Socialism… what is it good for?

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gleefully ignorant

I can’t tell you how many people have walked away from me shaking their head once I’ve asked what they don’t like about socialism. It’s always well into the conversation, often after they have used the term as a confirmation of why something is bad. As in, after I’ve shown my support for single-payer healthcare, their response is that single-payer is bad because it is socialist. “And what’s wrong with socialism?” I’ll ask, knowing that I’ve probably just brought an end to the discussion. (Much appreciation to the very few who have continued past this point, you know who you are.)

I’d like to say up front that I get it. Really, I get that we don’t want to be a socialist country, so my question is a bit of intentional provocation. I could try to mitigate the situation by drawing a distinction between socialism and social democracy, since I’m actually advocating for the latter, but sometimes I can’t resist poking fun at labelphobics. Because it’s socialist? Seriously? Can’t we have a conversation about the thing without resorting to strawman tactics? And why are we hardwired to conceive of every dispute as a polarity? Can we only be either capitalist or socialist? Is it not more favorable to land somewhere in the middle?

The fear…

So far as I can tell, from my own research and the rather limited input from my interlocutors, there are valid arguments against pure socialism both at the state level and for individuals. (The problem is that too many people are inclined to see the faults of pure socialism as a reason to oppose any socialist policies whatsoever. But I’ll return to this point later.)

At the state level, socialism is a hindrance for ingenuity, innovation, and productivity; which, by the way, are the greatest strengths of capitalism. In terms of competition, government control of an industry is no different from a capitalist monopoly – if you don’t need to win over customers, you have no incentive to improve the good or service you supply. And assuming the state is not also fascist (which would lead to communism), socialism removes the profit incentive, both from large businesses controlled by the state and from small businesses trying not to become so big that the state wants to control them – once the state has control, the goal of a business shifts its highest priority from turning a profit to providing a service. So long as population is increasing, we need economic growth to keep up with demand. For economic growth, we need both competition and profit as incentives. Therefore, socialism is inefficient because it malnourishes the advancement of civilization.

As for individuals, socialism places restraints on personal liberty and right to property. The state gets to choose where to invest its money, its people, and its material resources, people no longer get to make these decisions for themselves. To pay for this, the state compels its citizens to pay taxes. Taxation means taking money from one person and giving it to another, which at its very core is a form of theft. Therefore, socialism is immoral.

Such are the arguments against socialism, as I understand them. If I’ve missed anything, please leave a comment to set me straight.

The reality…

Both arguments fail because they rely on the same false premise that the controlling entity must be either the state or the people. The government controls the people, or the people control the government. The missing component, of course, is the corporate entity.

Any old-school economist worth his value in stock shares knows that market activity is an impersonal machine of necessity whose actions are defined by the laws of supply and demand. Those economists are wrong. So long as a company’s contribution to its sector of the economy is modest, supply and demand do indeed force the hand of management and, thus, the behavior of the company. But once a company has grown large enough to carry the health of an industry or even the whole economy on its shoulders, power shifts from demand to supply. When no one else can provide the same or same level of a good or service, a company can regulate output to manipulate price and profit margin, can spend lavishly to lobby politicians, and, most importantly for the working class, can wield resolute leverage when negotiating employee wages. At this point, neither the state nor the people are in control. The corporations are. Taxes are how society pays its bills. Under-compensation for labor is theft. 

Corporations have done a marvelous job convincing the American people that they are still bound by the same economic laws as before. Not only that, but they have deprecated the government’s role in regulation, claiming for themselves sole responsibility for creating jobs, ensuring quality products, and mitigating disasters both economic and environmental. Trickle-down economics, brought to life by the Reagan administration, has made corporations the masters of our national destiny, and any attempt by the government to protect against egregious impropriety is cast as a villainous regime attacking the benevolent hero.

And yet, the working class continues to struggle. Corporations make deals with local communities to bring in jobs in return for tax and utility waivers, land grants, even loans, then abandon ship when business falters, leaving the communities to cover the losses themselves. They threaten to kill jobs and/or raise prices if the minimum wage goes up, knowing that government programs will supplement incomes for those whose paychecks aren’t enough to live on. They demonize stewards of the land, like the EPA, for enacting regulations that place unnecessary burdens on commerce. They lobby against transparency in order to preempt regulation and shirk responsibility when problems occur. It is the government’s constitutional mandate to promote the general welfare of the people, and yet we as a nation have bought into the fantasy that only a market free from outside interference will guarantee our prosperity. Never mind that there is no such thing as a free market, at least not here, not now. Never mind that businesses aggressively negotiate to eschew any social responsibility, paying as little as possible to get the labor and materials they need regardless of true cost or consequence. Never mind that we, the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the world, still have millions of hungry, homeless, and uninsured. And never mind that there is no evidence that any of the assertions stated above favoring the corporate world are true. Folks are seemingly content hide behind accusations of fake news and they happily, gleefully, ignore the facts. Like the Western diet, capitalism over-nourishes the advancement of society, to the detriment of the current well-being of the people. But if you’ve read this far, you probably didn’t need convincing. You know all of this to be true already.

The solution…

The answer is not to pivot to pure socialism, as my back-turners may have assumed is the goal. Nor is there any reason to believe that it would somehow be the end result. We need capitalism. We need corporations. We need patent laws and trade secrets, and we even need the ability to pay top dollar to get the best leadership in the private sector. We also need a government competent enough to protect us when profits won’t. No well-reasoned person I know wants government to take over any industry, much less all industry. The real question is what level of government intervention is appropriate for a given industry at a given time. Monopolies are bad for competition, driving up consumer prices and reducing consumer choice. Thus, government should step in (more often than they do) to break up monopolies. And if we are to concern ourselves with the pocketbooks and market selections of individual consumers, are we not also obliged to consider the very goods and services they are purchasing? Should profit be the priority for every industry? Put another way, are there goods/services that should be available outside of the conventional models of maximized profit?

