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Date Posted: 12:36:54 11/16/09 Mon
Author: SS
Subject: ************ORTHOREXIAANSWERS***********

1) I am a 26-year old resident of Portland, Oregon, who was born in Joliet, Illinois and raised for seventeen years in Arvada, Colorado before moving to Portland in 2004. I am presently unemployed and live in my parents house at the moment, and recently graduated from Portland State University with a Bachelors in Art with my Major being English.

Politically-speaking, I am a registered Independent, who considers myself progressive-minded but is disenchanted with labels and doesn't believe fits the stereotypical "liberal" or "conservative" mantra and essentially believes we all run deeper than the labels stamped upon us. I'm an enthused proponent of environmental responsibility, sexual equality and freedom, sustainable agriculture and blue collar values. I've blogged often about organic agriculture especially, though as of late I've given more a focus to issues regarding sexuality both because 1) my stepbrother is homosexual and remains stigmatized often, and 2) my own recent fascination with it as a form of artistic expression and social commentary.

Often people describe me as someone who is calm and composed; reacting well to situations that most would find as stressful or overbearing. My thinking is neither simple or complex, where I like to think of myself as well-educated but not an intellectual. I have a strong interest in the needs and well-being of others, and living for the moment and doing what feels good now, as opposed to thinking too far ahead and prioritizing. I'm all "go with the flow" and taking life one day at a time! =)

The one quote I most identify with each day is one spoken by the late American educator Nicholas Murray Butler: "Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress." While I believe we are all imperfect, I also believe we are all inherently good and that, regardless of ones background or upbringing, we have much more in common than we do difference as a global family. ^__^

*

2) I apologize in that my answers for both #2 and #3 will be meshed together.

In my youth through mid-adolescence, as you can imagine, like virtually all especially young citizens, I paid no mind to where my food came from, how it was processed and which ingredients it featured, and found many advertisements promoting junk food when watching television excessively as a child entertaining and colorful. I was especially fond of barbecue Lays chips, La Choy miniature egg rolls from the freezer, Rice-A-Roni, Trolli Sour-Brite Crawlers candies and other highly-processed mainstays. Interestingly enough, however, even in my earliest years some of my favorite foods were quite healthy and minimally-processed to not processed at all, particularly kimchee, wheatgrass and most kinds of fruit, and I would always get excited going to the natural, organic supermarket Wild Oats (now Whole Foods) supermarket on occasion with my parents. I was also a major meat-eater, and would even, on road trips, urge my parents to stop at roadside jerky stands to satisfy my carnivorous desires. As far as beverages were concerned, the funny thing is I've always loved tea, but I nonetheless also consumed a lot of Pepsi (thus High Fructose Corn Syrup) and even would often consume three cans of it a day during my high school years. As far as ethnic food is concerned, Chinese/Vietnamese take-out was my favorite (and still would be if I could be rest assured the food wasn't prepared with either MSG or non-vegetarian friendly oyster paste. Finally, I would consume dangerous levels of sodium each and every day, and would flood much of what I ate with soy sauce (which contained hydrolyzed soy protein, an offshoot of MSG).

My first major shift came when I was seventeen (weighing 157 at the time) when I started reading in the Denver Post newspaper, in 1998, when I read in the Denver Post that at an Excel Corporation beef plant in Fort Morgan, Colorado, production was halted for a day that year after workers allegedly cut off the leg of a live cow whose limbs had become wedged in a piece of machinery. U.S inspectors launched an investigation, and found in subsequent stories that the plant had been part of a string of violations for two years prior as well, including the cutting and skinning of live cattle. And the more I heard of increasing slaughterhouse abuse of animals from then on, including chopping hooves off live cattle at IBP plants, the more I cried reading those stories................and I knew I just couldn't stand for this anymore, that even if I knew my intentions were good and I never wished endorsing these acts from the beginning....................unfortunately the mighty dollar was increasingly sponsoring these things, whether you like it or not. I wanted to get this guilt-prone blood off my hands...........and finally in late 2001 I called it quits and have been a proud vegetarian ever since.

