I have a relative who refused to try Indian food because “they worship multiple gods”.

No, this isn’t a joke.

Don’t you mean “real American freedom fry eaters?”

Religion as a unifying force has a lot of promise

By ‘religion’ you surely mean ‘evangelical Christianism’. These people are not terribly interested in other religions - you know what they think of Muslims - and their mealy-mouthed pretense of respecting the Jews lasts right up until some Jewish kid doesn’t want to sit in the hall while his classmates praise Jesus for their math lessons.

I remember reading some comment thread (not Pandagon I think) that touched upon this topic within the last year, and a commenter made the blackly humorous observation that a bunch of wingnuts eating themselves into ill health out of spite would be a healthy thing for the body politic.

My old boss’s father thought that vegetarianism (along with yoga) was a communist plot, and that it was sinful to cut bread with a knife, because “tearing it was good enough for Jesus, so it’s good enough for you.”

You people have some fucked in the head relatives.

Mere “ill health” is the problem: if bad food killed them outright, NOW we’re talkin’.

Oh, definitely not.  When my boss was a hippie peacenik teenager, his dad actually hit him for doing yoga, because that commie crap was ungodly. 

It kind of amazes me the selectivity of many Christians regarding what they’ll follow in the Bible.

I think that the food is culture concept is a really important one to keep in mind when advocating healthy eating. Food is very personal and it will be really hard to get through to people without causing offense. Its also worth noting that the eating culture you mention is specifically white urban culture. It is also difficult to promote healthy foods in african-american areas without sounding like white people who are, once again, trying to eliminate black culture.

And of course, Glenn Beck has latched on to reasonable fears and insecurities and made it impossible for any progress to be made and any middle ground to be found.

Yup.  Granted, it was also during a rant on his general slovenly hippiness, including long hair and any number of other sins against manliness, god, America and apple pie.

For dinner tonight I copied a pasta recipe from the Food Not Bombs meal I visited on Sunday—pasta with a chunky fresh tomato and bell pepper sauce. There was no cheese at the FNB meal, and though cheese was on the table tonight, no one used it.

Of course, I subverted my offensively vegan meal by serving gigantic inch-and-a-half-thick pork chops with it, but…

But Jesus had long hair….

Amanda, there is a certain latitude given for men to eat unhealthily and gain a bit, especially among the anxious masculity set.  Women, no; men, yes.  But not to get, you know REALLY fat; that’s gross.  What is fat for men and women seem to be in different universes as well.

At this point I am hoping that they will indeed try to piss off liberals by eating really shitty, unhealthy food and then refuse that socialistical universal health care so that they all die off as fast as humanly possible.

BrianX, are you certain your pasta had nothing to make it non-vegan?  Many do.

I know that liberals like it too, but you are almost doing your readership a disservice to ignore the role of beer in this psychodrama.

Think about the misogyny and worse being dog-whistled in almost every beer commercial on TV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwaukee’s_Best_Light#Advertising

Until things change… a lot… I have decided neither to purchase nor consume beer in the US.  If people bring it to my home when I am entertaining, well, whatever.  But any that is not consumed in the evening leaves with them or goes in the garbage.

Of course they can have their fat food and fat shaming.  It’s not like they’re uncomfortable with cognitive dissonance.

He’s just pandering to the demographic he’s already got. As many people have pointed out, the Beck fans and teabaggers tend to be middle-aged or older, and that’s the time of life when it’s really easy to put on weight and not so easy to get rid of it. Plus, they’ve probably been eating badly for years now, because ideas about good nutrition and healthy eating have changed a lot. they’re probably hearing plenty from doctors about how they need to switch to eating “rabbit food” and they hate it. Along comes Glenn Beck to validate them, and suddenly their bad diets are a political choice and not just a big mistake.

Yeah, Crissa. We aren’t supposed to simply pick at our stupid girl food, but god forbid any lady gets fat.

Helen:

Ah, okay. Carry on then; I’m Red State approved.

Kahomono:

Or, you know, you could just avoid the beer companies that put out ads you don’t like. The brewing industry is not monolithic.

Re: Comment #5: GeekGirlsRule:
I bet he ate pre-sliced bread, though, right?

Re: Comment #15: helen w. h.:
Why would you ask that?  I find it somewhat distrustful and offensive.  Also, vegan is pretty much up in the air - do they eat processed flour?  Well, that’s not vegan!  Egg noodles?  Obviously not vegan.  Fish paste?  Pretty obvious.  Rennet?  That shouldn’t even be in noodles.  But the point stands, and is a dumb argument to get into.

An argument kinda like the schools that are banning peanut oil from brown-bag lunches.  WTF.  Are you going to ban kids from bringing aloe and penicillin, too?

Or, you know, you could just avoid the beer companies that put out ads you don’t like. The brewing industry is not monolithic.

Actually, if you trace back the threads of corporate ownership, it very nearly is.

Kahomono:

Um… I don’t think the majority of the gazillions of craft brewers out there have a lot to do, ownershipwise, with the big breweries.

This post is spot on. I will say that there is an easy way to undermine it—enlist atheletes, especially seriously “manly men” and their striaightened white teeth upper middle class wives—in the battle. The most important thing is that the entire initiative not get mired in the other big war: the war of poor people. Obesity in this country is especially a disease of poor and minority families so I’d suggest working across class and race lines *as though* it were an upper class/white issue and dragooning in NASCAR and Football athletes as well as skiers and snow boarders and people like that.

aimai

Crissa:

I don’t know for sure that she was kidding, but I took it that way, since my original post wasn’t entirely serious either.

Um… I don’t think the majority of the gazillions of craft brewers out there have a lot to do, ownershipwise, with the big breweries.

Nope.  Even indie craft brewers trade on beer’s exalted status in this culture as the elixir of masculinity.

If it ever goes back to being just goddam beer I would reconsider but I do not expect that in my lifetime.

Kahomono:

...no, not seeing it. Not to mention your logic looks kind of no-win, especially given that craft brews tend to be seen as somewhat counterculture. Sorry.

And before I get asked the next question, no I do not currently drink any alcoholic beverages at all.  Except for wine, port, bourbon, gin, vodka, rum, tequila and the occasional liqueur. 

...no, not seeing it. Not to mention your logic looks kind of no-win, especially given that craft brews tend to be seen as somewhat counterculture. Sorry.

I didn’t expect it to get much traction, given that beer is, well, the elixir of masculinity.  It’s hard to agree that its role in your life is exaggerated when you just sat at lunch for 90 minutes arguing the merits of this brewpub’s IPA over that one’s.

Not saying YOU did this, but the conversation I just *very* briefly described did occur, no the time frame was not exaggerated, and I seriously considered calling a cab and returning to the office at a cost of some $60 rather wait it out for my ride.

Eh. I’m pretty sure most people can talk shop about one minor aspect of their interests for that long. Hell, in some parts of the US, you could easily have the same tedious conversation about pizza.

try to piss off liberals by eating really shitty, unhealthy food and then refuse that socialistical universal health care so that they all die off as fast as humanly possible.

Yeah, if only. This is the “government hands off my Medicare” crowd. They’ll take that socialistical universal health care, all right, and even the most medically neglected junk-eating takes years to become fatal.

Well, when you see teenagers overindulging in underage pizza to prove they’re really growed-up let me know.

I’d done here, have the last word if you want (betcha a nickel you want).  Continue?  kahomono (dot) wp (at) gmail (dot) com

I’m gonna go eat a steak, drink beer and then masturbate ‘cause my wife left me for being so manly.

Seriously though, the food issue is huge one to conservative pinheads.  They may hate being fat but tribal loyalty is way more important to them and besides, they’re miserable little people anyway and self-loathing is part and parcel of teacrackers everywhere.  It proves they’re being persecuted.

entrails

Of note - for all the macho swaggering about men and meat, it’s consistently true that Americans eat their beef extremely overcooked, while the rare-beef lovers tend to be those wussy Europeans, who have developed multiple raw-beef preparations.

I mean, order the steak you like, of course, but don’t gloat about your bloody steaks and wimp out at the table and ask for it well done.

Kahomono, a discussion about how food functions as a cultural identifier is distinct from a discussion of how it is advertised. The two are connected, but not identical.

Also, seriously, watch more TV. There are plenty of small breweries that trade on “we LOVE that it’s beer and love making it”. Not everything out there is Bud.

Adding - Amanda’s point is how wingnuts are exploiting the former, not how advertisers respond to it. Both are fascinating and scary though.

Also, there are plenty of beers that trade on non sexist images to sell the beer.