Single-payer healthcare…

I believe the answer to that last question is yes. Every child in America is guaranteed, ostensibly, access to public education to be paid for by taxpayers. The system can be improved upon, certainly, but does anyone believe that a privatized, for-profit education system would be better? Is there any evidence that charter schools are so successful that the entire system should switch over to their model? The result would be a formal recognition that those with the most money get the best education for their children, and although that is somewhat true now, at least we openly endorse equal access to quality education for all, and we enact policies to encourage this.

Likewise, every person in America should be guaranteed access to public health care to be paid for by taxpayers. Under the current system, you get only as much health care as you can pay for, and in many cases much less. One of the benefits of capitalist markets, stated above, is that profit incentives encourage better products. And yet, we pay more for health care than any other developed country in the world and we receive worse outcomes. Tragically, people who do not have health insurance, or sufficient health insurance, can be denied non-emergency health care. Health insurance also is often tied directly to one’s employer, so switching jobs creates the potential for dropped coverage. But the most important reason to insure everyone is that everyone will consume this product, some continually, others eventually. Choosing not to purchase insurance only shifts the inevitable financial burden onto those who do pay.

The taxpayers already foot the bill for those whose health care is not covered by insurance. Integrating this purchase into the tax system to create formal coverage will raise taxes, but it will reduce health care costs – by capping maximum charges for procedures and drugs, by encouraging growth in health care professions, and by providing lifetime access to care, thus detecting disease and disorder while treatment is relatively cheap. This does not mean the government runs health care. What it means is that the government represents the people and not the corporations. It means that the citizenry as a whole, through government, can negotiate with providers to lower costs. It means the priority is on health and not profit. Better health outcomes means cheaper health care. This coupled with a national food policy that values nutrition over calories, a single-payer health care system is the most efficient, most effective, and most financially conservative choice for Americans.

 

So there is something to be gained from looking at both sides of this discussion, when the discussion is allowed to occur. Capitalism and socialism both have their strengths and their weaknesses – both have beneficial applications, yet each is ruinous in its pure form. It should be clear by now that what I’m describing here is, thus, not socialism per se, but social democracy. Perhaps I’ll write about the term itself at some point. And perhaps I’ll adapt my discourse with the back-turners. After all, there are plenty of other opportunities to provoke.

 

 

Who is responsible for Trump?

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It has recently come to light that Russia purchased ads on both Google and Facebook in order to influence our presidential election. So does that make our current POTUS illegitimate?
hypnotrump

The legitimacy of Trump’s presidency is a tricky issue for me. On the one hand, I do sympathize with the view that people are sometimes (often?) misled into making a decision, whether through inaccurate or incomplete information or false advertising or grandiose promises etc. But Russian endorsement through advertising is not the same thing as rigging voting machines. It pains me to say it, but Trump got the votes to win the electoral college. Does it make his win illegitimate just because Russia helped people choose who to vote for?

 
I hold voters accountable for the catastrophe that this presidency has become because they (we – I didn’t vote for Trump, but maybe I could have done more to campaign against him) are ultimately responsible for his win. I also want to blame Russia for pushing their agenda on our electorate. I also want to blame conservative news for focusing on straw-man targets instead of addressing issues via evidence (looking at you, @Fox News). I also want to blame Hillary and the DNC, the spineless Republican leadership, gerrymandering, even social democrats who have been loathe to carry their banner into the fray.
 
But most of all, it’s still our fault. We had all the proof in the world that Trump is an incompetent, misogynist, ethically bankrupt individual who would tell any lie necessary to win. We overlooked every bit of it and let him win anyway. As much as I want to blame everything else, in the end, we are still responsible for the fate of those millions who will remain and who will become uninsured, of those millions who continue to be impoverished by the asinine claims of trickle-down economics, of those millions, billions, who in the generations to come have to suffer the consequences of climate change, not to mention the victims of whatever war we might be headed toward. If we’d stop pretending that politics doesn’t matter, if we’d educate ourselves about the issues and the candidates, then we could have prevented the disgrace that is Trump. But right now, the best we can hope for is replacing him next time, and that rests more on our maturity as citizens than all the interference.
 
Not saying we shouldn’t focus on all of these things together. But we have to address the plague of willful, gleeful ignorance, most importantly. Trust expert consensus, not anecdotal hate-bait. And elect the good students, not the blustery know-it-alls.
 
Yeah, I know, people are gonna believe what they want regardless. I feel defeated even as I try to offer solutions. But the message needs to get out there. We need to learn how to learn, and stop being afraid of everything we read. We can do better. Demand better.

The Adolescent Age of Information

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the brain with a matrix-style overlayIt might seem like the Information Age has been fatally corrupted with the election of our current POTUS, but I’m here to say that even though we have taken a few (okay, several) steps back, the work is far from over, and the future remains bright. What we as a culture suffer from now is the inability to deal rationally with the trove of data that is released upon us at every moment of our waking lives. Like children struggling to navigate the new responsibilities of independence, we have not yet figured out how to regulate our impulses in favor of deliberation and sound judgment. We give in to spontaneous reactions to “breaking” news without having all the facts, then vehemently defend our ill-conceived opinions due to the devastating effect admitting a mistake would have on our pride and self-perceived identity. Plus, it’s just easier to lump every headline under umbrella categories for which we’ve already formed opinions. And while there is no stopping the information (short of self-quarantine, which I do endorse in regular doses), we will get better at processing and evaluating what we hear. We will adapt. Reading and learning is hard. As adults, we are (will be) more willing to take on the challenge.

