learn to cook millet (a little tricky) and quinoa (easy). Drink herbal teas and black tea if you absolutely need a little caffeine.
Then you add stuff back in and see what happens over the next 72 hours. Did what toast zap your energy? Did eggs or cheese make you nauseous or gassy? Just pay attention. Your body will tell you what is best for you. And as Bradley also recommends in his article, it is always helpful to have some blood tests before you begin and then a couple of months later and see if there are any changes. Pay attention and you are on the road to the PAD. Good luck and good health. And you might try a little asana (the practice of the yoga postures) while you are at it.
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PRACTICING YOGA: VOTE EVERY DAY
Saying no to High Fructose Corn Syrup!!
Beryl Bender Birch
July 7, 2008
The visualization kept getting more and more delicious in my mind’s eye. A nice fat veggie burger with lettuce, a slice of tomato, ketchup dripping off the edges, maybe a slice of red onion, and the piece de resistance, sweet pickle relish!!! All ingredients were on hand, except for the sweet relish. No problem, I was on my way to the super market for a few things – I’d just pick up the relish. Unfortunately, in this town, and in all the other towns within a 100 miles radius, there is no Whole Foods – my favorite store. So I’d have to settle for the local supermarket.
I stood in front of the shelves and shelves of pickles, olives, relish, mustards, sauces, and patiently went thru the labels on the sweet pickle relish offerings. I must have read four or five of them. The 2nd ingredient in every single bottle was “high fructose corn syrup” (HFCS). I don’t do high fructose corn syrup. I do eat roasted blue corn meal that I make into something called atole and that I order online from the San Mateo Native American Reservation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But I don’t eat corn syrup. Someone said to me a few weeks ago – “Oh, it’s in everything you eat,” referring to the HFCS. It’s not in “everything” I eat, I thought to myself. In fact, I don’t think it’s in anything that I eat, mentally going through the things I was most likely to eat in a day – home made almond milk, rice milk, smoothies, fresh fruit, oats, seeds like sesame, sunflower, flax, nuts like pecans, walnuts, almonds, salads, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, huge amounts of organic veggies like kale, kohlrabi, swiss chard, tempeh, quinoah, rice, and so forth. Hmmmm, no high fructose corn syrup that I could find!!
I didn’t buy the sweet pickle relish! I was a little disappointed, but feeling like I had done the right thing. I walked out of the store with a couple of organic tomatoes and some organic mozzarella. And as I was on my way home the thought occurred to me that I had “voted.” I voted not to support the production of high fructose corn syrup. Every time you lay money down for something, you have the opportunity to vote. What are you are voting for? Well, what it seems like to me is that you are saying “I approve of this product and the way it was made and where it came from, and what is going to happen to it after I’m done with it!” And as I was standing in the local super market reading labels on the sweet pickle relish, I was voting – I was saying, “I don’t approve of the ubiquitous use of HFCS being foisted on the American public. It contributes to obesity, diabetes, and high health care costs and I’m not going to support any of this stuff. So screw it, I’m going to eat my veggie burger without sweet pickle relish and the next time I’m at Whole Foods I’ll see if I can find an organic brand with no HFCS!!! I buy organic ketchup with no HFCS, and now I’m going to find organic sweet pickle relish too!”
And I can wait to find it. That’s the key. Waiting and being happy with what is. Not craving a future state for some imagined pleasure, based on the vritti (thought) of memory. Oh bummer, no sweet pickle relish. O Gawd, I just have to have sweet pickle relish or this whole burger event will be one big downer! No! Practice instead! Aparigraha – non-greediness, vairagya – non-attachment - two important yoga dictates that tell us that the path to happiness is to be content, in the moment, with what is instead of lusting for a sweet taste that we imagine will bring us joy. Yes, now that is seriously good yoga practice!!!
Why no HFCS? Well, for starters there is quite a bit of evidence showing the deleterious effects of the excessive use of sugar, and especially HFCS, on health. In most cases, HFCS is manufactured from genetically modified corn. I’m not a big fan of genetically modified anything. The manufacturing process of HFCS involves an additional processing step that manufacturing sugar from beets and sugar cane doesn’t undergo. And the processing of anything takes life or prana, as we say in yoga, out of food – the more processing, the less prana. HFCS has higher levels of reactive compounds, called carbonyls, that are linked with cell and tissue damage that can lead to diabetes. I also have many concerns over the politics of corn production (tariffs, subsidies, etc).
And it is in everything that the average American eats every day – breads, cereals, frozen foods, processed meats, convenience foods, soft drinks, sport drinks, iced tea, lemonades, almost all contain HFCS. American subsidies and tariffs have resulted in corn being a more economical sweetener than sugar – that could change, as a result of the incredibly stupid idea of using corn for biofuel – but that idea is fading fast – thank God. For now, corn is still cheaper than sugar to use as a sweetener. So it is more economical for a corporation to use HFCS to sweeten its products. It’s always about the bottom line – not about the public’s health!!