I’m not sure why the fact that men like (and go on long, nerdy conversations about) beer disqualifies women from enjoying/drinking beer.  And, joining long, nerdy conversations about various merits.

This post and the abstinence one go so well together. Not just because food is so often a substitute for sex. It’s the whole petulant “I’m going to listen really hard to what my body is telling me and then go do the opposite. See if I don’t!”

I think that the yoga=evil connection (which a lot of wingnuts push even now, claiming it lead to worship of false gods, blah blah blah) may be more than just generalized hippie punching. One of the things that yoga exercises do is to promote mindfulness and paying attention to yourself, sometimes (anecdata) with pretty strong emotional reactions coming out of the process. That kind of contemplation is potentially lethal to wingnuttery.

I’m not sure why the fact that men like (and go on long, nerdy conversations about) beer disqualifies women from enjoying/drinking beer.  And, joining long, nerdy conversations about various merits.

It doesn’t, of course. Not all worshipers of masculinity—and not all who equate it with maturity—have Y chromosomes.

Fat Tire beer (owned by New Belgium, not owned by a conglomerate) has a watercolor painting of bike on it. I don’t think you get any less macho than that. I’m sure some of my favorite small breweries are part of larger corporations, but not most of them. Sam Adams is independently owned, and they don’t have macho commercials at all. Also my husband home brews and that totally dovetails with the larger urban homesteading thing that is very, very un-right wing.

@Paul. There is also some controversy within the Hindu community, where yoga is a spiritual practice, about the rightness of teaching it to non-Hindus. And there is no controversy at all among Real True Christians (tm): Yoga is a Hindu spiritual practice and will damage a believer.  Which is why I saw an ad for Christian Yoga and went “buh-zuh?!” As well have a Buddhist tfellin or a Muslim eucharist.

Fun fact: Rick Berman from Maddow’s piece is the father of David Berman, lead sing of the Silver Jews. They’re estranged due to dad’s general reprehensibility.

One funny thing about Sam Adams is that they just bought their first brewery about two years ago. Up until then, all its beer and ale were contract-brewed.

There’s a campaign afoot (unless it’s already dead) to market baby carrots like tortilla chips. Good luck with that.

Of note - for all the macho swaggering about men and meat, it’s consistently true that Americans eat their beef extremely overcooked, while the rare-beef lovers tend to be those wussy Europeans, who have developed multiple raw-beef preparations.

I mean, order the steak you like, of course, but don’t gloat about your bloody steaks and wimp out at the table and ask for it well done.

I used to order my steaks well-done or medium well until I realized that most restaurants would interpret that as burning it to a hard crisp.  Now a days….prefer medium or medium well when I go for my once in a blue moon steak dinner. 

You want real wimpiness….look at all the “real Americans” I’ve met who shrink at the thought of eating fish.  Know several “meat and potatoes only” types who shrink in terror at the mere thought of eating fish/seafood of any kind. 

Kahomon—

That’s a bit unfair. I drink mostly Yuengling and they’re privately owned, their advertising is completely non-offensive and the guy who owns it now is even training his daughters to inherit the business.

Some people unquestionably do think of beer as the elixir of masculinity.  I don’t doubt that for a second.  But it doesn’t mean that it’s an objectively true fact, and abstaining from a private activity because a lot of people you dislike do it somewhere else is pretty much why Glenn Beck won’t eat lettuce.  You have a better reason, but it’s still a petty rebellion.

Boycott Coors and Budweiser, they deserve it.  But don’t throw out every IPA you see because somewhere, you think jerks are enjoying it.  Enjoy it yourself to piss them off, or don’t drink it because you don’t like it.

#44 - and note that there’s nothing more rugged than commercial fishing.

Kahomono, I have one word for you: homebrewing.  If you like beer and don’t want to buy it, buy the ingredients and make it yourself.  Hell, I do.

I thought beer was only the elixir of masculinity when it tastes like piss.

Anyways, I always thought whiskey was the elixir of masculinity.

I always thought drinking Old Spice was the elixir of masculinity.

Exholt, I love meat and I love urban weirdo food too, and I am not wingnutty at all, but you’d have to propose a credible threat to my life to get me to eat fish or any other kind of seafood, especially those nasty bug things like lobsters and crabs. Ew! Not because they’re gay or coded as feminine or whatever, but because they all smell like death and/or look like bugs.

fegalund: Hey, more for us. But you’re missing out on a great source of protein without a lot of fat and cholesterol.

Soft drink marketing not especially masculinity driven? Coca-Cola, no, they’re more the nostalgia/Americana kind of marketing,  but Mountain Dew (and, in the past) Pepsi? Hell yeah.

You know, MOUNTAIN DEW!!!11!!!!1!! ITZ X-TREEEEEEEEEEMEEEE BRO DUUUDE!!!111

A poster in Japan told me that Jack ‘n’ Coke was “America’s cocktail” and that seems pretty manly and patriotic to me.  Plus it doesn’t taste like water with a little bread soaked in it.

Well, lobster and shrimp aren’t that great from a cholesterol perspective, but otherwise, I agree with you Scribe.

This is the Glenn Beck who says we should let fat people die, right? Yeah, somehow I don’t think he’s any champion of fat acceptance. As much as he may frame his complaint about a “nanny state”, he isn’t shy about also introduce the stock Conservative antipathy towards people in need. As tiresome as liberals get when they start blame shopping in their quest to enforce fat stigmatization, Beck’s “let ‘em die” approach is far more fat hostile. Sure, he carves out self-serving exceptions (and frankly liberals dabble in the same sort of thing), but his approach to fat people has all the nuance of the conservative approach to the poor. “Screw them.”

There actually are people, though, that advocate fat hostile proposals that would justify this kind of nanny-state hyperventilating. Though they haven’t yet gotten traction, they are often considered fairly serious contributors on the issue while they suggest financially penalizing fat people or mandating weight loss. While I think Michelle Obama’s proposals are structurally flawed in continuing to put the focus on weight and not health, they also are plainly not anything like they are being made out to me, nor do I think Beck really gives a damn about the people who ARE making the kinds of suggestions he’s freaking out about. This is so transparently theater that there is hardly anything to complain about. Glenn Beck IS the inverse of those extremists, though, given that his proposal for dealing with fat people seems to involve denial of health care and is a close kin to those who propose discriminating the fat away bay ramping social stigmatization of fat by ensuring legal protections for those deny fat people their basic rights. Beck actually is an anti-fat extremist, just the ideological mirror of those he is railing against.

Well, if you’re already fat, and white and stupid and pissed off, and searching for someone, anyone whom you can deem lesser than yourself, it must be a comfort to think that the junk you’re eating would get under the skin of token liberals and uppity colored people with jobs above their station (like President’s wife.)

Just livin’ your life, and bein’ you, eating crap, and it’s pissin’ off them libruls. You don’t hafta do nothin’ new.

That’s the lazy man’s bigotry.

Ben D. @ 55: Coke doesn’t do the masculinity thing with all their variants, but they did have their “Diet Coke in a BLACK can so it’s not Diet Coke because Diet Coke is for LADIES” product (Coke Zero?), where the major marketing campaigns were a tie-in with the James Bond franchise and some commercials about guys hitting their heads repeatedly and getting back up going “I’M OKAY” because men can handle anything, except products with “diet” in the title.

Killed my Gothical interest in Diet Coke in a black can, that commercial did.

#3 When I had to go to evangelical church when I was little (elementary school age in the early-mid 90’s) the big issue then was Buddha, Hinduism and Wicca. Wicca of course is satan worshipping witch and the others are heathens because they worship multiple Gods and statues(?)! Islam wasnt even discussed until 9/11, now its all they talk about-in the begative of course (heaven forbid we respect others religious beliefs). I’m happy I’m an atheist!

#5 My (former) church (live in CO so it was very connected to Focus on the Family) thought E.T., Little Mermaid and those little trolls with the crazy hair you twist into different shapes that were popular in the 90’s were all demonic. I wasnt allowed to have them when I was little and when my mom joined the evangelicals when she remarried she tossed my E.T. movie. I remember when I didnt want anything to do with them in 6th grade sneaking horoscopes and doing little corny wicca spells-anything but that gag inducing, smothering version of Xristianity!

“Diet Coke in a BLACK can so it’s not Diet Coke because Diet Coke is for LADIES” product (Coke Zero?),

Diet Coke and Coke Zero actually have different syrup formulas. Regardless of whether diet coke is considered feminine or not, the taste of the stuff is disgusting, while Coke Zero tastes more like regular Coca Cola.

