The Deoiling of Afghanistan

This post is a part of Fight Back Friday hosted by the Food Renegade.

While attending an Afghan cultural event where I ate excellent liver, I also asked about the cooking ingredients used in modern Afghanistan.  An Afghan woman told me that Afghan food makes you fat because it has a lot of oil in it.  I had assumed that Afghanistan still held to its traditional diet because they were so poor, but it turns out that oil is one way in which they have departed from their traditional diet.

Today Afghans cook using soybean oil and vegetable oil.  Both of these are terrible for you (see this Weston A. Price page for more information).  She said they used some olive oil, but it was too expensive for frequent use.  Soy and vegetable oils are modern inventions and could not have been used by Afghans over the ages, so I asked about what they had used before these oils became popular but she did not know.

It turns out that the American Diet Dictocrats have taken over the Afghan government.  The Afghan government is “concerned” about their nation’s health so they are banning all solid cooking oils.  My guess is that the Afghan’s downward trajectory in health began when they got their first Socialist government in 1978.  A year their downward trend accelerated with the invasion of two successive foreign empires (USSR & USA) and their own puppet regimes.

Vegetarianism and Milk

http://wp.me/pPO3L-t

Superb Afghan liver

People who grow up eating organ meats love to eat them.  Liver is one of the favorite foods of my friend from Iran, but I eat it in spite of my taste buds.  Fortunately for people raised on traditional diets, they not only love to eat healthy foods but become better at preparing them as well.

I recently attended a presentation put on by some people from Afghanistan about their country.  After the dinner they served Afghan food.  I wen through the line and took some of the dishes without paying too much attention.  While eating one of the dishes, I noticed that the meat had a distinctive texture.  There was something unusual about it which I could not figure out.  As I chewed it dawned on me that this was liver.

I wanted to be sure so I asked one of the Afghans about it.  He confirmed that it was liver.  I did not observe any person make a remark about the dish before myself, so I don’t think most other people realized it was liver.

I asked the cook for a recipe.  This is what he told me:

1. Chop up the liver into small pieces
2. Rinse the liver with water several times
3. Place the liver in a frying pan with oil leaving the water from the last rinsing
4. Chop up onions, garlic, tomatoes, and cilantro
5. Add the ingredients from the previous step to the frying pan
6. Cook until ready

I have not tried cooking this yet, but I will one of these days.  I am sure that it is more difficult than it sounds.  If successful, this recipe would give a way around covering over the taste of liver with strong flavors.

Don’t eat soy

Fashion changes in the early 1900s

Bicycle dresses from 1896

Dresses in an 1897 catalog

This post is a part of Fight Back Friday hosted by the Food Renegade.

In her book Esther Gokhale discusses how the flappers and fashion models popularized the slouch and destroyed American posture during the 1920s. It is rare to be able to pinpoint a health turning point to a key time period such as this.  I decided to look into the matter and found that prior to the slouch women were expected to stand in an oppressive “S” position. Here is a description of the “S” posture:

Between about 1880 and 1910, the ideal womens silhouette resembled the letter “S.” Bodies were boned and corseted into an hourglass shape, with waists forced into tiny circlets measuring less than 20 inches. The entire upper torso was thrust forward, creating a “pigeon front,” and the hips were pointed backward and slightly up, finishing out the letter “S.”

New book review site

I have updated my book review site.  You can see it here:  www.benjaminleonard.com/books

Being disgusted by non-masculinity

While you are wallowing in sin, it is not disgusting in fact it is very pleasant.  As you break away from the sin, it can begin to disgust you. You may or may not have experienced this in your life, but I have heard others talk about this phenomenon.

I have noticed a similar behavior in myself regarding effeminate behavior in men.  I think I used to behave in a feminine manner.  I won’t claim to be masculine now, but I am much more masculine than I used to be.  Now, when I see men cowering, acting submissively towards, or acting fearful of their wives it disgusts and horrifies me.  I know that some of them have no other option because they risk being ruined in divorce, but it still gets under my skin.  When something like this happens I usually try to make myself stay quiet for the rest of the conversation so no derogatory comments leak out.

When I read this post by Vox Day about how men refer to their wives as “their better halves” it was a light bulb moment for me.  Thankfully, this saying is not used often.  If I had heard it used recently, it would have certainly made an impression on me.  Vox is correct, I have heard men say this before, but to my knowledge I have never heard a woman say this.

My bet is that women do not like this saying either because women are not more moral than men.  If someone seriously believe that you have not faults, it makes you worry what will happen when your sinful nature slips out.  It might seem that you are living a lie.

I think this also reveals a misconception about how women think.  Women want someone they can look up to and admire.  They want someone to lead them and protect them.  A saying like this demonstrates that a man sees his wife more like his mother.  She is not a fallen sinful person in a partnership with him but the Virgin who cares for him and is his role model.  As Dave from Hawaii describes, this attitude kills a female attraction.

Links

It’s been a while since I posted some links, so here are a few interesting ones.

• Here are some fascinating pictures of Russian Indians
• Sarah Pope guest blogs at Kim Hartke about the war on butter
• Feminism in America circa 1942
• There is a no shampoo article in the Boston Phoenix
• There was a long article in the New York Times by Gary Taubes about the standard “healthy” diet
• The Spearhead ran an article a while ago about the Prison Industrial Complex
• Mark’s Daily Apple discusses eating raw eggs
• Kelly the Kitchen Kop comes up with a good recipe for liver
• Ferdinand wrote a piece about vajazzling

Alcohol and a nourishing diet

This post is a part of Fight Back Friday.

In a recent post I discussed alcohol and nourishing diets.  My consumption of and desire for sugar has almost disappeared since going on the Weston Price diet.  I have experienced the same thing with alcohol.  Although I have never had a problem with alcohol, I consume less of it than I used to.

I began drinking pretty late in life.  Even after I began drinking I never really liked the taste of alcohol.  I began drinking on a regular basis during a summer trip to Germany; after I returned I would usually have a beer or two per week.

Now that I am eating in closer accordance to the Weston Price ideals than I have before, I usually drink only once very two or three weeks.  The main time that I drink is after I have eaten a very small meal (because I am running out of food) and am still hungry.  In this case it is a feeling of hunger that makes me decide to open a beer.

I still drink when at a party because it is the social thing to do.  I can enjoy the flavor of beer but I don’t have any more desire to drink it than I would to drink anything else.  I prefer drinking kombucha and milk to beer.

Water filter give away

The Food Renegade is hosting a give away for an Aqua Dome water purifier.  Enter to win out here.