I've been thinking about nutrition a lot lately. Academic-wise, there is Michael Pollan's visit to Stanford today ("In Defense of Food: The Omnivore's Solution" 7:30 PM in Kresge), dining room discussions of recent articles in the New York Times about stigmas associated with subsidized public school lunches and (separately) "drunkorexia". On campus, we have Stanford's "Be Well" initiative, my post about the deceptively high caloric meals at the Axe & Palm, Manzanita's Week of Wellness, and Mirror's National Eating Disorder Awareness Week events last week.

Stanford seems to present a health goal for its students and staff. Be Well. Get $150. But this message comes at students in a very confusing way:

Stanford Dining Halls serve healthy food! Stanford Dining halls serve pizza! Pizza has fewer calories than the pasta dish! You are required to eat at Stanford Dining if you live in a dorm, even if you have many specific dietary needs! Be well! Eat vegetables! Stanford Dining vegetables are covered in sticky sweet "sauce"! Salad bar vegetables are unripe! Eat from the salad bar if you are vegan! Eat fruit - we have the same bananas, apples, and oranges year-round, but if you rush to Branner Dining when it opens you might even get some grapes from the garnish on the brownie plate! Check out the nutritional content online! Eat the high calorie protein entrées because you have no other dining option! Be fit! Exercise! Our facilities are conveniently open all day long, so you can exercise anytime of the day . . . or multiple times a day . . . or go at times when your RA and roommates aren't awake to notice . . .

Oh yeah, and don't have an eating disorder. Love your body?

Perhaps I'm being cynical, but these messages are thrown around everywhere, and it scares me. I spoke on the closing panel for the Manzanita Week of Wellness mentioned above. The attendance was primarily staff interested in the primarily staff-targeted Be Well campaign. While mingling before the event, Stanford Dining catering services brought out a standard arrangement of fruits, cheese, crackers, crudités, and cookies. The staff and student presenters snacked while talking, but it seemed that half of the staff discussion was on the food. Comments like "Oh you're having a cookie - that's not necessarily wellness, is it?" and "That cheese looks amazing, but I can't allow myself to have any!" dominated about half of the conversation.

As the staff socially supported one another in avoiding, or eating half of, the cheese, crackers, cookies, and fruit, I felt horrified. These are the sorts of comments and behaviors I recognize in people with eating disorders. These are the comments I was supposed to interrupt and educate about when I worked at a youth center. These comments are being passed down through the Stanford Be Well Initiative, to staff, to the student presenters on this panel. RFs were either making these comments, or implicitly supporting them with silence.

When Stanford freshmen arrive with their not-quite-developed prefrontal cortexes they don't necessarily get the right tools to make good lifestyle patterns. Set loose into this mixed-messages world with little or no experience in meal planning, they get sucked into either the trap of desperately avoiding the Freshman 15, or into the trap of assuming cafeteria food is healthy and gaining weight - both resulting in skewed ideas of how to lose weight.

Perhaps the recent obsession with food discussion here and elsewhere is the result of factors like the end of Lent approaching, diet resolutions from the new year failing, people concerned about looking good in a bathing suit, etc. But I think it isn't the result of a sudden change in personal attitude and behavior. People are becoming more and more comfortable talking about their personal dieting patterns. Is this increased discussion and social focus on how to eat better helping or hurting the prevalence of disordered eating?

Last year, Stanford Dining began publishing the menus and nutritional information of their dining halls on its website. Since I ate in Branner and Wilbur dining halls exclusively, reading the nutritional information of the foods Stanford Dining requires all dorm dwellers to purchase made me rather queasy. Each entree offered often approached 600 calories, and sometimes more. After totaling the calories and fat consumed during my average dining hall meal, I started substituting salads and cereal, resenting the fact that I was required to pay $10 each dinner to eat Raisin Bran.

I moved into a co-op this year and I thought my connection to Stanford Dining would be minimal, limited only to eating occasionally at Tressider, the Axe & Palm and Olives. After reading the Daily article about the Axe & Palm's plans to renovate their menu with fresher alternatives, I wanted to look and see how healthy their menu truly is. After all, apart from the lack of vegetarian options, many of their salads, sandwiches, and breakfast items sound reasonably healthy and "Californian".

Looking at the nutritional chart was surprising. The Turkey Pesto Melt is deceptively over 750 calories and provides all of the protein you need in a day. A California Cobb Salad is 905 calories. Even not-completely-healthy menu items seem exorbitantly caloric. The Chicken Quesadillas are over 700 calories as well. The 50-50 Onion Rings and Fries Combo is reported to be over 1300 calories.

These food items, teamed with the many sweet offerings in the 400-800 calorie range, make a chain like Subway much more appealing. It's possible that the caloric analysis of the Axe & Palm may not be completely accurate, but if this is the case, how can we be sure what truly is healthy?