Speaking of manly meals, my twin brother I just celebrated my thirtieth birth day with my parents at Peter Luger, a legendary New York steakhouse. The steak, potatoes, creamed spinach, and wine were great. So was the cheese cake and coffee with schlag for desert.

  Normally, I eat very healthy and I’m trying to reduce my meat consumption for health reasons because I want to maintain my weight at about 145 pounds. I’m five foot five, so this is a good weight for me. However, I do occasionally enjoy “red food” and manly cuisine. My usually sunday dinner is a small piece of meat, about a quarter to a third of pound of pan roasted beef with sauteed spinach and onions and a beer. For lunch and dinners on other days, I usually prefer something more vegetable orientated.

    I agree with Amanda that the American diet sucks and needs improvement. I disagree with that the right wages war against nutrition because it pisses off liberals. It does piss off liberals but mainly a certain type of liberal. Most liberals and progressives I know off line aren’t exactly that into nutrition and some tend to be rather a bit too large.

    BeanS, the more that I learn about Evangelical Christianity the more I am so glad that I was born a Jew. Not even the most Ultra-Orthodox Jew would denounce the Little Mermaid as satanic. They would probably see it as a waist of time and something that Jews should not watch because their are other things that Jews should focus on but none of them would call it satanic.

I think you make a great point using the term “tribal” to describe the position on food.  A lot of conservative positions go back to a cavemanish mentality, ie eating more and getting fat to get through Winter before humans evolved cities and communities where food can be harvested and stored for Winter.  While they might deny this reasoning, it plays a factor.  I think liberals are both consciously and subconsciously more evolved than conservatives.

. I disagree with that the right wages war against nutrition because it pisses off liberals.

Evidence? Or do you disagree with this simply because it conforms more closely to your “thoughtful, reasonable liberal” worldview?

You want real wimpiness….look at all the “real Americans” I’ve met who shrink at the thought of eating fish.  Know several “meat and potatoes only” types who shrink in terror at the mere thought of eating fish/seafood of any kind.

Fresh seafood was exceedingly rare in most of the inland parts of the US until very recently.  And prepared fish/seafood was more of an ethnic thing (salt cod, gefilte fish, etc).  If you’re over 50, white, and from the midwest or appalachia, chances are eating fish, and especially shellfish, just isn’t part of your culture.

You know, BStu, you could, oh I don’t know, consider that weight is an access point for which policy makers to receive and deliver information about policy, pre and post policy initiative.

But then, you’d actually have to be serious about helping fat people and raising conciousness about the impact of fat-phobia in how we interpret data and all those other strange, strange, utilizations of empathy.  Wouldn’t hurt to dump the paranoid ideation, either.

Bitter Scribe:
Actually, it’s a pretty serious issue—the Atlantic bluefin tuna, for example, is in such a dire state that there were worries of the oil from Deepwater Horizon, and cod right now is where haddock was ten years ago.

In Massachusetts, it’s not uncommon to see bumper stickers complaining about the government putting fishermen out of business. Every time I see one I wonder where they think their employment is coming from if stocks get unsustainably low.

Tyro, did you actually read what I wrote? In my post, I said that the rightist foodie bashing is aimed at a certain type of liberal than liberals in general. Unless you are arguing that all liberals have to be into eating properly, which is statistically probably not the case.

Sorry.. Worries that the oil would destroy what was left of the bluefin breeding grounds.

BeanS, the more that I learn about Evangelical Christianity the more I am so glad that I was born a Jew.

It’s funny how a religious culture can influence you even when you don’t necessarily buy the dogma of the religion. Even though I’m not religious I won’t deny an Episcopalian upbringing hasn’t had an influence on my view of the world. Without being raised in a faith that is based on not being Roman Catholic, but at the same time not TOO Protestant I’d probably be far-left rather than center-left.

Just for the record I’m using the global definition of “center-left” and “far left”, not the American one.

Lee, you sound like you completely missed the point of Amanda’s statement. It doesn’t matter whether it Actually pisses off liberals. It matters that conservatives “perceive” that it pisses of liberals, which is why they take up an “anti-healthy-food crusade.” And if you don’t understand that, then you’re woefully (and perhaps willfully) clueless.

Oh, I wish I could be a bag of bones like AM too!

You insufferable liberals, you obnoxious asses are too much.

Get your friggin hands off my fried clams and twinkies,  you salad pickin wimps!

Aw, you bolded my name.

I guess you’ll have to excuse me if some fat people aren’t impressed with people arguing about the best way to stigmatize us. Glenn Beck isn’t defending fat people. We’re just a political beach ball being batted around by him. He wants fat people to go away and die. That’s no paean to the rights of fat people. He just wants to go about stigmatizing our bodies in a different, and frankly harsher way. But this isn’t some perfect symmetry either. I don’t have to choose between competing proposals to define my body as unacceptable. None of them are actually helping fat people even if both seem to think in their own way they are standing up for us.

I don’t know if this makes much of a difference, but the “eat shit to piss of the liberals” is specifically aimed at the liberals who have enough money to eat organic food. Foodies are a specific brand of usually educated, middle to upper middle class liberal elite. Most of the liberal voters are actually poor people, who are the most likely to be overweight and the most likely to get little exercise and eat a lot of processed food. Whether this is an example of conservatives tarring a straw liberal or a ploy to separate liberal elites from the poorer liberals, I couldn’t say.

Without being raised in a faith that is based on not being Roman Catholic, but at the same time not TOO Protestant I’d probably be far-left rather than center-left.

I was also raised Episcopalian, and yet am pretty much far left.  I would even say that my religious upbringing informed my political awareness. 

I agree with you that there’s definitely a namby-pamby reformist strain within Episcopalianism (see also half of Eddie Izzard’s material), but I don’t think those kinds of moderate sorts of religious affiliations really make much difference one way or the other.

The only thing I have to add is a disturbing development related to this that was discussed earlier, that incredible fat sandwich some chain is selling, is it KFC?

Anyway, that chain took the brand name of the sandwich and paid young women to walk around a college campus with it on their shapely asses, I saw the story this last week, sorry for no link.  It wasn’t clear if the women were students.

If eating the fat bomb is good for “us,” might as well be sexist and crude about it.  I was just startled how the tactic just shoves it into your face, here’s the fat bomb branded on female asses.  Jesus.

I’m tired, eh, I really can’t get truly deep into what this is like Amanda can, I just saw the story.

TO—

If one has ever, in his or her life, voted for a Democrat for either the Senate, Governorship, or the Presidency,  they’re not far left. At least in their actions.

Ben, Opponax:

I was raised Roman Catholic and while I have been slowly moving away from The Church since I was a teenager, I think that Catholicism is where I inherited my bleeding heart. I was in an intro polisci class and the vast majority of the kids, when asked, said that the biggest influence on their views was The Church, which had three varieties of influence.

1. People that were liberal because of the church’s social doctorine.

2. People that were conservative because of the church’s view of sexuality

3. People that were liberal in rebellion to the church’s view of sexuality.

I also love to feel guilty, which works pretty well with liberalism too.

Not even the most Ultra-Orthodox Jew would denounce the Little Mermaid as satanic.

Sadly, Lee, my Ortodox cousin’s wife banned Disney products from their home because The Little Mermaid “encouraged interfaith marriages”.  Technically not for Satanism, but close enough in my book.

I’m wondering how this culture war over food is going to play here in Chicago, because in some ways it’s already been played out:  A ban on fois gras was passed and repealed, tons of top restaurants have sprung up over the last 15 years or so, taking us away from what I derisively refer to as “Ditka’s Chicago”, yet Chicago Beef places like Portillo’s and hipstery places like Hot Doug’s and Kuma’s have thrived.

Interfaith marriage? Hell, it is ABOUT interspecies marriage. Her fear may be well-founded.

I know, right?  At least she’s not half-crustacean, but some of her best friends are treyf.

BrianX: Hell, it’s worse than that. As commercial fishing equipment and techniques have increased in efficiency, mankind has literally been eating its way down the marine food chain. Consider squid. In the days of Captains Courageous, it was considered strictly to be bait for “real” fish, like cod. Today they call it calamari and charge $15 a pop for it in fancy restaurants. One marine scientist was quoted in the New Yorker as saying our grandchildren will be eating jellyfish sandwiches—-and he was only half-kidding.

Oh, jellyfish won’t be in your sandwiches.  They’ll be in superfoods smoothies, found in Robek’s everywhere.

Kah, simply taking a prejudice and flipping it isn’t nearly as cool as you think. Seriously, why is shaming people who happen to like beer so intensely important to you? It’s weird. Really fucking weird.

