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You Are What You Eat

The American Medical Association (AMA) had issued a policy resolution highlighting the importance of diet in health. Music to our ears:

The new AMA policy states:

    • That the AMA support[s] practices and policies in medical schools, hospitals, and other health care facilities that support and model a healthy and ecologically sustainable food system, which provides food and beverages of naturally high nutritional quality.

    • That the AMA encourage[s] the development of a healthier food system through the U.S. Farm Bill and other federal legislation.

    • That the AMA consider[s] working with other health care and public health organizations to educate the health care community and the public about the importance of healthy and ecologically sustainable food systems.

We applaud this move by the AMA and we look forward to our more open dialogue about the food system and its effects on public health.

Posted By: Dan

Blackout!

  In this modern world, a sudden loss of electricity can really throw us for a loop. In a high-volume food service operation like Open Hand, a power outage has the potential to be catastrophic when you consider how much of our day-to-day operation relies on electricity. We were reminded of this the other day when a transformer vault – I don’t pretend to know what that is – suddenly exploded. Without warning, all power to the building went out on an otherwise quiet Friday morning and if you wandered out onto Polk Street and looked north, you would have seen flames and black smoke shooting up from a manhole (some awesome pics, here).

Meanwhile, back at POH, staff and volunteers were busy making plans to pack meals by hand. A hand-crimping meal-lidder was located so that meals could be packed in foil containers and volunteers gathered to work under the feeble glow of emergency lights. No one complained, they simply put their heads down and got the job done.

Down in the Distribution department, Tim C. and the gang were busy patching together route sheets – a job usually accomplished with computers and printers – cutting and pasting together the guides that volunteers would use to deliver meals to clients. And in a final bit of adventure, appropriate given the days events, drivers managed to outfox a particularly unhelpful meter maid who had blocked access to our street. Defying the meter maids “orders” drivers made an end run to the garage, returning all vehicles to storage before anyone could stop them!

It was a crazy day for all and a challenging day for many and yet, the meals went out, as they always do, with love. We salute our dedicated staff and volunteers who went above and beyond the call for the sake of our mission.

Posted by: Dan

Making Friends with Bacteria

I love yogurt, I always have and I always will. I confess, I buy my yogurt pre-made and then I try not to think about the plastic container that will soon up in the recycle bin. I bought a yogurt maker years ago, used it once and found the process a bit too time consuming and not really worth the hassle. Thinking about those plastic containers makes me feel a bit sheepish though, it sure would be nice to figure out a simple way to make yogurt at home, it doesn’t seem hard…

Harold McGee to the rescue! 

Posted by: Dan

Sweet Stuff

When I was a kid we weren’t allowed to have sugar because it was going to “rot your teeth,” “have you bouncing off the walls,” or “ruin your appetite.”

“Sugar’s” come a long way since then.  Mostly it’s come in the form of high fructose corn syrup which I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, probably because it’s in the media and my level of awareness has been raised http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/high-fructose-corn-syrup.htm , but also because there’s a 3 year old in my house and I look at labels a lot more than I used to. 

This stuff is everywhere!  Especially in things that kids most like to consume, like Ketchup, the favorite condiment of just about everyone under the age of 12.   We try to stay away from the overly process convenience foods where the high fructose corn syrup and other scary ingredients usually hide, but convenience is attractive because we have busy lives and things that take five minutes to cook…well, they take 5 minutes to cook, but that’s sort of another post.

Sugar’s not so bad when you make the choice to eat it, it’s when they sneak it in there and don’t go out of the way to tell you, that’s when it feels like a mean game.  And don’t we have enough to worry about already just keeping little people fed in general?

We’ve been working hard to keep the processed, sugary food out of our kitchen.  A major way we’ve done that at home is signing on with Community Supported Agriculture CSA http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ , we get a box of locally grown organic fruits and veggies delivered once a week at about the same price we’d pay at the store.  We always have a fresh alternative in the house now.   There’s still a box chicken nuggets there, too.  Real change happens slowly, but it does happen.

