This is your brain with a shmethical dilemma

Dearest Shmethicist,

I recently decided to stop using my Teflon-lined rice cooker because I’m finally convinced that coating isn’t something I want flaking into my food and getting into my body. I figured there are still lots of people out there who don’t mind non-stick stuff and even prefer it, so I gave my rice cooker away for free. I also gave away a set of plastic mixing bowls when I bought stainless steel ones. I figured it would save someone money and keep those things out of the landfill. But later I talked to my mom and her reaction was that I should absolutely NOT subject other people to the things I wouldn’t use myself. She’s very conscious of sustainable practices and is a big advocate of fixing things rather than throwing them away and buying new ones, and she buys a lot of second-hand stuff herself. But she was certain that my rice cooker was better off in the trash.

What do you think? Send the old stuff to the dump, or give it to people who might buy it anyway?

Thanks,

Frying Pan into the Fire?

Dear Frying Pain into the Fire,

This is a Jewish food blog. You know I’m going to say your mother is right.

But this being a progressive Jewish food blog, I’m going to say you are also right.

And shmethics being the tricky business that they are, I have to tell you: you’re also both wrong.

(Thanks for asking something so complicated, because that’s what any good advice column needs)

Your mother is right that if you feel a flaky Teflon pan is not healthy for you to cook with, it’s flaky ethics to give it to someone else to cook with. Whether that person knows or cares about the dangers of Teflon is irrelevant. If I find myself with half a pack of cigarettes in my possession, I wouldn’t give them to the teen I see smoking at the bus stop, no matter how deep in denial she is about the medical risks of sucking burning carcinogens into her lungs.

But you’re right to be concerned about the environmental issues raised by casting off the old as you cast iron in the new. And it’s not just the volume you might add to the landfill that should worry you. There is reasonable concern that phthalates, Bisphenol A, perflourinated chemicals and all those other goodies that are in plastics, Teflon, etc. are leaching into water and soil.

Which is why you can’t just toss your toxic kitchenware.

So what’s a smethical Jew to do?

Here’s what I did. I quarantined my nonstick cookware, dug out my collection of circa 1973 Sunset Magazines, got out the glue sticks, and came up with this crafty solution.

Panning for Crafty Gold!

Was: toxic shlock. Now: art!

So I charge you, dear readers: what’s the craftiest solution YOU can come up with for transforming a toxic former-kitchen gadget into a cool keepsake? Post your ideas!  Post your pix!

And send your own ethical food questions to the shmethicist!

]]> http://jcarrot.org/ask-the-shmethicist-does-tossing-flaky-teflon-make-for-flaky-ethics/feed 7 http://jcarrot.org/ask-the-shmethicist-is-there-something-phishy-in-my-water http://jcarrot.org/ask-the-shmethicist-is-there-something-phishy-in-my-water#comments Thu, 15 Jan 2009 02:08:30 +0000 Lois Leveen http://jcarrot.org/ask-the-shmethicist-is-there-something-phishy-in-my-water/

On most nights, we don’t even dip once.  So what’s the shmethicist doing taking a dunk with Beastie Boy Adam Yauch and Daniel Craig?

Dear Shmethicist,

I recently learned about and taste tested alkaline water…which is supposedly water with a very basic pH level, although to me it does taste just like the stuff we’re used to.  Apparently, we are all full of way too much acidity, and if we drink this water, it will help to neutralize our pH, and lead to all sorts of health improvements, such as decreased chance of cancers and heart attacks and the water will even hydrate us more than the H20 we typically drink.  Do you know if there is any truth to this?

Thanks,

pHish Out of Water

Dear pHish,

I’m glad you asked.  Not because alkaline water is an important health issue.  Quite the opposite (more on that in a moment).  But like any good yenta, I can take whatever someone else says, and use it as a jumping off point for the topic of my choice (a lot more on that in a moment).

As my mother would be happy to tell you, I’m “not a real doctor,” (let’s just say there’s plenty of pH in my doctorate).  But still I can tell junk science when I see it.  Or rather, when a quick internet search turns up a reputable website that informs me I’m seeing it.  So, yes, there’s something pHishy about claims of the health benefits of alkaline water:  you can’t change your body’s acidity or alkalinity based on what you eat or drink, because acidity and alkalinity are internally regulated by the kidneys.

And if your kidneys can’t do their job, you need a more comprehensive solution than a water filter.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty for a shmethicist to say about water, health, and ethics.  Because what water we drink is (cue the dramatic music) literally a matter of life and death.

2 million lives/deaths a year, to be precise.  Yup, lack of clean water kills more people than war or AIDS.

Why?  Insufficient regulation.  Agricultural and industrial contamination.  Privatization.

