Is It Local?

Like one of those characters in Portlandia who demand to meet the chicken they’re about to eat, I've started visiting organic farms across Central Texas. This past weekend I journeyed to Indian Hills Farm in Smithville. While organic farms are a recommended visit for all local-food junkies, Indian Hills is a great mini-vacation for anyone, regardless of your food persuasion.


Read the rest of the article in the Austin Post.

Taking Farmers Markets to a New Level – The Rise of the CSA

Ever since the fall of 2010, I’ve been shopping down the food chain – buying my food closer and closer to the source. Like most Americans, I started out buying meat and produce from grocery stores like H-E-B (whatever happened to be on sale) and supplementing it with bulk packaged food from Costco or Sam’s Club.

Then I decided I wanted to eat healthier, regardless of the price tag. So I started shopping at Central Market and Whole Foods. I bought all USDA organic meat, fruit and vegetables, and instead of buying twin-packaged giant cereal boxes of Special K, I bought smaller-sized single boxes of Kashi cereal (also owned by the Kellogg Company). Much of my fruit still came from faraway places such as Chile and New Zealand, and although my meat was labeled "organic," that term is loosely and complexly defined by the U.S Department of Agriculture.

Read the rest of this article in the Austin Post.

Greetings from 5-Mile Farms, a hyper-local CSA in Austin, Texas

Returning the Farmers Market – El Mercado – to the Hispanic Community

Fresh vegetables at Mercado Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Mexico

Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s, my memory of grocery shopping with my mother was going to the Vons in South El Monte. It was sort of like Texas’ version of H-E-B, except with a more distinct Hispanic flair (in 1984, William Davila became the first Mexican American CEO of an American supermarket chain). Since then, that supermarket has been replaced by Superior Grocers, or “La Superior” as we call it in my old ‘hood.

But my first experience going to a farmers market wasn’t until the late 1980s, when I went on an 8th grade school field trip to Exposition Park to visit the great museums of Southern California. For lunch, they took us to the “original” Farmers Market in downtown Los Angeles, on 3rd and Fairfax, in operation since the mid-1930s.

Read the rest of the article in Latinometro.

Organic. Sustainable. Local.

Even dogs like organic lettuce.

Organic. Sustainable. Local. These are the latest buzzwords when it comes to our food and agriculture system. But what does it all mean? The definitions have a wide range, depending on who you talk to. Organic can refer to food grown in your backyard with absolutely no pesticides, food that is grown fairly and locally and free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and even commercially produced food by corporate brands as long as they follow the USDA’s National Organic Program’s complex requirements.

Then there’s sustainable – that’s even more subjective. Does it improve and replenish the quality of the environment? Does it make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources? Does it enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole? What counts as local? Local food can be grown 15 feet or 150 miles away from your home.

Read the rest of the article in Latinometro.

Eating Veggies Fills You Up

Plant Based Lunch = 2 c. salad: spinach, bok choy, beets, onions & chickpeas, 1 c. French green lentils spiced with cardamom, cumin & cinnamon, 1 c. quinoa with tomato & basil

Imagine getting full after eating a little bag of carrots, or a small bowl of greens. Is that bad? Remember the last time you ate cookies, fried food, or Doritos, and you just couldn’t stop eating them? That’s because your your stomach’s fullness receptors aren’t activated until it’s filled up.

Source: Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Eat for Health. Book One, 2008

It’s funny to me that government institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention perform research studies and make statements like, “Eating fruits and vegetables may help manage weight.” Shouldn’t that be obvious? I suppose it’s not if you’re eating large portions of foods that are fatty, salty, and laden with sugar. Eating an apple or a celery stick, if you’re mostly eating greasy meat and starchy carbs, isn’t going to help you magically lose weight. The trick is eating less (or none) of the bad stuff, and eating more of the good stuff.

When I tell people I shop every Saturday at the farmers market, many react by saying they could not do the same because it is too expensive. Of course, if you just trade out all the meat and vegetables that you consume for organic ones, your grocery bill will go up. But it’s not just about trading out pesticide-ridden spinach for a locally and sustainable grown spinach. It’s about changing the way you eat in general.

