Recipe Box: Tiramisu

Desserts are my shtick, really. I love to make them, make them better, and make them pretty. I especially love the look on people's faces when I pull a recipe off the way I wanted to; it's like I've created actual happiness out of sugar and cream. I wonder if that's what an artist feels when they finally get the canvas to match the image in their head. The difference is that desserts are more of a momentary triumph: they're only really successful when they've been eaten. Very zen, now that I think about it.

Yes, there was a point where dessert was the enemy, but then I found that while something really luscious usually has more calories and fat, it almost always takes less of it to satisfy. I asked myself if I'd rather have a truffle than an entire bar of cheap baking chocolate, and the answer is definitely yes. From there I moved into the first glimmers of my fat acceptance journey, where I'm trying to teach myself that if I crave something, a substitute is probably not going to ease that craving. I'm learning to eat intuitively. Part of that, I believe is a matter of quality. If I can eat anything I want without guilt, there's no reason to eat anything that doesn't taste as good as it can. If I'm craving a salad, I'm not craving iceberg lettuce and Colby-jack, I'm craving field greens with Gorgonzola and pecans. If I try to satisfy that craving with iceberg lettuce and Colby-jack, I'll keep eating and grazing on things I don't want, past the point of fullness, trying to drown out the craving I should have satisfied in the first place. Maybe that's just my understanding of it, and since it's a new concept to me, I'm sure it'll evolve as I learn more.

That being said, here's my Tiramisu recipe. I don't use the raw eggs of the traditional recipe, because that's a good way to die :-) This recipe makes about a square baking pan (8"x8") but can be doubled or more to serve a bigger crowd.

TIRAMISU

Ingredients:

4 extra large egg yolks (or 5 large egg yolks)
1/3 cup fine (not confectioner's) cane sugar + 1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup brandy (or frangelico)
1/4 cup coffee liquor (kahlua)
1 cup espresso (about 6 shots from the coffee shop)
1 pound (16oz) Mascarpone Cheese
16 oz heavy whipping cream
Approx 30 toasted ladyfingers, or 30 savoiardi cookies
1/2 bar gourmet white baking chocolate (Ghiradelli)
1/2 bar gourmet dark baking chocolate (Ghiradelli - I use the 60% cacao but you can go darker)
Dark Cocoa powder (I use Hershey's "Special Dark" cocoa powder)
2 teaspoons vanilla

Tools:

*serving dish(es) (see notes below)
**double boiler, makeshift or otherwise
wire whisk
grater for chocolate (the "fine grate" area on a cheese grater works well)
Mixer (hand or stand)
fine strainer or mesh sieve (cheesecloth works in a pinch)
The usual collection of mixing bowls, spoons, etc.

Notes:

*For a fancier presentation you can use an 8" or 9" round springform pan with the sides lightly dusted with cocoa powder. If the Tiramisu sets up firmly you can remove the springform and it looks terrific. If something goes wrong, like the custard or cream doesn't set up right, or the world just hates you that day, you run the risk of the whole thing "oozing" out on you and being ruined. "You pays your penny and you takes your choice" :-)

Another option is to use individual serving dishes, or even large wine glasses, which looks impressive and elegant. I haven't measured out the recipe for that but you could probably get at least 10 wineglass size servings out of this recipe, probably more.

**Until someone notices me looking yearningly at the double boilers at Ikea and takes pity upon me, I use a steel or ceramic pot (not Teflon, it will be scratched by the whisk) set in a slightly larger pot that has about 3 inches of simmering water at the bottom.

Procedure:

Place beaters and the mixing bowl you'll be using for the cream in the freezer to chill.

Fill the sink or a large glass or metal bowl 1/2 way with cold water and ice.

Custard:

bring the water in the bottom of the double boiler to a simmer.

In the top of the double boiler, add egg yolks, 1/3 cup sugar, and 1 tsp vanilla.

Start whisking the moment the yolks touch the pan and don't stop for 8-10 minutes.
The mix should ideally turn the color of ivory and thicken to pudding/custard consistency.

Remove top of double boiler from heat and dip the bottom 1/2 of pan in cold water to stop the cooking. continue to whisk for a minute.

Pour mixture through mesh strainer into another bowl (pref. glass or metal) to sort out any bits of cooked egg that escaped your whisk.

Cover and place in refrigerator to chill.

Prep:
While the custard is cooling, you can prep other aspects of the Tiramisu:

dust the serving dish with a light layer of cocoa powder (you can skip this step if using clear individual serving dishes as the cocoa gets smeared when you add the cream and will spoil the look.)

grate the chocolate and mix the gratings together evenly. the chocolate may be easier to work with if you chill it first.

Coffee mix:

Combine the espresso, brandy, coffee liquor, and 1 Tbs sugar in a small bowl. Set aside.

Once the custard is chilled, gently stir the Mascarpone cheese until smooth to even out any settling from the package.

Add the Mascarpone cheese to the custard and stir (don't whisk) until smooth and even. Place in refrigerator.

Wash the mesh sieve, as you'll need it later (unless you have two)

Cream:

Retrieve the cold bowl and beaters from the freezer.

Use an electric mixer to beat the whipping cream and 1tsp vanilla until just after the soft peak stage.

gently fold the mascarpone/custard mix into the whipped cream until even.

Assembly:

give the coffee mixture a stir in case it's separating

dip half the ladyfingers/savoiardi in coffee mixture (they should be moist but not soaked) and arrange in a layer on the bottom of the serving dish.

Add 1/2 the filling mixture

Add 1/2 the grated chocolate mix

Repeat: dip the other half of the ladyfingers/savoiardi in the coffee mixture and arrange in a second layer.

Add the other half of the filling mixture

Using a mesh sieve, dust the top lightly with cocoa powder (not too thick), then lightly sprinkle the other 1/2 of the grated chocolate over all. If you have a lot of grated chocolate, it's ok to have some left over, you don't want a thick layer of it or it will be overwhelming.

Chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

If you have a high sided pan you can do three layers for a more dramatic effect, using 1/3 of the ingredients in each layer. If you're doing individual servings you might want to make it a single layer, but go with your instincts to do whatever looks right.

A garnish sets this off well. I'd recommend some arrangement of a few strawberry slices, candied orange zest, or chocolate-covered espresso beans.


That's good Zen :-)

Counting Calories in the OTHER direction

An interesting opinion piece from a mother who keeps track of her daughter's calories, but in this case, to make sure she eats enough.

The article, "Counting Calories, but Not to Shed Pounds" by Harriet Brown first appeared in the New York Times. It begins with a woman hunting through the ice cream case for the one with the highest calories. Her daughter is a recovering anorexic with a fast metabolism, as well as an athlete. Brown talks about how it's a struggle for her daughter to get enough calories in a day.

"Part of being in recovery from an eating disorder is eating well. In Kitty’s case, this means eating fruits and vegetables, chicken and fish and eggs, breads and pasta. It also means eating ice cream, potato chips, bagels, cream cheese and other calorie-dense foods that have acquired the taint of mortal sin in our fat-phobic culture."

And then, in a classic "AHA!" she points out what is so obvious to us and so alien to other members of our culture...that dieting actually does make a person gain weight:

"I grew up in a household where food was divided into two categories: good (celery, carrots, diet soda) and bad (cookies, pasta, anything with fat). No surprise, then, that most of the women in my family struggle with weight, in part because of a familial culture that promoted cycles of dieting and binging."

I was really pleasantly surprised to see such a controversial view in a major newspaper stated so casually, as if it were just something everyone knows. I wonder if this is a glimpse into what it would be like if the fat-phobia went away, and we got to reminisce about the bad-old-days when people thought dieting actually worked. I wonder if we would still have eating disorders?

"Kitty’s illness and recovery have taught me that there is no such thing as good and bad foods — that all food has its value and place in the diet, whether you’re skinny or fat, a recovering anorexic or struggling to lose weight."

YES! Well-put. But I wonder, it seems that the same sentence from a fat activist would never make it to the page. Is that me just being cynical?

When Brown finally finds an ice-cream with sufficient calories to help keep her active daughter healthy, she faces head-on the public's belief that they have the right to pass judgement on what we put in our mouths, regardless of whether it has an effect on them:

"A young mother with her baby asleep in a stroller stood behind us, tsk-tsking. A trim older woman holding a container of low-fat frozen yogurt scowled disapprovingly.

When two teenage girls, as skinny as greyhounds, whispered and pointed, my heart sank. How would Kitty take this? Would it underscore her differences and set off a wave of eating-disordered feelings? Would it upset her?"

If the whisperers and pointers knew the girl's history and the effect their judgement might have, would it make a difference? I like to think so. But I also believe that it doesn't matter, because no one should have to justify their eating habits to a stranger. Actually, no one should have to justify their eating habits to anyone! The people sitting around shocked that a mother would dare give her daughter actual ice cream should, in the words of the folks at Shapely Prose, STFU. When did our culture become so fond of judgement, or is it just the new and disimproved generation of Mrs. Grudy? Are reality shows giving us the impression that everyone's private lives are on display for their consumption?

Anyway, let me try an experiment. I'm not trying to deinigrate the struggle of those who are recovering from eating disorders, but let's take the same article and replace the characters with a woman with a fat daughter. The daughter is still a competitive cyclist, so she's very fit, but as it is for all people, you can't tell that by a person's weight or eating habits. Do you think the opinion piece would have been published without a corresponding "disclaimer" about the dangers of being overweight? Do you think the reactions of the people in the store might have been more extreme, more vocal, even physical? Do you think the reasoned, logical statements about every food having a purpose, or about how dieting pressure added to her family's weight would be as well received?