If this sounds like a problem we have faced all throughout history, it is. We humans have always been a gullible folk, and we believe whatever is easiest to believe. The difference today is the pace at which we encounter new information. Instantaneous global communication has created such an anxiety that careful consideration seems antiquated. Pause is no longer efficient, there’s just too much to take in. And, by the way, this is a problem for people at both ends of the spectrum of impressionability – those who don’t believe anything, and those who too willingly believe everything. Neither group has a healthy relationship with truth, although at least they are easy to spot, each often castigating the other for their polarity. We would do well to avoid both.

What you know best becomes what you know to be the best. Maturity has never been easy and won’t be now. Beliefs and opinions are often dependent upon incidence by default, and this bias is extremely difficult to overcome. You are very likely to identify with the political party and the religious denomination of your parents because you’ve had more exposure to those ideas than any others. This is already well-known to be true in the general terms of politics and religion, but what about more nuanced categories, such as science, media, education? Your level of exposure to an issue has enormous bearing on your ability to decipher the news and filter the fake from the real. If you have limited knowledge about a topic, your natural inclination is to find some association with knowledge you do have, basing your judgment on a larger theme of discourse. This coping mechanism is not without merit, for our understanding of one realm does and should inform our understanding of another. However, we should be sure to appreciate complexity and the consequence of unique variables. And now more than ever, we have access to the tools necessary for objective judgment. Listen to those who spend their lives working on an issue, look for consensus, and be willing to admit ignorance.

The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. This brings me to a primary lesson I keep coming back to in my studies: humility.  It takes far more courage to admit when knowledge is lacking than to scream in protest when your stance is contested. We just haven’t yet found the courage to learn rather than scream. This makes our present situation all the more difficult, but we’ll get there. Slowly, perhaps painfully, knowledge will eventually win out. It always does.

 

 

Understanding the Nutrition Transition (and what we can do about it)

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The modern food system has been in place for barely a half-century and the agricultural practices behind it have already assumed the term “conventional”, despite being a synthetic departure from what had been the norm for thousands of years. Caesar: Von Cassius has a lean and hungry look, would he were fatter. Brutus: Feed him on Libby, McNeill & Libby's Cooked Corned Beef. Caesar: Ay, do so, good Brutus, let us have only men about us that are fat. [front]This monumental shift has had benefits as well as consequences. On the one hand, the average person in a developed country today spends less of their income on food than at any point in human history, less than 10% of their income in the United States.1 And while the severity of hunger continues to be a serious concern in many developing countries, the threat has been reduced by nearly a third since 2000.2 On the other hand, calories from conventional agriculture have led to the problem of rampant obesity, creating an unsustainable burden on our health and our economy. The aim of this post is to review the “nutrition transition”, a global trend in recent history that informs our study of food and its effects on modern society. – Importantly, all three transitions discussed in this post apply to averages, and since population statistics apply to rates of incidence, not individual outcomes, there will always be outlying exceptions.

The “nutrition transition” is a theory developed in 1993 by Barry Popkin to describe the global dietary shift from whole foods to processed foods that began during the mid-late 20th century. Popkin was supplementing two older theories that also describe changes in the human population over time: the “demographic transition” and the “epidemiological transition”. Each of these offer valuable explanations for how society has changed, but the biggest contribution of Popkin’s theory was that it diagnosed a problem exposed by the previous two: the combination of longer lives and chronic illnesses has become unsustainably expensive, and the explanation has a whole lot to do with what we eat. I’ll come back to the nutrition transition after a brief look at the other two.

The term “demographic transition” dates to 1929, when Warren Thompson used it to describe the declining rates of both death and birth in nations where the industrial revolution had taken hold, a characteristic still true for developed and developing nations today. The death rate falls first, thanks to advancements in health care, living conditions, wages, etc. The birth rate then drops gradually as families adjust their reproductive priorities to compensate, a decision facilitated by education, gender equality, and the growing use of contraceptives. The rather simplified explanation [fuller versions here and here] is that the ideal number of grown children per family has always been about two, and until fairly recently several pregnancies were required to ensure two grown children. The precipitous decline of the death rate after 1800 outpaced the adjustment to have fewer pregnancies, leading to large population increases that peaked in the 1960s-70s. Current estimates by the United Nations predict the birth rate will even out with the death rate again sometime around 2300, when the number of people living on this planet would level off at around 9 billion. (There are about 7.35 billion now.)

The “epidemiological transition” dates to 1971, when Abdel Omran described the shift in prevalent diseases from the infectious types (measles, tuberculosis, etc) to the chronic types (cancer, diabetes, etc) that tipped in favor of the latter only recently. Thanks largely to vaccinations and improved hygiene, the modern world has made great progress toward the eradication of many infectious diseases (like smallpox or measles) that used to be extremely lethal. While infectious diseases are often short-term killers, patients with chronic diseases may live for years or decades, affording the afflicted much longer lifespans. (Again, this is the average outcome. Some chronic diseases can be imminently fatal, just as some infectious diseases can develop slowly.) The flip-side to this Faustian bargain is that long-term diseases are much more expensive both for individuals and society. The treatment necessary to survive and thrive with these illnesses doesn’t come cheap, and the longer it takes to get a diagnosis and start treatment the more expensive the treatment becomes. But since we know that human activity causes or exacerbates many of these diseases, modifying our behavior can alleviate both the suffering and the cost.