Calorie Comparison (from CDC)

By going to the farmers market, I don’t eat anything that comes out of a box or can, and also, I end up eating smaller portions of meat. Since the meat is very expensive, I’ve been forced to eat less of it, and I make up the balance by eating more vegetables and legumes. And voila, now I am eating healthier and not spending that much more than when I used to shop at the big corporate health food stores. But how can I eat a meal that is mostly vegetables and only a little meat and no pasta or rice? That doesn’t seem like it would fill me up. But it does!

Short-term studies (mostly conducted over several days with limited food options) described in the following section indicate that feeling full is more likely to make a person stop eating than is the total caloric content of the food consumed. Many people believe that consuming high- calorie foods will make them feel full, but a study by Duncan and colleagues3 provided contrary evidence. In their study 20 obese and non-obese participants ate as much as they wanted over 5 days from a diet that alternated from low-energy-density to high-energy-density foods. On the low-energy-density diet, the participants felt full with just over half the calories (1570 kcal) they needed to feel full on the high-energy-density diet (3000 kcal). (Source: Can eating fruits and vegetables help people to manage their weight? Research to Practice Series No. 1).

Below you’ll see my plant-based lunch, one hour later. I was so full, I couldn’t finish my lentils. I ended up eating a portion equaling a little less than 1 cup (the container I’d put them in was 1.9 cups). Now it’s nearly four hours later, as I write this post, and I am starting to feel a little hungry. This would be a good opportunity to have a little piece of fruit and small handful of almonds (raw, organic, and sprouted are best!). Dinner will be similar to lunch, although I might add a portion of meat (no larger than the palm of my hand) to my meal, a pint of vanilla porter (tasty in the winter time!), and a tablespoonful of raw local honey for dessert. I call that splurging! How about you?

Plant Based Lunch...Eaten. (Too full to finish the lentils.)

The Grapefruit Showdown: Raw vs. Del Monte

Do you ever wish vegetables didn't taste quite so "vegetabley"?
--V8 Commercial 2011


CONVERSATION OVERHEARD...

Recently, I overheard a discussion about grapefruits between three people (the names have been changed to protect their privacy). Jane was in the act of eating a raw grapefruit, creating a small pile of rinds as she peeled it. Bob and Mary, who were in the same room while this activity was taking place, engaged Jane in a conversation.

Mary: Hey Jane, do you eat a grapefruit every day?
Jane: Yes, it's healthy.
Bob: Where did you buy it?
Jane: At a regional chain supermarket.
Mary: Is it organic?
Jane: No, that's expensive. I'm on a budget.
Bob: Is organic really better anyway?
Mary: I don't think so.
Jane: Tastes the same.
Bob: I eat Del Monte® Fruit Naturals® - this way I don't have to deal with the rinds, or eat the nasty white part on the skin.

Note that in addition to the name of the company having a registered trademark, so is the term “fruit naturals.” What does it mean exactly when something is trademarked? According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, “A trademark includes any word, name, symbol, device, or any combination, used, or intended to be used, in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others, and to indicate the source of the goods.” [1] Apparently, Del Monte has created a product consisting of natural fruit, which they have cleverly claimed as unique by simply reversing the order of the words. Didn’t Mother Nature – or God – invent natural fruit? And just what is this nasty white stuff, anyway?

PACKAGING: A Grapefruit’s Natural Packaging – Plastic is Unnecessary

In a 2009 article published by the New York Times:
“The underside of the peel, called the albedo, contains carbohydrates and vitamin C but is especially rich in a soluble fiber called pectin, said Dr. Renee M. Goodrich, associate professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Florida. ''We are beginning to see links between consumption of such fiber and cholesterol lowering,'' she said. [2]

The albedo is also called mesocarp or pith. According to their official Del Monte® Fruit Naturals® website, “They're picked at their ripest, then perfectly peeled, prepared and packed in 100% juice–all in handy 6-7 oz. plastic cups with easy peel-off lids.” They even remove the seeds and that disgusting albedo for you! And let’s face it – we live in a busy world. Taking two minutes to peel a grapefruit is just too much time. Why should you waste that time, when you can spend a mere two seconds removing the “easy peel-off lid”? Not to mention, what do you do with those rinds? It’s much easier to throw away the plastic packaging.