It's possible that the example above is just sour grapes. Of course it's possible. I'm not in any way criticizing the article itself, it's a good one, a positive one that shows strength in the face of public ignorance. I'm just wondering.

Affirmations

Sometimes it's hard to not let the haters get you down. Even when there's a lot of love and pride out there in the blogosphere, it seems like sometimes a single negative comment can hurt enough to overwhelm the empowering messages out there. Maybe it's because I'm too new to this. Recently healed wounds re-open fairly easy. Maybe I just need to hang around long enough to develop good scar tissue against fatphobics. Maybe my SAD is just kicking up with a vengeance in the face of the gray skies and ice storms. Or, maybe I need to get more sleep so I don't get all crotchety in the mornings before coffee :-)

Whatever the cause of my current blah's, I know that the best way to combat them is with something positive. In searching for inspiration, I've put together a Youtube playlist of fat and size-positive videos, from Joy Nash to Velvet D'amour. So on this dreary, icy (at least here) Monday morning, I give you my affirmations playlist. The player below should play them in order (there's 15, some quite short). If you want to pick and choose, just follow the link. If you have a suggestion of one to add, please comment with a link!

Follow Up: The How

On Wednesday I posted a blog talking about how the popular assumption that fat is a choice is our primary obstacle to Size Acceptance. In the comments, Shade asked a really good question. How do we work to destroy that assumption? It's all well and good to analyze a problem, but what about solutions? I didn't respond in the comments because I could tell the answer would be long enough that it would need its own post. Oh boy did it. Sorry to put out such a long post when I'm finally out on the Fatosphere feed, but hopefully it's at least something that will prove useful. You might want to read the original post for reference.

From what I've seen since my recent belly-dive into SA, everyone would/does have a unique idea about how this could be solved. Of course, being actual complex and diverse human beings instead of just mass-produced representatives of a cause, each idea will work for one segment of fat activists, but not so well for another. That's why there's so many different organizations out there. If we were all cookie-cutter replicas of one physical, political, philosophical, religious, racial and socio-economic mold, we could all join one international Size Acceptance organization, throw ourselves behind a single message and be done with it.

We're not.

So that being said, the question of "How" in response to any problem cannot be answered with a single solution. Each person will have different capabilities, time restrictions and comfort levels. Expecting each and every supporter of Size Acceptance to drop everything in their lives to march on Washington waving a sign is unrealistic. It is as counter-productive to try and convert them to your own brand of activism as it would be to try and convert them to your particular concept of divinity.

It is the responsibility of any individual to determine what they are able and willing to do in response to any problem. Taking on that responsibility begins with finding a single cause or action you can agree with and feel strongly about, then do what you can to gather the tools you need to fight it within your capabilities. Not everyone can form a national organization. In truth, if everyone tried to do so the playing field would be so cluttered that fighting for supporters and resources amongst the organizations would eclipse the purpose they began with. There's enough fight for everyone to take a piece. There are a few approaches that are only mutually exclusive if those choosing a particular approach try and force their choice on others. If we all remind ourselves that effective activism cannot be single-minded without becoming dogmatic, we many find that the paths others walk happen to also lead to our own destination.

That being said, I've seen the following theories that may work for those seeking to start tackling actual solutions. The approaches, pros and cons are entirely my subjective interpretation, so I'm certain there are things I'm overlooking. These are also generalities. I'll expand them into specific examples in future blogs.

1. Get out the Science

Speaking as a geek, science is our greatest tool against myth. It's difficult in SA, however, to separate the junk science sponsored by the pharmaceutical and diet industry from the truly objective study. When a study does come out, it's often ignored or misinterpreted by the press. That's why it's important to broadcast objective studies as widely as possible. This may involve blogging to spread the study to other Size Activists, but from there it needs to go wider. Send studies to your local paper, especially if one of the reporters has a history of fat-friendly coverage. Send studies to national news organizations such as NPR or BBC, Time, Newsweek, or even traditionally fat-negative publications like Reader's Digest. Keep an address book group in e-mail, or a snail-mail address list for these contacts, and send the information every time a new study comes out. If the study data is fat positive but the summary isn't, include a note re-interpreting the data or pointing out discrepancies in the conclusion. This is a hands-on but not a face-to-face confrontational method of spreading information.

Pros: A good return on time investment. If you take an hour each time a new study makes the rounds of SA blogs you can have a far-reaching effect. If several people send the same study to a publication they'll be more likely to actually take interest in it, so your efforts are multiplied.

Cons: You may get responses, sometimes even negative ones from the publications. It's important to realize that not everyone is going to be immediately convinced, so it may require some ability to brush off ignorant people. You may want to experiment with which reporter you contact, so that you can find the most objective or fat-friendly one.

I go into more detail at: The How: Get Out the Science

2. Know the Facts and FAQ's

Sometimes simply knowing what to say in response to stereotyping is an important and positive way of defeating ignorance. Actually studying fat as you would any other topic for school prepares you for difficult conversations and confrontations in the real world. Be able to quote facts and studies. If you're good at percentages, that's a perk. Most of us could get by with simple things like "you know, a study was done that proved you can't make a naturally thin person permanently fat or a naturally fat person permanently thin?" Read the FAQ's on FA blogs and organization websites, and be prepared when questions come up.

Pro's: When the topic comes up in conversation, that may be your only opportunity to refute stereotypes. Once that moment has passed it's often awkward to bring it up again. Be able to answer questions, refute common stereotypes, etc. on the spot and you will be able to be a spokesperson without coming across as a fanatic.

Con's: Some people just don't have a head for facts, and aren't comfortable putting themselves out in a conversation. That's why different approaches work for different people. Just being able to calmly point out general ideas, and maybe knowing a few websites like Shapely Prose and Junkfood Science would allow you to refer people and let others do the speaking.

More Details at: The How: Be a Knower

3. Be an Example

If fat people are fit and eat well, they are able to serve as walking examples of how a healthy diet and exercise will not reduce adipose tissue beyond the natural "set-point" of a person's body, even if that set-point still falls under the arbitrary definition of "obese". If fat people are always well dressed, made-up and coiffed, it challenges stereotypes. If fat people are busy and productive, it destroys bias. This particular solution is for those who would rather serve as an example than take a more confrontational approach to activism.

Pro's: People respond well to different forms of evidence, and the kind of person who will write off every statistic and scientific study you can throw at them may only be convinced by an actual person you can point to and say, "see, that person, that group of people defy every assumption behind your theory that fat people only need to exercise and eat well." The people who interact with you will take away a certain impression of a fat person that will serve as a buffer against hate.

Con's: The biggest objection to focusing on examples is that there's a danger of dividing people into "good" and "bad" fatties. Those who cannot exercise regularly for reasons of mobility and pain often feel marginalized by those insisting that fat people must keep themselves in peak fitness just to prove someone wrong. There is also the risk of only half a battle won; where fat people who don't exercise or eat healthy are still treated as subhuman by the rest of the world. Personally, I don't think every solution has to be "all or nothing," and there is such a thing as a foot in the door. I do think it's important to make HAES part of a greater whole instead of the primary focus, but I also think it's a very positive form of activism for those who choose to adopt the HAES lifestyle. As far as the personal appearance approach goes, some would say that forcing themselves to an ideal of artificial beauty through fancy clothes and make-up just to avoid resembling a stereotype is dehumanizing in its own right, and living your life deliberately to avoid resembling a stereotype is still allowing a stereotype to control your life. This issue is complicated, but either side has excellent arguments as to why it works or doesn't work for them.

4. Don't Accept Negative Portrayals

One of the tried-and-true methods of activism is the letter writing. If you see a negative ad, product, media story, movie, etc., it is important to realize that they cannot feel your hurt and anger from the corporate office. Oftentimes they're not even aware that their portrayal or coverage of fat issues was negative, they might simply not know any better. Or they might. Either way, letting them know how you feel is a positive step for Size Acceptance, regardless of how it's received. Write the company (e-mail if you have to, but paper letters have greater impact). Let them know what you are specifically objecting to or felt insulted by. Give them some facts that show them why their actions or words were unacceptable (NAAFA and other organizations have downloadable brochures on their website so you can keep the letter simple and include information separately) and ask them to be more considerate in the future. Be calm and rational. Many organizations have tips on writing an effective protest letter.

Pros: This is a method for those who are good with words and able to organize their thoughts clearly. It is most effective when several people write, so be sure to get the word out via blogs and forums when you do send a letter so that others can respond as well.

Cons: This can be somewhat time consuming, but having a few standard letters (i.e. a "media" response letter, an "ad" response letter, etc.) and editing them to be pertinent to the situation will cut down on that time. You may get negative responses from time to time, so be prepared to keep your spirits up.

5. Boycott

Companies, TV shows, movies, etc. are all effective targets for boycott if their product or practices are offensive. There's a difference between "just not shopping there anymore" and an actual boycott. In the latter, you inform the company (both the branch and parent company) that you are boycotting them. You give your reasons for doing so, and present a list of things they can fix in order to regain your business (i.e. larger sizes in the store, no more fat jokes in the episodes, no more diet ads in the magazine, etc.). Then you spread the word to encourage others to do the same.

Pros: This is an effective method because you hit them in the wallet instead of the social conscious (often a much smaller target). It also teaches businesses how to better serve their fat clientele overall.

Cons: This may involve sacrifice of clothes or products that you like. It's a matter of priorities and some people may not have enough alternative options if they have to boycott their only good clothing source, for example.

6. Don't Accept Bad Behavior

This means that when someone on the bus behind you cracks a fat joke, you turn around and confront them (calmly). When your co-workers criticize someone for their weight, you try to educate them. When a family member pressures you to diet, you tell them why you won't. This is an every single day commitment to fight prejudice wherever you encounter it. It's important to do so in a way that changes their mind instead of reinforcing their stereotypes, so you may want to practice encounters on friends or family so you know your words and can speak them with authority. It requires you to remain calm even in the face of hate, and to risk confrontation with strangers.

