Blue Hour – Portland Blues Band Photo Shoot

February 12, 2008

Young Hee Shin Fashion Show

February 19, 2008

Michael Pollan’s Talk

February 19, 2008
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I decided that I will write some non-photography related stuff here as well. I hope that helps my clients get to know me better as a person as well.
Coming from a Mediterranean country, I am a food lover. Recently, I have been reading a lot about where food comes from, and I was surprised how bad the food we eat is. I think the awakening moment for me was growing food at my garden in planter boxes, and even though people have been doing this for thousands of years, being a city boy it was fascinating. I had basil, tomatoes, beets, carrots, cucumber, eggplants, peppers, beans, peas etc. (I think I had 20 different types of produce from three small boxes).
I had a chance to listen to Mr. Pollan at Bagdad Theater last week. It was pretty interesting stuff. I have been a big fan of eating healthier lately and dropped 28lbs even without exercising and found it to be not super hard once I cut down my white processed foods and things with corn syrup in them. I do not eat white sugar, I cut out white rice and most breads, and cut my cheese intake. I eat much more locally produced vegetables as well. I thought I could never do this, but it was surprisingly easy once I decided on it. I do not drink regular soda anymore, and use stevia instead of sugar. I also cut down my portion sizes – the first week was hard but now I do not crave much anymore and I have some healthy snacks like apples around (apple slicers are awesome!) I also took a knife skills class from a local chef (Chef Al). It was awesome and I cook more at home now.

Anyways, these are some really cool, but common sense tips:
Michael Pollan’s Tips

Another thing that was a new discovery for me, but should not really come as a surprise, was how big chicken producers like Tyson inject the chicken with salt water and the sea weed carrageenan (wow, I spelled that right the first time!). Since these are all natural ingredients, the chicken itself is labeled 100% natural. I want to see the chickens that have sea weed grow naturally in them but anyways. The bottom line is 8 times higher sodium content (bad bad for your heart) and that you pay up to 15% extra for salt water.

http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/07/28/business/072907bizchickenlabels.txt

Crazy.