But wait, if you are eco-friendly, you might want to throw away the non-recyclable lid, and then deposit the “green” cup in a recycling container. (Read Del Monte®'s statement on caring about the environment.) In 2008, they launched a “Going Green” project for all their employees, giving them personal coffee cups and plastic cups (presumably the latter is for drinking water or the wide assortment of Del Monte® fruit juices).

This will surely cancel out the negative environmental impact caused by the millions of plastic cups that consumers throw away after using them for the entire 5-15 minutes it took them to consume the “natural fruit.” In reality, the percentage of aluminum, paper, and plastic that gets recycled is less than 100% – the actual statistic will vary widely depending on the source. (And if you want to learn some interesting things about plastic, see the documentary Bag It.)

In addressing the nutritional content of a raw grapefruit versus fruit-in-a-cup, there are several sources. If you look on the official Del Monte® Fruit Naturals® website, you will notice there are two varieties of the red grapefruit product: the regular one in 100% fruit juice and the “no sugar added” one. On the product page, there is a charming hand-drawn graphic inviting you to “click to read nutrition facts.”

NUTRITION FACTS & INGREDIENTS

Once you click, you will learn that the regular 7-ounce version contains “about” two servings of 126 grams each. Each serving has less than 1 gram of fiber, 13 grams of sugars, 60 calories, 2% of vitamin A and 100% vitamin C of the daily values based on the 2,000 calorie diet. The “no sugar added” version has less calories – it also happens to be in a 6.5-ounce cup. Per serving, this version has only 40 calories, slightly more fiber at .5 grams, only 6 grams of sugar, 10% of vitamin A (more than the regular kind!) and 100% vitamin C of the daily values based on the 2,000 calorie diet. They have conveniently left out the ingredients. We are led to assume it contains only grapefruit.

One website called ShopWell.com™, still in the beta phase, seems to have a very comprehensive database of food products, their nutritional value, and list of ingredients. For the regular red grapefruit, it lists the following ingredients: Grapefruit, Reconstituted White Grape Juice, Reconstituted Red Grapefruit Juice, Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate (to preserve quality), Ascorbic Acid (to protect color), Citric Acid, Color Added. [3] The “no sugar added” red grapefruit contains the following: Grapefruit, Water, Sorbitol, Ascorbic Acid (to protect color), Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate (to protect quality), Citric Acid, Acesulfame Potassium, Sucralose, Color Added. [4]

The obvious offenders in both versions are potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate – both of these ingredients are synthetically produced by laboratory chemical methods. The regular version contains reconstituted white grape juice and reconstituted red grapefruit juice. What exactly is that anyway? The USDA has produced a 15-page document called “United States Standards for Grades of Grapefruit Juice.” The document defines reconstituted juice as a “product obtained by thoroughly mixing the concentrate with the amount of water prescribed on the label or other appropriate directions.” [5]

What is concentrate then? The FDA has the answer to that question in a document published in its Health and Human Services department regulations § 146.132:
“If the grapefruit juice is prepared from concentrate, such sweeteners, in liquid form, referred to in paragraph (a)(2)(iii) of this section, also may be used. When prepared from concentrated grapefruit juice, exclusive of added sweeteners, the finished food contains not less than 10 percent, by weight, of soluble solids taken as the refractometric sucrose value (of the filtrate), corrected to 20°C, and corrected for acidity by adding (0.012+0.193x–0.0004x2), where x equals the percent anhydrous citric acid in the sample, to the refractometrically obtained sucrose value by the first method prescribed in ‘‘Correction of Refractometer Sucrose Readings for Citric Acid Content for Lemonade,’’ by Yeatman, Senzel, and Springer, ‘‘Journal of the Association of Official Analytical Chemists,’’ vol. 59 p. 368 (1976). [6]

Let’s dig a little deeper. What are these acceptable sweeteners in liquid form? If we refer to paragraph (a)(2)(iii) of this section on the topic of Optional Ingredients, we will learn that these are defined as “one or any combination of two or more of the dry or liquid forms of sugar, invert sugar sirup, dextrose, glucose sirup, and fructose. Sweeteners defined in part 168 of this chapter shall be as defined therein.” [6] If we refer to part 168 of this chapter, I have to wonder if we will continue to be led further down the spiral of elusive definitions.