This brings us to Popkin’s theory of the “nutrition transition”, which the IFPRI describes as the “global trend – whereby consumption of coarse grains, staple cereals, and pulses is replaced by increased consumption of animal-source foods, sugar, fats and oils, refined grains, and processed foods” (p.13 of the full 2017 report). Conventional agriculture (i.e. capitalism) has done a tremendous job of addressing food security worldwide, but the narrow-minded focus on increasing the availability of calories, as opposed to nutrition, has left many communities priced out of a well-balanced diet necessary for good health – at the point of sale, unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy food. To complicate the issue, availability has taken the spotlight away from price, and food deserts have received much of the blame for poor eating habits. But a recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) on the effectiveness of policies aimed at reducing food deserts in the United States (abstract; summary) suggests that factors of demand, such as price and taste, are much more important than proximity when it comes to buying food. We need to find a way to make healthy food cheaper than unhealthy food.

There are many factors contributing to the decline in the price of food in general, and of unhealthy food in particular. Huge international companies are enjoying greater savings due to mass production and price negotiation. Faster and more reliable transportation can now deliver food around the world in order to exploit the cheapest production schemes. Improved technologies from farms to refrigerators have increased yields and decreased spoilage. But one of the most important contributors to cheap and unhealthy food is taxpayer dollars. Government farm subsidies are concentrated on commodity crops like corn and soybean, the same crops that support the meat industry as animal feed, or that get manufactured into countless products found on those lengthy ingredient lists for high-calorie processed foods. Just as we confront a population beset by growing rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, we are focusing our subsidies on the very foods that contribute to these illnesses.

The general consensus now is that the nutrition transition has placed an incredible burden on society, complicating the justification that it has helped to alleviate the problem of food scarcity. Altering our current economic and regulatory approach to the food system can save us trillions of dollars and make us generally more healthy, adding years to our life expectancy. The question, then, is how to effect change. It isn’t enough to rely on individuals to modify their own behavior; a very many people are lured into an unhealthy diet by budget and convenience. Market pressure will improve the situation over time, but the quicker way to address our faltering food system is to incorporate real costs into the marketplace through legislation. We should address the artificially low prices of unhealthy foods by shifting subsidies away from conventional, commodity-oriented agriculture and toward holistic farming methods, such as those that optimize natural inputs and diversified outputs through careful field rotations. We should also levy taxes on certain foods like sugar-sweetened beverages that are known to contribute to obesity, taxes that will help cover the rising costs of health care while steering consumers toward healthier, and more accurately priced, alternatives. Most importantly, we should implement a coherent national food policy that minimizes cost across the economy and maximizes the health of our nation and our world. We can do better. We should demand better.

 

1 The percentage of income spent on food decreases as income increases. The average expenditure on food in the United States has now leveled off (at just under 10%) because median incomes haven’t gone up in nearly two decades, according to the Economic Research Service of the USDA.

2 The severity of world hunger in the developing world has been reduced by nearly a third since 2000, according to the Global Hunger Index of the IFPRI (International Food Policy Research Institute).

Obesity – a review

Shawn Youngblood Policy Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment
Line-graph showing the average calories consumed per day by Americans from 1970 to 2010

From Sturm, R. and An, R. (2014), Obesity and economic environments. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 64: 337–350. doi:10.3322/caac.21237

One of the main contributors to the rising costs of health care is obesity. In 2014, CA published a report called “Obesity and economic environments” that addresses what factors lead to obesity. The authors focus largely on what they call “economic and policy environments”, which is basically any government intervention that shows up when a consumer purchases a product, such as a tax or a subsidy, a limit on serving size, a nutrition label, etc. (These are distinguished from “social environments” -factors influencing a consumer’s choice in food purchases- and “physical environments” -opportunities for consumers to expend energy.) Here is a review of the report’s highlights and conclusions. Recognizing that this information is now 3 years old, I’ll follow up on some of the main points and update as needed.

First, the report makes a few fundamental observations worth noting:

  • Obesity increases the risk of at least 9 different types of cancer, in addition to coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and other chronic illnesses.
  • In developed countries, obesity is by far a greater problem than food scarcity.
  • “Americans now have the cheapest food in history when measured as a fraction of disposable income.” Less than a century ago, Americans spent 25% of their income on food. Now it’s less than 10% (even while the bottom fifth of American incomes still spend a third).
  • Americans have increased their number of calories consumed per day by more than 20% in less than 50 years, going from about 2100 calories per day in 1970 to more than 2600 in the mid-2000s, and dropping only slightly since then.
  • The greatest single source of the increased calories since 1980 has been carbohydrates. Only recently have carbs shown a decline, being replaced by fats.
  • SSB (sugar-sweetened beverage) consumption continues to go up, both in the number of people drinking them and the amount each person drinks.
  • Policies of the USDA have created “a vicious cycle” of encouraging “a massive overproduction of corn and soybeans”, slashing the prices (and thus increasing consumption) of derivative products, many of which show up on those lengthy ingredient lists for processed, prepackaged foods.

Second, the report confronts some common assumptions related to the obesity epidemic that are either too simplistic or flat out wrong.