Also: bag of bones? Heh, I’m reminded of the episode of “30 Rock” when Liz visits Cleveland. It’s all relative!

#44 - and note that there’s nothing more rugged than commercial fishing.

Yes, but commercial fishing is genuinely dangerous and requires real toughness and courage, not the phony courage of hippie-punching and keeping your woman in her place.

Is coffee for real? I thought s/he was parody.

alysia:

I assumed just from the name that it was a Poe…

Fresh seafood was exceedingly rare in most of the inland parts of the US until very recently.  And prepared fish/seafood was more of an ethnic thing (salt cod, gefilte fish, etc).  If you’re over 50, white, and from the midwest or appalachia, chances are eating fish, and especially shellfish, just isn’t part of your culture.

Odd part is most of the “real Americans” who felt this way are around my age or younger and came from major urban coastal urban centers….including the urban NE.  What’s more weird is I met a lot of such folks in the greater Boston area…..an area long known for its seafood based cuisine whether it is New England Clam Chowder(Yum!!) or various forms of prepared fish, oysters, and lobsters.

“bourbon, gin, vodka, rum, tequila”

Horribly misogynistic ads for (certain brands of) every last one of these.

And have you ever had Rogue’s Shakespeare Stout? Sublime! Breathtaking!

@ #40 - New Belgium is also the most incredibly enviro-friendly company ever.  I use them in my management class as an example of a company that’s really into corporate social responsibility.  Their whole brewery is designed to be as green as possible, using lots of natural light, etc.  They capture their waste methane (a greenhouse gas produced by fermentation) and use it to power their plant for about 4 hours a day completely off the grid.  For the rest of their power needs, they pay a higher cost to the electric company for wind power, and actually their investment in the wind program saved that program from going under.  They give a substantial chunk of their profit to various charities.  And all this stuff gets discussed and voted on by ALL the employees, who are given part-ownership in the company after working there a year (they call them “employee-owners”). 

They state that they want to be a “corporate role model for how one can compete successfully in a free market economy while still holding true to who you want to be on the planet.”  Their mission statement is: “To operate a profitable business which makes our love and talent manifest.” 

Hardly sounds like a bastion of anxious-masculinity-worshipping…

“bourbon, gin, vodka, rum, tequila”

Horribly misogynistic ads for (certain brands of) every last one of these.

And have you ever had Rogue’s Shakespeare Stout? Sublime! Breathtaking!

Sorry, but there’s a difference in degree and not just in kind between “buying our product will get you laid” and “if you don’t act manly enough, which includes neglect and hostility toward the woman in your life, then you deserve to be squashed like a bug, and your friends will be glad to see you go.”  The latter is LITERALLY the kind of thing that happens in the ads I linked.  I have never seen an ad for any other form of potable that espouses such disdain for women and places it as a required (!) attitude for men. 

“EtOH as a seduction aid” does not remotely rise to the same level—and it has the defense of being true.  Some sex is just a bad decision, and the sad fact is that ethanol drives bad decisions.

Finally, “but I LIIIIIKE beer!” is not even relevant.

#85: Bitter Scribe:
Consider squid. In the days of Captains Courageous, it was considered strictly to be bait for “real” fish, like cod. Today they call it calamari and charge $15 a pop for it in fancy restaurants.

Calamari has been a delicacy in the Mediterranean long before Rudyard Kipling was born. I have a Roman cookbook, Apicius, dating from the 4th Century, which has a lovely calamari recipe which calls for pepper, coriander, celery, egg yolks, white wine and honey.

Which just goes to show how cultural food is. Bitter Scribe evidently has British ancestors who disdained calamari while my Italian ancestors raved about it. But I am guilty as well. The only sushi I won’t try is Ikura which reminds me of the little red hots we used to fish with when I was a kid. The only sushi I have tried and not liked is Uni which I think tastes like what it looks like.

Food is totally cultural. Whether it is; the family gathering to make raviolis at Christmas, a big roast bird at the harvest festival, hot dogs at a ball game, the Seitan mock chicken at the local vegan restaurant, sautéed termites in Nigeria or the deep-fried Twinkies at the Texas State Fair (they really do that, it’s not a myth right?) food is completely cultural.

Food wise I am pretty omnivorous and way too adventurous to be vegan or vegetarian. I would likely balk at the termites but if I was in Lagos I would likely go for it (I draw the line though at the deep fried Twinkie). But a lot of people aren’t that adventurous.

A lot of Americans know nothing of food but meat (fried, baked, broiled or grilled), potatoes (fried, baked or boiled) and a vegetable (usually boiled). To these folks the concept of “Healthy Eating” translates as"that crappy iceberg lettuce salad they serve at the diner and now I can’t even smother it in Thousand Island Dressing?”

How do you convince a person who believes Romain Lettuce is too fancy that there are food choicesother than McDonald’s?

A poster in Japan told me that Jack ‘n’ Coke was “America’s cocktail” and that seems pretty manly and patriotic to me.  Plus it doesn’t taste like water with a little bread soaked in it.

You sure that wasn’t supposed to be an insult?

#97: Kahomono

Ask your local store to stock Dale’s Pale Ale.

http://www.oskarblues.com/the-brews/dales-pale-ale

Tyro, ah okay then. I think Alysia at 77 says what I was trying to say much better than I expressed myself.

  NY Exholt, well that is certainly an interesting take on the Little Mermaid. Its completely wrong but it is still interesting.  To be fair from an Orthodox standpoint, Jews should have Jewish children and inter-religious marriages are viewed as potentially leading to non-Jewish children since the child might decide to assimilate to the majority in order to fit in better.

Another point to make is the shear projection of the situation.  Right now conservatives don’t have a problem with the government through our farm policies subsidising unhealthy eating habits.  We have tariffs on imported real sugar which helps the massive corn industry make corn <strike>sugar</strike> poison.  Of course removing HFCS from food wouldn’t end obesity, but it would cause the rate to plummet.

Fresh seafood was exceedingly rare in most of the inland parts of the US until very recently.  And prepared fish/seafood was more of an ethnic thing (salt cod, gefilte fish, etc).  If you’re over 50, white, and from the midwest or appalachia, chances are eating fish, and especially shellfish, just isn’t part of your culture.
Comment #67: The Opoponax on 09/24 at 10:49 PM

Beg to differ, Opo.  The Great Lakes fisheries were legendary until @ the 1930’s.

Nobody’s arguing with you that there are heinously misogynistic beer ads.  The point is that heinously misogynistic ads by Anheuser-Busch and Coors are completely irrelevant to the purchase and consumption of Rogue or Dogfish products.

You might as well stop shopping at independent bookstores in protest of Walmart’s labor policies.

Speaking of eating down the food chain, I wonder what these archetypal mid west white guys would think about ‘crawdaddies’ aka crayfish. Our southern white folks suck them down.

I don’t know if this makes much of a difference, but the “eat shit to piss of the liberals” is specifically aimed at the liberals who have enough money to eat organic food. Foodies are a specific brand of usually educated, middle to upper middle class liberal elite. Most of the liberal voters are actually poor people, who are the most likely to be overweight and the most likely to get little exercise and eat a lot of processed food. Whether this is an example of conservatives tarring a straw liberal or a ploy to separate liberal elites from the poorer liberals, I couldn’t say.

Though there is foodie bashing, there is also the “hippie bashing”. 

Especially against the “librul activists” who they feel demand others conform to what they consider “healthy”, environmentally friendly, or “make eating a hassle” for demanding they think about their eating choices.  It doesn’t help that some may have been influenced by meeting a few “conform or else” type activist student such as your friendly high school/college PETA chapter or the warm and fuzzy campus Marxist/Maoists.  Though they usually are just an extreme handful and their influence is blown way out of proportion on most high school/college campuses, just one is often enough to get the “real Americans” riled up about having their “right to eat whatever the hell they feel like” trampled upon. 

I can somewhat understand where they’re coming from as I’ve encountered an extreme handful of “conform or else” activists who espoused animal rights or environmental causes in high school and attended a college which seemed to be a magnet for such types of type of students as my experience with “agree with me or else” classmates who tended to gravitate to the campus Marxist/Maoist, atheist, or various other progressive causes.  A reason why there was so much social fragmentation in the student body and vicious infighting within various campus groups even over extremely minute differences of opinion.

To be fair, though, this overstrident activist type that “real Americans” love to use as a strawliberal to “piss off” also exist among conservatives….especially among the far right.  Other than their political/ideological orientation….the tea partiers are not that different from the “agree with me or else” radical far-left classmates who bickered over the slightest disagreement despite holding similar/same political/ideological beliefs and sometimes being part of the same groups. 

