The Food Processor of Theseus Paradox

My Cuisinart Prep 9 food processor is broken- yet again.

Something made of plastic that gets lots of use only lasts so long.  Since buying the Prep 9 in 2009, I have broken and replaced the food processor bowl three times!  I've also replaced the blade once, the top that latches onto the bowl once, and now I'm replacing the pusher assembly.

Not much of my original food processor remains.  The only pieces of the machine which have not broken and been replaced are the motor base and the tiny pusher.    

My Prep 9 is not going to be whipping up any home made falafel in this state.  Without the replacement parts, it's not really my food processor.

But... when Cuisinart ships me my replacement pusher assembly, and I put all the replacement parts together with the base... can I still say what's sitting on my counter is the Prep 9 food processor I bought back in 2009?  With all those replacement parts, is its identity still the same?

An ancient Greek philosopher asked a similar question.  Not having my bad luck with food processors, Plutarch used the Ship of Theseus to ask whether the identity of something replaced piece by piece, gradually over time, is still the same entity when all its parts have been replaced.

Although the Ship of Theseus is now a famous philosophical paradox, its origins come from mythology.  Here's the myth in brief:  

Theseus volunteers himself as Minotaur food, hoping to defeat the Minotaur, instead, and return to Athens a hero.  Being completely without a texting plan, Theseus promises his dad that, if he succeeds and survives, he'll hoist a white sail on the sea journey home to let dad know all is well.  Well, a lot of stuff happens, and even though he does survive, Theseus forgets to put up the white sail.  His dad takes one look at black sail on Theseus's ship and commits suicide.  Theseus feels pretty badly about that, so he leaves the ship that should have brought good news in the harbor as a permanent memorial to his dad.

But, just as plastic parts can be expected to break, leaving a wooden ship in the water as a permanent memorial is just asking for trouble.  Wood in water just doesn't last forever- it rots.  But Theseus, being a king and all, tells his subjects to keep that ship maintained.  That means every time a beam rots or a board warps, or anything breaks, it has to be replaced. 

The Ship of Theseus stayed in the harbor for a very, very, very long time.  At a certain point not a single piece of the original wood remained.  The entire ship had gradually, piece by piece, been entirely replaced.  

So, Greek philosopher Plutarch asked- after all that replacing, is Theseus's ship still Theseus's ship?

I think what makes the Ship of Theseus Paradox so interesting is that it gets down to the question of identity, and not just the identity of really old ships and broken-down food processors- it makes me think about my own identity.

Cells are dying off and being replaced in my body little by little, all the time, every single day.  The molecules in my thumb aren't the same molecules in the thumb with which I was born.  So where is the continuity?  What is it about my thumb now that connects it to the thumb I gnawed on as a baby?  Am I the same person now as I was when I was a little kid?  A teenager?  A newly wed?  Will I be the same person twenty years from now, twenty days from now, twenty minutes from now?

And a stickier question: if I look really closely at myself, where am I, what makes me, me?  If I was in an accident and lost a foot, I'd be me without a foot, but I'd still be me- right?  Which parts could I afford to lose and still be Heather?

Maybe my identity can't be found in the body, maybe I'm the continuity of my memories.  If I get knocked in the head and lose all my memories, am I no longer me?  To explore a more likely scenario, what happens to my identity when my memories begin to fade?  Just the other day my husband insisted we watched Forbidden Planet together.  I don't remember it, at all.  How many memories can slip away before I'm no longer me?  

The paradox of the Ship of Theseus is a big question mark asking who am I, and what makes me, me.  For the time being I don't have a definitive answer, but that's okay.  I seem to be in pretty good company with others who find the question worth asking, even without a satisfying resolution.

The Ship of Theseus keeps coming up in my reading this month.  To read a more in-depth and exciting account of the myth behind the ship, check out  The Wisdom of Myths by Luc Ferry.  For some interesting perspective on personal identity, personality continuity, and a great retelling of the paradox employing pop bands, check out  The Ego Trick by Julien Baggini.

The Strawberry Spinach Salad of Wellbeing

Dinner for one should be fun and easy to make.  I have fond memories of a delicious salad I used to order: spinach and fresh strawberries, feta cheese and candied nuts.  When I came across this similar recipe for Strawberry Spinach Salad from Emma's Little Kitchen, I couldn't wait to try it.

If you check out the recipe you'll notice it serves 4-6, which is 4-6 times 1, the only person around to eat the salad this evening.  Despite the fact that my amazing Paprika Recipe App will scale the recipe to a quarter, giving me the exact number of grams of each ingredient to put in the ideal salad for one, I decided to estimate amounts off the cuff.  After all, it's a salad.  Exact proportions are only a matter of taste, right?

