Foot-In-Mouth Disease

So far on this blogging adventure I've written about food and drink that I've had. Now is time for me to speak of food I've gone without.

Yesterday I decided not to have coffee. Well, honestly I decided the night before. My coffeemaker has one of those handy-dandy timers that allows you to set up coffee to brew at a later time. It's quite brilliant, actually. Anyway, I was very tired Tuesday night. I didn't feel like washing the coffeepot and the filter cup, or grinding beans and measuring water, blah blah blah, so I decided to forget it all and go to bed. I could just do without coffee on Wednesday. Of course I could. It's just a beverage!

Besides, the coffee I'd had Tuesday morning had been a bit funky and I guess the unpleasantness still lingered.
Wednesday morning came and I had cereal but no café.

I was fine.

Until about 3pm--when I started to get punchy. And began to feel the pangs of a headache. And lost any hope of being able to concentrate on anything. At all.

I arrived home after work and met up with my roommate and friend, and, during a simple innocent conversational exchange, the caffeine-thirsty monster leapt out of me and the simmering crankiness from my coffee-deprived brain bubbled over with a response of jerkiness that not only hurt their feelings, but left me feeling even worse.

Later, after apologizing profusely, I pledged silently to prepare my morning drug every night no matter how sleepy or lazy I felt. I'd like to make clear my coffee-less-ness was no excuse for my rude behavior, but it certainly was a factor in my poor judgment and my complete lack of diplomacy. Why is caffeine's thumb so hard to get out from under?

Organics vs. Locals vs. Engineered foods

Ideal Bite provides a daily newsletter that gives tips and hawks products for the greenie in all of us. I like some of the tips which I keep in an "Ideal Bite Keepers" folder in my email. The rest are tossed in the trash. It's a daily dose of greenery that keeps me informed and on my toes. And sometimes I get a nice eye roll when I read about buying organic *insert product here* that I don't use anyway. But some of the time, they hit the nail on the head. Errr...the organic nail?
Anyway, today's Ideal Bite tip was all about genetically engineered food that suspiciously finds their way into our pantries, fridges, and freezers. A list of these foods, along with their non-engineered alternative, is available here.
I enjoyed, and was disturbed, by reading the list. But my main question, and I have to admit that I did not read the other information on the True Food website very fully*, is this: about five Weight Watchers meals are listed as genetically engineered. Does that mean only those five are GE'ed (how funny!) or does it mean that they all are?? If all of them are GE'ed, why not list them all?? Just curious.
Disturbing as the list is, and I have to admit that I have quite a lot of the GE'ed foods, I was also skeptical about their meaning of organic. For example, the beef and chicken we get from the local farm, just a bike ride away, is not organic. I don't remember exactly why but they don't use hormones in their meat. They are free-range animals (and very cute, I might add) but they are still not organic. I have also listened/read from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle that some farmers can't afford to purchase the permit that makes them organic. Small farms especially.
So that launches into the debate of buy locally or buy organically. Personally: I'm all about the local people. Here's why:
I develop a relationship with them. They see me, I can tell them that there food is freakin' awesome, we develop a relationship. Honestly, have you ever intentionally poisoned your friends? Lied to them? Plus I got really good fertility advice from the farmstand lady, advice on cooking shallots (which are excellent!) from another, and I got to pick up a very hefty chicken! What's there to lose?

*I sure am a great librarian, right?? :)