  • A sedentary lifestyle is not on the rise: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) “has demonstrated a consistent decline in sedentary behavior.”
  • Leisure-time physical activity has risen, not fallen.
  • Fruits and vegetables have actually increased in the American diet since 1970, even though they still remain below the recommended levels.
  • Locating “food deserts” is not a very accurate way of determining consumption habits of the people in those communities. “Across numerous studies, distance to various types of food stores demonstrated no relationship to dietary outcomes.” This study argues that the real issue is poverty, not access (the study is reviewed here and here). Furthermore, the idea that supermarkets create healthy environments “is a unique United States concept. Elsewhere, the growth of supermarkets has been deplored as reducing access to fruits and vegetables and even increasing prices for fresh produce” because they often take the place of stores dedicated to fruits or vegetables rather than processed, prepackaged foods. Individual cases of obesity can be attributed to one’s access to healthy foods, but the overall rate of incidence for obesity has no such correlation.

Finally, the conclusions. Many of the ideas floating around in the gastrosphere on how to combat the obesity epidemic are either wrong or insufficiently supported by evidence; in the case of the latter, further studies might show support, or might not. What we do know (or did know in 2014), is this…

“Based on empirical evidence and expert opinion, 3 recommendations have been supported by a broad group of health economists in the obesity area:

  1. incorporate health impact assessments to review agricultural policies so that they do not have a deleterious impact on population rates of obesity;
  2. implement a tax on SSB;
  3. examine how to implement fruit and vegetable subsidies targeted at children and low-income households.”

So while it may not be “politically feasible” to institute a national food policy that covers farm to cash register, or to levy taxes on sodas, or to create higher nutritional standards for school lunches, these are the types of things that show promise in addressing the obesity epidemic. What seems clear from the available evidence is that there are too many variables in the national diet for personal choice to make the shift without a policy nudge. Better nutrition saves lives and money. Contact your elected officials and support evidence-based improvements to our food system.

My relationship with fine dining

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Painting of the view down the sidewalk of North Side Square in Huntsville, Alabama, looking west past the entrance to the Jazz Factory.

“Jazz Factory”, a painting by Yuri Ozaki, 2010. The black awning on the right was the entrance.

My first experience with fine dining was when I walked into the Jazz Factory in Huntsville, Alabama looking for a job. Without much ado, I was asked to return for training. It was one of the very few fine dining spots in Huntsville at that time, and over the next week, I and my fellow trainees learned the menu, tasted the food and wine, and started at the bottom rung FOH as food runners, water fillers, and table bussers. I worked as a server for a while, and soon moved into bartending. I even moved two blocks away, and for about four years during my mid-20s, I grew into an adult with my Jazz Factory family. This was one of the most transformative work experiences I’ve ever had because it introduced me to the world of food as an intellectual pursuit rather than mere sustenance. In an odd way, it is thanks to the Jazz Factory that I returned to college. I would spend my days in classrooms and books, and my evenings standing over a table or the bar talking to the regulars and the random strangers, having no idea what a huge benefit this would be to my future role as a teacher. I also learned the intricacies of a menu, which ultimately benefited my doctoral dissertation. In many ways, my current life and aims have only been possible due to my time spent working in the food industry, and specifically at the Jazz Factory. My heartfelt thanks go out to all my co-workers who put up with the bumptious younger me.

I already had some experience working in the food industry by this point. My first restaurant job had been as a busser/dishwasher at an Outback Steakhouse in Columbus, GA. I left Columbus soon after I had been promoted to server, but once I got to Huntsville, I immediately got jobs at both a Chili’s and an Olive Garden, hired literally within 10 minutes of walking through the door at each place. While the training at Olive Garden was more appropriate for learning about food and wine, Chili’s had a faster progression to becoming a bartender, and that’s really what I was after at that time in my life – quick access to booze and a closer interaction with guests. So I stuck with Chili’s. I served tables for a few months, trained as a bartender, worked a few months more behind the bar, and left to peddle my new experience elsewhere, preferably somewhere more lucrative and, dare I say, more distinguished than a chain restaurant that specialized in macrobrews and 1001 different types of margarita. The corporate competitions to sell specific items from the menu proved a drain on my soul, and when I caught myself pushing Presidente Ritas on the obviously intoxicated just to get my numbers up, I knew it was time to move on. This is when I found the Jazz Factory.

The Jazz Factory opened my eyes to, among other things, what it meant to have an actual chef working in the kitchen, utilizing fresh, local ingredients before (I knew) it was cool. The regular menu was pretty great, good enough that they were loathe to change it too much from year to year. But what left the deepest impression on me was that they replaced the regular dinner service one Sunday a month for a time with what they called a Wine Dinner: several courses, each paired with a carefully chosen glass of wine, following a menu specially made for the event and often suited to the season. Many restaurants today call this a Tasting Menu, which is usually an addition to the regular menu, but some places still treat it as a separate event. In my humble opinion, the Tasting Menu is the star of haute cuisine. It allows the chef to work with the best ingredients available without having to adhere to their standard selection of dishes. Guests do have the option to request that certain things be left out of the dinner on the basis of allergy or aversion, but the decisions are otherwise left up to the chef. It can remain consistent throughout the season, or it can change every night, or even for every diner. The Tasting Menu is a chef’s playground. If you appreciate the art and skill of talented chefs who love what they do, and if you have the extra money to spend on such an experience, there is no greater opportunity for good food. For an extra bonus, add the wine pairing, too.

It wasn’t until graduate school that I really started travelling in earnest, which for me meant focusing on food as a cultural experience necessary for a well-rounded trip rather than a mere source of fuel for other activities. Nowadays my wife and I try to visit great restaurants of all types wherever we go, even better when we can share the experience with others. A great many of our meals, including some of the most exquisite, have been at a table with the Kindicks, whose companionship over the years has rendered them part of our family. Such bonds are a testament to the power and importance of a meal.