And if you’re curious about just how much corn may be hidden in your diet, here’s a great documentary http://www.kingcorn.net/

Posted by: Jessica

The Future Food Web

If you have followed this blog at all, you know we are locavores at heart – an easy stance to take in the San Francisco Bay Area – and we have high hopes for a future food system that relies less on industrialization and more on tradition. Wired has an interesting article on the future of food distribution and how small, local farms may benefit from an Internet enabled supply chain. More important than sales may be the impact that the Internet and in particular, social networking sites might play in elevating the profile of local farmers:

 “The potential effect is much bigger than the tons or dollar amounts of food that it impacts because it’s enabling people to know more about where their food comes and rewarding people who are taking those steps,” said Tom Tomich, director of the University of California, Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute.

You can read the rest of the article, here.

Posted by: Dan

Fighting Cancer with Food

Here’s a fascinating article on the role of food and nutrition in cancer treatment. Much of the advice is straighforward and intuitive:

“Patients who are well-nourished as they’re going through treatment have shorter hospital stays, are better able to tolerate treatment,” not to mention have better quality of life, says Colleen Doyle, nutrition chief at the society, which offers nutrition advice through its hot line at 1-800-ACS-2345.

At Open Hand, we offer prepared meals and groceries for clients living with breast cancer and we have sought to build our programs around the notion that proper nutrition in the form of tasty food is a vital part of treatment. Our grocery program has been particularly successful because it allows clients to choose from an array of healthy options while leaving the final preparation up to the client. We offer lean proteins like fresh and frozen fish, organic tofu and chicken breast. And we always have a rainbow of produce offerings like sweet potatoes, organic kale and chard and whole grains such as quinoa, brown rice and oats are in abundance.

Take a moment to read the rest of the article, it is a useful reminder of the importance of food to health and well-being.

Posted by: Flash

No Magic Bullets, Part Deux

The Atlantic has an interesting article on the FDA’s threats to regulate Cheerios as a drug if General Mills persists in marketing the potential health benefits of eating the cereal. Now, I’m not knocking Cheerios, I love Cheerios but let’s eat food because it’s food not medicine.

Posted by: Dan

Hooray for Pork Brains!

Or not. Our friend Paul points us to this fascinating review of pork brains in a can, something alleged to be food:

Only a handful of brave souls manned up and faced the brain, though everyone but Chang and Brett opted to go the Brains ’n’ Eggs route rather than eat brains straight from the can. Our courage wavered a bit once the can was popped open to reveal soggy pink chunks floating in a milky pink liquid, accompanied by a smell very akin to cat food and dead tissue.

You can read the rest of the story, here. Beware, the article contains some naughty language and horrifying descriptions of canned pork brains.

Posted by: Dan

Blind Taste: A food blog to rival ours

Our dear Andrew points us to a nifty food blog called, Blind Taste. We’ve been perusing the posts off and on today and liked what we saw especially this post on how to properly pour a beer. Ahh, beer.

Posted by: Dan

No Magic Bullets

As I write this, I’m sipping red wine, nibbling on some dark chocolate and popping Hoodia. I expect to live forever, thin and cancer-free. I’m kidding, of course but it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that each new day seems to bring news of another miracle food, guaranteed to grow hair, shrink bellies and prolong life. Acai is the latest wonder food to be foisted upon us and, as is often the case when it comes to “too good to be true,” the news is exactly that:

There’s some dispute as to whether acai juice has more antioxidants than the juice of other fruits; the Washington-based food industry watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest notes that acai is only a middling source of antioxidants, providing more than, say, apple juice, but less than pomegranate or Concord grape juice.

You can read the whole story, here. And to the larger issue, are there short cuts when it comes to nutrition? Well, yes and no, there is probably no single food item that will absolve you of your nutritional transgressions but there are some neat rules of thumb you can follow:

Eat the rainbow – eating fruits and vegetables of every available hue is a good way to ensure that you are receiving the most possible vitamins and nutrients.

Get the white out – which is to say, eat more whole grains and less refined flours. So, swap whole grain pasta for white pasta, whole grain bread for white bread and brown rice for white rice.

Moderation is the key – controlling portion size can be tough and we were all taught to clean our plate. Add in our tendency to eat on the go and you have the makings of an overeating nightmare. Step one is to slooooow down, give your brain time to get the message from your stomach that you are full; it’s just oo easy to eat way past the point of being stuffed.

These are just a few helpful tips and we’ll look to post more over time. Until then, beware of anything that markets itself as a “superfood.” Can it fly? Does it have x-ray vision? No? Then it’s not a super food.

Posted by: Dan