And that’s where health and ethics hit up hard against each other. Even in the US, public water systems are under regulated and frequently highly contaminated, with everything from pharmaceuticals to jet fuel.  But bottled water isn’t a viable alternative.  It’s just as likely to be unregulated and thus contaminated.  Its packaging and shipping exact an additional toll on the environment.  And it’s part of a $400 billion dollar global industry (trailing only oil and electricity) that is increasingly making water a commodity that is out of reach of the world’s poor.

How do I know?  Because I just watched an amazing film about the global water crisis.  And I don’t mean the one Daniel Craig starred in, between his filmic forays as a tough Jew circa 1972 and a tough Jew circa 1942.

I mean FLOW, an exceptionally engaging and informative documentary (which you can purchase from Oscilloscope, the distribution company created by none other than Hebraic hip hop heavyweight Adam Yauch).

So pHish, stop worrying about how alkaline your water is.  Start worrying about what you can do for the 1.1 billion-with-a-b people who don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water at all.

Here’s one place to start:  The United Nations estimates it would take $30 billion per year to provide safe water for the whole planet.  We spend three times that on bottled water.  So get yourself a reusable, bisphenol A-free container, and keep it filled with tap water.  Then donate what you would otherwise spend on bottled water to an organization that’s working to get the rest of the world the water it needs.

Oh, and once you’re good and hydrated, send your next ethical food question to the shmethicist.

Oh readers!  What an exciting time for a Yenta!  My first Shmethicist column got a shout out in The Forward.  And readers’ questions are pouring in.

So I thought I’d start with the spiciest query . . . and I don’t mean the one about habaneros versus jalapenos.

Dear Shmethicist–

I am a 39 year old married mother of two. I love my husband, who is a good provider and wonderful husband. He is very reliable and a kind man.  I find him as bland as a baked potato without sour cream.  Our sex life has been pretty lousy.  That is until recently.

You see, recently I have started an email affair with a 62 year old chef who keeps a blog.  The blog is a little boring, but the flirty emails he sends me…sometimes with “attachments”…are all I need to get cooking.  I don’t feel any guilt about my secret online flirtation and it has really fired things up for my husband and I in the bedroom.

Since I am guilt-free over this, does that mean  I lose my nice Jewish girl status?  Must I call it quits with my geriatric online lover even though it is only helping my marriage?  The blogging chef lives on the other side of the country and there is little to no chance we would actually meet in real life.  Is my fantasy life kosher or treyf?

Signed,

Nice Jewish Girl or Pig in a Blanket? 

Just because you have a favorite dish (say, the eggplant parmesan at Alejo’s restaurant in Los Angeles) doesn’t mean you don’t occasionally crave something else.

And while variety is the shmorgasbord of life, this presents one of the greatest challenges for sustaining a long-term relationship.  The Shmethicist understands – taking a vow of monogamy doesn’t mean you’ll never be attracted to anyone else again.  The shmethical question here is, how do you handle that attraction?

I admit it, I fantasize about that eggplant parmesan.  And I eat it every time I’m in LA.  In fact, I’ve been known to go to Alejo’s three times in one week for their eggplant parmesan.  You see, I am a pescetarian.  And my meat-loving partner is allergic to eggplant. So we have an agreement . . . I get my eggplant needs met outside the relationship, and he gets his meat needs met outside the relationship.

But the key ingredient is that we have that agreement.  I know he eats meat.  He knows I eat eggplant.  No one is deceiving anyone.  And this agreement extends to crushes … when one of us has a crush, we confess it to the other one.  We can obsess and we can flirt, and we don’t have to share every sordid detail, but we can’t deceive each other by keeping the crush a secret.  Even though the flirtations never become physical, keeping them secret is still a no-no, because emotional infidelity can be just as hurtful and destructive, or maybe more so, than actual sexual infidelity.

But enough about me. What about you?  You have more than a crush, NJGoPiaB.  You are having an “affair,” with some level of “attachment” – as you yourself put it.  Which seems pretty treyf to me.

But what do I know?  Well, enough to seek a second opinion, namely that of my fellow Jew and the Carrot contributor Rabbi Shmuel.  And to keep this marginally food-related, I analogized the question.

Shmeth:  There is a clear prohibition against eating treyf foods, but is there a
prohibition against otherwise enjoying them?

Shmuel:  It depends – one cannot derive “hanaah” (benefit) from milk and meat – you can’t give a cheeseburger to your dog

Shmeth:  Can one righteously smell a bacon double cheese burger and think, Yum! or is that a violation of the law?

Shmuel:  It depends – can you camp out behind Macdonald’s and get high on the Big Mac fumes all day? No.  But if you are innocently walking past Hu Kee Lau when the Moo Shoo Pork is up and you get a whiff you don’t have to fast or go to the mikva  (remember, Rashi says that we are not supposed to say that treif tastes terrible, rather that it’s OK – we just don’t eat it).