I have visited many fine dining restaurants worth mentioning since my time at the Jazz Factory. A very many more bars and cafes and family-style restaurants are memorable for their charm and authenticity, but there are just too many of these to keep track of, and very few of these have required planning ahead of time. The fine dining restaurants become part of the itinerary, and in some cases part of the reason to make the trip at all. If a restaurant has a Tasting Menu, we order it as a matter of course. Most other restaurants we tend to visit for dinner have a prix fixe, for which you pay a fixed price and select items from the menu for a number of courses. Either way – not to take anything away from the roadside BBQ sandwich or lobster roll – seek out the best restaurants whenever you can and make a meal of it. Take your time. Enjoy the food. Cherish the company. A chef’s passion makes for an unforgettable experience, even when expectations prove untenable. These memories and the stories that adorn them will last a lifetime.

Featured image used with permission of the artist, Yuri Ozaki:  www.yuriozaki.com

 

Adventures in fine dining

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This is a list of restaurants I consider worthy of mention from my culinary adventures, followed by the chef at the time and the year I was there. The food selection ranges from Tasting Menu (TM) to prix fixe (PF) to regular menu selection (RM). They are in reverse chronological order, to the best of my memory, and I’ve marked my favorites with a ~. The stars noted are Michelin. *Las Vegas no longer received Michelin evaluations as of 2010, but since Vegas restaurants didn’t technically lose their stars, I’ve kept them in brackets where applicable.

  • ~Laurel, Philadelphia, PA – Nick Elmi (2017) TM
  • ~Momofuku Shoto, Toronto, ON – David Chang (2017) TM
  • Peter Pan, Toronto, ON – Noah Goldberg (2017) RM
  • ~Res Culta Pop-up, North Wales, PA – Sam and Jen Kindick (2017, 2014) TM
  • Amada, Philadelphia, PA – Jose Garces (2016) TM
  • Cotton Row, Huntsville, AL – James Boyce (2016, 2013) RM
  • ~Noble Fare, Savannah, GA – Patrick McNamara (2016) TM
  • Vic’s on the River, Savannah, GA – Kerry Stevens (2016) RM
  • ~Atelier Crenn, San Francisco, CA – Dominique Crenn ★★ (2016) TM
  • Aatxe, San Francisco, CA – Ryan Pollnow (2016) RM
  • ~Res Culta Pop-up, Greyrock, NH – Sam and Jen Kindick (2016, 2015) TM
  • ~Volver, Philadelphia, PA – Jose Garces / Dave Conn (2015) TM
  • Morimoto, Philadelphia, PA – Masaharu Morimoto (2015) TM
  • ~Vetri, Philadelphia, PA – Marc Vetri (2015) TM
  • Joël Robuchon, Las Vegas, NV – Claude Le-Tohic [★★★] (2015) TM
  • ~Sage, Las Vegas, NV – Shawn McClain (2015, 2014, 2013) PF
  • Cochon, New Orleans – Donald Link / Stephen Stryjewski (2015) RM
  • Paramour, Wayne, PA – Eric Goods (2014) TM
  • miX, Las Vegas, NV – Alain Ducasse / Bruno Davaillon [★] (2014) PF
  • Aureole, Las Vegas, NV – Charlie Palmer / John Church [★] (2014) PF
  • ~Frasca, Boulder, CO – Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson (2014) TM
  • ~Black Cat, Boulder, CO – Eric Skokan (2014) TM
  • ~Nobu, London, UK – Nobu Matsuhisa / Mark Edwards ★ (2014) TM
  • Alain Ducasse at the Dorcester, London, UK – Jocelyn Herland ★★★ (2014) TM
  • ~Olive Tree, Bath, UK – Chris Cleghorn (2014) TM
  • ~Jean-George Steakhouse, Las Vegas, NV – Robert Moore (2013) PF
  • American Fish, Las Vegas, NV – Michael Mina (2013) PF
  • Le Cirque, Las Vegas, NV – Gregory Putin [★] (2013) PF
  • ~The Crossing, St. Louis, MO – Jim Fiala and Brad Watts (2013) TM
  • Niche, St. Louis, MO – Gerard Craft (2013) TM
  • ~Farmhaus, St. Louis, MO – Kevin Willmann (2013) TM
  • Cobalt Grille, Virginia Beach, VA – Alvin Williams (2013, 2011) RM
  • ~Greyrock, Newbury, NH – Sam and Jen Kindick (2013, 2012, 2011)
  • Taverna Angelica, Rome, Italy – ?? (2012) TM
  • ~Ristorante L’Antica Scuderia, Tavarnelle, FI, Italy – Maria Abbarchini (2012) RM
  • Cinque di Vino, San Casciano, FI, Italy – Silvia Papi, Marco Baldi (2012) RM
  • ~Loiseau des Vignes, Beaune, France – Mourad Haddouche ★ (2012) PF
  • Chez Guy, Gevrey-Chambertin, France – Yves Rebsamen (2012) RM
  • ~Tante Margarite, Paris, France – Bernard Loiseau† / Pedro Gomes (2012) PF
  • *Tallahassee restaurants will have their own post (2005-2017)
  • Uchi, Austin, TX – Tyson Cole (2005) PF
  • 801 Franklin, Huntsville, AL – Matt Martin (employed 2004-2005)
  • Jazz Factory, Huntsville, AL – Gevara Teebi (employed 2000-2004)

Resolutions

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Not that you asked, but my opinion on New Year’s resolutions? Make em! Have goals. But be flexible.

