I shook my fist alongside Catherine when she blogged about the Yogurt Wars. However, I have my own yogurt scandal: the conspiracy to deny me fatty yogurt. (I spurn you Liberté, for denying me yogurt that is both organic AND full-fat!!) So I loved this video poking fun at the bananas notion that all a gal needs is her pilates mat and (fat-free) yogurt to weather the trials and tribulations of life…

(Found on Salon)

For my Film Friday this week, I’m offering not a review or a critique, but a Shameless Exclusive. A friend directed me to this short video made by New York artist and musician Jessica Segall. It’s a history of corn told in shadow-puppetry - a fine mix of art, history, politics, oh and just a little sci-fi. (Of course, if you think about it, lots of food-politics stuff is way more Twilight Zone than Rod Serling’s most out-there fantasy.) Hope you enjoy. And eat those Corn Pops while you can, because after this you may never again.

Drop in on Jessica Segall and her band here.

I’m pretty sure probiotics do good things for your digestion. Prebiotics too (prebiotics are the new probiotics, after all). But man do I dislike being “challenged” by my food.

It must be exhausting to keep track of what all your foods are telling you to do. Only 4 days left to go on your dare with Metamucil. Wearing a red dress to show Becel you care about women’s heart health.*

And now keeping track of where you are in your “30-day challenge” from any one of three (or more) different yogurt companies. Challenges that go along with what I’m less than affectionately calling “The Yogurt Wars”.

You know the brands — Yoptimal Immuni+ vs Astro BioBest Vitalite vs Danone Activia.

Where did these all come from? And why are they suddenly all over my tv? How did these stupid candy yogurts become the next big health and weightloss food, targeted at women?

Yoptimal has a tiny hovering man who holds your umbrella for you. I think Danone is the one where you dance around in a beige outfit. BioBest Vitalite makes yellow swirl around your midriff while your friend looks on in envy.

(And can we take a minute to ask why this beeyotch doesn’t offer her friend any? “What is that?” Obviously she’s hungry you nitwit. You both just got back from the gym, toss her a yogurt for pity’s sake…)

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I’d wager my winnings from Hot Flash that we’ll all agree this video is creepy. Yes, it has the dreaded “breast-bared-but-nipple-censored” thing going on, but exactly how and why it’s so disturbing may be up for debate.

From Treehugger:

“This send-up of the new greenwashing trend in advertising will give you a good belly-laugh, if you don’t pause to consider the tragic fact that even human milk is not free from chemical contamination.”

First I thought it was clever. Then it offended me. Now I’m just confused. What do you think?

I was out with a couple of my best girlfriends earlier this week, both of whom have suffered, and continue to suffer, from acute anorexia. You wouldn’t know it to look at them - they both make efforts to eat properly, so they don’t look underweight - but inside their heads they say it’s a constant battle. In the spirit of tackling their problem head-on, they’ve agreed to meet up once a week to eat an entire meal together. Which, they joked, will usually consist of steamed veggies, brown rice and fish, “A typical anorexic dinner!” I laughed as well. Often humour is the best way to deal with our problems.

It’s such a terrible shame that for so many women today food is such a problematic issue. While for centuries most people struggled just to get enough to eat, in the west today, where food is cheap and plentiful, different problems have become ubiquitous: chronic overeating and chronic undereating, particularly among women. For both groups, food becomes an enemy, not a friend.

Which is such a heartbreaking shame: food - along with sleep and sex - should be one of the joyful cornerstones of each of our lives. We should love to eat, and to eat well. And yet for so many of us, the simple act of consuming food is fraught with guilt and pain. Compulsive under-eating, just like over-eating, can become like an addiction.

These problems are so complex, and can be so difficult to alleviate. And yet for all the self-help books out there, endless diet tips in glossy women’s magazines, and countless exercise regimes advertised, there seems to be a real dearth of healthy and helpful information that deals with the issues. Not just from a nuts-and-bolts perspective regarding nutrition and health, but also from a psychological and - dare I say it - feminist perspective.

Which is why it’s so great to see The Guardian‘s new series on weight loss, authored by the editor of the women’s pages, Kira Cochrane. Click here for the first installment - she’ll be putting out a new column every two weeks for the foreseeable future. It’s a wonderfully atypical perspective.

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It seems that women are rejecting cooking for shoes - well, the ones who can afford to, anyways.

According to this article in the The Tyee, “liberated women” don’t want to cook. Noting the trend for women (read upper-class, slightly rich, and I would venture to guess, white women) to consider cooking as old-fashioned and low-class, this piece pretty insightfully considers how cooking food, no matter its cultural and political importance, has often been associated with women in Western culture and is therefore unvalued activity.