LABELING

You don’t even have to refer to part 168 to continue the seemingly endless scavenger hunt. In paragraph (a)(3)(ii) of this section on the topic of Labeling, we’ll learn that “if any nutritive sweetener is added, the principal display panel of the label shall bear the statement ‘‘Sweetener added.’’” [6] What if the nutritive sweetener is already part of the concentrate, and it’s not present in addition to the concentrate mix? What if “two or more of the dry or liquid forms of sugar, invert sugar sirup, dextrose, glucose sirup, and fructose” are not qualified as nutritive sweeteners, and therefore does not have to be listed?

The FDA gives a decent overview on how it regulates the listing of ingredients, in its Guidance for Industry: A Food Labeling Guide: Contains Nonbinding Recommendations:

15. Do ingredients of standardized foods have to be listed when the standardized food is an ingredient in a non-standardized food?
Answer: The sub ingredients of a food that is an ingredient in another food may be declared parenthetically following the name of the ingredient or may be declared by dispersing each ingredient in its order of predominance in the ingredient statement without naming the original ingredient. 21 CFR 101.4(b)(2) [7]

To truly understand what all this means, the average consumer will likely feel overwhelmed, and if curious enough like me, will feel the desire to go back to college and study chemistry and biology. But Del Monte® has made it easy for the consumer. All they need to know about the Fruit Naturals® red grapefruit in 100% fruit juice is that it contains sugar. Because of the way the definitions are set up to cross reference each other without explicitly stating anything clearly and concisely, Del Monte® can simply list “sugar” as an ingredient, hoping that most of us won’t spend hours trying to get to the bottom of what that really means. Anyway, even if the FDA makes recommendation for labeling food, they are “nonbinding recommendations.”

To confirm the ingredients listed by ShopWell.com™, I visited three different H-E-B markets in Austin, Texas, and I could not find either of these two grapefruit products. A friend visited Central Market – a grocery store that prides in selling healthy items – and could not find them either. I also went to Sunflower (formerly Newflower), and I did not find them either. It seems my only options are ordering online through Amazon.com, Costco, or Sam’s Club, along with a large-screen television. But just to be sure, I sent an email to Del Monte® and have requested the actual list of ingredients.


Dear Del Monte,

Can you please send me the complete list of ingredients for both the Fruit Naturals Red Grapefruit and the Fruit Naturals No Sugar Added Red Grapefruit?

On your website, I can only view the nutrition facts, but I would like to know the list of ingredients.

Thank you,
Alexandra

p.s. I would also like to know where I can purchase these products? I have visited three HEBs, one Central Market, and one Sunflower market and have not been able to find them.


Dear Alexandra,

Thanks for visiting our Del Monte website and for your email.

The ingredients you requested are listed below and below that you will find some stores in your area that carry these products.

*Red Grapefruit in 100% Juice: Grapefruit, Reconstituted White Grape Juice, Reconstituted Red grapefruit Juice, Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate (To Preserve Quality), Ascorbic Acid (TO Protect Color), Citric Acid

*No Sugar Added Red Grapefruit: Grapefruit, Water, Sorbitol, Ascorbic Acid (To Protect Color), Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate (To Preserve Quality), Citric Acid, Acesulfame Potassium, Sucralose.

We checked our information for you, and it shows this product has been sold in the past 90 days at the stores listed below. Before making a special trip, we recommend you call the store to be sure the product is in stock. If you've already checked these stores recently, it may also be help ful for you to let your store manager know about your interest in this item.

Fruit Naturals Red Grapefruit NSA and Fruit Naturals Red Grapefruit packed in100 percent juice.

Randalls Food Market
2025 W Ben White Blvd
Austin TX 78704-7518
(512) 4433083

Fiesta Mart
5510 S Interstate 35 Ste 250
Austin TX 78745-3293
(512) 3737800

Randalls Food Market
6600 S MO Pac Expy
Austin TX 78749-1431
(512) 8914350

I appreciate the opportunity to respond and hope this information is helpful.

Mike, Del Monte Consumer Affairs

Del Monte. Nourishing families. Enriching lives. Every Day.