The result of my hasty estimation:

If it isn't obvious from the photo, it was certainly apparent from the taste: the cheese and nuts (and to some extent the strawberries) were way to much for the amount of spinach in my bowl.  When not paying careful attention, I had generously piled on the yummiest ingredients- the parts of the salad that really excited me- in complete disregard for the salad as a whole.  So much nuts and cheese made the salad a bit too dry and salty.

Mae West tells us that too much of a good thing can be wonderful.  I say any amount of a good thing can be wonderful- until it isn't.  

There's a sneaky line between wonderful and not, between wellbeing and not.  It's in a slightly different place from person to person, and the only way I know to find it is through paying attention to my personal experience.  Sometimes I worry I'm tossing too much of the yummy stuff into my days- too much sofa time with a book and a kitty in my lap.  And, since I really do enjoy worrying, at other times I worry my life is too much spinach- too many days that are just checks off my todo list, leaving me low on energy and feeling like there's no fun in my life.

Wellbeing is a dynamic balance, kind of like making a good salad- only without a recipe.  The best way to figure out the balance of ingredients in a salad is to eat it.  The best way to figure out balance between what I should do and what I want to do, is to experience how I feel as my days, weeks, and years weave work and play.  When eating salad alone, I can sneak extra spinach leaves onto the plate as I eat, to get the proportions back in balance.  And as I try to find the balance of wellbeing, I get a new opportunity every morning, every hour, every breath, to adjust and recalibrate.

Once brought back into balance, the Strawberry Spinach Salad was delicious.  For convenience I subbed balsamic vinegar for champagne vinegar, and sesame seeds for the poppy seeds.  But the recipe impressed me enough that I'd splurge for the champagne vinegar next time, just to try.

Never again! The Leaky Chicken Disaster and my meditation practice

Yesterday I needed just a few things from the grocery store.  I happened to be right next to a Trader Joe's, so instead of driving all the way to my normal Whole Foods, I decided to save time and shop at Trader Joe's, instead.

Sadly, no time was saved.  I came home from Trader Joe's with a bag of groceries completely coated in raw chicken juice- a nasty experience, indeed, for a vegetarian and germaphobe.  As I was mopping up the mess and throwing away groceries purchased not fifteen minutes past, I vowed never to shop at Trader Joe's again.

The moment I made the vow I was struck by a terrible feeling: how many times have I had a bad experience that made me exclude something permanently from my life?  "Never again."  It sounded so satisfying as I scrubbed bacteria-laden goo off the hummus, but it's a little sad, too.  Ok, I can probably still live a fulfilling life without my favorite Trader Joe's dark chocolate bar.  But how many more important doors have I shut in disgust throughout my life?  How many doors have I closed without even knowing it?

Once in awhile I accidentally come across an aversion rooted in a fear from the past, a door that closed so long ago I forgot there could even be an opening.  It takes time, luck, and a lot of hard work to find all the closed doors camouflaged in my habitual attitudes and routines.  And even if I do come across a lost door, there's still the tricky problem of opening it.

I'm only a newbie meditator, but so far the point of the practice, whether I'm learning it from a guided  Headspace meditation, or from a teacher on YogaGlo, seems to be becoming more aware of all my experiences, so that bad experiences don't sneak around behind my back and close doors.  I'm supposed to be noticing each and every little thing that happens while I meditate: thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, breaths- sometimes while paying this kind of close attention I'm shocked to find some part of my body that actually hurts- how had I not noticed that before?  At the end of each guided session, regardless of the tradition from which it came, the teacher gives a big lecture on how I'm supposed to use my new-found awareness to notice how I'm feeling throughout my day.  I'm supposed to notice how I react to big stuff, little stuff, good stuff, bad stuff, neutral stuff- the goal is awareness of all stuff all the time- so that there is no sneaky, accidental door-closing happening when I'm not looking.  Noticing is supposed to give me the chance to evaluate each experience and decide for myself whether a bad experience merits a "never again."  The more I pay attention, the more I get to decide which doors should be left open, which doors shut.

And some doors should be shut.  Stick your finger in fire- serious ouch- never again!  The "never again" reflex can be useful, but if it happens without our awareness it can lead to lots and lots of unnecessarily closed doors.  In the case of shopping at Trader Joe's, I'd be smarter not to buy chicken from them again unless they change their packaging or improve their customer service.  After all, the chicken at Whole Foods comes hermetically sealed, and cashiers go out of their way to wrap it in plastic and make sure it's in a separate bag from the rest of my groceries.