This piece also provides a fascinating look at how men have taken up gourmet cooking. I can’t help but point out that men have long taken up the cooking that is seen as particularly “skilled” and full of showmanship. Just check out Ontario’s cottage country on any summer long weekend and you’ll see many a man behind the BBQ grill showing off! Making kid-friendly food, or maybe pureed stuff for babies or the sick or the elderly, is just never gonna make it onto the Iron Chef.

Anyways, the real point here is that it is likely impossible for women to seem liberated in the kitchen, no matter how skilled they are - as this writer at the Tyee puts it, they are more likely to be perceived as “domestic suckers who aren’t paying enough attention to their ambition or their libidos.”

So on this Valentine’s Day, what are you eating? And is it the way to your feminist heart?

As a proud Canadian, I loves me some snow. Loves it, loves it, loves it. When I wake up in the morning, look out the window and see white rooftops, I squeal with delight. Seriously, squeal. Which can be hard on a sleeping partner (who fortunately finds it “charming”).

And Toronto didn’t mess around this year, our first snowfall is big and fluffy and pretty and yay!

I say boo to the forecasters who get all “it’s another beautiful day” when it is unseasonably warm in Nov/Dec/Jan. Usually accompanied by a not-so-innovative quip about shoveling. It is not a good thing when it’s hot in November.

We’re given many opportunities to ignore the seasons. We can get strawberries and goat’s cheese in the dead of winter. Everything is available all the time, for a price.

So how about a little bit of living in the moment. Instead of moaning about how it’s too wet, too cold, too slushy, we pull up our woolly northern socks and get on with enjoying our four uniquely fantastic seasons.

To facilitate that enjoyment, I’m sharing with y’all my family tradition: Snow Cake. “Snow Cake” is a white cake with white icing that can only be made once a year, because it can only be made on the first day of real snowfall. If you see a few rogue flurries that’s great, but it only means that Snow Cake day is on its way — it’s not time to break out the spatulas just yet. The rule is this: a true Snow Cake can only be made when there is a solid (if skimpy) layer of snow which stays on the ground for at least half a day.

But it’s worth the wait. What makes a Snow Cake what it is the anticipation and the event-ness around making it. How it is linked to the weather and the season. And, of course, the jaunty snowperson you put on top — meticulously applied with chocolate chips in the company of friends, family, pets… and then shared with the same (with the possible exception of pets).

There’s no one special recipe, any basic white cake and icing recipes will do, but if you don’t have any, you can use mine.

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Slate reports on research by American economist Caitlin Kowles showing that women wait abot 20 seconds longer than men to be served at coffee shops. Check out the original paper here. Knowles has eliminated a few possible causes other than sexism - no surprise, it’s not because women order fancy drinks or flirt with the barristas.

Tyler Cowen, over on economics blog The Marginal Revolution suggests that women are more indecisive, but doesn’t really dispute Knowles’ main conclusion: “The simplest explanation, however, is that the staff feel more implicit psychological pressure to meet the needs of the male customers.”

Not a life-altering injustice, surely, but just another reminder that sexism lives in all of us, and intrudes on our lives almost constantly.

On the upside, it’s nice to see some feminist economics getting press coverage. I love feminist economics.

The food system is a juicy topic lately. We’re starting to understand just how ecologically complex our food system has become, but there are political and social issues at play as well. If you’ve ever tried to untangle the mystery behind how our food is sourced, you’ve probably asked yourself questions like, Why is local food sometimes more expensive than imported food? How hard is it for Ontario farmers to get their goods to local stores? Why are farmers markets often full of resellers instead of farmers?

Just one of the keys to understanding the complexity of the food system is locked inside the Ontario Food Terminal – the immense physical space where food first touches down before being shipped off to Ontario stores, restaurants and ultimately within the digestive tracts of the lovely folks within this fair province.

A rare opportunity to take a tour of the Ontario Food Terminal happens this Thursday, as part of Alphabet City’s Food Festival. Each year Alphabet City explores a different concept through a publication and an “arts and ideas” festival. Last year they studied Trash, this year Food, and in the next few years they will work on Fuel, Water and Air.

This tour is a big deal because unauthorized folk are not normally allowed in the terminal. It is the “largest wholesale fruit and produce distribution centre in Canada and ranks in the top five by volume wholesale fruit and produce distribution centres in North America.” You’ll see big chain stores bartering for cases of cucumbers, chefs looking for exotic passion fruit, and smaller shops taking what lettuce they can get.

I can’t make it into town myself, but if you happen to go, let me know what you learned.
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