Local, seasonal, organic

At school this week (our first full week), we have concentrated on how to determine basic quality ingredients. There 10 criteria that The Natural Gourmet Institute considers important to consider when choosing food - whole, natural, organic, unprocessed, non-irradiated, seasonal, local, and a few more. Chef Jay Weinstein, a well-known chef, author, and strong supporter of ethical, "green" cooking, has been our teacher this week. Chef Weinstein has an exceptional gift in choosing the perfect word to communicate exactly what he wants to say, and he is truly passionate about what he is teaching. I love the experience of hearing him lecture. He also has a quirky personality, a truly hard-nosed New Yorker with a side of creativity and finesse. I laughed to myself in class today as he spout off about religion saying, "it's Muslim, it's Jewish, it's whateva..." in a thick, Northern accent, shrugging his shoulders and pouching his lips with each word. It's amazing, though, to sit for 4 hours listening to someone so knowledgeable talk about something I am so interested in, surrounded by 16 other people that feel exactly the same way.

We are learning so many interesting facts about the benefits of eating seasonally, locally, organically, and so on. For example, the chemical sodium nitrate, used to make certain foods such as bacon appear red, is so potent that, by law, it must be diluted in water to a ratio of 2 parts chemical to 98 parts water. If a concentration higher than this is used, it will have a deadly power. A second random scenario - the legal approval of radiation in meat processing factories has actually caused the sanitation conditions of most of the factories to decrease. This is because workers no longer have to be careful about contaminating the meat as they process it because in the end it will all be subjected to a heavy dose of radiation, which kills any bacteria that may have been "mixed" in. The problem is that 1. the radiation only penetrates 2 inches and 2. though the bacteria is killed, the radiation does not extract the unthinkable things that were mixed into the meat (the things that carried the bacteria).

I must admit that I don't always adhere to all of these principles 100% of the time. I do occasionally enjoy a slice of pizza from the neighborhood pizza counter, and I love a chocolate cupcake from the sugar Sweet Sunshine bakery here in NYC, and I know that neither of these places are following the above principles, BUT I also know that I am learning, reforming, and refining my daily eating habits, my weekly grocery shopping, and my overall philosophy of food and nutrition. As I've discovered, these things are not hard, fast rules, but more guidelines and principles that it would be wise to do our best to follow.

Bon appetite!