His was not the only Iraq-related death I heard about during my short stay.

I met more young men and women in Palau planning to join the U.S. military than I have ever met in Virginia, and they all sited similar reasons for signing-up: the monetary compensation to support their family and a chance to live in the States and perhaps gain citizenship.

Recently, my friend Nathan fleshed-out similar observations for the Pacific Magazine through his experiences as a volunteer in Kosrae (an island state of the FSM) and by shadowing several Micronesians at Fort Carson, an army base just south of Colorado Springs, Colorado. He explains a hunch I had had, but never really knew for certain: "the highest fatality rates in the Iraq War are from soldiers who trace their ancestry to Pacific Islands. American Samoa leads the list with 12 fatalities per 100,000 residents, following closely Guam and Micronesia respectively, three and two deaths per 100,000 residents." Not to say anything of the service and sacrifice of American soldiers (yes: there have been more combined American deaths than those of our allies or contractors), but there is something grossly perverse about other nations sacrificing twice as many of their citizens per capita towards a war effort that is not their own.

A thank-you to Nathan for the piece. More of his pictures from Fort Carson here and here.

See, when I was 17-years-old, I spent 10 days in Japan. I stayed with a host family. I don't know how "traditional" or "cultural" this was, but a common breakfast consisted of a glass of milk, chocolate croissant and a salad. Yes, a salad. Usually a standard green (romaine, iirc) maybe a tomato, maybe a cucumber and this dressing that up until recently I just referred to as an "amazing soy concoction". Upon returning home I tried endless "Asian" salad dressings touting soy and/or ginger goodness looking for a match, but nothing came close. I craved this stuff.

Fast-forward to about a year ago. I'm at Seafood @ West Main eyeing a deep, dark tuna steak behind the counter. Dinner that night was going to be awesome! I knew I wanted to make some sort of soy-based marinade, so I took a look at the condiment shelf next to the register (the wooden shelf to the left if you're facing the register. Take notes: you will want to know exactly where to look so you can buy this later). For no reason whatsoever, I pick up the bottle of Ninben.

I get home, am preparing dinner, pour some into a little bowl and dip my finger for a taste.

"Oh my god."

I'm 17 again sitting at Iku's kitchen table eager about the day to come knowing I would be doing something I had never done before because I was in Japan, even if all we did was just walk down the street to the market. Eureka! I'd found it.

My mouth waters thinking about this sauce. It's a touch smokey, robust and velvety. And I am rather evangelical about it.

Heather: "Hey, Mandy; wanna come over, I got some sushi take-out."
Me: "Awesome. I'm bringing the soy sauce. Believe me: you want to try this."

Seriously, I brought over the soy sauce. She liked it.

The desire to post about Ninben caused me to take another look. Especially because I still have a bottle of Kikkoman in my fridge that has basically remained untouched ever since. (Gross!) Let's have a look, shall we?

Ninben

Kikkoman

To note, the serving size listed on the Ninben bottle is 2 Tbs; a Kikkoman serving is 1 Tbs, so don't get too excited -- that means 1 Tbs of Ninben has 615mg of sodium versus Kikkoman's 920mg. Yeah, about a third less salty. +5 Would use again!

There is something quite lovely listed in those ingredients: bonito and kelp. It is dried bonito flakes that make up dashi, the stuff that what will make or break miso soup. Don't believe me? Just try making your next cup of miso with only miso paste and no dashi flakes. Bleh.

The downer on that list of ingredients is monosodium glutamate. ::sigh:: I wasn't surprised to see it, however, as I have come to recognize MSG as the reason a lot of foods taste *so damn good*. The other drawback is the $4.40 price tag. You get 3 more ounces in a bottle of Kikkoman and it's nearly $3 cheaper.

Anyhow, who wants to go get some sushi with me?! I'll bring the soy sauce!

My familiarity with Mr. Bittman was strictly as a fond reader of his Dining & Wine "Minimalist" column in The New York Times (and watcher of related how-to videos). I am very glad to know that his words add up to more than what he eats. I am even more glad to know that his How to Cook Everything Vegetarian (sequel to How to Cook Everything) is a bestseller -- particularly interesting considering he is not a vegetarian. (Neither am I, yet I very much want this book.) Not long after this talk, Bittman's related article "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler" was also published in the Times.

While there are certainly lots of folks talking about this sort of thing (this talk might be considered a la the likes of Michael Pollan and Al Gore [links to his most recent TED talk]), he smacks two things over our heads worth noting: livestock production is the second highest contributor of atmosphere altering/climate altering gases -- its impact is higher than that of transportation. The idea that industrialized food causes more harm to the environment than cars really stops the traffic. I mean, we don't have to drive a car in order to live. But we do have to eat.

The second point is how the American collective consciousness about how we eat actually means something -- what I eat directly affects the environment.

Yeah, okay; duh. But for many people, that reality just isn't something they think about when reaching for a bag of chips, can of soda or frying up some burgers. And for the majority of my life, I have been incredibly guilty of this mindlessness because eating is easy. I can walk into a Wendy's with $1* in my hand and buy six chicken nuggets [*plus a few cents for tax]. Easy.

While I appreciate this talk on a googly level -- it's always nice when the course of one's celebrity manages to reveal that he is actually a decent human being -- I also appreciate that it waxes plainly, honestly. It also continues the mark of a trend that I can only hope continues: the popularity of books like The Omnivore's Dilemma (or any of Pollan's other bestsellers) means that at least people are curious, they are thinking about where there food comes from. The next part involves increased frequency of assertions of Mark Bittman et al that our eating habits and climate change are inextricably linked.

Sure, more duh stuff, but the hammer is just not hitting hard enough. While writers/journalists/scholars may have the onus of delivering facts, it is ultimately in the hands of consumers to affect any sort of change -- there is still way too much money involved to get this going by any means other than from the consumer, up. And it is only if this impact can be viewed in dollars by the companies responsible for putting food on our plates as a mass loss of profits that will convince them to develop any sort of alternative corporate model. This requires a huge commitment on a vast scale, but the good news is that if everyone is, if I am, just a tiny bit more mindful of how we consume our food, we will make giant strides towards revamping the current system.

This is maybe the first thing in my life that I've felt like I could actually do; that could mean as much personally as it could on a much larger scale. I am only hoping that way more people than me feel that way, too.