Colorado Dave:  “The only sushi I have tried and not liked is Uni which I think tastes like what it looks like.”

That is probably a where-you-eat it factor.  I’ve eaten it at pretty fancy sushi places in the US and not seen the appeal all that much, but we went to Japan for the first time this summer and ate it at a restaurant next to the Tsujiki Fish Market in Tokyo.  Totally.  Different.  Beast.  Smooth and buttery, with that fresh ocean flavor.  My Japanese mother pretty much doesn’t bother to order it in the States.

Comment #107: Dr. Locrian:
That is probably a where-you-eat it factor.  I’ve eaten it at pretty fancy sushi places in the US and not seen the appeal all that much, but we went to Japan for the first time this summer and ate it at a restaurant next to the Tsujiki Fish Market in Tokyo.  Totally.  Different.  Beast.  Smooth and buttery, with that fresh ocean flavor.  My Japanese mother pretty much doesn’t bother to order it in the States.

 

Thanks for the tip. If I ever travel to Japan I will definitely try it again.

Brian @25: Of course I was kidding; as you had an element of that in your intial comments, I answered in kind.  Besides, you already had that Red state approval on deck with the pork chops.

100% agreed on the sushi in Japan being really excellent everywhere I’ve had it.  I saw it in the grocery in Aomori this afternoon though and couldn’t bring myself to try it.  As I’m here, I should get myself to somewhere making in fresh on the spot.

Kahomono, the beer comment was simply a fun aside, not an argument. But I see you are quite above fun asides.

Midwesterners not eat fish?  Um, bass, trout, sturgeon, salmon and pike?  Most Red states have programs to stock their rivers and lakes.  Pan fried brook trout just pulled from the stream is the bomb.  It isn’t seafood, but it is fish and very much normal for middle America.

Not to mention catfish, both channel and lake.  Though they are more associated with the south, they aren’t unknown in the midwest and west.

@Crissa #21

An argument kinda like the schools that are banning peanut oil from brown-bag lunches.  WTF.  Are you going to ban kids from bringing aloe and penicillin, too?

This comment really bothers me but if it was made as some sort of sarcasm that I missed, then ignore my response.

Is it really too much of a burden to not bring foods or aerosols that trigger allergic, and sometimes serious reactions in people for just the few hours a day when people forced to be packed into enclosed environments?

Yeah peanut allergies are rare, and so are other allergies people suffer from seemingly everyday products, but given the diversity of peoples that make up a school population and the proximity people are placed next to each other and lack of control over the environment those who can get sick have it seems fair to make their environment less hazardous.

I’ve said this before, but I think the difference between “foodie” and “gourmet” is that a gourmet says “guess what I had?” while a foodie says “come here, you gotta try this”. Michelin is gourmet; Zagat is foodie. (Or, for a rather ironic example: Escoffier’s influence was gourmet. Escoffier himself: bigtime foodie.) A gourmet might gush over the latest fancy restaurant; a foodie will also gush over a food truck or the pub grub at a new neighborhood bar.

I think that’s the fundamental issue with foodie bashing, just like it is any other classist bullshit coming from the right—foodies dare to believe (and, for people in the Alice Waters/Jamie Oliver mold, actively try to make a reality) that people shouldn’t have to be rich to have access to decent-quality, creative, and healthy food. That’s more or less why I’ve always taken offense to people calling me a “gourmet” cook—my tastes tend to actually be rather spartan and most of my favorite dishes are anything but exotic. The whole “eat crap because it’s real people food” thing is more or less an extreme inversion—middle class conservatives basically saying “well, if the commie mutant traitors can have the good stuff, then it sucks anyway.” Not that this stops Rush, Glenn, or Anne from spending a hundred bucks on a bottle of wine and fifty more on a contraband cigar…

helen wh:

Heh. I knew it

Helen has the right of it. There are catfish farms throughout Missouri. Trout, bluegill, bass and crappie are generally fished for throughout the Midwest. Come on, who invented fishing shows for TV?

But, unless you had a fisherman in the family, or were friends with one, most people’s concept of fish was the fish sticks/spinach/cornbread that the school cafeteria served every Friday or grandma’s salmon cakes, served with creamed peas over top. Or a trip to Long John Silver’s. Or a basket of shrimp at the local restaurant. Or if you were being REALLY fancy, a trip to Red Lobster.

Matt @99: I think it was just an ad   We did find it kind of funny, but then we were not in the demographic that could be persuaded to order one (at Tokyo prices) just because those awesome Americans enjoy it.  I’ve been awesome and American for almost three decades without the help of Jack and coke.  However, given a choice between jack and coke or coors or bud as the face of American drinking, I guess I’d chose the former.  Assuming those were my only choices

Lee @101: “To be fair”, etc.:  It’s an ugly, paranoid view.  Sadly, it’s held by Conservative and some Reform Jews as well.

I’d like to avoid a derail, so I’ll simply direct you to <a href=“http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/?pagination=false>this article</a> by Peter Beinart.  I’m having a harder time distinguishing “

@Kyso:  Speaking of being ‘macho’ by doing things that are bad for you, the funniest street ad we saw in Japan were those Marlboro posters plastered everywhere, the one with the musclebound, head shaved white dude flexing while taking a drag of his cigarette.  I loved the tiny, tiny jeans shorts—he looked like he was about to break out and sing YMCA karaoke style.

I was going to write a nice long screed about how the food-as-analog-for-patriotism model is the best example to date of the immaturity of the right wing—because you know that a bunch of fifty-plus-year-old-white-dudes are still fighting the battles of having been teased in high school by vegetarians who were doing exactly what any new convert does in high school: lord their superiority over the nonbelievers.

And then I come here and it’s a bunch of people arguing over what’s more hardcore: being a foodie or being a gourmet.

If you anyone needs me, I’ll be smoking out near the soccer field.

I think the foodie-bashing thing on the part of wingnuts gets back to the general hatred of unmediated pleasure. It’s not fun because, ooh, this is the best damn crispy-on-the-outside fluffy-on-the-inside salted hot sliver of potato you’ve eaten in the past 30 seconds, it’s fun because it’s somehow transgressive while being entirely conformist.

It’s not that peanut allergies are rare:  It’s that peanut oil can’t trigger them. 

There is no ‘aerosol’ from something with peanut oil in it that would trigger an allergy, or anything else in peanut oil - it is an oil.  Peanut butter doesn’t get up and walk into another kid’s mouth.

There are kids deathly allergic to all sorts of things, but it’s ridiculous to avoid their allergies by banning it from other children’s food.  And they’re suggesting to replace the peanut butter with almond butter, etc.  What about the kid who’s deathly allergic to tree nuts?  It’s selective and pointless.  If a child is messy enough to spread peanut butter on someone else, they may have it in their clothes or candy not brought on purpose.

Hence my complaint about aloe and penicillin, which I am allergic to.  But it’s a big aside and derail because of someone complaining that someone’s vegan wasn’t vegan enough.

Dried pasta (your usual Prince, De Cecco, Barilla, Creamette types) is almost always vegan, fresh pasta often has eggs in it.

When I crave/eat crappy processed junk food, it’s out of a desire for familiar foods from my childhood/teen years, before I knew better and started eating healthier. It’s basically a form of rebellion against adulthood, in the simplest least dangerous way ever, I can’t cease paying rent or bills, I have to have a job and/or career, I can’t stay in bed all day, or blow off work to get stoned and watch TV. I think besides pissing off liberals (which I totally agree, the right resents the left for aspiring to better standard of living) I think the junk food worship is part of the overall juvenile behavior of the right.

And BTW, Opo, I even know of a source for some phenomenal Great Lakes caviar.

Midwesterners not eat fish?  Um, bass, trout, sturgeon, salmon and pike?  Most Red states have programs to stock their rivers and lakes.  Pan fried brook trout just pulled from the stream is the bomb.  It isn’t seafood, but it is fish and very much normal for middle America.

shit, my dad goes salmon fishing on Lake Oahe in South Dakota. It’s probably better than the Atlantic farmed shit.

And what about all the fish fried and Friday night VFW and bar Lake Perch dinners from Indiana to Milwaukee?  And smelt season?

Hell, I remember catching crawfish in Iowa streams while I was a kid. And mussels are far from unknown in Midwestern lakes.

Anyone else besides us ever hear of coho or steelhead?  Lake Michigan SALMON.  High Five, MAJeff.

