Friday, May 4, 2007

Here's my bit in Bicycling Magazine


My mom scanned it for me!!! Since it's the largest distribution cycling magazine in the USA I bet they'd have it in the international magazine shops here. The only problem with my buying it here is that all magazines cost over twice their already exorbitant price due to "import fees." So...THANKS MOM!! I will use that money instead for a veggie wrap and soup at the vegetarian fast food store. YUM!

21 comments:

Patty said...

You are quite welcome Christine. I am awfully proud of you. Mom

jared said...

Is the vegetarian food as pricy as the magazines and gasoline?

Anonymous said...

less pb and J?????
i can't believe they print this craziness.

PEANUT said...

THanks MOM! I'm proud of you too!
No, mags and petrol is way more expensive here than a few sprigs of lettuce and sprouts.
What's even MORE crazy than less pb&j is a whole entire country devoid of it!!!! Pb&j simply does not exist here in Belgium. My guess is that it also does not exist in many of the neighboring countries. THAT is craziness!!!

gewilli said...

PB has so many toxins it isn't even funny...

ah well - a cheap protein source that gained popularity all due to Gov'mt farm subsidies...

Now we got a big fat nation hooked on the junk...

(yes i do indulge in some PB and PB&J on occasion, and suffer through the headaches and all)

But only 12 pounds? That is it? Crazy...

But warning - i've mentioned it to peanut (d'oh the irony of what i just wrote smacked me pretty solid there)... anyway... i've got a relative who's die hard Vegan, been 100% hardcore vegan since 1991... and now... he's getting fat!

Believe it... pretty crazy... a fat vegan! It cracks me up.

anyway...

you be good peanut ;-)

jared said...

All I know is that it costs me more each month to be a vegetarian than it does to buy the European cycling magazines in Virginia.

PEANUT said...

hey El Dolor:
Are you buying mock meats or prepared/packaged foods? You can never compare any diet to McDonalds, though, since I would guess their food is subsidized by the government.
IE: Yesterday i ate a bowl of oats, half of a prepared pizza dough (75 cents for 1/2) with some broccoli, onions, garlic and cheap-ass tomato sauce, and large bowl of quinoa with raisins, curry powder and sweet/sour sauce, and a big green salad.

jared said...

I eat my share of mock meats. That is definitely one cause for my high grocery bills. That and good fruit. I haven't eaten at a fast food joint in a decade (I am more than a little proud of that), and I end up getting my version of fast food at places like Whole Foods when I am on the road. We call it Whole Paycheck because it is so damn expensive. But don't get me wrong, I don't mind spending the extra dough. It just seems unjust to me. Eating right (ethically and otherwise)should cost less than eating poorly.

PEANUT said...

Maybe a meat-eating reader wants to give an opinion for comparison...I still believe it costs less to be a vegetarian than to be a meat eater - assuming both groups purchase their foods from a "whole foods" type store.

Jeff said...

I quit eating meat about 2 months ago, and I bet my grocery bills have declined by at least 30% --- and that's includes buyin lots of organic. But I don't buy the fake meats.

jared said...

I feel like I need to fully disclose my tendency to eat some pretty ridiculous volumes and sit down lunches.

Grey said...

Hmmm. I think I lost weight initially when I became vegan...but then it felt like it stabilized. (I'm a bad example though since I've probably never weighed over 10# more than what I weighed in high school.)

No matter what your diet if you eat a lot more calories than you burn you're going to gain weight...and there's plenty of sugary fatty food that's entirely plant based to fatten anyone up.

And gewilli's right: Google the words peanut and aflatoxin. Just like lower quality meat (and "meat by-products") get squished into stuff like hot dogs, lower quality peanuts often get squished into peanut butter as well...or so I've read.

Anonymous said...

Peanut and Grey, I have it on the sly that your coach will begin organizing cyclo-cross trail rides in the coming weeks on which we will be permitted to carry only unprocessed, unpreserved locally grown fruits, grains, vegetables, and nuts. No energy bars full of refinery bi-products wrapped in weapons-grade biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate polyester film; no electrolyte replacement elixirs concocted from minerals that FMC Corporation mines from trona deposits in Wyoming; no thiamine mononitrate synthesized from petrochemicals by BASF in mega-corporate cooperative ventures with Tianjin Zhongjin Pharmaceutical Co.; no packaging – other than rind, husk, chaff, shell, bract, pod; no labels, no disclaimers, no barcodes, no FDA advisories, no percentages of minimum daily requirement. How will we survive?!
-- E.C. Chamberlain

PEANUT said...

If i had any designs on returning to USA, I'd show up to those rides with my ProBars.

PEANUT said...

Oh, and although i'm partial to peanuts for obvious reasons, I've switched to almond butter. It's great in oatmeal, with rice and yes, with jam on bread.

Grey said...

okay, um, pahlee-thigh-lean terra-phffthllaluhhrr, terra-phffthllalalatte...geez.

anyway, no probs, bro. i'll take my (polyester) cycling jersey to the store, weigh it on the scale for tare weight, mark the number in wax pencil on the sleeve, fill my jersey pockets with trail mix...and as my foreign friends say, "bob's your uncle." i'll get the organic kind so it's cool with all that other stuff.

Anonymous said...

Mylar, I think, Grey. Courtesy of NASA.

PEANUT said...

Here is an excerpt from an email i just received from a friend who read all our rants about bio/vege/meat consumption:

I guess if you compare supermarket cheapest meat with products from a small specialized store, the supermarket will always be cheaper. No doubt.

However, I heard an interview with a traditional Belgian chef of a top
restaurant. He claims (rightfully I think) that people don't want to spend any money anymore on food. If the supermarket chose quality, chicken would cost 10-12 Euro instead of a couple of Euro now. And this is basically the
same for most products. Because clients always want cheaper food, the quality suffers, as the supermarket tries to meet what clients want. And most costumers are seemingly very willing to chose price over quality...and eat more junk.

So, I basically think that the price of bio-products (or organic food, as you call it) may better reflect the real cost if you want to produce food with respect for nature, without artificial chemicals, using honest
ingredients and so on. Maybe when more people start buying bio-products, there can still be a limited price reduction due to economic scaling effects, but organic foods will always be more expensive. If you want
bio-products at the price of traditional products, you'll have to live with the same mediocre quality, and replace good ingredients by the same cheap
fillers.

Or like this chef said: "stop buying new ringtones for your cellphone, and spend those extra couple of Euros on your food, and you'll eat healthier. That's all it takes."

Well, maybe this last sentence is a bit of a silly way of putting it, but there is lots of truth in what he said.

By the way, this topic goes far beyond vegetarian or vegan food, it applies to all food.

PEANUT said...

just found this article on peanuts - fyi:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/np/fnrb/fnrb0704.htm#peanuts

ntw said...

Awesome piece... in Bicycling no less.


Yay! Big tofu cycling muscles!

PEANUT said...

THANKS mark! Right back at ya! Fun to read about your ass-kicking on a plant-based diet!