tryska

lucky you - we don't really have that luxury. i kinda wish we had a chain on the door, so we could open it without giving entry, but no such luck. they don't do that down here.

*lol* it's so funny, every time i think of that phrase, i get this image of her scanning the horizon for a low-flying duck and then just kinda clamping on as it flies overhead.

actually it was even funnier when she said it - her exact phrase in that wonderful accent was: "i'm so famished i could eat the arse out of a low-flying duck. And i'm a vegetarian!!"

i don't answer the door, unless i'm expecting someone. i'm originally from NY, my roommates originally from NJ. Neither of us will answer if we're not expecting someone. our friends and associates know to call before coming over. and frankly besides it being a a city thing (took me a long time to break the habit of screaming "WHO!!" at the door when someone unexpected knocked) it's a security thing. Here in Atlanta, there have been numerous occurences of serial rapists and home invasions in apartment complexes. especially now that we are basically on ground floor, it makes sense to be careful who you open up for.

hmm...not according to the article that bloviatrix put up. what's important to me, are that there are no hormones and antibiotics, and that they are processed in a separate plant. and i don't think kosher beef tastes that bad. it's not the same as the grain-finished stuff - but the grain finished stuff also has lower concentrations of omega-3s and a higher fat content, so i can live with that. actually i have been living with that for a while.

i'm pretty much just avoiding cow nervous systems. oh wait - i was doing that prior to our BSE scare. i love me some steak tho.

jsolomons - yeah i know - i don't put a whole lot of stock in the FDA anyway - too deep in the pockets of the Pharmaceuticals. i can only say that this is what happens to me. And i have no other allergies, except to mango skins. I don't have na overly sensitive system, but at the same time, i'm quite body-aware, if that makes sense, so i pay close attention to and changes in my equilibrium. i guess i also work on the principal that if it doesn't work well with me and my constitiution, it ain't kosher - especially with it's man-made products. pan - i can go with alternative sweetener. i think in terms of nutrition, calories counts, glycemic indexes, etc. so that may be where the semantics differ.

considering my paranoia pre-BSE of factory farming and industrial meat, I've always operated on a 1. Free-range Organic 2. Organic 3. Kosher rule when it came to meat-buying - i think I shall move Kosher to the top of my list. Actually - i've got a source for Kosher meat down here, so it's a good thing.

as my aussie friend would say...."i'm so hungry i could eat the arse out of a low-flying duck!"

i'm really not sure.....i tested myself a few times - well actually i had the aspartame gumballs when they first came out - i got headaches and chills (i was maybe 13). didn't like the bitter taste either, so i just never used it again. tried a diet coke in college - got the headache and chills again. accidentally got a diet sprite at a drive-thru in my early 20s, on my lunch hour - decided to suck it up, literally, and wound up having to leave early so i could curl up in a ball in bed shivering and unable to move, again with pounding headahce. that was the worst time ever. i think the reaction is dose dependent tho - i can take for instance, protein shakes with very minute levels of nutrasweet, and tolerate them okay, but often times there's lots more in the shake to maybe act as a buffer as opposed to straight nutrasweet and water. i tried this once with an ace-k sweetened protein powder and that was the time i had a mild anaphylactic reaction. i don't know if this is just myth or not, but i've heard that people who can actually taste nutrasweet are typically the same people who have adverse reactions to it. to me it tastes like poison. (but i don't know if that's a clouded pavlovian perception or not)

you've gotten yourself into another fine pickle.

i know. it's a strange conundrum. on the one hand, as i said, we wouldn't be here chatting over fiber from all over the world. on the other hand, we also wouldn't have to worry about nuclear disasters, mercury in the seas..umm..mercy mercy me? sorry didn't mean to sound like some 60s activist, but for all the good, we've also reaped quite a bit of not so good. and it seems like now - in order to keep the status quo, we have to keep taking more and more extreme measures and creating the latest in hi-tech workarounds, when a lot of times, if we just look to our roots, the answers are there.

apparently i'm part of that minority that gets headaches, chills, and fatigues from nutrasweet (nothing makes me crash out faster than being accidentally dosed with diet coke), gets damn near anaphylactic shock from ace-k (tingly back of the tongue, it swells, i find it hard to breathe etc) and i'll admit i haven't had enough splenda to tell you if it gives me any strange reactions, but i know that i can taste it in that spot on the back of my tongue like i can nutrasweet and ace-k, so i just stay away.

Why do you find genetically altered cows scary? I don't think there is much chance of us accidentally developing a "super cow" and having it take over the world. well - going back to chaos theory - by making even a minute change to the natural order of things you can expect the unexpected. i'm not a big fan of tinkering with the works of Mother Nature, as it were. altho granted some of our tinkering has come out well, such as this medioum of communication here - quite a few haven't come out so good. penicillin, for example. it was a brilliant discovery and it saved lots of lives....of course the flip-side now is that we've got these drug-resistant superbugs.

i'm sure if you asked she'd be thrilled, comfort me.

this an even scarier notion than cannabilistic cows.

the library is the best thing ever.

well my grandmother, great-grandmother, etc had cooks. then my mom moved to america. and subsequently had to learn how to work the damn stove.

y'all are lucky. I have nothing like that, and no hopes of even recovering things like that, as my mother's line all had cooks. I've got no heirloom recipes. :(

hmm. right now i'm reading Wolves of The Calla by Stephen King - it's got some food stuff in there. actually a lot of food-related stuff, now that i think about it.

word. i don't believe in answering my phone. tis why God made voicemail.

yes - stevia is a plant - while not synthetic in my mind it is an artifical sweetener, as it doesn't contain "sugar" of some sort.

That would be Tahitian Noni. It's made in Provo, Utah........definitely a multilevel, pyramid deal. They even have product "tie ins" in several of the new low budget films out recently that are aimed at LDS (Mormon) audiences tahitian noni juice is made in utah?? baha!

don't write off neuro-toxins as hysteria. research is still coming to the forefront. as far as artificial sweeteners, about the only one i can tolerate, and endorse is stevia. of course i prefer to just go without sweetener. but for those who can't, if your not willing to use real sugar of some sort, stevia is the best alternative.

looks like salami tho, huh? does it taste different from salami?