So don't buy chicken at Trader Joe's.  But why miss out on their extra dark chocolate bars and yummy trail mix?  It's fine to leave the door open to Trader Joe's, all I have to do is skip the chicken.

The Leaky Chicken Disaster, as it shall from now on be remembered, was, to be dramatic, a mini trauma.  At the very least it was quite an unpleasant experience.  Sure is easier dealing with mini traumas and bad experiences right when they happen.  Saves me from trying to figure out, ten years from now, why I keep making excuses to avoid Trader Joe's.  What little I understand about meditation so far, is that it can help me deal with bad experiences right away, before they have a chance to grow into lifelong patterns of avoidance.  I don't know if there's supposed to be more to the practice than that, but even with just that goal, it's already pretty useful.

Oh, and the reason this vegetarian is out shopping for chicken...

...happens to be someone's all-time favorite dinner.

My pet ladybug, and what makes us human

As a card-carrying member of the "eek, it's a bug" club, I can't believe I'm keeping a pet ladybug in my kitchen.  It's pretty cute, right?

It's been crawling around my windowsill for a couple of days.  I intended to take it outside when I got a chance, but then forgot.  Yesterday I found it wading in a splash of water at the bottom of my sink.  I scooped it with a paper towel and put it in the sun to dry.  Last night I pulled it out of the sink drain, afraid it would drown.  This morning I was taking photos of it!

Now, if I saw an ant crawling on my kitchen counter, I would not think it was cute.  I'd escort it out of the house immediately, scrub and vacuum the kitchen, and jump nervously all day at the tiniest speck I might imagine to be an insect in the house.  Let's not even talk about what I'd do if there was a cockroach in my kitchen- the national guard would probably get involved, let's leave it at that.

Why do I have such a different reaction to a ladybug than I would to another insect in my kitchen?  After all, an ant and a ladybug both have six legs, are teeny tiny, and crawl about in places I'd rather they didn't.

I can find a rational explanation for the difference.  Ants exhibit different behavior than ladybugs.  Ants have a hive mentality, and once they find a source of food in my kitchen they will come back in droves to invade.  So when I see an ant I'm immediately afraid it will bring the whole hive to my place for a pantry feast.  Ladybugs don't do that.  

While this is true, I don't think it fully explains the disgust with which I dash from the house to shake an ant from the dust pan, versus the way I tenderly dried my pet ladybug with a paper towel.  The thought of an ant crawling on my skin causes intense revulsion.  I picked up my ladybug with my bare hands.

My different reaction to the ant and ladybug comes from the fact that I find ladybugs cute, and I find ants disgusting.

I'm reading a fantastic book right now called Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them by Joshua Greene.  The chapter I happen to be reading is talking about emotion.  Greene makes a rough analogy linking emotion to "automatic" behavior, like the automatic settings on a digital camera.  He likens reason to the manual setting on a digital camera.

The idea is that as human beings we have two sets of tools to deal with any situation.  One tool is reason,  thinking logically through the pros and cons to determine an appropriate response.  My explanation about lady bugs being less of a problem in the kitchen than hive-mentality ants is an example of "manual" reasoning.

Sometimes an automatic reaction run by our emotions or "gut feelings" is the more efficient way to deal with a situation.  If a bee lands on my arm I'm going to feel afraid and flinch- I wouldn't even think about it.  Spoiled milk smells disgusting and I don't need any analysis to know not to drink it.  We need automatic responses that don't require too much discursive thinking so that we can put one foot in front of the other and get through our day.  And when we have all day to think, reasoning can take us only so far before we get down to what is good, and realizing that what is good differs from culture to culture and person to person.  It isn't possible to root out all emotion.

But what happens when our emotional responses lead us astray?  For one thing, emotional auto-responses work better at avoiding short-term threats than they do at planning long-term well-being. And emotions that might have protected us in a certain extinct context can cause us to make just plain bad decisions in our actual lives.  Misleading emotions can get codified into attitudes that form the moral fabric of an entire community and infect everyone with fear.  I only need recall a childhood memory, being pulled out of line by an elderly family member who was afraid of the African American family behind us, for a sobering example of how fear can cause harm instead of protecting us from it.

I think what makes us human isn't just our ability to reason, but our ability to negotiate between emotional auto-pilot and manual reasoning control.  How do we know when to go with our gut, or when to stop and think?  Which emotions are keeping us safe, and which are limiting us?  What about the emotions that are useful in some situations, and harmful in others?  And where did those emotions come from- our own experience, the influence of our community, our genetic inheritance?  Paying attention to what we do and why, trying to answer those questions, is the most difficult and important job we have as human beings.  The only way I can think of to get better at it, is to practice paying attention to my reactions and where they came from, day in and day out, from big, important decisions, down to the little ladybug on my counter.