Upon moving to Portland (my weight at a lifetime peak of 166 at the time) in June 2004, I quickly acclimated to Portland's impressive public transportation system and started walking a LOT, in contrast to life in the Colorado suburbs keeping me around at home in a sentient state. Consequentially, along with my vegetarian lifestyle, my weight began a steady decline, where I weighed just over 150 by the end of that year. Despite that, I would still eat highly-processed foods for another year and a half.

Then, in early 2006, I started reading and hearing reports in my mid-college years about the dangers of ingredients featured dominantly in processed foods, most notably High Fructose Corn Syrup and Partially Hydrogenated Oils, as well as the dangers of genetically-modified organisms. Both disgusted me in hearing about them, and the more I read into them, the more I unraveled the political dimension/intent behind these decisions and the FDA's inepitude as a regulatory body, and it was then I had a sad realization that we truly ARE what we eat, and I didn't want to be affiliated with unsustainable agricultural practices and junk food propaganda. Finally, reading that often the production of junk food and the integration of pesticides, herbicides, genetic modification, antibiotics, growth hormones, etc. often went hand in hand, I felt sick to my stomach and decided to no longer shop at conventional grocery stores and would begin reading labels so I wouldn't be hoodwinked again. My resolve for local, organic eating was subsequently sinewed by reading Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver's best-sellers, as well as watching John Peterson's compelling documentary "The Real Dirt On Farmer John", subscribing to a CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) farm, and my shock into Monsanto's business practices.

Now, I weigh 126, routinely shop at co-ops for produce and bulk items, avoid all big-name grocery stores and help plant and maintain my own garden with my father, which includes much kale, bok choy, tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, scallions, radish greens and even lemons among other crops. I also drink only tea (preferably fair Trade-certified), shade-grown coffee, pasteurized kefir (I avoid ultra-pasteurized milk because it is the only milk you can't make cheese out of, thus leads me to believe all the essential bacteria has been destroyed in the heating process) and occasional wine from local artisans. I've gravitated from Asian cuisine heavily due to the concern of MSG being conventionally featured in its preparation to Mediterranean cuisine, which I find is conventionally minimally processed to unprocessed cuisine, and rely on extra-virgin olive oil, hazelnuts, flax seed, nut butters, coconut oil, granola, hemp milk and yogurt primarily to get my much-needed fats, proteins and carbohydrates.

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4) The kind of foods I especially love eating regularly under my present diet include anything that grows organically from a local garden or farm (including my own garden), bulk grains that I cook myself at home and prepare vegetables atop them (especially brown rice, quinoa, buckwheat groats, farro, couscous, arborio rice, etc.) hazelnuts, nut butters (espcially macadamia butter), chia seeds, Goji berries, kefir, kimchee, mung beans, cannelini beans, dolmas, any kind of fruit (favorites being persimmons, mangoes and lychee), coconut milk and a handful of all-natural alternatives to conventional snack foods at Trader Joe's and the co-ops (potato chips with lower amounts of sodium and no beef powder, juices without High Fructose Corn Syrup but rather evaporated cane juice, etc.)

The kind of foods I would never eat again include food from any kind of fast food restaurant, food from most restaurant chains, any kind of meat, virtually all snack foods, juices, cereals, desserts, condiments and bread at big-name grocers like Safeway and Albertson's as well as any gas station convenience store, and virtually everything that's advertised on television (Kashi being one notable exception, assuming they don't veer toward other cereals, as they presently use all-natural ingredients). I will also never drink carbonated beverages again in that they include phosphoric acid, which displaces nutrients from our bones and burns them like a sulfuric acid of sorts, thus leading to higher risks of osteoporosis.

I make a point at shopping only at farmers markets and co-ops as much as possible due to my belief that money should remain in the local economy most of all, but when I do have to shop elsewhere, I choose Trader Joe's as I respect them for their customer support and using only natural ingredients (even Whole Foods allows High Fructose Corn Syrup in some of what they sell at their stores, while Trader Joe's guarantees no HFCS and partially-hydeogenated oils in any of their products, as well as using cage-free eggs).

*

5)

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