Here ya’ go.  http://www.lakemichiganangler.com/

ANd yes, know about the mercury, working on it.  ANd for you east coasters, also heard about a resurgence in Chesapeake Bay oysters.  What’s really silly about this Beck and wingnut rejection of healthy food, is that a lot of their rural farm supporters (think Joel Salatin types) are finally making a living off of the farm BECAUSE they’ve chosen to pasture their pork or grassfeed their beef as opposed to cafo it.  Seems to me they’ll have a bit to say or better yet, just stop supporting Fried Twwinkie Beck

it’s somehow transgressive while being entirely conformist.

Movement conservatism in a nutshell.

@ Crissa 122

I’m extrapolating from my own experiences where plants, especially flowering ones, and things like aftershave, perfumes, and deodorants were forbidden to be around me lest I catch something from the plants because I was neutropenic or get nauseated and start vomiting from strong smells.

I know it would be difficult for a school to prevent a person from being accidentally contaminated with something that will make someone have a severe reaction or get sick from, but it just seems to me that a school controlling what foods are allowed in or better disallowing outside foods from being brought in (with exceptions for students with specific dietary needs) and serving foods that are the least likely to cause any sort of reaction plus disallowing any sort of creams or perfumes or aftershaves, aerosols, to be used at school would be for the best.

It would just be a minor convenience for many but it would help keep those for whom it really matters safe.

RT - it would be a <bold>minor inconvenience</bold>? - you don’t have kids, do you? 

My kid has special dietary needs (healthy, real food) and as his/her parent I have the need for sanity in the a.m…
1) School lunches suck and are longterm health dangerous - ammoniated beef, all pre-cooked meat, processed cheese blech,  steam tray veggies - all the cheapest the USDA can supply. 

2) so, home made lunches?  Lunchables aren’t an option for vegan/real health conscious folks, so let’s actually MAKE something.

3) a sandwich?  homemade or good wholegrain bread - check, natural peanut better (you know, healthfood store ground peanuts and nothing else, good jelly no hfcs etc. and the kid likes it and will eat it and can even make it him or herself by a certain age.  What you are asking is for parents to keep an entire separate set of foods for their kid to take to school because of some other kid’s sensitivity?

The commonsense solution is for the allergy sensitive kid, if they are THAT sensitive to eat in a special “no allergen zone” instead of imposing their restrictions on everyone else.  Would you have all the able-bodied kids give up tag at recess because the non-abled can’t run?

Still,she’s not bringing any information that’s new or hasn’t been told a bunch of times.

Yeah, we all remember the Great Republican Freakout of 2001 which sparked national outrage about Laura Bush’s redundant, nagging promotion of literacy, which they decried. Seriously, corwin, what is mentally and morally wrong with you right wingers? Your problem is that you have a sort of irrational hatred in your hearts for anything liberals do: it is an example of how association with movement conservatism slowly but inexorably results in moral corruption of its members. Your next problem, of course, is that your comments are only barely literate. Also, you claim to be a damn doctor. You should be signing up to support Michelle Obama, which of course you would if you weren’t so infected with the moral rot of rightwing Republicans, so instead you come here and whine about it.

Bitter Scribe evidently has British ancestors who disdained calamari while my Italian ancestors raved about it.

FYI, all four of my grandparents emigrated from Greece.

RT - it would be a minor inconvenience? - you don’t have kids, do you?

I’d like to adopt one day, however I am not going to until things are better for me, until I have a job one can live on. My kid should have a better and more stable childhood than mine.

However anticipating your argument:

1) School lunches suck and are longterm health dangerous - ammoniated beef, all pre-cooked meat, processed cheese blech, steam tray veggies - all the cheapest the USDA can supply.

School lunches do suck. I want schools to serve good food that promotes healthy development of growing bodies and minds.

2) so, home made lunches?  Lunchables aren’t an option for vegan/real health conscious folks, so let’s actually MAKE something.

I’m not arguing for the current status quo in terms of what is fed to children at schools as “food.”

3) a sandwich?  homemade or good wholegrain bread - check, natural peanut better (you know, healthfood store ground peanuts and nothing else, good jelly no hfcs etc. and the kid likes it and will eat it and can even make it him or herself by a certain age.  What you are asking is for parents to keep an entire separate set of foods for their kid to take to school because of some other kid’s sensitivity?

Kids shouldn’t have to bring foods in period. They should be fed good food at school to help them get the most out of their education, and the foods offered should take sensitivities into account.

The commonsense solution is for the allergy sensitive kid, if they are THAT sensitive to eat in a special “no allergen zone” instead of imposing their restrictions on everyone else.

Yeah, segregation is common sense, however common sense is bunk. Do the dangers of student segregation have to be reiterated to a progressive audience in the face of lethal bullying the “others” of a student population face?

Would you have all the able-bodied kids give up tag at recess because the non-abled can’t run?

You ought to get a refund from the hyperbole store you shop at, this just besmirches your intelligence.

As to the person who said that peanut butter can’t jump in to the allergic kids mouth, I was friends with someone who when we were kids had to go to hospital because her grandmother had kissed her after having eaten a peanut butter sandwich an hour previously.

Food is totally cultural.

For the ultimate example of this, read the story of Greenland in Jared Diamond’s “Collapse”.  An entire European colony starved to death near some of the richest fishing grounds in the world.

@137, or alternatively, read something that isn’t completely made up crap. Diamond was way off base.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=247x29833

RT - one very good definition of reality is starting from where you’re at, not some future, perfect world.  So as most people on here will tell you, asking the harried parents (read primarily mothers) to do more in the morning is asking WAY too much.  Like I said, that post reeked of the non-parenthood.

Student segregation when it is baseless is detrimental.  Student segregation when is has a good relevant reason is OK, like putting the high ability kid into a special program so they are appropriately challenged is OK, doing so because they have blond hair is not.  Not putting the kid with the 80 IQ in advanced astrophysics is not discriminatory - unless you’re a hardcore mainstreamer - not allowing them in because they are girls is not.

In addition RT, it’s not hyperbole, it’s called a valid analogy.

jesus crapped in an outhouse, maybe. convince me that if jesus could have had indoor plumbing instead, he wouldn’t have jumped at the opportunity. same thing with t. jefferson.

as for rightwingnuts and junk food, i say let them eat all they want. with luck, the cholesteral and trans fats will kill them all in short order.

Yes, the American Southwest, and some interior areas of CA have a lot fewer rivers, lakes, streams for freshwater fish, but that’s about it.

I suspect if Beckles heard that the banh mi food truck outsold the burgers when they stopped in Appalachia, his head would explode. If he found out that no one turned into a flaming multiculturalist as a result, his penis would explode as well.

I’d like to see that.

hp, #143:

My sister’s boyfriend is in that crowd. Only drinks Keystone Light. Last time we were over there, he wasn’t even interested in me leaving half a six of Narragansett behind—and it’s almost exactly the same style. But better. And not light.

There’s something similar going on in the Northeast, especially in Massachusetts, with coffee; the Boston Phoenix did an article on it a year or so ago. In most major US cities, there’s a Starbucks on every block; not so much in Boston, where it’s only every other block. However, a lot of Bay Staters are fanatical Dunkin Donuts fans. Well, Dunkie’s pours a decent espresso, but their plain ol’ coffee, to me, leaves something to be desired. That doesn’t matter, though—Dunkie’s means you’re a local, Starbuck’s means you’re a latte-drinking loser. (Do not get me started on whether Starbuck’s coffee tastes burnt or not; I really don’t give a flying charlie foxtrot, since it’s beside the point.)

To give you an example—Krispy Kreme tried to expand into Massachusetts, and from what I understand, the braintrust that runs the company (who should be drug out and shot for criminal neglect of a great brand) expected the MA stores to help shore up their flagging fortunes elsewhere, and pulled out when they were merely profitable, as opposed to a runaway success. Now Tim Horton’s is moving ever so slowly into Massachusetts (they have a fairly strong presence in Rhode Islands and my trips to Providence always involve picking up a half dozen of Timmy’s in the shop on Dorrance St, down the street from City Hall)—they obviously know better than to let themselves get run over by Dunkie’s. Admittedly, Dunkin Donuts being based in Randolph (south of Boston) probably has a lot to do with it, but still…

Admittedly, Dunkin Donuts being based in Randolph (south of Boston) probably has a lot to do with it

Yep, basically.  Dunkin is a local chain that has a “New England identity” for the natives. The irony of course is that the greater Boston area used to have a lot of small, independent doughnut/coffee places all over the place, and Dunkin Donuts drove them all out of business.

@hp 142 - Imports really piss the hell out of a particular subset of the hyper-masculine crowd.

There are enough good domestic artisan beers buying imports isn’t necessary.