How can you vote? Practice your yoga, every day. Every moment you have a choice to pay attention, to keep your mind steady, to act on what you believe in and walk your walk. What are you spending your money on? Years and years ago, before I started buying Seventh Generation toilet paper by the case, when I needed toilet paper I’d walk down the “paper” aisle of the super market and read all the labels on the packaging. At that time, there was not one single brand that claimed any kind of recycled paper in any percentage. Most of the commercial mega-corporate brands were blissfully unaware and promoting soft, white, virgin trees for your butt. Disgruntled, I’d leave the store with no toilet paper and keep looking, using for the time being my stash of all the napkins I’d been given and accumulated from airline flights, restaurants, coffee shops, luncheons, and the like. It was more important to me to support the use of recycled paper for toilet paper, than to have the convenience of a nice tidy stack of rolls in my bathroom.
I’m sure the big super stores aren’t all “bad,” but I’m not a fan. There is something about the way we enter with huge shopping baskets and are just compelled to consume – filling our baskets to overflowing – that is disturbing to me. Sure we all need towels and sheets and rugs and pots and pans and food and this and that, but so much of the stuff we buy – gallons of sugary soda, for instance, and massive amounts of brightly colored, cleverly packaged, clearly created by the advertising industry stuff, whether to eat or to wear or to hang in our kitchen – is all so useless. I don’t shop at the big stores. They give me the heebe-jeebies because there is so much stuff. It’s too overwhelming. I guess generally, my discomfort comes from the fact that it is all seems too removed from the land, from sanity, from the little guy, from the local merchant. I understand the necessity, driven by the structure of our society and our way of life, but something in me wants to put on the brakes and resist the deluge.
But, someone will protest, “You’re lucky, you can afford to buy organic vegetables, but not everyone can. What about the poor folks? They have to shop at the big discount stores. Suppose you have 4 children and you are on a tight budget?” You know, I understand that argument, but I wonder about the logic. I am absolutely convinced that all the lower income folks that do shop in the big discount stores, over buy and over spend. I’ve seen it and watched it. The stores are designed to encourage it. It would make an interesting study.
I’m willing to bet that 30% of what most people buy at “a shall be unnamed large discount store” is useless junk that ends up in the landfill in a year or two. And with the savings from that it would be possible for most people to buy more whole grains and fresh vegetables – not even necessarily organic to start – and to support local farmer’s markets. The cities have farmer’s markets, the country has farmer’s markets. It may not be possible for all, but I’m sure it is possible for many more than have tried it.
I suspect, if the truth be known, that this whole super-store phenomena is a lot more about convenience than it is about economics!!!! Processed foods are expensive. Soda is expensive, chips are expensive, manufactured cookies and cakes are expensive, processed meats are expensive. Veggies, in season, are pretty affordable and, so is fruit, and so are a big bag of rice or barley or oats and a bag of beans. Let’s just agree not to raise our kids on HFCS. Let’s feed them fruit and veggies. We can afford it. We can’t afford not to.
You are right, I am lucky, and I am grateful. But I am also very particular in how I spend my money and where I spend it. I shop very mindfully. I don’t have money to throw away. I think carefully, and under-buy. It’s a new experience. I eat a little less. It’s healthy and good for the planet. I support people and businesses that are doing their best to support the planet and all beings on it.
Getting free of the super-stores is about getting free of what in yoga is called, parigraha, or greediness, accumulativeness. We are attached to the feeling of well being we get when we “fill up,” “load up”, and spend money. But in the end, our liberation isn’t coming from economics. More money isn’t the answer. Many people have “enough” money – not all certainly, and it is heartbreaking to see them choosing to eat at the fast food drive-in’s and restaurants – thinking it is the least expensive option. But I still believe that a few veggies, some carrots and lettuce, some collard greens and bananas, fruit in season, a 5 pound bag of oatmeal, a bag of beans, and a bag of rice or millet is going to work out to be less expensive on a per meal basis than giant burgers and fries and shakes and sodas!!
Not economics, but education, is what will free us from our collective mania to consume, free us from our addiction to the brainwashing (literally) effects of television advertising. Pay attention to yourself and the world around you. Watch how you shop, how others shop – observe. You will see that the ruts we have created are pretty deep. We are all complicit. Generation after generation, we have followed along the routines and lifestyles we have put in place over the years through our industrial age and with our general disregard for our planet and most everything else on it, except ourselves. So, strike out on a new path, go to a farmer’s market and explore your neighborhood. Spend less. Educate yourself and your family by example, by slowly practicing what you know to be true and whole and healthy, and walk your walk, the work trickles down. I hope.
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Responses
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Hey!
Just enjoyed reading your blog entry on high fructose corn syrup. Our thoughts exactly, but we’ve taken to adding one more action step if it fits for anyone. Whatever your local grocery, ASK, ASK, ASK for products NOT containing high fructose corn syrup or any other health values you might have. These stores are consumer driven, they survive by your dollars so if enough of us are asking…they WILL provide. It also helps to go to the main website of the grocer if your town happens to have groceries that are part of a national chain, and rant, complain, and request. We have to demand change everywhere, they don’t get the message if we just don’t shop there anymore…
Love to you,
Lex