Some people are self-obstructively binary about these things by setting a narrow goal and declaring the resolution broken at the first sign of delinquency, or worse, avoiding making a resolution at all because the odds of remaining completely faithful to it are slim. You may say you want to join a gym, go for two weeks, miss the first day of the third week and never visit the gym again. Or you may say you want to quit smoking, you make it through the first day, light up due to some trigger and retreat back into the same old habits the very next day. Diet. Acts of kindness. Writing. These are just examples from my own personal experience, but you have your own. I like to think I’ve matured somewhat over the years. I’m a lot more flexible about goals and resolutions, and I’m a lot more forgiving of myself as a consequence. Leniency seems to me to be a much more successful tactic to achieving a goal than trying to be “motivated” or even “realistic” (neither of which are bad advice, just not very helpful, imho). Just know that it’s okay to take things slow. Making a New Year’s resolution isn’t going to be like flipping a switch – you have all year. The important thing is to make the adjustment an important part of your daily life. Just attempting to make yourself a better person will make you a better person. Stay positive!

Here are some of my favorite food-related New Year’s resolutions that I’ve made over the years. For the most part, I’ve been rather successful with each one. I certainly think I’m better off having set them as goals. My rule of thumb is to worry less about getting it right and more about making it better.

  • Be more present (i.e. less distracted) when you cook, and make an effort to think about what’s going on with the food as it goes from raw to plate.
  • Find out where the foods you normally eat come from.
  • Practice cooking eggs lots of different ways. Not all at once.
  • Bake some bread.
  • Braise some meat.
  • Eat more vegetables. Buy a folding steamer basket.
  • Eat fresh fruits and dried nuts instead of chips and cookies.
  • Drink more water. You’ll be amazed at how good it tastes once you’re hooked.
  • Skip seconds. Have some water instead.
  • Make stocks, and turn these stocks into soups etc.
  • Learn how to cook over charcoal.
  • Learn how to butcher a chicken.
  • Cook seasonal foods. Not sure how to start? Shop at the farmers’ market, or better, join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program, even for a short time.
  • Donate money to a food bank. Every little bit helps.
  • Don’t eat fast food, especially for dinner. If you’re too busy to make a quick meal for dinner, you’re too busy.
  • Plan for leftovers, for when even a quick meal isn’t quick enough.
  • Get some painter’s tape and start labeling containers you put in the fridge with the date of entry.
  • Stop buying foods that are sold in boxes and bags. You’ll eat less mac&cheese if you have to make it the “hard” way.
  • Make mac&cheese the “hard” way. Not that hard, very yummy.
  • When picking a restaurant, go local. (I’ll have a post about why at some point.)
  • Eat at a real table. The coffee table doesn’t count.
  • Offer to cook for other people, and accept when others extend the offer to you.
  • Talk about food.
  • Burp out loud.

Wishing everyone a delightful 2017! Bon appétit!

frog-bbq

Road food

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Holiday travel for us means long road trips. About 2,500 miles or more, depending on the year. Spending an obscene number of hours driving means that we also consume more than our fair share of road food. I’m not particularly fond of fast food chains, so we avoid these. This certainly makes finding a meal on the road a bit more difficult, but thanks to the modern marvel of the smart phone, we research local restaurants on the fly, usually gravitating toward barbeque. A decent pulled pork or brisket sandwich beats a mcwhatever any day of the year.

pig-silhouetteSome people have very strong feelings about barbeque, but there are so many styles to appreciate that digging in your heels about any particular one means you miss out on some pretty awesome tastiness. There is some variety in meats and cooking styles, but the distinguishing characteristic tends to be the flavor imparted by a primary ingredient added to the meat either during the cook or as a condiment. There’s the molasses of Kansas City, the dry rubs of Memphis, the vinegar of North Carolina and the mustard of South Carolina, the white sauce and coleslaw of Alabama, and the hot sauce of east Texas. I enjoy it all, so long as it’s given the proper love. I must admit that not all barbeque joints bring the love; in fact, we tend to bat about .500, but most of the mediocre ones are still better than fast food and the best ones are extraordinary finds that we try to hit again and again. Guides on the various styles of barbeque can be found all over the internet, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. To me, the important thing is to know how to find a place to stop while traveling, adding as little extra time as possible. To that end, I’ve outlined a few steps that will make it easier to avoid the fast food chains and find some good grub.

First, and this goes without saying, you have to plan ahead. Billboards are sometimes helpful, but you can’t expect those exit-sign food listings to offer much guidance beyond fast food. Try to take the time to locate some possibilities before setting out, a necessary step if you’re traveling alone and don’t have the luxury of doing research on the phone while driving. If you’re like us and always running behind schedule then you might end up looking for a spot in an unforeseen area anyway, so this is where you get to enjoy the true thrill of the hunt, finding good food within a reasonable distance, well before the hangry sets in. Start looking for spots by location based on WHEN you’d prefer to eat, but no less than a good half hour down the road. Cities are easiest, but by no means does quality of the food equate to the ease of finding it (as evidenced by the ubiquity of fast food). Smaller towns or even the boonies often have the gems that are worth visiting more than once. Make sure they’ll be open when you’ll be passing through – don’t count on any place to serve past 9 pm, and many places in the Bible Belt are closed on Sundays.