Shmeth:  What about if I notice my neighbor cooking a bacon double cheese burger and I knowingly open the window JUST SO I CAN smell it and get the olfactory yum?

Shmuel:  Should be avoided – to get a bit technical you should avoid any scent upon which you are not allowed to make a bracha (eg incense from idolatry, etc);
it’s brought down in much greater detail in the Rambam (who actually once
served up a dish which freaked out some dinner guests because it resembled a
cooked human hand – it was some type of root or herb but he was trying to
make a point that you can’t rush to judgment).

Shmeth:  Ethically, if I make a fake bacon double cheese burger – soy bacon and
either soy cheese on real burger or real cheese on veggie burger – am I
treading on dangerous ground?

Shmuel:  Not at all – here is a true case where it’s simply the letter of the law
that governs – you can’t eat milk and meat together or treif meat (not
shechted) or chazzer, etc. but if you want to make faux frog’s legs out of
chicken wings and then taste them and smugly pronounce “yup, tastes like
chicken” – well go right ahead.

There you have it.  If your husband is bland as a baked potato, slather on the sour cream.  Fry up some soy fakin’ bacon and crumble it on top.  Your commitment is to him, so you have to figure out a way to make HIM your hot potato.  Maybe that means the two of you need some new recipes in the bedroom.  Maybe a fine wine can bring out more enticing flavors in your post-prandial nibbling.  Maybe you should explore using kitchen gadgets as sex toys.

Maybe you are sorry you asked me.  But you did.

And anyone else out there can too, by sending their ethical food quandaries to shmethicist@jcarrot.org anytime.  Especially if they’re actually about food.

It’s a Jewish food blog, so, nu, here’s a little good old-fashioned Borscht belt humor:

Q: What are the two things Jews know?
A: Suffering, and where to find good Chinese food.

Okay, so maybe “good” shouldn’t be used to modify Borscht belt humor. I’ve known that joke for 20 years, and who knows how old it was when I first heard it. It must be further past the expiry date than that container of organic non-fat sour cream you’ve got pushed way back in the corner of your fridge.

So here’s an always-fresh corollary:

Q: What are the two things Jewish women love?
A: Eating and giving advice.

Thus is born a new The Jew & The Carrot feature, “The Shmethicist” – a moral nosh on ethical eating. Readers are hereby invited to send in your ethical food quandaries to shmethicist@jcarrot.org. Because why should Randy Cohen have all the fun?

Since you didn’t know I existed until just now, I’ve taken the shmethically questionable route of making up our first reader query, just so I had something to answer.

Dear Shmethicist,

Several months ago, I managed to convince my eight year-old that we should avoid eating any chocolate that isn’t fairly traded. But with Halloween coming up fast, I’m in a tizzy. Do I deny my child the pleasure of trick-or-treating? I don’t want to imply that ethics can be cast aside when they become inconvenient. Nor do I want to enforce the boycott and risk having my kid resent fair trade politics — and her activist parent.

Signed,
Spooked

__________________________

Dear Spooked,

Halloween has long been a challenge for many Jewish families, in some cases because of Kashrut, in other cases because of concerns over the holiday’s pagan roots, and in yet other cases because those store-bought masks never accommodate the finer shnozzes among our tribe. So why should this year be any different?

You’ve already taken care to ensure your child understands the importance of ethical food choices. Seize the opportunity to make Halloween a treat, rather than a trick, by extending that lesson. How? Lots of ways!

• You can contact your neighbors in advance, sharing information about the reasons to choose only fairly trade chocolate and asking them if they would be willing to join you in making fair trade purchases for their Halloween goodies. You can do this on your own, or include your child as you make the rounds — presenting the ethical eight year-old should help you manipulate the adults more easily.

• You’ve missed this year’s deadline for ordering reverse trick-or-treating kits, but next year, organize your child’s class to participate together, spreading the word — and some yummy samples — among even more kids, parents, and neighbors. The kits include FREE fair trade chocolate samples. FREE CHOCOLATE!!! Surely that’s one way to put a Jewish spin on a pagan festival. Find out more.

• Suggest your child incorporate fair trade right into her Halloween costume. If dressing as a fair trade chocolate bar seems a little too close to one of those disturbing branded Wonder Bread or Big Mac costumes, get creative. What better way to make people take notice than for your eight year-old to dress as an enslaved child laborer on a cocoa plantation? Sure, it’s tasteless and terrifying, but so is Hannah Montana, and you know that costume will be plenty popular this year.

Got a burning ethical food question, or just want advice on what to make for dinner? Send your questions to shmethicist@jcarrot.org.