Pros: This puts the activism where it needs to be, in the every-day thinking of the average person. When it's effective it is incredibly empowering, and you know that you were responsible for changing a single mind, which may ripple out to change others.

Cons: It takes incredible courage to confront a stranger on his/her assumptions, especially when they're being hateful. It may take more to confront a friend, family member, doctor or teacher when they display sizist thinking. Clear thinking, study to know what to say, a very calm temper and a certain amount of human psychology is needed, but small changes can be made every day as you are comfortable.

7. Use Your Creativity

Poetry, fiction, art, photography, theater and other creative ventures provide a way for the audience to connect to and identify with fat on a deep-rooted level that no scientific study could possibly reach. If you have a creative streak, think about how you can use it to promote positive images of Size Acceptance and size diversity.

Pros: People receive information in different ways, so this provides more diversity in how size acceptance messages are transmitted to the public. A picture or poem may say more about the subject than an essay could ever hope to cover.

Cons: Obviously not everyone has creative talent, so this may not be an option for everyone.

8. Get Political

Projects like Cofra's Fat 50 initiative are helping to gain ground in achieving legal protection for people of size. Currently only Michigan and a few cities in California have weight as part of their non-discrimination policy. Contact your municipal, county, or state government to try to add "weight" (Michigan includes "height and weight") to the legal non-discrimination policy. Organize others in the same area to combine efforts.

Pros: Legal protection without being classified as disabled will help provide a legal foundation to fight medical, employment, accessibility and other barriers to Size Acceptance.

Cons: This may involve you to be a very visible activist to be effective. You should probably be (or have someone in the group that is) comfortable talking to the press, calling supporters and political representatives on the phone or speaking to them in person.

9. Get Local

Fight sizism where it counts: in your backyard. Does your local library carry size-acceptance books, like Paul Campos and Marilyn Wann? How about your local middle and high-schools' libraries? Is the gym at your community center size friendly? What kind of message does your local school give children as far as health and weight? Could you talk to your PTA or school board about size acceptance, especially concerning gym and health classes? Is there a local scout troop that could benefit from learning about size acceptance? How does your paper treat people of size? Approaches could range from letter writing, fundraising to buy books for schools, teachers, libraries and scout leaders by SA authors, to public speaking and workshops.

Pros: Local action allows you to do something meaningful where your actions produce faster results than at the national level. It also affects you personally, as it helps create an accepting environment where you live.

Cons: It involves direct activism where you live, so many people will balk at being known in their own town as a fat activist. It may also involve being a somewhat public figure, speaking skills, and depending on how visible you become, being interviewed. Those who won't be willing to give up their fatphobia may make life uncomfortable for you since they live in the same town.

10. Get Organized

On a national level, there's really not a lot of reasons why anything would need to be started from scratch in the U.S. There's a lot of organizations with projects in the works to cover a lot of different issues through different methods. World-wide, on the other hand, I see a lot of posts from people lamenting the lack of national organizations to join. A group lends the power of numbers to any message, so while individual efforts are important, it is equally important for there to be collective action on a larger scale. I'll go into more detail when I do a separate post on this, but one thing I have to point out. The one thing all organizations have in common is that someone actually started it. Someone, or a small group, decided they wanted something done, that an organization could be formed to accomplish it, and just started it. Every giant multinational organization probably started with a small group or a single person with an idea and a willingness to do the work to accomplish it. It really doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

Pros: Starting an organization or joining an existing one means that your voice is combined with many others to greater effect. There is some of the work shared (although the leaders really should expect to do the majority of the work) and provides encouragement through others with similar goals and experiences.

Cons: Organizations = Politics. When humans gather, they will automatically begin to pass bylaws, disagree, splinter and faction. I've never heard of an organization that could remain permanently utopic. Prepare for it, understand that you will never be in complete agreement with all members of the organization, and try to recognize/deal with/excise interpersonal drama before it interferes with the group's purpose.


So this ended up longer than I thought and I'm still only in the generalities. I'll make a point of future posts expanding the concepts in this one and applying activism suggestions specifically back to eliminating the "fat as choice" myth, amongst others. In the meantime, if you have suggestions, please feel free to comment!

Recipe Box: The Perfect Pot Roast

It's Friday, I haven't slept in three nights because of constant drama with an ancient furnace that wakes me up shivering three times a night so that I have to trudge out to the garage and reset the pilot. I'm cranky, exhausted, and want a cigarette so badly I'm ready to chew my own thumb off. So no deep thoughts today hmmmkay? :-)

so really, this is what's known as shameless filler because a pot roast sounds really good to me right now. I've done a lot of experimenting with it, since it's one of those dishes that can be stretched over weeks of meals for a single person, or feed a lot of friends. This is the recipe that's evolved through trial and error. I use the oven. A crock pot will technically work but I find it does change the flavor enough to matter.

Jo's Perfect Pot Roast and Beer-tatoes

1 beef roast (duh)
1 pan 2-3 times larger than the roast, with lid
3-5 large potatoes or twice that many baby potatoes (the little red ones are perfect) cut into 1" chunks
1 large yellow onion (vidalia if you can get them) cut into slices or 1" chunks and separated.
2 carrots or 1 cup baby carrots, cut into 1 inch chunks
1 large zucchini or summer squash, sliced
1 red bell pepper or 2 Chile peppers (optional)
3 cubes or 3T beef bullion
4 cubes or 1/4 cup tomato bullion (Hooray for Mexican stores! Yes, you can use tomato paste as a substitute but it isn't quite as good. Look for Tomato bullion in the ethnic section of your grocery store or sometimes with the other bullion in the soup aisle)
1-2 tsp (to taste) ground peppercorns (black or multi)
1 T sweet basil or 2 shredded fresh basil leaves
1 T dried oregano or 1 tsp fresh
2 tsp or 1 clove fresh garlic
2-3 bottles of HoneyBrown or other semi-sweet beer (Bell's has a Cherry Stout that works well) plus, of course, however much you drink while cooking :-)

Place meat in pan (no need to defrost it first), surround/cover with as many veggies as will fit and still allow you to get the lid on.

Add bullion and spices to top and pour beer over all until the pan is 1/2 full.

Cover with lid or foil. Bake at 350F for 4 hours.

Check every hour to see if more liquid (i.e. beer) needs to be added (if the meat is looking dry or there's less than an inch of liquid in the pan) or taken away (if the juicy roast has released it's own and is about to overflow). Either situation is pretty dependent on the quality of the meat you buy, but I can tell you that even the cheapest meat gets tender after cooking in beer for this long!

After 4 hours, remove the lid/foil, baste with pan juices (can be done with a spoon if you don't have a squeegie) or more beer. Check the meat with a fork for tenderness. If it doesn't pull apart easily, add another hour.

When the meat is tender, crank it up to 400F. cook until top is brown, usually another 1/2 hour.

Remove the meat and veggies to separate bowls. You can use the pan drippings for gravy, freeze it for soup stock, or discard.

The alcohol does cook off, for those who think I sound like a complete boozer :-) This freezes well, tastes as good or better as leftovers, and is easy to separate out into tupperware-size servings for hot lunches.

So that's my filler of the day. Now I need coffee.

Fat as Luxury: 1977 Letter From the Fat Underground

I first came across this letter via a post at Red. 3. It is a 1977 letter from one of the first Fat Activism groups in the U.S. to a fictional therapist created as an amalgation of the "radical therapists" they were trying to involve in Size Acceptance. It strikes me that now, 30 years later, the essential facts and points of the letter are not only just as true, but may not even be any less radical in the face of accepted public policy and social assumptions. Why is that? The letter might contain the answer:



"I know that you consider support for liberation movements to be a basic part of your work as a radical therapist. That is why I left our last conversation feeling hurt and angry, sensing that you consider fat liberation to be some sort of "luxury" we fat people can't really afford."



The concept that being fat or thin is an actual conscious choice, rather than a biological reality, is probably the largest obstacle to FA and Size Acceptance. When the concept that one has no more choice in their body's natural size than those born tall, short or olive-skinned manages to seep into public consciousness, then and only then will we have a fighting chance for acceptance, equal access, and humanization. The myth of choice may the hardest hurdle to cross, even for those of us who realize its essential fallacy. Often even our allies against Sizism will, somewhere in their paradigm, still see fatness as a "luxury" or "lifestyle choice" to be "tolerated" rather than a state of being to be accepted.

Kate Harding did an excellent piece on The Fantasy of Being Thin, talking about the magical thinking surrounding thinness and the pseudo-religious belief that being thin would not only solve all your problems, but magically transform you into a better, more likable person. This belief is certainly not limited to the fat person's own feelings of self worth, but is echoed by teachers, doctors, therapists, friends, family, and all the well-meaning people who's only advice for a myriad of conditions, from depression to loneliness, is to lose weight.

The venemous fat-haters and trolls are easy to ignore by simply reminding yourself that they are just lashing out from their own self-loathing, projecting their inferiority complex on the object of their fear, or simply being ignorant ass-hats who never learned any better. Harder to ignore are the people who honestly care (or think they do) about your well being. Their lack is that of real information. They do manage to seperate the fat from the person inhabiting it, but they are often as deeply entrenched in their fear and hatred of that fat as their crueler counterparts. They'll tell you to be happy with who you are, but in a way that implies you should do so to somehow compensate for the "negatives" of fatness, or in the hope that a positive attitude will help you stick to a weight-loss plan. They'll try to compliment you by asking if you've lost weight, but with the implication that doing so should be intrinsically tied to beauty or your own happiness. These people are harder to fight, because they really do think they're being kind. They often subscribe to the idea that fat is a disease that can be treated, with all of life's ills as symptoms. They believe that treatment for the "disease" is a matter of choice, and therefore, so is fat.