Del Monte® does a thorough job of revealing its practices. The Living a Healthy Lifestyle section of their corporate website has a Nutrition Q & A. [8] Below are some of the questions and answers relevant to the investigation in this article:

QUESTION
Why do you only list certain nutrients on your products?

ANSWER
The Food and Drug Administration regulates nutrition labeling. The nutrients listed on all of our products are required by law to be listed.

QUESTION
Why do you use High Fructose Corn Syrup in your products?

ANSWER
High Fructose Corn Syrup is a sweetener that is made from corn that has virtually the same sweetening power as sugar, provides the same amount of calories as table sugar and is used by our bodies just like table sugar. In the food industry, High Fructose Corn Syrup does more than just sweeten a product — it helps retain moisture and food structure. It also allows flavors to blend and increases the shelf life of a product.

QUESTION
What is sucralose and why do you use it?

ANSWER
Sucralose (Splenda®) is made from regular table sugar, but is altered by replacing three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule with three chlorine atoms.

High fructose corn syrup is a probable suspect in Del Monte® Fruit Naturals®, and it is a likely explanation for its extraordinarily long shelf life of 15-21 months. Try keeping a raw grapefruit for 3 months – no natural fruit is intended to last that long, unless you preserve it the good old-fashioned way as a jam or jelly preserve. Fruit Naturals® are not being preserved as jams or jellies – they are being preserved much in the way that Walt Disney has supposedly been cryogenically frozen – trying to capture the raw and “natural” state of an organic being. Except that food processors like Del Monte® use modern high-pressurization machines to do so, in addition to preservation chemicals.

Remember the “no sugar added” version of red grapefruit? Even though it has no sugar added, it does contain the following artificial, non-nutritive sweeteners: sorbitol, acesulfame potassium, and sucralose. In its Nutrition Q & A, Del Monte® does explain its use of sucralose, openly admitting the fact that it is simply regular table sugar that has been chemically altered. What about the other two sweeteners? These, too, are synthetic, laboratory produced chemicals.


VITAMIN CONTENT

Many people will argue that the canned (or plastic-cupped) versions are actually better for you because they have increased vitamin content. Both versions of the Fruit Naturals® red grapefruit – the regular and the “no sugar added” – contain 100% vitamin C of the daily values based on a 2,000 calorie diet. But what is 100%? How much vitamin C is that? The USDA Food and Nutrition Information Center website [9] has published a chart of Dietary Reference Intakes prepared by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. According to this chart, the Recommended Dietary Allowances and Adequate Intakes of Vitamins can range anywhere from 75 mg for an adult female to 90 mg for an adult male. [10] Therefore, we can likely assume that Fruit Naturals® will contain roughly 75 mg of vitamin C for a 126-ounce serving.

How much vitamin C does an equivalent serving of raw grapefruit have? Only 39 grams. You can look up this same information on the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference. This fact gives fruit-in-a-cup advocates the fodder they need to continue claiming their packaged product is superior to the real thing. Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, can exist naturally in living organisms, but it can also be industrially synthesized. Fruit Naturals® lists ascorbic acid as an ingredient. Could this be a reason why it has a higher content of vitamin C than a freshly tree-picked raw grapefruit?


WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN ANYWAY?

Large corporations with large marketing dollars to spend can potentially convince consumers of just about anything. Del Monte® says on their website that you can “Experience Fruit Undressed™,” which is a “fruit that’s stripped down to its bare goodness; no skins, seeds or cores.” [11] Following that logic, if a human wants to be sexy and undressed, should he or she skin themselves down to the muscle? Isn’t a fruit in its natural state already “undressed”? How are Del Monte® Fruit Naturals® that come individually packaged in small plastic cups, and then packaged together in sets in cardboard, be less undressed than the actual fruit?

Also, watch those labels. A grapefruit should only have one ingredient: grapefruit.


