Food stuff

[hyperpape]

Cuisine is an enormous aspect of human culture. It is a form of art, and a thing of beauty. If you care about food, do not lightly sacrifice it because someone tells you it is unhealthy.

I don't just mean avoid charlatans, which includes almost everyone talking about nutrition. Even where the advice is good, it's just too often not worth it. The medical case against playing go, using the computer, reading or painting is more substantial and clear cut than almost any nutritional advice.

If you have reason to believe your case is special (extreme obesity, hereditary heart disease, current illness, etc), then things are different. But too many people suffer guilt and boredom because they reflexively assume that what is healthy must be done.

There are often win-win trades--a lot of healthy, natural food is delicious. But I will never give up pork belly, butter, bread, milk and cream, or any other indulgences.

Fwiw, on the specific issue of gall bladder removal: my wife had hers taken out 18 months ago, and has never subsequently had trouble processing fats. I've read of other individuals becoming almost completely fat-intolerant. There is huge individual variation here.

Grilled corn can be amazing.

[tapir]

daniel, you may be interested in this book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibals_and_Kings). marvin harris tells his ideas concerning population, food and world history. i did like it.

rant: i consider pseudo stone-age diet with lots of meat produced by modern industrial agriculture and with input from all over the world (soja, liquid fuels ...) decadent. there is no stone-age diet without stone-age population levels,

[DrStraw]

Does anyone have suggestions for grilling for vegetarians? We will have no picky eaters (aside from the meat thing) or obscure dietary requirements. We will be using a standard charcoal grill. We like spicy food, but the food does not need to be spicy. Thanks!

You can grill almost anything which will not fall apart. We don't grill regularly but we do on occasions. Veggie burgers are alway a simple thing; kebabs with a variety of vegetables; eggplants grill well.

Just make sure that they are cooked separately. I have been to places where people were willing to grill separately for my family but did so on top of a grill where they ha cooked meat! We could not eat them.

[daniel_the_smith]

Just make sure that they are cooked separately. I have been to places where people were willing to grill separately for my family but did so on top of a grill where they ha cooked meat! We could not eat them.

Don't take this as a criticism (I'm genuinely curious), but that makes no sense to me unless you're actually allergic to some compound in meat (is that even possible?). I try to make accommodations for vegetarians and it would never have occurred to me that you would want an entirely separate grill. Can you explain what the issue is?

BTW, I second whoever said "corn".

daniel, you may be interested in this book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibals_and_Kings). marvin harris tells his ideas concerning population, food and world history. i did like it.

If I had more free time and a shorter reading list, I would read it

[dfan]

Just make sure that they are cooked separately. I have been to places where people were willing to grill separately for my family but did so on top of a grill where they had cooked meat! We could not eat them.

Don't take this as a criticism (I'm genuinely curious), but that makes no sense to me unless you're actually allergic to some compound in meat (is that even possible?). I try to make accommodations for vegetarians and it would never have occurred to me that you would want an entirely separate grill. Can you explain what the issue is?

There's still lots of meat stuff on the grill after it's been used to cook meat. This isn't some kind of crazy kosher thing where you can't stand to touch any surface that has ever touched meat; anything cooked on a grill recently used for meat is going to have some meatiness to some extent.

I'm not vegetarian but when I'm at parties and cookouts with grills there's generally a separate grill set aside for the vegetarians. I guess I live in a pretty liberal area though.

[hyperpape]

It's shame that ... more people ...are not aware of the protestant reformation.

[admin]
Text criticizing another board member was removed.
-JB
[/admin]

[DrStraw]

Did this go down well with your hosts? As I see it they first offered you food, you rudely declined claiming the food in question unfit for humans. (This is in any case most likely what your hosts interpreted it as.) Now, being good hosts they really try to accommodate you and arrange special preparation for your food, but in vain, since you invent some other circumstance to make it impossible to eat the food.

A guest and a host is bound by an agreement of mutual obligations. If your host gives you live larva, raw eyeballs of seals, and durian for dessert, you smile, eat it, and assure your hosts that you only throw up because some bug you caught (when it tried crawling off your plate most likely).

I read about a Japanese seller who was offered home-prepared blowfish. He did a quick calculation of how long it would take to get to the hospital before tasting. Now that was dedication.

Helel, this is not the first time you have been totally offensive on this forum. I suggest you learn a few basic manners and rules of social interaction before you try to post again.

[DrStraw]

Don't take this as a criticism (I'm genuinely curious), but that makes no sense to me unless you're actually allergic to some compound in meat (is that even possible?). I try to make accommodations for vegetarians and it would never have occurred to me that you would want an entirely separate grill. Can you explain what the issue is?

I don't eat any form of meat products and I don't want them in contact with my food. It is both a health and an ethical issue. This is the reason I rarely eat food prepared on a grill unless I am very comfortable with its origin.

[Joaz Banbeck]

[admin]
I've already edited one post that criticized a fellow board member, and now two more pop up. Sigh. Can you folks please be nice to each other?
[/admin]

[DrStraw]

[admin]
I've already edited one post that criticized a fellow board member, and now two more pop up. Sigh. Can you folks please be nice to each other?
[/admin]

Only two posts were made after the edited post, both my me. So I can only assume that you are calling my posts critical. The first was what I had hoped was a reasonable response to a very offensive post (which you did not edit) and the second was a sincere answer to a genuine question. Why is either one critical?

[hyperpape]

This is one-sided. Maybe my post was worse than Helel's, though I doubt it, but Dr Straw is just stating the obvious. Helel's post was scornful in the extreme. I guess if Helel is incapable of understanding the idea that a vegetarian might view his restrictions as a matter of conscience or a requirement that he can't simply opt out of, the post might be mere naivete, but it certainly looks like trolling.

If you're going to actively administrate, I think some consistency is called for.

[daniel_the_smith]

Have to agree; helel's post was much worse. Hyperpape's post didn't even make sense (at least not to me), I don't know why it was the one that got edited. I thought helel was joking when he complained about it.

[hyperpape]

If I may, my post was intentionally obscure, but was a reference to the authority of conscience in Protestant thought, combined with the historical prevalence of Lutheranism in Sweden. (It sounded better in my head).

[Joaz Banbeck]

[admin]
I've already edited one post that criticized a fellow board member, and now two more pop up. Sigh. Can you folks please be nice to each other?
[/admin]

Only two posts were made after the edited post, both my me. So I can only assume that you are calling my posts critical. The first was what I had hoped was a reasonable response to a very offensive post (which you did not edit) and the second was a sincere answer to a genuine question. Why is either one critical?

[admin]
Sorry about that. I stated my perceptions inaccurately. I became aware of Helel's post when you quoted it. I should have said "...and now I see two more."

Please try to be nice to each other. And if one of your fellow board members fails to do this, please don't escalate. Just click on the red exclamation point icon, make your complaints privately to a mod/admin, and we'll take care of it.
[/admin]

[tj86430]

I don't eat any form of meat products and I don't want them in contact with my food. It is both a health and an ethical issue.

I can understand the "health" part if you are allergic or something, and I can understand someone not liking the taste, but I fail the understand the "ethical" part. Lets say we are talking about a frying pan and not a grill: Is it the same thing? What about when the frying pan is thoroughly washed? If not, at what point it becomes ethical again?