However, perhaps the least healthy month-long challenge I’ve seen is Mike Nelson’s bacon fest, in which he will only consume bacon, water, and alcohol all February. Check him out, and offer him some moral support, and maybe some recipes to make bacon more interesting.

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One aspect of my resolution last month was harder than almost any other: avoiding refined sugar. While high fructose corn syrup is almost ubiquitous in highly refined foods, it can be avoided with some vigilance. And animal products take only a peripheral attention to avoid. But refined sugar is in almost everything. From Cheerios, to jam, to sauces and dressings, to fruit juice.

My experience last month taught me that avoiding refined sugar can have some really good impacts on your tastebuds and waistline. I lost about 5 pounds last month, and gained an appreciation for new flavors. I also had a lot more lasting energy.

In spite of that, as soon as February hit, I fell off the wagon hard. I ate an entire box of raspberry paczki in twelve hours, and went to town on the Cheerios. I realized it was harder to kick refined sugar in the real world.

But why specifically is refined sugar bad for you? Yes, it is nutritionless – but that doesn’t make it inherently bad.

It IS nutrient zapping, however. Sugar just gobbles up the nutrients. Where the complex sugars in an apple or a beet are naturally complemented by some vitamins and minerals, refined sugar has no nutritional companions and leaches onto the body’s other stores of nutrients to process it into what it eventually becomes – fat. It was this deficiency that led one doctor in the 1950s to classify refined sugar as a poison.

My SO suggested that when we have kids that we should not let them eat refined sugar until they are ten so their palettes won’t get used to the sweetness. I’m all for it. But that also means a lifestyle change for us now so that we are not keeping all that crap around the house.

Goodbye sweet paczkis.

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Well, the good news is the rules I crafted for my February media fast do not restrict me from looking at recipes I’ve already found on the web, so I can still experiment with some of these tasties come Sunday.

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THE DOWNFALL

INT. SUPERIOR COURTHOUSE, NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION CENTRAL HEARING ROOM, EARLY MID-AFTERNOON

BAILIFF: Hear ye, hear ye. All rise for the honorable Judge Harry Anderson.

An undistinguished JUDGE enters, dabbing rib sauce from the corners of his mouth. He wears a lobster bib and unpacks a lunch box on the bench.

JUDGE: Be seated. Will the defendant please remain standing? I see we have you charged under seven counts of violating your new year’s resolution to be vegan through the end of the month of January. How do you plead?

DEFENDANT: Not guilty your honor.

JUDGE: You have declined court appointed counsel. Have you retained an attorney?

DEFENDANT: No your honor. I will be representing myself.

The PROSECUTING ATTORNEY – who looks like that guy who played the mayor of Gotham in Batman wearing too much eyeliner – rises.

PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: Your honor, I move that we forgo hearing this case and move on to the sentencing.

JUDGE: On what grounds counselor?

P.A.: The people see it as a waste of valuable time and resources given the overwhelming evidence.

Exhibit B: Shark Fin Soup - Exotic!

JUDGE (stern and skeptical): Lay out the case for us counselor. Then we’ll decide.

P.A. stands. The judge cracks a box of BBQ chicken and chews on a wing.

P.A.: Last Tuesday evening the defendant engaged in no fewer than seven violations of his self-imposed vegan diet.

DEFENDANT (mumbles): Allegedly.

P.A.: On the day of the Chinese New Year, the defendant was asked to film a celebration of Chinese restaurant owners and their families at the ornate Asia Grill in Lincoln, Rhode Island. A gourmet chef was brought down from Boston, and a twelve-course meal was served for over 100 patrons. While there, the defendant willingly and with forethought consumed seven different dishes containing meat, poultry, and seafood.

DEFENDANT (forcefully): Allegedly.

JUDGE: Be quiet, sir – you’ll have your turn. Proceed counselor.

P.A.: The evidence is overwhelming, your honor. For starters, we have dozens of witnesses in this courtroom who can testify to the defendant’s consumption of the illicit goods, including the defendant’s own girlfriend.