What is processed food? And what's in a definition?

One food choice that I make, and that many people I know make, is to limit the amount of processed food we eat.

But what, exactly, is processed food?

Maybe you think the answer to that question is pretty straightforward.  Here's one of many things that made me think a little deeper:

What's that just above the USDA organic seal?  "Processed in the USA."

Processed?  Wait, when did plain spinach leaves become processed food?

The Oxford Dictionary defines to process as:
"Perform a series of mechanical or chemical operations on (something) in order to change or preserve it."

My baby spinach has been changed and preserved.  The little roots on the bottoms of the leaves were removed.  It was triple washed, so some mechanical operation was used to wash away the dirt.  Then it was dried so it wouldn't get moldy, and packaged in a recycled plastic container.

By definition baby spinach is processed food.  So are dried lentils and beans, oatmeal, and rice.  So is flour- even my home milled flour is processed in the Vitamix at home, and is made from wheat berries which were milled in a factory!

When I say I'm trying to avoid processed food, stuff like brown rice, lentils, and baby spinach is not what I mean.  There's a problem with my definition of processed food.

I used to think that philosophy was just a waste of time, messing around with the meanings of words.  But after the first few years of my foray into studying philosophy, I learned that defining terms is just the first step in this practical and very useful art.  But no wonder I noticed all the defining that goes on in philosophy- definition is an absolutely crucial first step!

Having an accurate definition is critical to any productive discussion- or any productive thinking!   Before determining a clear definition of processed food, I was not even able to recognize a processed food when I ate one!  When I say I want to avoid all processed foods, I'm not being specific about what I want to avoid or why.  Without a clear working definition of what I do and do not want to include in my diet, how can I make good choices?

Processed foods aren't all evil.  Foods are processed to preserve their freshness and nutrients, processed to improve their palatability, processed to improve their usability and convenience.  There's a huge spectrum of ways these goals can be achieved, and how a food is processed is far more important that the fact that it was processed.  Was freshness achieved by sealing food in an airtight container, or by the use of chemical additives that make me uncomfortable?  Was palatability achieved by finely grinding or dehydrating a food, or was it achieved by dumping in a bunch of sugar and salt?  Is the trade-off of nutrition for convenience worth buying flour that was milled at a factory instead of freshly milling my flour at home?  How do I feel about prepared foods?   What are the impact of costs?  Does it matter whether food is processed in my home or in a factory- if so, why and in what cases?  What is the impact of different types of packaging on human health?  And what is the impact on the environment of different types of processing and packaging?

My questions about how food is processed won't be exactly the same as yours.  Different people will have different values, and have different needs when caring for themselves and their families.  But in order to make decisions that best serve our needs and best reflect our values, everyone needs understand what processed foods are, how they are processed, and where they are processed, in order to decide which processed foods they want to include in a healthy lifestyle.

Zen and the Art of Pancakes

"Last night," my husband told me, "I was dreaming of pancakes."

I have to admit I'm a bit of a pancake Grinch.  I'm not all that excited about eating pancakes, and I have a history of getting grumpy while I make them.

But what could I do getting such a poetic response to "what do you want for breakfast?"  That's right, I made 100% whole wheat buttermilk pancakes.

Credit for this recipe goes to Whole Grain Gourmet, one of my all-time favorite websites.  Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes is a lovely gourmet recipe fragrant with grated orange peel.  In an attempt to make the pancakes of my husband's dreams, I've made many little changes to the recipe.  Here's my version:

Buttermilk Pancakes for Weekend Mornings

Dry:

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp soda

1/4 tsp sea salt

1 1/2  tbsp turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw)

Wet:

1 cup 1% buttermilk

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp canola oil

Mix dry ingredients.  In a separate container whisk together the wet.  Stir the dry into the wet to form a batter. Add a little extra buttermilk if you want thinner batter.  My husband doesn't count them as pancakes unless I add chocolate chips.  Cook on griddle at 400° F. Edges should look totally dry before you flip them.

This is such a deceptively simple recipe.  Deceptive, because I didn't list the critical ingredient, patience.

Below are two photos of pancakes on the griddle.  The first pancake included patience, the second did not.