SOURCES:

1. http://www.uspto.gov/trademarks/process/index.jsp
2. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E5D91038F932A05750C0A96F9C8B63
3. http://www.shopwell.com/fruit-naturals-red-grapefruit-in-100-juice/fresh-fruit/p/2400050785?f=sr&nr=322&sp=4
4. http://www.shopwell.com/fruit-naturals-red-grapefruit-no-sugar-added/fresh-fruit/p/2400050793?f=sr&nr=322&sp=5
5. http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELDEV3007255
6. http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2005/aprqtr/pdf/21cfr146.132.pdf
7. http://www.fda.gov/food/guidancecomplianceregulatoryinformation/guidancedocuments/foodlabelingnutrition/foodlabelingguide/ucm064880.htm#stdfood
source changed to:
http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/GuidanceDocuments/FoodLabelingNutrition/FoodLabelingGuide/default.htm
8. http://www.delmontefoods.com/livingahealthylifestyle/?page=lh_askthenutritionist4
9. http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=4&tax_level=3&tax_subject=256&topic_id=1342&level3_id=5140
10. http://iom.edu/Activities/Nutrition/SummaryDRIs/~/media/Files/Activity%20Files/Nutrition/DRIs/RDA%20and%20AIs_Vitamin%20and%20Elements.pdf
11. http://www.delmontefoods.com/brands/

The Truth About Your Meat: It Used to be Alive

What did Mr. Fish do to deserve your disgust for his looks, especially if you're going to enjoy his flesh?
(Photo courtesy of Denise Chan, Flickr Creative Commons)

That beautifully buttered, seasoned, boneless, skinless filet of salmon you eat was once a slithery, scaly fish with googly eyes swimming in the ocean. So then, why is it so gross to buy a whole fish from the market to bring home to cook? Why was I tempted by the perfectly pink square slab of boned and skinned salmon, even though it was five times more expensive? Why did the girl at the check-out register cringe and squeal in disgust at the sight of the fish?

Because we are so far removed from our food, we forget that our meat comes from live, moving animals with legs, fins, eyes, and mouths. How many of us would kill an animal for food, if we had to? Would we be able to look the cute, furry lamb in the eye, knowing that hours later he or she will end up on our plate in broiled cubes with mint and feta? Would you be able to pluck the feathers off the chicken before putting it in the oven?

These situations don't even require us to kill the animal - they simply requires us to come one step closer to the animal's state of being alive. A fried chicken leg has become something we eat out of a box, not the part used by the chicken to walk around the farm (that is, if it's lucky enough to be a free-roamer). Sometimes, it's not even referred to as a leg, but as a drumstick. We call meat steaks and filets, not muscle and flesh. We eat beef, not cows. Pork, not pigs. Poultry, not chicken. Seafood, not fish. Yet, that's what it is. We are eating cooked, dead animals.

So, I resisted the temptation to buy the boned and skinned fish. And even though the whole fish had its tail and head cut off, and it had already been gutted, it still looked like a fish - not the kind you eat on a plate, but the kind that wiggles around in the water with pulsating gills and glub-glub mouths. It looked frightening, unappetizing, and monstrous. I decided to be brave and get more intimate with my fish.

At first, I didn't want to use my fingers to rip open the plastic wrap on the Styrofoam tray. I held one end of the tray with a paper towel and tried to remove the wrapping with a fork. When that method quickly proved inefficient and clumsy, I was forced to use my fingers. I tried not to to be bothered by the feeling of the slippery scales against my skin. And after a few minutes, I discovered the scales weren't as slimy as I had thought them to be. It was cold and clammy, but not slimy - and surprisingly smooth. Then I had to put the fish in the sink to rinse it.

Although I was comfortable touching it here and there, I couldn't bring myself to grab it firmly with my hands. I awkwardly slid it off the tray into a colander on the sink. I was able to rinse one side of the fish without touching it. But flipping it over to its other side - well, I was just going to have to go in there grab it with two hands. So I did. No choice. You can't spear a fish with a regular eating fork, and you can't use salad tongs to grab it.

After covering it in olive oil and stuff it with herbs, then wrapping it tightly in foil, I was becoming less and less squeamish about the fish. I had to keep reminding myself it was just like the salmon filets I purchased at the store, except one or two steps of preparation back in time - closer to its state of being alive. Otherwise, there was no difference. It's a great exercise, if you ever have the opportunity to choose a whole fish over the fileted fish. And if you find you can't do it - well, then, you decide - should you really be eating it? (For the record, this was some of the best fish I've ever had. Cooked on the grill. Highly recommend it. It's inexpensive, feeds many, and will impress your friends.)