Even many who are supportive of Fat Acceptance are secretly in the "fat as luxury" paradigm. They say they believe you have the right to be accepted no matter what you look like, but in the same tone as they would defend dress, hairstyle, or brand of vehicle. Their true belief, if you dig down far enough, is most likely the right to choose whatever lifestyle you prefer. Unfortunately they never get rid of the idea that fat is a lifestyle choice, rather than a genetic and biological reality. Perhaps they were never fat themselves, and can't help the hypnotic implant of thousands of ads and pharmaceutical company sponsored research. Perhaps they still have some lingering self-loathing that they have never managed to shake. As long as someone is fat and healthy they are willing to stand with them and fight for their rights. Their support is helpful and welcome in that they do lend a voice to improve conditions for fat people. If the fat person becomes unhealthy, however, whether it be joint problems or some disorder inherited from their parents, the advocate is likely to turn one day and say something along the lines of "enough is enough now. It's been fun, but you can't afford the luxury of indulging in this lifestyle of being fat any more."

This concept of fatness being an indulgence hovers behind every act of discrimination, every negative media story, every discussion over whether schools should have a coke machine. Behind the smoke and mirrors of pseudoscience, humiliation, isolation, assumed health risks and attractiveness lies the foundation of believing "fat is a choice." From that is extrapolated the questions as to why we would "choose to be fat," and excuses any and all dangerous and dehumanizing methods to make us change our minds. That is the first domino to tip in the fight to be treated as equals in the world. All the data showing that fat isn't necessarily unhealthy, all the pieces that show fat isn't necessarily unattractive, and all the fights against specific stereotypes of fat people must start with the refutation of fat as a choice. We must first prove without a doubt (and the proof is out there in many forms!) that one is fat because of unavoidable natural factors that cannot be corrected. That proof must be made a part of public consciousness through constant repetition and informational campaigns, not just accessible by those whose minds are already changed. Until that is done, all other evidence and arguments can be misinterpreted by fat-phobics as attempts to justify or defend a "choice". Once that first domino is tipped, the rest (being treated as human beings, removing stereotypes, equal access to medical and legal care, etc.) can't help but follow. I'm not suggesting that all other efforts be put on hold, however. Violations of human decency such as adoption denials, children taken from the home, pressure to have organs amputated through WLS, and denial of health insurance, are real here-and-now issues that demand a response, but once the stigma of choice is removed, I believe the other battles will become easier.

As far as us fatties, we (ask Kate Harding explained) need to let go of magical thin thinking. Most of us will never be thin, but some will still kill themselves one pound at a time for the Holy Grail of thinness. We will waste time, money, life and health seeking that cooler, sleeker, sexier, smarter, and beloved imaginary person we think is hiding somewhere behind the fat cells. We need to let that person go. We need to realize what we are capable of as humans (which is a LOT) and understand that the ideal person inside us doesn't need to claw it's way out through the adipose tissue. It's a state of mind, a release of fear, and the realization that the "thin person waiting to get out" may actually be a fat person waiting for you to recognize and accept him or her as part of you.

NPR News: Fitness a better indicator of health than fat

Hooray for the U.S.'s National Public Radio! On All Things Considered last night, a news story covered a fitness and mortality study which was published in JAMA:

"A long-term study has tracked the exercise and death rates of a few thousand Americans beginning at age 60. The new findings break those older Americans down into five groups, from the most fit to the least. Researchers documented 32 deaths per 1,000 people over the course of a year in the least fit group. This compares with 16 deaths in the group that was just slightly more fit, and eight deaths in the most-fit category"

The best part of the story was that a national news organization has finally and publicly admitted the lack of correlation between weight and fitness:

"The men and women in Blair's study may be a little more fit than older Americans in general. But among the group there were a fair number of overweight and obese participants, including individuals with a body-mass index, or BMI, of 35 and above.
"There's a sizable number, nearly half, who are fit and proved it on the treadmill test." says Blair. "So you can't tell by looking at someone whether they're physically fit.""

And everywhere, a million money-grubbing diet industry gurus cry out in a single voice.."No! Say it ain't So!"

But then, perhaps in reaction to habit, perhaps to keep the guns against him at bay so that he's not relegated instantly to the back shelf as some kind of crazy-liberal-radical, Blair stops short in his conclusion, reverting to the usual rhetoric:

"I believe we have an obesity epidemic. It's a bad sign. We should not ignore obesity," Blair said. "But what happens all too often is we focus nearly exclusively on obesity and forget the activity and fitness part." "

Most of the media coverage are emphasizing that particular quote, and the Reuter's story being distributed goes on to quote the usual CDC silliness about all the horrible things obesity is supposed to cause. Perhaps that is their attempt at removing "bias" by offering more than one viewpoint? I haven't noticed that the media cares much about offering more than one viewpoint when the article is Sizist, so why start now?

Well let's take the good we can get. When looking for more coverage on this story I found that they didn't just measure BMI when splitting participants into categories, but also included body fat percentage and waist circumference. Which means that this may be one of the first really good studies that really proves that you can be fit regardless of weight. Even better, that getting fit doesn't necessarily include losing weight:

""If you're overweight or obese and you're sedentary and unfit and you start taking three 10-minute walks a day and you do that at least five days a week, you're not going to lose an enormous amount of weight," Blair said.
"You're going to still be heavy. But you're going to be much healthier if you do that," Blair said."

Really, that's a pretty radical admission from someone in medical research, and I think we should take the study, even some of the more biased coverage of it, as a big fat positive :-)

House Tackles Fat

No, not the House of Representatives...I'm talking about the Hugh Laurie drama series on Fox.

I don't usually watch TV. I haven't watched actual TV for several months, but last night I got to curl up on the couch in a pile of blankets to watch TV, the ice forming on the inside of the windows, the thermostat dipping below 25 degrees F (-4 Celsius) while I waited for the furnace repair people to show up and figure out why I had no heat.

The cats were not impressed.

Anyway, it was uncanny how the first TV show I've watched in so many months had a fat theme. Remind me to post my theories of synchronicity at some point. Better yet, go get Jung from the library :-)

Here's the summary from Fox:

When an obese 10-year-old girl presents with a heart attack, House and his team investigate. At first thinking it’s an adverse reaction to diet pills, they ultimately uncover a much more deadly source of her illness.

It's a re-run of course, and originally broadcast in 1995 (episode #116: "Heavy") And just to cover myself, I quote the episode a few times below, and would like to point out the obvious in that I do not own House, it is owned by Fox and NBC/Universal and they retain all rights. Any quotes are definitely unofficial and from an unofficial transcript by fans.

The summary is a bit misleading, since the diet pills theory came later in the episode. At first the only cause they focus on is the girl's weight. This episode is almost an expose' on fat bias in medical treatment, and a sad testament to why fat people often don't seek medical treatment, or suffer from misdiagnosis when doctors make assumptions. For example:

Chase: She’s morbidly obese. The “morbid” part of that raises alarms.
Foreman: Come on, it takes decades to eat your way into a heart attack.
Chase: Doesn’t take decades to kill yourself. If I was that fat, I’d be pretty tempted to knock back a bottle of pills.
Cameron: It’s not a drug overdose. The fatigue, muscle pain, and difficulty concentrating have been bothering her for over a year.
Chase: That’s because of her depression.
House: That’s what five pediatricians, two nutritionists, and a psychologist said. The heart attack would seem to indicate that they missed something.
Foreman: It’s got to be something genetic.
Cameron: What about Metabolic Syndrome X?
Chase: Insulin resistance?
Foreman: Syndrome X could cause a stroke, but I don’t know about a heart attack.
House: Could, if her blood pressure was high enough.
Cameron: Which is likely, considering her weight.

Personally? I have very low blood pressure. The doctors go with this (wrong) diagnosis and subject the girl to a dangerous testing procedure that exacerbated her condition, causing an open staph infection. The only thing that gets the doctors to see past their weight bias is the mother's willingness to fight for her daughter:

Mom: She’s diabetic?
Cameron: No, but it’s similar. MSX patients don’t respond normally to insulin, which causes her body to create too much, which causes metabolic abnormalities. We’re going to do a test to be sure, but there are certain dangers.
Mom: Is this thing treatable?
Cameron: It’s controllable through proper diet and exercise.
Mom: Wait. Jessica already eats right. And she exercises every day!
Cameron: I know you’ve already seen several nutritionists –
Mom: And we’ve done everything they recommended.
Cameron: I understand, but –
Mom: Why can’t any of you doctors see past her weight? If diet and exercise are the treatment, then the diagnosis is wrong.

Go Mom! Unfortunately, while Dr. Cameron starts to learn empathy, Dr. Chase continues his fat hatred throughout the episode:

Chase: Obesity isn’t something you just grow out of.
...
Foreman: And you figure making her feel like crap would do her a world of good?
Chase: Yeah, if it gets her off the couch!
Cameron: I’m sure she’s already under enough pressure.
Chase: Enough from mummy?
Cameron: Everything in society tells us we have to be thin to be successful.
Chase: No, society tells you you have to be thin to be attractive. And guess what, that’s what attractive means: that society likes looking at you.
Cameron: I think we should be telling our kids it’s fine as long as they’re healthy.
Chase: All right. You weigh 90 pounds because it makes you healthier?

Then:

Cameron: Right, because anything's possible, but nothing's going to cause multiple clots in a kid this age.
Chase: She’s fat!
Cameron: Obesity doesn’t cause blood clots.

Then House, who at least seems to hate everyone, so the reaction is typical and somehow less offensive.