The JUDGE wipes sauce from his mouth with a napkin.

JUDGE: Okay, who here can testify to the defendant’s consumption of non-vegan products on Tuesday? Show of hands?

All MEMBERS OF THE COURTROOM raise their hands.

JUDGE: Anyone here who can testify for the defendant?

Not a peep.

The DEFENDANT rises and slams his fist against the table.

DEFENDANT: Objection your honor! Conspiracy and hearsay!

JUDGE: Are you sure you don’t want a court-appointed attorney? They’re free. Let’s carry on with the case. I’d like to see where this is going.

P.A. (sighs): Fine… I’d like to call my first witness, the defendant’s significant other.

SIGNIFICANT OTHER walks to the stand, takes an oath, and carefully sits down on the bench.

P.A.: Did you see the defendant consuming non-vegan products on Tuesday evening?

S.O.: Yes.

P.A.: What did he consume?

S.O.: We started with the shrimps. Then the squid, then jellyfish, then abalone. Then there was the shark fin soup. Then something I’m not sure what it was. Then chicken, then some beef.

The DEFENDANT puts his face in his hands. The P.A. strolls back to his table.

P.A.: Your witness.

The DEFENDANT musters his courage and walks up to the stand, looking at S.O. with spite, but then searching for words.

DEFENDANT: So, uh, you saw the defendant eating meat or something that looked like it on Tuesday.

S.O.: It was meat.

DEFENDANT (pauses to think): …Well, maybe the defendant didn’t know it was meat. Did you ever think of that?

P.A.: Objection! Pointless speculation. We have the defendant on record. Play the tape please, Miss.

DEFENDANT: I didn’t see this evidence your honor.

S.O. pulls out a pocket recorder and begins to play.

DEFENDANT (on tape): Wow, this is SOO against my resolution. Oh well. It’s shark fin soup! Oooh! And shrimp, chicken, beef, abalone, jellyfish…

Exhibit A: Chicken Head

JUDGE: I’ve heard enough. Stop the tape. You may leave the stand.

DEFENDANT: That could have been digitally manufactured your honor! Haven’t you seen ‘24′?

P.A.: We also have photographic evidence.

The JUDGE reviews several photos.

DEFENDANT: Photoshop!

P.A.: And a video.

DEFENDANT: …Industrial Light and Magic?

JUDGE: Enough! Do you have anything to say for yourself before I sentence you?

The DEFENDANT screws up his courage and stands up. The camera cranes in on the DEFENDANT as a dramatic speech ensues.

DEFENDANT: Your honor, people of the court. I stand before you accused, rightly and correctly, of violating my own resolution. I ate meat. Furthermore, I ate it willingly and voraciously. That is indefensible. I can stand here and say that I did it because it was Chinese New Year and I would never get the opportunity again. I can say that it was the only pay that I received for four hours of hard labor. I can plead with you and say that it would have been rude to turn down a $300 12-course meal merely for a resolution. But the facts stand before you – as God as my witness – I made a commitment to myself and the world, to see a month through without touching my lips to a piece of meat.

Camera cuts to PROSECUTING ATTORNEY. A single tear falls down his cheek, smudging his eyeliner.

DEFENDANT: And I failed. Oh, how I failed. But perhaps my derailed attempt will inspire others. To see whether they can put what they think they believe in to the test of the real world. To the pressures of modern life and all its entrapments and temptations. If I have inspired just one person to-

The JUDGE burps up a bit of sauce, and casually slams down the gavel.

JUDGE: Spare us the soliloquy, sir. The court accepts your closing argument and sentences you to another eleven months of resolutions and a $100 fine to charity. You are free to go.

Gavel slams. DEFENDANT pumps his fists in a “yes” motion. The PROSECUTING ATTORNEY stands up and bursts into applause.

P.A.: Bravo, sir! Bravo.

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Kottke posted this week an environmental reason for laying off the honey, and again, it has to do with monocultures.

CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder, not Charged Coupled Device, AV geeks) is annihilating millions of bees across the country, and threatening the built-in ecological services our little pollinating friends offer.

Among the possible culprits are a virus, increased vulnerability to disease due to breeding, overwork (hives of bees are trucked around the country for months to pollinate crops), increased exposure to all kinds of insecticides, and perhaps even all of the above.

The fact is, using one or two kinds of bees for all of our pollination and honey-producing needs makes all of these dangers more likely.

In an amazing guest column for the NYTimes Aaron Hirsh suggests using feral bees of many types to pollinate regionally. AND we could still harvest the honey.

So, avoiding honey as a monoculture: It meets the “political” and “environmental” vegan definitions, though not quite the “ethical” vegan definition, since there is nothing suggesting that we shouldn’t go for the honey.

But nonetheless, this is just a good enough reason to Bee good to the Bees! Heh heh… eh…. Too soon?

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Here are some quick capsule reasons that motivate me:

(1) It is pervasive: Notice how many ingredients lists at your supermarket have high fructose corn syrup. The dependence on corn as a sweetener has been heavily the result of market forces and government subsidies. Farmland used for corn could be used for so many other crops that are nutritionally important, and depletes soil resources. It also makes our farm system vulnerable to massive devastation. In 1996 70 million US acres were used to grow only a few varieties of corn. It would only take one infestation, one disease to spread creating a domino effect of crop depletion that would be difficult to recover from.

(2) It it nutritionally useless: As with everything, moderation is key. Some sweetener, some corn syrup is okay for the diet. But a diet that exposes us to high amounts of highly processed high fructose corn syrup every day which has been connected to obesity, diabetes, and other nutritional problems.

(3) It’s just plain gross: Okay, not a particularly great reason. But visceral. Check out the scene in King Corn where they showed how corn syrup was made by processing corn with hydrochloric acid (which contains mercury and emits toxic fumes!) Nasty.

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He blogs about it at Sacred Plate.

How about it Mike? Want to do a Raw Food month?

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But Zen Palette is most known for their Sweet and Sour Sensation (pictured), moist, crunchy jewels of protein covered in a light sweet and sour sauce that my friend Dave Harris originally introduced me to. I ordered a batch to go and saved them for dinner upon my return to Providence. I was halfway through when I realized that the tangy sweet taste reminded me a bit of ketchup, which is often used as a flavoring in Americanized-Asian cuisine. And ketchup usually contains corn syrup. A no-no. I’m putting that on my Sin Debt list just because I’m not entirely sure. But damn, it was worth it.

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This image courtesy my S.O. Can you guess what it is?

Technically it is chicken. Reconstituted.

This is what they make Chicken McNuggets out of apparently. It looks creepy. It sounds creepy. It feels creepy. And it’s not just because it looks like what would happen if someone put those “Manna Manna” muppets through a sausage grinder.

But why should this gross anyone out? Why is there such a bias for all things pure and fresh? Is there evidence that reconsituted chicken (or any other product for that matter) is more likely to be infected with bacteria, less nutritious, or more potentially unhealthy?

I’m not saying I’d be likely to eat these, even if I was off my vegan diet. I’m as prone to the fresh bias as anyone. But it is not because that picture disgusts me. It doesn’t surprise me in fact. If it makes it easier to produce, preserve, and deliver the food then of course they’re going to do it.

Part of the aversion may be the intentional whitewashing of the product in name. It isn’t “Chicken” in the sense we think of it. It is actually “Chicken Product” in the same way Velveeta is not cheese but “Cheese Product”. The realization that what you think you have been eating for years is not the same as the conjured image is a startling one. It’s probably akin to what Charlton Heston felt in “Soylent Green”. (”It’s made from PEOPLE! PEEEOOOPLE!!!”)

But I am sure there is a rationality behind avoiding reconstituted chicken, too, beyond the vegan/vegetarian moral rationality. I’d be interested to entertain your thoughts.

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And to anyone interested in the Obama O’s and Cap’n McCains breakfast cereals should go here. Obama O’s Theme Song!

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