Lay off the salt

Sunday, 29 August 2010 - Life without flavour would be a terribly dull place would it not?  What about life with only one flavour? Or one food that gets presented day in and day out?  My dog has been eating lamb and apple for the past 40 days. I'm sure that gets a little hard to swallow after a while, so today I switched out the lamb for Salmon and Herring.  He was drooling more than the usual small puddle at brunch, so I'm assuming he was excited about the change. I doubt he will still be as excited in another 39 days.

I had rice cakes and peanut butter for dinner last night.  For breakfast this morning, I had rice cakes and peanut butter.  Funny enough, they tasted just as good today. I have a sneaking suspicion that if I try for the same again tonight, I might not find them as delicious. North Americans have really become spoiled for variety, even though many of us have a fairly habitual eating regime.  Take away our flavours and even the most habitual of eaters will take notice. In the summer, fresh basil is my favourite flavour.  Thyme and lemon are also pretty spectacular.  In the winter months, garlic and oregano seem to fit best.  At work the other night a whole baggy of oregano was found... I can't imagine anyone wanting to carry around their herbs, but perhaps they were going home to make a little Italian fare, no?

Hmm.... you mean that wasn't oregano? Here I thought he was a Chef d'Cuisine.

Today is More Herbs Less Salt Day.  If you are going to be burning a few herbs today, perhaps you need to snack on fruit and stay away from the salty munchies.

There is a move on to make 'herbs' legal.  I don't know that this will necessarily accomplish much. In Vancouver anyway, police will rarely do much for possession of a small personal amount of herb. There are legal, medicinal marijuana locations, that those who have a prescription can obtain their herbs. For people with particular disorders and diseases, and those going through difficult treatments, it turns out a little oregano can be very beneficial.  So what would legalizing really help?  Perhaps you could collect herb taxes, similar to tobacco taxes but I would bet they would be much much higher. If you legalize it, are you actually going to then issue business licenses to grow ops?  Would the government become grow ops or would the houses with the tinfoil curtains merely become industrial, cheapen the process, decrease the THC content, increase prices, and start short changing the baggy size all in the name of profit?

I'm guessing that you would never eliminate black market sales - like reservation cigarette sales - where 'herb'alists will be looking to avoid paying the grossly inflated taxes. The grow-op next door won't actually lose the tinfoil drapery, but they could put a nice bright neon sign on the roof advertising their business hours. Now you not only have a mold issue, but light pollution, which could lead to a whole new area of neighbourly strife.

Legalizing oregano could lead to another type of roadside breathalizer, and new traffic woes. Instead of speeding and weaving drunk drivers, you would have way too mellow drivers.  The posted speed limit signs would need a new set of minimum speed signs to ensure traffic continues to move. Imagine how pretty those traffic lights could really seem.  Red light?  What a great colour.  Did you see how red that light was man? Wow, that's amazing.  Oh yeah, where was I going?  Oh, I'm late.  Oh well.  I'll get there soon enough.  Ooh.... Yellow.   Yellow is a really great colour.  Did you see how yellow that light was man?

Hey...  it is Sunday today.  Relax, take a load off.  Pull out your herbs, and lay off the salt for the day.