House: But what about some other ridiculous obesity treatment?
Foreman: Like what?
House: Diet pills can cause heart attacks and blood clots.
Cameron: Her tox screen was negative.
House: Wouldn’t show over-the-counter weight loss drugs.
Cameron: Her mother wouldn’t give her diet pills.
Chase: [sarcastically] Yeah, she thinks her daughter’s perfect just the way she is.
House: She’s lying.

Because a parent couldn't possibly be happy and proud of a fat daughter. Cut to the school, where Dr. Foreman is interviewing the friendless girl's assigned 8th grade "buddy"

Clementine: All she does during recess is run laps around the playground. She says she’s exercising, but everyone knows it’s just because no one wants to play with her. I mean, I’m only her buddy because Ms. Ayers assigned her to me. That does not mean I am her friend.
...
Clementine: I totally busted her for taking drugs one day. She totally lied, said they were diet pills her mom had given her. Come on, get real. No way a girl like that is taking diet pills.


And another fine example of fat hatred from Dr. Chase:

Chase: Right, so I guess it’s the media and pharmaceutical companies’ fault now?...Not the fact that she can’t stop shoving food down her throat. No one forced her to get fat.
Cameron: No one forced a cancer patient to get cancer.
Chase: Give me a break, it’s not a disease.
Foreman: Have you seen the latest research?
Chase: Yes, I have. What I haven’t seen lately is a kid eating an apple or riding a bike. You Americans can’t even compete with the rest of the world in basketball anymore, unless, of course, it’s the type you play with a remote control on a big screen TV.

And a clean miss on the fact that the girl ran laps every day...and that her diet was controlled by a nutritionist.


To wrap it up, the girl develops a staph infection and open lesions from their treatment and only when her life is at risk do they manage to get past her weight as a cause (and leap right to it as a symptom...why does it have to be related at all?) They find a tumor on her pituitary that is stunting her growth, causing her other symptoms, and making her fat.

So in this case, despite the excellent examples of fat-phobia, bias, hatred, and myth-busting, fat is still a "disease" and something to be "fixed" by the crack (or cracked?) doctors. The episode finishes off with the now taller and thinner "fixed" girl smiling for the first time in the episode.

A secondary story line is around a fat woman who comes in for heartburn. House misdiagnoses her as pregnant, despite the fact that her husband had a vasectomy and they use condoms. Even though the character is portrayed as stupid, there's some great quotes.

Lucille: Okay. [She hops off the table and gestures to herself.] This is what a woman is supposed to look like. Okay, we’re not just skin and bones. We have flesh. We have curves.
House: You have little people inside you. [Lucille grabs her purse and heads to the door.] Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I guess I must have just been brainwashed by the media, and all those years of medical training.

Later they discover that she has a record-breaking 30 pound benign tumor on her ovary. Talk about misdiagnosis. Even though the tumor is completely benign, they still assume she'll want surgery to remove it since it would also give her a flatter belly. They're shocked when she disagrees.

Lucille: I’ll have a huge scar! I won’t be able to wear a bikini!
House: You wear a bikini now?
Lucille: Yeah, you got a problem with that?
House: Nope, but I’ve never gone swimming with you.
Lucille: I knew it. That’s what this is all about! You are trying to force me to have cosmetic surgery!
House: Yeah, that’s exactly why I planted a thirty pound tumor on your ovary.
Lucille: It’s not gonna kill me. [House and Wilson share a “are you hearing what I’m hearing?” kind of look.] The only thing surgery is going to do is change the way I look. That is the definition of “cosmetic surgery”.

Woohoo! Point set match for the fat chick! Later the husband manages to convince the disbelieving Dr. House that he DOES actually like his wife's body, but convinces her to have the surgery out of fear of health complications from the tumor (which was causing her heartburn).

Ok, so that's the episode. And I can only justify such a long post about a re-run TV episode by the conflicting impressions about it. There was such a mix of sizism and size-positive in the episode that I could find something to love and hate in every scene. On the positive side it did a very good job in portraying fat bias in medicine and society. The fat hating characters actually come across as mean-spirited, ignorant and irrational, which is pretty unique in a medical show. On the other hand, the fat-positive message falls a little short. The gutsy fat chick with the tumor is portrayed as stupid and delusional, pretty much a slightly more sophisticated fat joke than usual. The fat girl shows the incredible dehumanizing treatment of fat children, but her weight is still a disease to be "fixed" instead of simply acknowledging that someone can be genetically fat despite a healthy lifestyle. The fact that it IS "fixed" in the end reinforces that mixed message. Plus there's a bit of ethnocentrism thrown in for fun, since the most vocal fat-hating doctor is Australian, and he's the only one who doesn't learn compassion or make progress towards actual size acceptance in the course of the episode. Or could it be a class-based comment, since he's also the only independently wealthy character? Hard to tell.

Santa is Undergoing a Crash Diet

Some of the buzz around the net is talking about a call from Acting U.S. Surgeon General Galston to follow in the footsteps of the British and require Santa to be thin in order to be a better role-model for kids.

In order to help Santa in his new endeavor to lose weight, children are asked to replace the traditional milk and cookies with celery sticks and herbal tea. Environmental Scientists disagree, stating that the effects of such high doses of fiber to both Santa and his reindeer may cause a significant increase in the North Pole's carbon footprint.

Now what's really scary is that I only had to make up the second half of that. The first part is true, and just asking to be Fark or Onion fodder. Santa is now apparently a lifestyle role model for hundreds of children. Perhaps the fat kids in the schoolyard are inspiring jealousy amongst the kids with the misfortune to be genetically thin.

Right.

I would dearly love to hear from anyone who deliberately ate the enormous amount that it would require to make a naturally thin person fat, simply because they took Santa as a role model. Really.

Anyone?

It says something about the primal, subconscious level of fat fear in the world that this is even an issue. It's all very Brave New World. This fear, like all phobias, persists despite all evidence that no actual danger exists. Like so many phobias, it also has a negative effect on the ability to enjoy life. Parents have been made so terrified of fat children that they take away all the traditions of holidays which we once enjoyed without fear. Trick or Treating, a candy cane from Santa, chocolate eggs at Eostre's feast, Pumpkin Pie at Thanksgiving....The strongest positive memories of childhood are often related to the sight, smell and taste of holiday foods. Mom and dad could have saved a bundle on the cool toys, because my sharpest nostalgic memories from childhood Christmas involved the smell of the tree, the sound of the music, the view of the lights when I lay down looking up through the decorations, and the taste of the orange rolls we made for every Christmas breakfast.

Oh, and the lite-bright. I take it back about the cool toys...that lite bright was awesome. First grade, I think. :-)

I understand that by religion and health, some children have different memories and associations of traditional times in their lives, but generally I think most kids grow up with at least one childhood memory that centers around food. It speaks to us on a deeper level than the glitter and flash, the family arguments, or the kitchy decorations that moulder in the attic each year. There is a reason why our most treasured holidays emphasize food. Now there is a culture-wide leeching of all the rich symbols of the seasons because of some ridiculous fear that a child may ingest too many calories or fat grams.

A life lived in fear is not lived. Whether it be a fear of terrorists that makes us hide in the house and hate our neighbors for their differences, or a fear of rejection that shrivels us up inside until we cannot bear to think of connecting to another human being. If the fear of fat is causing you to stop living or letting children live, isn't that worse than any imaginary health effects it might have? There are so many legitimate things to worry about, don't sweat what you really, really cannot change.

Ok sure, so the very traditional mythic Father Christmas/Pere Noel/Kris Kringle was a tall, thin stately figure or a slim child of the fae. Someone will probably say that they're just returning Santa to his roots (and how eager would they be to do so if they knew how oh-so-deliciously-pagan those roots were?) But the fat jolly Santa is a staple of our modern culture. He's a part of the modern mythology, for we have so few good stories left to raise the children on. How old does a tradition need to be, in order to be sacrosanct? Is there even such a thing anymore?

The Salad is Not your Enemy

I'm on a veggie crave at the moment. The Panera Mediterranean Veggie Sandwich is calling my name sweetly from afar. Ah the siren song of cilantro hummus, the sweet strains of tomato-basil bread.....



I've never been a full vegetarian, but I tend to follow my cravings as a guide for eating. Generally if you have a serious craving, it's something your body needs. Of course, everyone has their emotional "trigger" foods as well, but generally it's always better to follow your intuition when it comes to...well just about everything. On the other hand, sometimes I wonder if an aimless "snacky" craving for nothing in particular is really a grazing instinct because I'm craving something I've never tasted before. Maybe my instinct is seeking a bite of some rare Korean flavoring or a drink of some exotic fruit juice.

Well...maybe not, but it's a good excuse to learn all kinds of interesting new dishes :-)

Growing up, we had a saying about my brother. It went "the only green things he likes are grapes and money." He hated most green vegetables, to the point where mom started to find creative ways to hide them in sauces and stuffings. It wasn't until adulthood that he figured out why he hated salads so much. Or rather that he didn't...he just hated bad salads. Generally the salad we grew up with was iceberg lettuce (bitter and nutrient-poor), bland cheese (mozzarella or tasteless commercial colby-jack) and packaged (over-sweet) dressing.

When he got out of the house and into his own kitchen, he started to experiment. In experimenting, he found out two things...he hated iceberg lettuce, and most off-the-shelf dressings are actually pretty gross. The first time I saw him actually sit down and dig into a plate of what they call "rabbit food" with evident enjoyment, I almost had to check him for signs of alien abduction.

He tossed the iceberg (insert rimshot sound here) and started with raw baby spinach and field greens. He chose toppings for taste and quality instead of accepting the traditional (really, does anyone actually like croutons? Unless they're homemade, they're basically stale leftover bread with a little fake butter flavor and decades-old herbs. Yuck.)

