John Beales

I received the book Food Matters by Mark Bittman for Christmas this year, and although at the time I was reading The World is Flat I took a break to read Food Matters. The book really struck a chord with both Joanie and I, so much so that we’ve changed the way we eat, and I started keeping a journal, of my experiences eating like food matters. As of this past weekend, that journal is online, as the new blog Choices That Matter.

Food Matters has a basic message: If we eat less meat and more plants we will live healthier lives and help the planet. We eat way more meat and animal products than we really should, and the production of those products uses a vast amount of our natural resources that could otherwise be used to feed people in hungrier parts of the world or simply not used, reducing our impact on the earth.

Mark takes us through how we, as a North American society, became incredible overeaters and how we’ve been led to believe that we need to eat a lot more than we really do, and he gives us an eye-opeing look at how the food pyramid was built.

Half of the book is recipes, so Food Matters is a short and easy read. In fact, when I was finished reading it, I was surprised that it had ended and left wanting more. Maybe he’ll write a follow-up. I satisfied my hunger for more by reading through all of the recipes in the book.

If you want to lower your environmental impact, loose weight, save money, or do all of the above, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Food Matters and applying its principles to your life.

Note: Most of this entry was written at the end of January, when I finished reading Food Matters. However, I wanted to wait until I had Choices That Matter online before posting.

I just finished reading a story that’s quite different from anything that I’ve read before. The story is Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It’s a poem telling the story of Evangeline, a young Acadian girl. Her wedding day is the day of Le Grand Dérangement, and she is separated from her husband-to-be and spend the rest of her life searching for him.

I had never heard about Evangeline until I went to the maritimes with my sister two summers ago. When we were there we found all sorts of things called Evangeline. On the tourist maps there the Evangeline Trail, (a driving route in Nova Scotia), and part of New Brunswick, at lest on the tourist maps, was referred to Evangeline’s Land. There are all kinds of places called Evangeline, the Evangeline Inn, even the Evangeline Credit Union.

At some point before my 2007 trip to the maritimes, my fiancée Joanie had told me the story of Evangeline and Gabriel, lovers separated on their wedding day, who spend the rest of their lives searching for each other. There is even a song that plays on the radio here in Québec, and has for years, with the story. However, at the time neither of us realized that Evangeline was an Acadian.

So, interested to know who Evangeline was, my sister and I kept our eyes open and I ended up getting a copy of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie for my fiancée as a gift. This is the poem that started the modern fascination with Evangeline, and is largely responsible for our awareness today of what happened on September 5, 1755, when an entire culture was forced from what had become their homeland and scattered around the globe.

Evangeline tells the story of a part of Canadian history that is not well taught in schools, at least not in the west where I grew up. I remember learning about the Acadians, and learning that they were sent away at one point, but I don’t remember it being presented as any type of tragedy, I remember it being taught as something that had to be done, after all, they spoke French, and Canada was British territory. Now, years later, I finally learned that deporting the Acadians was not simply business as usual. In fact, it ranks up there among the worst things done to a group of people in Canada. This past summer Joanie and I went to the maritimes and we had the chance not only to go to Grand Pré and learn more about life as an Acadian and the deportation, but we were lucky enough to be in Caraquet, New Brunswick, (the “Capital of Acadie”), during the Acadian World Congress, so we got to experience modern Acadie, and it’s a culture that we should try to hold on to here in Canada, (and always should have tried to hold on to).

Back to the poem, it’s a long poem, long enough that it’s printed as a book, but it’s not hard to read, (I don’t exactly read poetry all of the time), and I highly recommend it. For Canadians, it is a window into a time and events that form an important part of our history, for Americans it gives you a glimpse of the birth of the Cajun culture, and for all of us it inspires us with a story of faith that most of us rarely even imagine.

Over the last several days I’ve been enjoying short stories written by one of my favourite authors, Jeffrey Archer. His book, Cat O’ Nine Tales, is a collection of short stories based largely on stories he heard in prison. It’s been on my shelf for quite a while, (I think I received it last year for Christmas in 2008), and for some reason I haven’t picked it up, a mistake I will try to avoid in the future.

It’s refreshing to change from the longer books that I’ve been reading to short stories. They’re fun to read and each one doesn’t take too long, especially when they’re as engaging as these ones.

I have another Jeffrey Archer book that I haven’t read, Shall We Tell the President but I’m told that I should read The Prodigal Daughter first, and I don’t have that one, so I am keeping my eye out for a copy.

I’ve turned johnbeales.com and @johnbeales red for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver. Join me and do the same for your blog, Twitter profile, or both.

Look how awesome my twitter profile looks all decked out for the Vancouver games:

You can do the same. Here’s a ZIP file containing the PSD Source, and PNGs of both my Twitter background, (with the text), and the blog background, (without the text).

Go nuts, and let me know here or on Twitter about it!

Edit: Here are direct links to the backgrounds with text, and without text.

After reading about the economy and about Javascript it was time for some Fiction. I received a copy of Up in the Air, (the book that they based the movie on), for Christmas that’s just been sitting on a shelf so I pulled it out and read it.

I haven’t seen the movie, (although I will probably rent it when I can), but had read some reviews that were critical of it because, at least according to the reviews, we’re supposed to feel sorry for Ryan, (the George Clooney character), and he’s a guy that goes around the country firing people, essentially making their jobs miserable. I’m not sure if it’s a difference of interpretation, or if things have been sensationalized for the movie, but in the book he’s the guy that “counsels” employees right after they are fired, mostly to stop them from suing. It’s not much better, I know, but it does seem slightly better. In the book, though, we really get inside Ryan’s head, which can be a confusing place at times, and we see what he really thinks about his job, the people around him, and the world. It’s especially interesting to see how his impressions of people change over the course of the story.

I’m really interested to see if we get the same level of intimate access to Ryan in the movie as we do in the book, and how they made the jump in general. If the movie is half as interesting as the book, it should be an interesting film to see.