RT - one very good definition of reality is starting from where you’re at, not some future, perfect world.  So as most people on here will tell you, asking the harried parents (read primarily mothers) to do more in the morning is asking WAY too much.  Like I said, that post reeked of the non-parenthood.

Yes, the “it’s too hard” excuse when it comes to accommodation. Yeah, let’s make the few constantly deal with a very large burden because having the many lift so much as a feather individually to give the few a break once in a while is simply asking too much.

Student segregation when it is baseless is detrimental.  Student segregation when is has a good relevant reason is OK, like putting the high ability kid into a special program so they are appropriately challenged is OK, doing so because they have blond hair is not.  Not putting the kid with the 80 IQ in advanced astrophysics is not discriminatory - unless you’re a hardcore mainstreamer - not allowing them in because they are girls is not.

Mealtimes are the times where a lot of social interactions occur. It seems to me that segregating students during this important time during a school day would be very harmful by creating an automatic out group that the rest could attack.

And, as a person who is mentally disabled and has always been mainstreamed and has chosen to stay so, I think you could label me a “hardcore mainstreamer” if you like. Understand that I think the “mainstream” should be exposed to those who differ from their tiny sliver of experience and learn to accept the non-mainstream as a valid member of their society.

In addition RT, it’s not hyperbole, it’s called a valid analogy.

You were actually skirting the edges of ableism but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. Shall I not do so?

Rt you are so off base in thinking that abled kids and their parents accommodating every frickin’ category and sub-category of allergen is “no problem,” it’s laughable.  The few are much more able to know to what extent their allergy goes, and what can set them off, for one - as the peanut oil discussion showed.  If you really want to be considered “normal” then realize that everybody has issues - and by that I mean sensitivity, allergies, religious sensibiities, vegan restrictions, health etc” .  Asking everybody to not do x because it is a problem for someone else is ridiculously constricting.  Take some fuckin’ responsibility.  I happen to be very allergic to bee/wasp stings.  This is that time of year when they are really out.  Sugar and meats attract them like crazy.  By your logic, EVERYONE, must not have sugar or meat to eat if I am in the vicinity, or in case I might be in the vicinity because you don’t want me to feel bad or “different” by tattooing “wasp allergic” or sugar free zone on my forehead. 

Seems it’s a lot easier for me to carry an epi-pen.

And let me clear up your doubts, dude.  Mainstreaming?  You know I really wanted to be a valid member of society - and sports is when so much of that socializing takes place,  I just knew I should have DEMANDED to be on the basketball team.  How DARE they exclude me.  How basketballableist of them.  Even though I would have singlehandedly caused a losing season and those other kids would have lost scholarships - why shouldn’t they have had to pick up a bit more of the burden to make up for my basketballdisability.

Funny, what we take for granted with physical ability and sports, we refuse to see in other areas.

There are enough good domestic artisan beers buying imports isn’t necessary.

I don’t think the people who refuse to drink imports as “froofy beers” differentiate between imports and domestic artisanal craft beers. They all fall under the category of “imports.”

Just found out something pretty interesting about some of those “local” beers though, especially if Local issues are important to you.  Visited one in the Cooperstown area - purported “farmstead” brewery.  Do they brew the beer there?  Yes.  Do they grow the hops locally?  NO.  WE were told a virus in the area decades ago killed off the hops and growers presume the virus is still laying dormant in the soil of the entire area - the import their hops from Belgium, and the Belgian company they partner with insists on using French made bottles - with Corning glassworks in the area?  Our conclusion, FAKE local brew.

phylosopher:

If you know very much about the brewing industry, that’s hairsplitting at best. A lot of American hops grow in the Pacific Northwest (particularly eastern Washington), for example; it’s pretty rare for brewers to locally source things like that unless they’re already in the middle of the growing area for whatever ingredient (hops, barley, horse urine, etc).

hp, have you ever had Anchor Steam Beer?:

Modern steam beer, properly known in the brewing community as California common beer, was originated by Anchor Brewing Company, which trademarked the name Anchor Steam Beer in 1981. Although the modern company has corporate continuity with a small brewery which was still making traditional steam beer in the 1950s, Anchor Steam beer is a craft-brewed lager. The company does not claim any close similarity between it and turn-of-the-century steam beer.

Explanations of the word “steam” are all speculative. The carbon dioxide pressure produced by the process was very high, and one possibility is that it was necessary to let off “steam” before attempting to dispense the beer. According to Anchor Brewing, the name “steam” came from the fact that the brewery had no way to effectively chill the boiling wort using traditional means. So they pumped the hot wort up to large, shallow, open-top bins on the roof of the brewery so that it would be rapidly chilled by the cool air blowing in off the Pacific Ocean. Thus while brewing, the brewery had a distinct cloud of steam around the roof let off by the wort as it cooled, hence the name. It is also possible that the name derives from “Dampfbier” (literally “steam beer”), a traditional German ale that was also fermented at unusually high temperatures and that may have been known to nineteenth-century American brewers, many of whom were of German descent.

#155:

Good stuff, good stuff. Very much like a decent Oktoberfest, but a little crisper. It’s a little on the pricey side though, so it only gets bought for special occasions. (I once used the yeast to make a room temp Oktoberfest once, actually. (Trust me, that makes sense to a brewer.))

The point Brian, is that a lot of what you may be buying as a local farmstead brew is a whole lot of hype.  I’d rather see some good beer made honestly, than the fake (it was never a farm, this place was built as a brewery in the mid 1990’s all for show).

I was making the tour guide pretty nervous with my questions, which she really tried to evade, but I tend to know the questions to ask about local. 

I really don’t give a frick what is standard practice.  As in all the instances of imported products - if it can be grown locally, it’s unsustainable to use petroleum products to import.  In this case, hops have been successfully grown in the region, and today’s varieties are resistant to the fungus (downy mildew) and new hopyards could be established.  IN this case, the Belgian company the original owner sold out to, wants a market for Belgian hops, even though they could establish new yards.  In the meanwhile, we export 70% of our US hop crop.  You do know a bit about sustainability and local, and development of sense of place as a value, right?

For the “above all, piss off the liberals” crowd, that’s an invitation to act like a 4-year-old who does something he didn’t even really want to do, just to defy his mother who told him not to do it.

That does seems to animate so many on the right, doesn’t it? They’ll happily live in mud so long as they know their opponents are living in shit. Kathleen Parker recently commented:

(Sarah Palin) and I apparently share a certain genetic predisposition to annoy all the right people. These would be the folks who take themselves and their ideologies a tad too seriously. Thus when I was promoting my book, “Save the Males,” I wore an aggressively feminine suit—pink with a bow in back—just to irritate hard-line feminists, who, without bothering to read the book, would hate it on sight.

I happen to hate bows, but it was worth it.

And she’s got the microscopic royalty checks to prove it!

phylosopher:

I am quite aware of those matters. But I also realize that there are certain matters about which one must remain practical.

Sure, because of course microbrew drinking is a matter of practicality (eyeroll) and that trumps issues like ethics and sustainability. I can be as foodie as the next person, but you really come off as a pompous, arrogant ass.

phyl, I’m not keen on sitting around here and let you bait me into a pointless more-local-than-thou argument. You may as well pretend you didn’t respond for all I care.

because of course microbrew drinking is a matter of practicality

Microbrew drinking is a matter of taste. It never had a claim to be about local/sustainable agriculture. More specifically, it was about the ability of local people to design, brew, and sell small batches of beer whose style and taste do not necessarily have to appeal to a large market. Not that I have anything against the concept of beer made of locally-grown components, only that this isn’t what people are necessarily looking for when talking about local breweries.

Which, Tyro, if you look at my original post, I said, for those interested in “local.” My point was that this particular brewery in much of its public face and advertising, presented itself as continuing a local tradition, and being a farmstead brewery which has implications of growing its own grain or hops.  IN a lot of cases, it is hard to be both brewer and farmer-that’s starting two businesses at once and needing expertise in both. IN this particular case, the company, Duval, has the resources and has chosen to rely on putting lots of petroleum into this beer as opposed to growing local.  If they just opened a factory in town and brewed beer there, I wouldn’t have a problem.  It’s the misleading, expensive facade that rankles. I’m not fond of being scammed.

I find it interesting that while I proposed a systemic fix for a systemic problem in a specific setting, and a very easy fix at that as all the schools would need is more money and more staff, yet you seem interested in creating some odious thing that looks like an argument and spouting baseless hyperboles.

Well I’ll be honest, I don’t find it interesting; I find it amusing.

Me: Maybe people could put in little help to make things easier for those who have to bear an undue burden placed on them by society.