What implications does this have for the students required to eat central to the Quad for classes? Is Stanford Dining irresponsible for offering such unhealthy food in the first place? Could this have implications for those with restrictive eating, or provoke this behavior in others by providing a sense that there is no such thing as a healthy meal at Stanford?

Thomas Keller is widely regarded as one of America's finest chefs, and his restaurants French Laundry and Per Se have been named the best restaurants in America.

Interviewing Thomas Keller at the French Laundry in Yountville was a rare treat for two food fanatics like ourselves, and the great surprise that Chef de Cuisine Corey Lee whipped up for us in the kitchen post-interview was the icing on the cake.

Several years ago a friend and myself trekked down to Rose International Market (1060 Castro St, Mountain View, CA – if you’re coming from Stanford you take a right on Castro Street [it’s not in the downtown area]) where we had a great inexpensive kabob wrap.

This last Sunday the hubby and I repeated the trek and can definitely recommend it to anyone looking for good cheap eats. I haven't been a big fan of Persian restauarants - the dishes I've tried has either been overflavored with one note (when I tried pomegranate chicken at one restaurant) or bland (some other place I went but can't remember), but I like kabobs and the rice dishes they offer at this place.

Rose Market is a combo grocery store and kabob grill that has outdoor seating (with plenty of umbrellas for shade). The trick is knowing how to order – All items are pretty much ordered separately. You first order items like hummos, yogurt sauce, and rice from the small deli inside (plus pick up knives and forks). Place your kabob order at the checkout counter, get an order number, and then pick up your kabob order from the grill outside in the back (bring a dollar to tip the grill guys).

We picked up some drinks (various prices, I had coconut water). Then got yogurt sauce (2.99/lb) and Zereshk Polo (steamed white basmati rice with barberries and saffron, $2.99 for a box) at the deli. We then ordered a Chicken (3.99) and Barg (top sirloin marinated in saffron and other spice, 4.99) kabob with 2 orders of grilled tomatoes (0.99 each). All the meat is halal (the store displays a certificate).

The kabobs come on a tray placed on top of a piece of lavash (large thin piece of flat bread) with whatever veggies you order and a mix of cilantro, basil, and parsley (plus onion if you want it). Sumac is available at the table and we basically ladled rice and yogurt sauce onto the lavash , sprinkeled everything with sumac and had a great meal. Combining a small piece of lavash with rice, yogurt, basil, and parsley made for a delicious bite. We liked the food so much we picked up some more Zereshk Polo and a Koubideh kabob (ground beef and lamb mixed with onion and spiced, sprinkled with sumac, 1.99) for dinner.

I came across this BBC article called "Cruelty in the Kitchen" on how some animals are ok to eat (Whales in Japan, and Dog in Vietnam) and others are not ok (In the US/Europe, eating whale and dog meat would be unthinkable).

The author discusses how people argue that whales are endangered species (but not all of them are, and Japan didn't make them that way, Europe and America did). He also discusses how many people think killing whales with harpoons is cruel.

But what's not cruel about slicing the beaks off chickens minutes after they are born, or keeping sows in 2" by 7" gestation crates for their entire lives? Why is it ok to eat chicken and pork but not whale and pig? I would eat any animal given the right circumstance.

Let me be clear. I love eating meat. A tasty steak makes my mouth water and I'm sure I've eaten hundreds of pounds of meat in my lifetime. But I won't eat it anymore. It's wrong.

If you think kicking a stray dog in ribs or breaking the neck of a stray cat is wrong; you must realize you do the same thing every time you eat meat that is not locally produced. You are supporting an industry that does horrendous things to living, feeling creatures.

You may not know this, but housed at a Safeway or Molly Stones near you is a new Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor named after late night talk show host Stephen Clobert of the Colbert Report. A fan of the late night show, I decided to try "Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream" ice cream to see if I liked it.

(yes, this is the actual carton I tried)

A message from Cooking Club President Scott Walter:

Dear culinary enthusiasts,

Starting this Friday, as part of the annual Earth Week celebration,
Stanford will be operating a new weekly Farmer's Market ON CAMPUS!!!

The Stanford Produce Stand, located in front of Tresidder Union, will be
open for business every Friday during the growing season from 12-5pm.

I hope many of you will come out to support community farmers and take
advantage of the convenience and superior quality of locally farmed
produce! There will also be order sheets available if you would like to
pre-order produce for pickup the next week.

This is a very exciting new initiative and I'm hoping Stanford students
will take advantage of community supported agriculture here in the Bay
Area. Come show your support this Friday!

Scott Walter
President of the Stanford Cooking Club

Earth Week events organized by Stanford Dining