Once you flip a pancake too soon there is no going back.  It retains a pale, flabby, and extremely unappetizing appearance no matter how long you leave it on the griddle.  It's imperative to leave the poured batter on the griddle alone, untouched, not even peeking underneath for a good check, until the perfect moment.  And there is no way to predict the perfect moment.  It depends on the thickness of the batter, how much you poured, the exact temperature on that zone of the griddle.  Knowing when to flip the pancake is a matter of allowing the perfect moment to arrive in its own time, then noticing it.

Allowing things to happen is very difficult for me.  I grew up believing that if I wanted to achieve something, I should strategize and work toward it every waking moment, with all my heart and all my might.  For many years I stood over pancakes, counting the minutes, adjusting the heat, watching for the formation of bubbles, and calculating the width of the dried edge of the batter.  My pancakes came out mostly white and flabby and I came out of the kitchen frustrated and mad.

Making pancakes is a zen-like art of patience and relaxed attention.  Some weekend mornings once I pour the batter on the griddle, I enjoy my sunny kitchen, start the tea, feed the cats, chat happily with my husband.  Other mornings I just want to finish breakfast and get onto other things.  And if I want to know whether I'm in a place allowing life to unfold, or trying to force it, all I have to do is take a look at the pancakes.

Through yoga practice I've come to realize that there are some things in life that can't be forced, and which actually get choked by constant tinkering and checking: the blossoming of a flower, being found by a cat, opening tight hips in a yoga pose, falling in love.  And, of course, getting that perfect golden color on a pancake.

Plato and the Reuben Sandwich

At what point is my alternative sandwich no longer a Reuben?

The ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, is famous for a lot of things.  The Reuben sandwich is not one of them.

One of the things Plato is famous for is his theory of Forms.  Plato posited that there is an ideal Form, Form with a capital F, for everything we come across in everyday life.  The Reuben sandwich, the one we all mean when we say we want a Reuben sandwich, is the Form, the ideal.  The actual sandwich we eat is not.

When my native New Yorker husband says he's craving a Reuben sandwich, he has a Form in his mind that goes something like: buttered rye bread with Russian dressing, corned beef, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut.  According to Plato, no sandwich I could make would possibly hold up to that ideal Form.

Big thanks to Plato for letting me off the hook.  Since I can't possibly make the ideal Reuben sandwich, then I'm free to make it lower in fat, vegetarian, and whole grain.

This is the Reuben sandwich I actually make, light years distant from the Form:

2 slices 100% whole grain spelt bread
1 t Earth Balance Spread
1 t Thousand Island dressing
2 slices Hickory Smoked Tofurky
2 T well-squeezed sauerkraut with caraway seeds
2 slices Swiss cheese

I butter the outside of the bread, put Thousand Island on the inside of the slice.  Then I sandwich the Tofurky and sauerkraut between the two slices of Swiss cheese.  I toast the sandwich on my panini press.

I tried to balance the fact that my spelt bread isn't rye bread by using probiotic sauerkraut with caraway seeds.  The smoked Tofurky is supposed to be giving the impression of corned beef.

You could even go further with the alternative Reuben sandwich.  Vegan Thousand Island and vegan cheeses are available for those who avoid dairy.  Gluten free bread could be substituted- who knows, maybe there's a gluten free deli rye out there somewhere!

But here's the one change I tried to make that didn't work:

In an effort to curtail the huge fat content of this sandwich, I tried to leave off the "butter" (Earth Balance) on the outside of the bread, thinking that the fat from the Swiss cheese and Thousand Island were far more characteristic to the sandwich than the butter.  My husband wouldn't buy it.  A Reuben sandwich that hasn't been greased on the outside with something, somehow, is apparently not a Reuben sandwich.

His refusal on this point brought me into deep thought about what, exactly, makes a Reuben sandwich a Reuben sandwich.  How far away from that Platonic ideal of the Reuben can we get, before the sandwich we've created is no longer even a shadow of that Form?  Apparently I can take away the corned beef and swap out the rye and still sort of have a Reuben.  But if I forsake buttering the outside of the bread I do not.  If I took out the dressing it would not be a Reuben.  If I took out the cheese it would not be a Reuben.  If I put in vegan cheese would it become a Reuben again?

And what about all these substitute foods?  Play foods, really, foods in costume designed to look and somewhat taste like something they are not.  Soy disguised as turkey, cashews disguised as cheese.  Are any of these products Food with a capital F?  And if they are not Food, then is it because they were processed and packaged in a factory?  Or if I had made my own vegan cheese at home, would vegan cheese qualify as Food?

The question of alternative food substitutes is fodder for another post.  In the meantime, I'm left wondering whether a Reuben with much of its artery-clogging properties removed is still a Reuben, and feeling very grateful that the Reuben craving only comes once or twice a year.