You: Oh yeah? WELL YOU’RE A JACKBOOTED EQUALITY NAZI!

Me: lol

R.T., systemic rearrangments to solve non-problems that supposedly only affect tiny minorities is considered annoying at best and entitled at worst. I wouldn’t tolerate someone telling me what food I could and couldn’t bring to work, and when it’s not even a health problem in the first place, no one wants to hear that about school lunches, either. The solution is to make accommodations, not force everyone to rearrange their lives for the perceived needs of one person.

Gawd, there’s few things more terminally annoying than the deliberate politicization—right and left—of food consumption. It used to be the vegan-tards who insisted any diet outside of say, millet and blueberries, made you a moral and spiritual reprobate. Now it’s the tea-tards who insist that the only real men are those who cram nothing but stuff obscene quantities of fatty meat down their gullets.

To everything, a season. That goes for food too. Live and be well.

R.T., systemic rearrangments to solve non-problems that supposedly only affect tiny minorities is considered annoying at best and entitled at worst. I wouldn’t tolerate someone telling me what food I could and couldn’t bring to work, and when it’s not even a health problem in the first place, no one wants to hear that about school lunches, either.

Someone possibly having severe allergic reactions which often requires hospitalization is “not even a health problem”?  That’s news to friends and acquaintances with peanut allergies… 

If the problem concerned could be a matter of life or death as is in this case, banning peanuts/peanut based foods is the best option until they find an effective vaccine/cure for this allergy. 

As for mainstreaming in schools, it depends on whether the accommodations given facilitates the disabled student’s ability to work to the academic standards set by the school or whether the policies are uncritically used by lazy/disinterested educrats and teachers to lower academic standards across the board to the detriment of all students. 

Am a bit cynical about some aspects of the “mainstreaming” movement because a few decades ago, some politicians and educrats in my city have tried to use it to justify attempting to do the latter or worse…dismantle schools/programs for those who excel academically.  Fortunately, there was enough of an outcry from the public, parents, and alumni that a law was specifically passed to resist any repeated attempts.

If the problem concerned could be a matter of life or death as is in this case, banning peanuts/peanut based foods is the best option until they find an effective vaccine/cure for this allergy.

It’s possible to have an anaphylatic reaction to almost anything.  Professor Avenger discovered that he was allergic to pomegranate wood while picking some pomegranates from a tree out in a vacant lot for me.

He didn’t have to go to the hospital, but he’d never eaten or had anything to do with pomegranates before this, and of course he scrutinizes every item that might have pomegranates as an ingredient.

Peanut allergies can take lives, I remember a case about 30 years ago where a young college student died from eating chili at a restaurant which used peanut butter as an unmentioned ingredient for thickening purposes in their recipe.

it depends on whether the accommodations given facilitates the disabled student’s ability to work to the academic standards set by the school or whether the policies are uncritically used by lazy/disinterested educrats and teachers to lower academic standards across the board to the detriment of all students.

My nephew’s parents actually had to fight tooth and nail against their school’s administration just to meet the basics of the IDEA. Most disabled childrens’ families I’ve talked to have had similar experiences.

If the problem concerned could be a matter of life or death as is in this case, banning peanuts/peanut based foods is the best option until they find an effective vaccine/cure for this allergy.

Banning those things in schools won’t do much, if anything, for you I imagine. Upthread someone mentioned a kid getting sent to the hospital by her grandma, right? And the only kid I ever knew who died of a peanut allergy likewise was exposed at home, when she ate a neighbor’s chocolate chip cookie. Banning peanut products in school wouldn’t have helped in either of those situations. (Yes, this is anecdata… anyone got actual stats on home exposures vs. school exposures?)

Plus, it’s much easier for the allergic kid to be careful about taking food from peers and kissing than to enforce that 2000 kids don’t bring X list of potential allergenics—it was nearly impossible to enforce at a summer camp I worked at, with all of 100 kids. And I had a friend in highschool who was deadly allergic to apples and carrots… and not-quite-deadly allergic to just about everything else under the sun (including nearly all other fruits and veggies.) How in the world could she be accommodated by an entire school full of people?

Seriously, if you start putting clothespins all over your body, the flinching I’m doing is a natural human reaction to something that looks painful, not a sign that you’re winning by pissing me off.

No, actually, you really are winning by pissing me off! You want to know what would piss this liberal off even more? Hitting yourself in the face with a hammer. Man, that shit pisses me off!

Let’s see, of the various classes/groups my kids have been in, there have been 0-1 students out of 30-50 that have had peanut allergies. So, roughly <1% to a high of 3% of the population.

Peanut butter is an economical, vegan, healthy, shelf stable, kid tested source of protein.

It can be banned entirely.

Or, the kids who are sensitive can endure a mealtime (20 minute) separation, just like kids with other health issues have for years endured missing gym class or boisterous recess play. 

Making a safe zone is a reasonable accommodation.  Restricting others is an imposition.

Or, the kids who are sensitive can endure a mealtime (20 minute) separation, just like kids with other health issues have for years endured missing gym class or boisterous recess play.

Making a safe zone is a reasonable accommodation.  Restricting others is an imposition.

Separating out the allergic kids is a great way to single them out for bullying and abuse from classmates. 

Moreover, why should allergic kids be forced to be deprived of the socialization benefits inherent during mealtimes with classmates? Why should they be stigmatized for having a potentially life-threatening allergy?

You may want to take a look at this article to see how effective separating out kids in “special zones” is in actual practice:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/28/food.allergy.bullying/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Uhhh, no exholt.  It’s about kids being bullied because of food allergies “or special food/dietary requirements”  (which would include vegan kids, Jewish kids, Muslim kids, diabetic kids, etc.)  Only the mother cites that SHE doesn’t like the special table. If some kids are THAT sensitive, isn’t it better to let people know that “hey, if you have a peanut granola bar on the way to school, stay away from Josh or wash your hands before you hand him a paper, share your crayons, etc.”  It’s not hte table, it’s that the other kids know - and for Josh’s safety, they should know.

It’s the bullying that’s the problem.  And you don’t address bullying by attempting to do away with the bullying trigger.  For one, it’s futile - there will always be short/tall kids, glasses/braces kids, early/late sex characteristic development and so on.  Bullies will find something.  What is necessary is changing the bullying behavior and that takes: small classrooms, involved teachers and parents, and other and enough school personnel.

Some schools have simply gone to assigned seating (much like schools that got tired of dress codes went to uniforms) and let the kids make the rules for their own tables.

It’s the bullying that’s the problem.  And you don’t address bullying by attempting to do away with the bullying trigger.  For one, it’s futile - there will always be short/tall kids, glasses/braces kids, early/late sex characteristic development and so on.  Bullies will find something.  What is necessary is changing the bullying behavior and that takes: small classrooms, involved teachers and parents, and other and enough school personnel.

It is not just that it is a bullying trigger….but that the food in danger to those with a peanut allergy is the equivalent of a harmful chemical substance or lethal weapon.  Would you be ok with a child bringing and waving a bottle of mace or pepper spray to school? 

What is necessary is changing the bullying behavior and that takes: small classrooms, involved teachers and parents, and other and enough school personnel.

Unfortunately, that only works in an ideal world in my experience and the horrendous experiences of dozens of college classmates who endured worse forms of bullying than I ever experienced.  A large part of this in our experiences is the apathy or even encouragement given towards bullying by parents of bullies and their allies, school personnel, and even teachers along with the lack of willingness to provide meaningful correction or even serious sanctions/consequences for the bullies caught in the act…up to and including being suspended or separated from the school for their actions for the sake of the victims and the rest of the student body.

If anyone is still reading this thread: I don’t think it’s logistically plausible to expect all children at a school, unless it’s a fairly small one (and the parents are cooperative), to refrain from bringing in peanut or other allergenic products, then regularly search all lunch boxes and bags for dangerous contraband. Honestly, if a school can make the effort and devote the resources to police the lunches of anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand kids, it can make the effort to put the fear of jeebus into the bullies, if only to deter lawsuits.

Of course, this being the U.S., what’ll happen is that eventually a kid will die, the school will be sued, and the district will cover its ass with a “zero tolerance” policy that doesn’t actually prevent food allergy–related;bullying.

I think there’s a class issue here that Phylosopher has touched on. Peanut butter is not only healthy but cheap. Given how much budget-cutting the schools have been subjected to over the last quarter-century, I have to wonder how many low-income kids would get sufficient nutrition for the day if peanut butter were banned.

Bullying sucks, as I know from personal experience. I don’t know what the answer is. I feel bad for the kids involved.