Low and behold, he actually found himself liking salad. Low and behold, I followed his example and found that a salad is actually supposed to taste good, not just be bland raw filler material disguised by too much dressing. I found that the cheese to lettuce ratio doesn't have to be anywhere close to equal, if you buy cheese you can actually taste. That's why I like the little import-cheese cooler in the grocery store instead of the standard dairy case. You find cheese that actually tastes like cheese instead of tasting like thick oil or slightly musty butter :-)

So, in honor of the first seriously winter day this year, I present my brother's perfect harvest salad:



Raw baby spinach and/or mixed field greens (I like 1/2 and 1/2 spinach and "spring mix" that uses baby lettuces, endive and mustard greens)

Extra-extra sharp cheddar cheese, (the sharper the better) cubed or crumbled.

roasted sunflower seeds, salted or unsalted according to your taste.

Dried cranberries

Dried Cherries

Grape Tomatoes. I personally hate raw tomatoes, but they work well on this salad for those who like them.



My brother stops there and eats it dry. I like either a fruity vinaigrette (cherry or raspberry) or a really sharp italian dressing to provide a foil against the sweetness of the dried fruit.



Since then, about five years ago, I've re-discovered salad as a good thing, a thing to crave because it tastes good, not an instrument of torture to keep from being too hungry on a "diet".

Wait...what happened to the epidemic?

So after years of extremist scare tactics and scientists screaming from every rooftop that the Nation, nay the WORLD is getting fatter by the very second, that our children were at risk from the DEADLY and contagious disease of fat and if we didn't do something drastic, we would all become enormous blobs living in little floating chairs sucking down 5000 calories a day and die of diabetes...leaving the earth to lower life forms (like cockroaches and fundamentalists)

Then, in a trick reminiscent of the stage magician who pulls the tablecloth away while leaving crystal and candlestick undisturbed, the CDC comes out with the astonishing information that there has NOT been a significant increase in the number of obese people in the last five years (since 2003).

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/07newsreleases/obesity.htm

Oh, happy day! The billions of dollars we've been dumping into government tactics and research and programs and banning coke machines in school are finally paying off!

Wait, the trick isn't over yet...what new wonders shall be revealed in our victory over fat? Why, that would be a 2004 CDC report that said...

...wait for it...

That there wasn't a significant increase in the number of overweight or obese people between 1999 and 2002.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/291/23/2847

Ta Da!

Wait...1999? Isn't that BEFORE all the expensively necessary government programs to combatant this rampant "disease" that's going to overrun the world and kill us all? Does that mean that all the hype, hysteria and marginalization of over a third of the human population was to counter a problem that didn't exist?

hmmm...

Now for the best part...folks know that a magic show isn't a magic show without that finale, that moment where they stop pulling rabbits out of hats and create a wondrous disappearing act that leaves the audience breathless. In this case, the magicians at the CDC proved as never before that they can actually make facts disappear! Impossible you say? A violation of the natural laws so beloved by our scientific institutions? Well, I say to you that not only can this astounding feat be accomplished, but a further wonder is in store! Not only will the CDC make facts disappear, but in a dark act of magical transformation they shall re-appear...

...as propaganda!

A gasp falls over the crowd...dieting women faint away with astonishment and malnutrition,
children scream...

Thank you everyone, please tip your waitresses...

Ok, so I take the analogy too far. It's a Friday. I missed breakfast because I had to chase down an escaping cat before work this morning and I get a little punchy :-) Let's try it again.

Despite that their own findings state clearly that there has been no significant increase in obesity rates in almost a decade, the CDC still tries to avert any correlating decrease in its budget by hastily re-assuring us that even though we're not getting fatter, even though we haven't been getting fatter in almost a decade, even though we weren't getting fatter when the government launched it's war on fat....well...we're still fat, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's it. So..like...we weren't trying to keep people from getting fatter, and, like, even if we were..it worked, right? Umm...so yeah we're just trying to make already fat people LESS fat! Yeah, that's it. So...like..don't be fat people. Where's my grant money? Gotta go, I've got a round of golf with GlaxoSmithKline.

Ok, one more time, and see if I can make it through without slipping into cynical mode..

In the face of their own evidence that "obesity" has not increased since 1999, and of increasingly frequent findings by others that fat doesn't cause all the nasty health issues attributed to it (in one of the greatest causality vs. correlation debacles since phrenology), they're still hanging on to the obesity fight like a hyena on a baked ham. Perhaps there's just too much at stake considering the millions they've poured into research, grants, school programs and their own staff to handle the load. Maybe they'd rather tackle obesity than a real epidemic, like aids...or stupidity.

Sorry...some days I just can't keep the snark in check. Best not to try, really.

The Fat 50 Project

An exciting new project is in the works, courtesy of Paul and the folks at Big Fat Blog. It's called the "Fat 50" project and seeks to compile a web guide for each of the 50 U.S. states with state-specific legal information for fat people.

Right now, only Michigan has legal protection for fat people built into a non-discrimination statement:

"Both State and Federal laws prohibit discrimination on the basis
of race, color, national origin, religion, disability, age, sex, height, weight or marital status under the U.S.
Civil Rights Acts of 1964 as amended, 1976 MI PA 453, 1976 MI PA 220, Title V of the Rehabilitation Act
of 1973 as amended, and the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended.."

In California, they've achieved nondiscrimination policies on a local level in a few cities. San Francisco's is particularly impressive in scope and detail:

http://www.naafa.org/fatf/sf_height_weight.html

The Fat 50 project is a precursor and guide to efforts to enact similar size-protective legislation in all 50 U.S. states by offering information on current legal status, rights, and other pertinent information. It will eventually encompass "Fat 50+" where information is available in other countries and provinces, as volunteers are found to help research and provide that information.

That last bit is key, because a lot of non-U.S. Fat Activists complain the the movement is U.S.-centric. It's a valid complaint on the surface, since most of the active organizations are based in the U.S. and there is a great need in other countries (especially the U.K.!) for support of Size Acceptance. On the other hand, for an American organization to start petitioning a foreign government for any sort of policy change will just be taken as another example of the nosy Yank trying to tell other countries what to do. There are also subtle differences in method, as the in-your-face activism that goes off well in the U.S. will fall resoundingly and disgustedly flat in most of Europe. There's a "flavor" to effective activism that can really only be captured by someone intimately familiar with the culture, its psychology and its symbolism.

If someone wants more Fat Activism in their country, it is necessary that they step up and begin. The U.S. based groups would generally be ecstatic to help and support. If someone in Germany or New Zealand were to take on the research (or recruit others) to complete a "Fat 50" page for their country, it would go up with the rest of them and serve as a jump-off point for further activism.

In other words, change starts at home.

Speaking of, they do need more volunteers for Fat 50! The following states already have coordinators, but I'm sure they'd welcome assistance and input:

Arizona
California
Idaho
Illinois
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Texas
Washington

Don't see your state there? Volunteer by e-mailing Paul. Don't have time yourself? Find someone else who might be interested. Get creative: This would make a fantastic project for School, Scouts, service credits, other organizations for collaboration, etc. It may be a backhanded suggestion, but need to punish your teenager for something? Don't just let them moulder in their room...set them to work :-)

Because, like I said, change begins at home.

Don't Feed The Humans!

This is all over the internet and blogosphere today. Paul Campos is the author of my very-own-first Fat Positive book (The Obesity Myth/The Diet Myth) Which the lovely Tante' Terri was so good as to send me in the mail one day. It really was my first first jump into the "maybe I'm not broken!" head space, from where I ran quickly through the steps of, "wait, does that mean I don't have to dump all this money, time and stress into "fixing" myself?" to "How dare those Ass-Hats out there in the world make me think I'm broken!" and all the way around to, "Poor self-hating, fatphobic ass-hat...here, have a brownie..."

In his new article, he examines the results of a recent study where the data showed one thing:

"Flegal and her colleagues found that, for a whole range of diseases, from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to infectious illness and most of the major respiratory ailments, "overweight" people face a lower mortality risk than "healthy weight" persons. In addition, they found no difference between the two groups in mortality risk from heart disease or cancer (the nation's two biggest killers, and ones that many people tend to associate with being overweight). Thus, the relative mortality risk, and by extension the overall health, of "overweight" Americans appears to be better than that of "healthy weight" people."

But the conclusions of the researchers said something very, very different. First that somehow the overweight woman is closer to "obesity"

danger Will Robinson!
What is it, Robot, giant talking carrots again?
No Will Robinson, it's much much worse...its FAT!

As if the study even touched on the haphazard methodology behind the "risks" of "obesity". Campos points out that the average woman in the overweight range is closer to the danger of being underweight, which this study finds doubles her chances of various health troubles, than the other end of the scale.

"Second, researchers talk about "quality of life." After all, life expectancy isn't everything. As Manson says, "health extends far beyond mortality rates." According to a New York Times story, Manson is concerned that excess weight makes it difficult for people to move around, and therefore impairs their quality of life. That's part of "the big picture in terms of health outcomes," Manson says. The notion that an average-height woman who weighs between 146 and 175 pounds is going to find it difficult to move about is as good an example as one could hope to find of what eating disorder experts call "anorexic ideation." Here again, we see how an argument which may make sense when talking about extremely fat people is transferred onto people who are "fat" only in the sense that they don't conform to a radical preference for extreme thinness--a preference which is one of the key explanations for why we're saddled with a scientifically bogus definition of what constitutes a "healthy weight.""

And then, once again, we're reminded that science has evolved to take on the earmarks of religion. Or, was it ever very far off? After all the Alchemists were early scientists, and devoted to their beliefs as fervently as any nun kneeling in her cell and giving up the material world for the peace of conviction.