Once you’ve found a good candidate, check the reviews. You should never allow one or two bad reviews to dissuade you from trying a place, nor should you commit based on one or two great reviews, but you can get a feel for a spot’s food and service by reading through what other people have to say. Keep in mind that it takes a certain kind of person to post a review at all, plus it may be that only the most memorable (for better or worse) food compels the most comments, but this step could save you from wasting your time. If you see that a place receives several complaints about any specific thing, find somewhere else. This is especially true for the service, as food tends to be more subjective than attention or attitude. You can afford to be a little picky since there are usually several options to choose from.

Most places now have a menu available online, and you can use this to order ahead to save time. Barbeque is usually ready for pickup in about 15-20 minutes, but you can always ask them to have it ready at a specific time. Still, people forget things, so I wouldn’t call more than about 30 minutes ahead of your arrival. Consult your GPS. And yes, you might have to drive a mile or so away from the interstate, and one of you will probably need to get out of your car, but calling ahead will get you back on the road quicker than a chicken on a junebug.

Finally, ordering barbeque. You’re almost guaranteed to see a pulled pork sandwich on the menu, and you’ll definitely want to order it since this is usually a signature item. You can tell so much about a restaurant’s priorities, methods, and standards from just this one item. For future reference (for both the restaurant and your personal preferences), consider the bread, the chop of the meat, the seasoning, the sauce, and any toppings. If any of these things are sub par, the rest of the menu will be, too. Common sides we enjoy are fried okra, baked beans, mac&cheese, and coleslaw. Try any unique items you see, such as corn fritters, fried pickles, and Brunswick stew. And be sure to distinguish between poor quality and personal preference. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s poorly made, but it’ll be helpful for you when ordering the next time.

Finding good food on a road trip is not all that difficult, plus it’s an enjoyable activity for what can often be a monotonous journey. Even if you’re not into barbeque, there are lots of local restaurants that serve all kinds of things, and most of my general recommendations apply broadly to these as well. The main thing is that you don’t need to feel obligated to eat fast food from a mega-chain. Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t eat the mcwhatsits. I’m just saying you can do better.

Noteworthy BBQ locations from our recent trip(s):

Bradley’s Pit Bar-B-Que & Grill in Sweetwater, TN – We’ve been here a couple times now, and everything has been good. Try the pulled pork sandwich and the sliced beef brisket sandwich, especially.

Three Li’l Pigs Barbeque in Daleville, VA – They offer several varieties of BBQ, so this is a good place to try if you want to sample a few different types.
3-little-pigs

Painting hanging over the bar inside Three Li’l Pigs Barbeque in Daleville, VA

 

The health of our food system

Shawn Youngblood Policy Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

junk-food-brainThis post will lay out (what I understand to be) the basic logic behind why consuming a varied diet of whole foods cooked yourself is more desirable than a “conventional” diet of processed, packaged, or prepared foods. In sum, what you eat is a major determinant of your health cost; that is, the financial burden of your medical needs. It is an ironie du sort that taxpayers are the very ones who make the least healthy foods the cheapest to eat, thanks to corporate lobbyists. This is why the discussion of food is political rather than merely personal. The argument consists of an extremely complicated set of issues, and although some points will be more obvious than others, each and every one deserves its own post, researched and cited. As that work is done, I’ll update this post with the appropriate links, and corrections when necessary.

It must be said that there are many variables that affect our health for which we have little to no control, from genetic predisposition to environmental exposure to accidental injury. The one aspect of our health that we can control is our diet, although even here there are factors that restrict our ability to choose, such as budget, tradition, and availability. I hope to have the opportunity to expand my coverage at some point, but the focus of this argument is two-fold: to show why a more natural diet is optimal for our health, and to recognize that the current food system encourages eating habits that are patently detrimental to our health.

  1. Good health is intrinsically connected to nutrition (although nutrition is not the only component of good health). Furthermore, diet is responsible for more ailments than we generally acknowledge.
  2. We house a vital community of bacteria in our gut, commonly referred to as the intestinal microbiome. I’ve come to refer to these critters endearingly as “gut buggies”. The makeup of this community depends on the nourishment it receives, which is determined by the foods we eat. A more complex diet leads to a more complex community of gut buggies.
  3. These gut buggies contribute to the breaking down of food in the process of digestion. A more complex community of gut buggies means a larger variety of nutritive elements made available for use by the body.
  4. Without venturing a numerical guess, good nutrition requires more essential elements than we have isolated so far. In much the same way as it is hubris to discount the possible existence of life elsewhere in the universe, or even our own galaxy, it is hubris to think we have mastered the elements of nutrition. A varied diet built upon whole foods is preferable because it exposes us to the still unknown complexities of nature rather than to the limited consistency required of factory mass production.
  5. Currently, the subsidies provided by our tax dollars prioritize calories over nutrition.
  6. Highly processed foods – primarily, those artificially loaded with salt, sugar, and/or fat in order to create addictive bliss points – tend to have lots of ingredients but are actually less complex in terms of nutrition because many of the ingredients that go into these products start from just two sources: corn and soybean.
  7. Highly processed foods are a leading cause of poor nutrition in the developed world. This problem is compounded by the relative low price of these foods compared to whole, raw foods, a phenomenon supported by those government subsidies.
  8. Poor nutrition contributes to many long-term health problems, to include heart disease and type 2 diabetes (two of the leading causes of death in the developed world).
  9. Eating more whole foods is cheaper in the long run. Changing the way we subsidize our food system will improve our health and will reduce the burdensome costs of health care.
  10. I am not advocating for the complete abolition of any particular type of food. Put simply, our food system should encourage foods that are more healthy and discourage foods that are less healthy. Current subsidies in our food system lead to higher long-term health costs than necessary, which is detrimental to our economy, our society, and our culture.