Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Remember the Food Groups?

Buying food has become a stressful experience for me lately.

The more I learn about what is in food and where it comes from, the more selective I am in what I eat. For example, after watching a CBC documentary called Big Sugar (which everyone should watch, by the way), I realized that a ridiculous number of foods contain sugar... and sugarcane workers are basically slaves, some of whom have their passports taken away from them so that they can never go home.

Peanut butter has sugar, as does bread and soy milk. So my sister and I bought some all natural peanut butter and it was really yummy! Unfortunately, it's really hard to find food that doesn't contain a bunch of preservatives, sugars, salts and other unnecessary and somewhat unhealthy additives.

I've also notice that my campus offers extremely little in the choice of healthy foods. I mean, the best you can get is probably Mr. Sub or Extreme Pita, both of which are overpriced (especially the second one). You can find salad at some places but they smother it with dressing (full of salt and sugar), and Treats offers some good creative dishes (though they tend to be dripping with oil... literally).

Recently, some student lobbying got some of the campus coffee shops to sell fair trade coffee, although that is also more expensive and noticeably not promoted. At one place, they even put the fair trade coffee on the back burners so that people won't use it.

It's starting to seem like the main food groups are grease, sugar and salt. Sad times.

EDIT: I just wanted to add one thing I forgot to say. Even the "healthy" drinks, like fruit juice and vitamin water more often than not contain a ton of sugar... and sometimes juice doesn't even have any real fruit in it...

Friday, January 8, 2010

Back

I've started a new job and in the first couple of days my schedule shot up from 9 hours a week to 15 hours a week. Since I'm taking three classes and have another job with 12 hours a week, I'm a little surprised. I think I'll keep it for now and then try to get rid of a shift or two as the semester gets busier.

I also spent ten days in Northwest River, Labrador. I went with my sister because we wanted to see the Northern Lights, but sadly, no dice. It was too overcast, plus apparently, according to the people who live there, the lights are becoming rarer. Maybe it's because the magnetic North is shifting. Or maybe it's because of climate change. Who knows.

We had a good time anyway though, went dog sledding, skidooing (that's snowmobiling for all you non-Canadians), had Christmas Eve and Day dinners, went to a kitchen party and a Boxing Day dance, and hitchhiked in and out of Goose Bay, where we saw the Air Force base among other things. It was pretty cool to be able to wander around the base without anyone caring, and they even had some old-time planes that you could go right up to and climb on... not that we did or anything.

There was no internet or phone in the place we stayed in and it was kind of nice. No email, no chat, no Facebook. It was really relaxing, especially since we had no schedule or responsibilities.

But now I'm back, starting my new job, back at my old one, back online, starting up the new semester. I've only had one class so far, but it seems like it'll be interesting. It's a cross-listed Sociology/Anthropology class called Terrorism and Society. The prof is from Russia and he's really funny in a very European kind of way. Very dry and witty. "This is where you will find out if I have to cancel the class for some reason... if there's a terrorist attack or something." He keeps a straight face though so lots of people don't get it here. North Americans aren't good at irony.

Anyway, as usual, this post has no rhyme or reason to it, but that's the point of this blog. I'm not trying to be the world's next greatest blogger. It's just a place to get things out in print and just maybe someone will read it and comment on it. Or not. It doesn't really matter.