"Still, when the entire public health establishment has put its stamp of approval on a definition, those who have staked their professional reputations on the accuracy of that definition aren't going to be deterred by something like, well, evidence. Predictably, Willett, who has been perhaps the most prominent proponent of the idea that people ought to try to maintain very low weights, was outraged by the latest refutation of his theories: "It's just ludicrous to say there is no increased risk of mortality from being overweight," he told The Washington Post."

If they were alchemists, or investigators into the chemical structure of some weird African Frog or portugeuse reef crab, I'd say let them quarrel peacefully in their own delusions. Unfortunately, we are the African Frogs. I am the Portugeuse reef crab. The fact that they are having so difficult a time accepting the evidence of their own methods says something about the uphil battle for Fat Acceptance. On the other hand, the fact that their evidence contradicts their own beliefs says something about It's accuracy, for how many scientists find only exactly what they're looking for, no matter how hard they have to mine the data to get it? Which means that whether or not they cling to their beliefs, they have given us a tool to educate others. So we should thank them.

Poor self-loathing fat-phobic researchers....here, have a brownie.

When I Can No Longer Hide...

Watching Joy Nash's Fat Rant videos, the one segment that hit closest to home was where she looked around and went through the litany of excuses that has hovered in the back of my own mind since fourth grade.

I can't talk to that guy, why would he be interested? I'm fat. If he's not interested, it's because he thinks I'm hideous. Because I'm fat. That has to be the reason, right?

But wait, she says, there are so many other reasons. I'm a bitch! I can be selfish. I can be mean...But what does all that matter when I can just say, that person won't like me because I'm fat?

When you let a physical characteristic define you, there's always the danger of it so overshadowing every non-physical characteristic that it becomes a shield, a weapon and a hiding place. If I assume that people will only react to my fatness, then it gives me no motivation to work on those parts of my personality that might stand out if I were thin. It gives me my own personal whipping boy to hide behind and justify my many actual flaws.

Personally? I can be both mean and petty. I've always been self-absorbed to some degree. I'm a terrible housekeeper. I often fall into the annoying habit (I know, because it annoys me so much when others do it) of acting like a "know-it-all", and pointing out even pointless errors of fact in any conversation in order to refute them. I smoke too much (since "at all" is really too much). So?

This isn't an exercise in "woe is me" or a moment of self-flagellation. In fact I know of many other "quirks" in my personality that may or may not be something that needs fixing...which is the real point. Fat isn't something I can fix, so by buying into the social illusion that it can, I am provided with a handy occupation that takes a lot of time and worry. Everything else is put on the back burner while I consider my fatness, because it is, in some ways, easier than tackling problems that actually CAN be fixed if I devoted head space to it.

So, fast forward to 2007 and strip away the definition of fat as a fault in need of a solution. Could it be that the guy didn't want to talk to me because I was a cringing mess of self-abuse who wouldn't even make eye contact? How attractive could that be? If I just walked up and smiled, would I have been stripped of my own excuses?

So the fortune cookie of the week: Let a definition become an excuse, and that excuse will become a stumbling block.

(Did you know the fortune cookie was actually invented at the beginning of the 20th century in California, and is pretty much a phenomenon of the U.S. and Canada? ...Ok, so no, I really can't help it. But I can work on it :-) )

Anorexic Model Dies of Heart Failure

This isn't getting a lot of coverage in the media, I picked up the article from Shapely Prose and the F-Word blogs. There have been two high profile deaths amongst runway models in the past few years:

"In August, 22-year-old Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos died during Fashion Week in Montevideo after reportedly surviving on lettuce and diet drinks.

A few months later, it happened again. Twenty-one-year-old Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston, who was 5'8", was reported to have weighed just 88 pounds at the time -- that's a BMI of 13.5."

and this new one makes me wonder if this is a new trend, or an old trend that was hushed up for many years. Of course most of us remember Twiggy, the British model who set the new standard of extreme thin in the fashion industry, which women are now dying to surpass.

"When Israeli fashion model Hila Elmalich died last week after years of fighting anorexia, she weighed less than 60 pounds."

To put it in perspective, that's an average weight for a six year old child.

In response, Israel is actually putting standards in place where by law a model must have at least a BMI of 19. It would be much more difficult, but more effective as far as public health is concerned, to require all models to undergo screening for disordered eating, because a model with a large bone structure can be seriously anorexic at a BMI of 19. The BMI scales does not take bone structure or muscle mass into account, and is therefore a really, really poor gauge of body fat content. It is an even worse gauge of health, as many professional athletes are considered overweight or obese by the BMI scale.

What I really have to ask about, however, is how her employers could have possibly overlooked her condition. Or could it be that they didn't care? One was quoted in the article as saying that a woman with curves drew attention to her body and away from the clothes. Therefore they like to use extremely thin women who didn't detract from the clothing they modeled. Isn't that a backhanded way of saying they don't want the models to be prettier than the clothes? So why are they held up as standards of beauty?

I say again, bravo to Jean-Paul Gaultier for standing against the tide. Even if it is only a promotional gimmick :-)

Velvet D'amour

The following videos are about Velvet D'amour, a Jean-Paul Gaultier runway model helping to re-define feminine beauty in France. I've also a link to a 2006 interview that I think really shows her in-your-face spirit. The third video is in French, but expresses a lot of the same ideas she reiterated in the text interview. If anyone would really like a translation, I'll slog through and give it a go.

Recipe: Caramelized Pear Custard Tart

Part of size and fat acceptance is, of course, learning to love food again. It should be our friend, not our enemy. It should be a thing of pleasure, not shame. When listening to our own bodies, we know what it needs, when we're hungry, and when we're full.

I'm a foodie (i.e. lover of good food), and love to cook. I'm a novice really, but I improvise well :-) Since a lot of my favorite foods are the result of experiments, I've decided that I will be occasionally sharing various creations that have tested well, using my wonderful friends and family as kitchen guinea pigs. They still volunteer, despite the very occasional horrific recipe failures :-) I'll try to keep recipes categorized by the labels at the bottom of the posts for easy reference. This is for the pear custard tart I came up with for my fellow foodie friends, and it sounds more complicated than it really is. I added the ground pecans for this Thanksgiving and it worked well.

You'll need:

Ingredients:
3 large ripe pears (I like to use d'anjou or red pears)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
8 large egg yolks
1 egg white
1 cup heavy cream
1 vanilla bean or 2 tsp Mexican vanilla, or 3 tsp extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 whole nutmeg or 1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup ground pecans
1 batch of standard chilled short dough, or 1 store-bought pie crust
1 1/2 lb package of Mascarpone cheese (cream cheese might work as a substitute, but the flavor might be too strong)

NOTES: The pears should be almost overripe, at their softest and sweetest. If you use vanilla instead of a vanilla bean (and I don't blame you, they're ridiculously expensive!) I highly recommend that you look for Mexican pure vanilla instead of the standard extract. It can often be found near the regular spices, in the international aisle if the store has one, or (much less expensive) at a Mexican grocery store. We've got a few in Michigan, and they're great for spices (including whole nutmeg) and harder to find items like Mole' sauce. I personally think the pure vanilla makes a big difference to the taste of desserts. It's stronger in flavor, so you would use approx. 3/4 the amount that you would extract in other recipes. The measurements in my recipes always assume Mexican vanilla.

Equipment:

A double boiler, or two pots that fit inside each other with at least 1/4 inch clearance around the sides (to allow steam to escape) and a handle or hook to keep the smaller one from sinking inside the larger one.
1 small (quart) saucepan
1 large frying pan with lid
a 10" nonstick springform round pan (a nonstick pie dish, tart dish or casserole dish will also work)
2 whisks
1 wooden spoon
mixer or hand mixer
fine grain mesh sieve or cheesecloth
large mixing bowl
parchment paper (found in baking supplies or cake decorating aisle)
1 large bag (volume of your baking dish) of dry beans or rice
nutmeg grater if not using powdered (fresh is always better)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F

Crust:
Roll out the shortdough as thin as is workable. Fit it, or the pie crust, into the baking dish. Freeze for at least 1/2 hour (this keeps the sides from slumping during baking).
When dough is frozen, line the crust with parchment paper and fill to the top with dry beans or rice. (the weight keeps the dough from getting puffy. You can also use professional "pie weights")
Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.
Remove the beans/rice and parchment paper
Brush egg white onto entire surface of crust
Return to oven and bake an additional 10 minutes or until browned. Remove from oven and set aside.

Lower oven heat to 325 F

Pears:
Core, peel, quarter, and slice pears no more than 1/8" thick
Melt 1/2 cup butter in large frying pan over medium-low heat. Add 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, and stir until sugar is melted.
Add pear slices and cover. cook for approx. 20 minutes, stirring often. Turn heat down if mixture is rapidly boiling or starts to brown.
remove the pear slices from the caramel, and layer them in the bottom of the baked crust. Return the pan with the caramel to the heat, reduce to low/simmer and continue cooking throughout the preparation of the filling, stirring occasionally. If mixture thickens (i.e. drip a bit from the spoon and it retains its shape for a moment before smoothing out) reduce heat to lowest setting to keep it warm without cooking.

Custard:
Set up large mixing bowl with mesh sieve over the top. Have the mixer ready and plugged in.
Empty the container of Mascarpone cheese into the mixing bowl.
Add water to bottom pot or bottom of double boiler until the top is floating 1 inch above bottom. Heat on high until boiling.
In the meantime, pour 1 cup cream into small saucepan. Slice Vanilla Bean lengthwise and add it, or add 1 tsp vanilla. Heat on medium-low, stirring often with a whisk, until simmering. Fish out the vanilla bean. Let simmer during next step.
When water in the bottom of the double boiler is boiling, reduce to medium. In the top pot, combine sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 tsp cinnamon, and egg yolks. Have the whisk ready because you must begin whisking the mixture the moment the egg yolks touch the pot and not let up for at least 10 minutes, or else you will get little egg chunks in your custard. The mixture will eventually thicken to a pudding-like consistency and begin to hold its shape (aka soft peak). When it does, begin to temper in the cream from the other pot, whisking as you go. Continue to cook/whisk for an additional two minutes.
Remove the filling from the double boiler and pour through the mesh sieve into the large mixing bowl to remove any egg bits that evaded the whisk. As soon as it's in, set the mixer to high to mix in the mascarpone until smooth. Beat for an additional minute.

Assembly:
Fill the baking dish approx. 1/2 way with the custard mix.
sprinkle the ground pecans over the mix
Gently add another layer of custard mix until 1/2 inch from the top
Stir the caramel on the stove and remove from heat. Pouring in a fine line, or using a spoon, criss-cross the top of the custard mix so that the caramel is distributed evenly over the custard (it will sink into the top layer)

Bake:
Bake at 325 F for 30-40 minutes, or until moderately firm. If you have a deeper dish it will take longer. The center can be a little wobbly (it'll firm up more as it cools).
As soon as it comes out of the oven, sprinkle/grate nutmeg over the top.
Serve when cooled to slightly above room temperature with a slightly acidic dessert wine.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's amazing the minefield of mixed messages you find at Thanksgiving. So many people are agonizing over the conflict of enormous amounts of what they consider "bad food" and the inevitable guilt, actual guilt over what they eat. One of my theories is that the increasing social freedoms and decay of Mrs. Grundy has simply re-directed the angst. People need a new definition of correctness and propriety in life, so they re-direct it to food. Control issues maybe? All I know is that the office talk on Monday morning will be less about family, friends, good times, good jokes, good wine, good game, then it will be endless variations of "oh I ate too much I'll have to spend days at the gym to work it off...."

I wonder what would happen if we found a way to remove the guilt of food, and just learned to enjoy each others' company? Would all the "holiday stress" be halved? Would the dynamics of judgement by distant relatives change? Sure, there's still the stress of shopping, cleaning, decorating, putting up with weird uncle Al, but somehow all the magazine racks for the next two months will only go from screaming "How to stay slim through the Holidays" and "How to resist holiday treat temptations" to "How to lose those holiday pounds..."

Why would anyone want to trade days and weeks of inner torment and self-flagellation for a slice of pie and contentment? Why would I want to resist, regret, wonder?

Short blog today, I have to go and bake a luscious, carb-filled, calorie laden custard tart with carmelized pears, crushed pecans, and homemade cinamon cajeta......

And damnit, I'm going to eat a slice too :-)

Couple denied entry into New Zealand because of weight

A UK man seeking to emigrate to New Zealand was hired as a submarine cable inspector and supervisor by Telecom. When he applied for his visa, he was denied entry. Why?

"His employer-backed skills visa was initially rejected by immigration officials when they discovered that his body mass index, or BMI, was 42, making him morbidly obese under New Zealand regulations."

So who was this slovenly couch potato? A Welsh rugby player, a former soldier.

"My doctor laughed at me. He said he’d never seen anything more ridiculous in his whole life. He said not every overweight person is unhealthy or unfit."

New Zealand now has a policy of denying entry visas for those it claims "will be a drain on the health system" and claims to have no idea how many people have been turned down based on weight. They use, by the way, the BMI scale as a determinant, which doesn't take muscle weight into account. As a point of reference, the majority of the U.S. National Basketball Association would be considered overweight or obese.

The man went on a crash diet and lost two inches, doing who-knows-what damage to his system, just to be able to get into the country. His wife, however, had to stay behind until she could lose enough weight to be an "acceptable" immigrant.

So the main argument was that fat people cost the health care system more, in a country that has nationalized health care. In addition to the lack of evidence that weight, rather than lifestyle, has ANY effect on health care costs, the article states:

Mr Trezise has private health care in New Zealand and his employer, Telecom, has a gym membership scheme."

So with the health care costs taken care of by a private company, could it be that New Zealand simply doesn't want fat people there? Even though the country is "critically short of skilled workers"? Are they seriously willing to take their image of a thin country so far as to shoot their economy in the foot?

On the other hand, some would say, he could always choose to stay in the U.K. But fat discrimination is so rampant there that they actually feel it is in the national interest to deny access to in-vitro fertilization to obese women (even though they allow it for smokers, heavy drinkers, those with congenital disorders, etc.) and institute a mandatory weighing of grade school students, going so far as to recommend lap-band surgery for obese youth. They're so afraid of the overinflated "guesstimates" of health care costs from obesity that they're willing to pay for a dangerous, ineffective cosmetic surgery with a 40% complication rate in the first few years, often ending in death, malnutrition, and organ failure.

I'd want to leave too.

Photographic Phobia

Sure, I could start off logically with a list of research, resources, and information on size acceptance, and I probably will return to that sort of information in the next few weeks. On the other hand, while a blog is, by nature, written to the public, I plan to begin with the approach of "it's my website, and I'll blog what I want to."

So I wanted to continue a post I made on a topic in the forums at Big Fat Blog which began as a discussion of double chins in photographs.

Photographs and video are "the last frontier" of self acceptance. Not just in fat people, but particularly in fat people. You can be comfortable in your skin, stand up for your rights as a human being, celebrate a healthy lifestyle, and all that can still fly out of the window at the sight of a picture of your double chin from a bad angle. It's a Pavolovian reaction instilled in us from birth by subtle and overwhelming pressure to fear being different. From childhood games "One of these things is not like the other..." to an endless stream of women held up as role-models and airbrushed into faint clones of an imaginary ideal woman as determined by self-loathing executives of fashion. It's so deeply instilled, "Brave New World" style, that only a conscious and deliberate mental detox can check it.

The topic began with a very pretty girl talking about how she considered throwing away one of her wedding photos because it showed an extra chin. She put on the mental brakes, and realized that the photo was in every other respect a good one, and ended up keeping it. I think that's marvelous, and shows great strength of character. On my part, it made me realize something else. I went through four books of photos from the last 15 years, and several digital archives. Out of all the places I've been, all the things I've done, I only have, at most, five or six photographs of myself that I consider "keepers". Not only do I discard great photos, but I've pushed friends and family to trash great pictures because I don't like the way I look in them. The result is a type of lonely invisibility. There was the year spent in Europe, with pictures of ancient buildings and crowds of laughing exchange students. I always volunteered to hold the camera, so there are only two pictures with me in them. There's roadtrips full of sunsets, and shots of laughing friends flashing peace signs or making faces at odd roadside attractions. The only pictures of me in the lot are carefully posed, carefully flattering mugshots. I know I was there because I was holding the camera, but a stranger looking through the collection would have no idea who was experiencing these frozen moments, even though they represented the best times of my life.

So what is the meaning of a sunset over the ocean, without me in frame? The sun sets in that particular spot every single night, 365 days a year, and has done so for milennia. Sure, a snapshot of my friends at the Appalachain overlook is grand, but if I'm not in there with them, isn't it just a picture of some people and a mountain that thousands of people drive by every day? What gives a picture meaning is not just the view, it's the event, the context, the personal connection. If I remove a picture because the image of me doesn't match the image planted in my subconscious mind as ideal, I remove myself from the memory of a place and take only the position of distant observer. The result is a sterile, disposable postcard.

I don't pick through the pictures for others, eliminating one because a person is squinting and another because they look stoned. I consider that part of the memory (remember that one? He looks like hell. He decided we could make the mountains if we drove all night and he was on two energy drinks and a pot of roadside coffee...we spent more time stopping so he could pee it out than we would have stopping at a hotel!) The stuff that looks awful on film is usually what makes the best stories. Perfectly poised and coiffed like a glamour shot tells no story, and could be done at home with the right backdrop. That one where I look like three days of hell just proves that we had a hell of a lot of fun.

So, and I hope to follow my own rede on this one: live without regrets. If you love your self, then you can't be afraid to capture it on film. Strike a semi-dirty pose with the giant concrete elephant. Dig your toes in the sand for that sunset backdrop. Smile and squint and laugh at the bad ones, but keep them anyway. Hand the camera to a trustworthy stranger and jump into the middle of that shot with the whole gang. Don't worry about chins or rolls or frizzy hair because it's the only proof you'll ever have that you were there, and you did that, and you bought the lousy tee-shirt :-)

Welcome!

This blog is something of a compromise, really. Along with a million other drones, I actually have a Myspace (www.myspace.com/jogeek), on which I occasionally blog. My friends are good people, and we hang out on a regular basis, but I've just recently become a member of a cause. There are two drawbacks to being a member of a cause, from the viewpoint of friends:

1. Since the friends came before the cause, they don't necessarily share any interest in it whatsoever.

2. Despite that disinterest, the standard psychology of it, call it "convert" or "born again" headspace, NRE, etc., makes the new member want to talk about their new cause all the time.

In other words, even I can see that I'm getting rather annoying. It's a true sign of friendship that they've stuck it out this long with only minimal eye rolling and a real willingness to offer support for friendship's sake. Sure, there's some concern that I'm turning into a wide-eyed fanatic who's going to wind up on the evening news for throwing whipped cream at bariatric surgery doctors while carrying big photos of amputated stomachs,

...actually that's a good mental image, let me hold onto that for a moment....

At any rate, being an extensive dilettante, I've created this blog to help me organize my thoughts, experiences, data, and activism on Size Acceptance in a single place, separate from the many other facets of my life. Separate because while Fat is part of who I am, it is not the whole me.