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Nutrition: Food & culture

Everyone, please welcome Charlene.

I’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

My name is Charlene Marie Muhammad. Born and raised in Staten Island, NY with my mom and dad. My dad went on to have five other children, so it was seven girls and one boy total. My sisters and I have gotten a lot closer during this COVID period. I have two young, adult sons both living in New York. I am a wellness practitioner equipped with the tools of herbal medicine, nutrition, and yoga therapy in my toolbox.

What are your beliefs surrounding food? What are your beliefs surrounding nutrition?

I have come to know, learn, and understand food is the substance of life. It is our direct relationship with nature. Food keeps us alive.

Please share meals that were common when you were younger.

• Campbell’s tomato soup with grilled cheese.
• Farina for breakfast. It’s like cream of wheat. I am not sure if they still make it.

These were meals that were common for us, especially as many children were going to our neighborhood sitter. The neighborhood sitter took in so many children and fed us. It wasn’t much but we had food in our bellies.

At some point, my siblings and I were latchkey kids. We were the children of a professional ballet dancer. Dance raised us so to speak. My mom went on a health food kick. [laughs] She boiled all our meats and vegetables. We practically didn’t have anything fried. We were the only kids in the neighborhood to eat brown bread. I was glad dad stepped in. [laughs] He was the better cook. He was sort of a one pot wonder, and he cooked casseroles often.

How have meals changed from then to now in your opinion?

The amount of processed foods and the quality of processed foods have changed immensely. Even though we were eating canned chicken soup, I remember chunks of carrots, onions, and chicken. You don’t see that now. You barely see chunks of anything in canned soup now days. There’re no chicken chunks in the chicken soup. [laughs]

That is true. [laughs] I don’t know how soup was back then, but I have opened a can of soup and been completely disappointed. There was only a few sprinkles of carrot pieces and a mince of chicken. It had me asking how do they justify this. [laughs]

Yeah. [laughs] We were poor. We didn’t think about having to make an effort to get vegetables. Oh, you’re poor? You better put something in the ground and pull it up. Making sure that you stretched a meal. That’s how we stretched a meal: with vegetables. You didn’t stretch a meal necessarily with opening up another can so to speak. We also had what we called welfare back in the day. We did get some of those staples: we got blocks of cheese and big vats of peanut butter. What else did we get? We got milk. So yeah, we did get those kinds of supplements. Also, in the community in which I lived we were very close. We would share even though it was the inner-city projects. You could go to someone’s house if you were hungry to get something to eat. My friend Lisa tells a funny story of how we were all outside playing and she was hungry, so she went to my house. She was standing in the kitchen making a sandwich and my dad comes in and says, “What are you doing?” She said, “Making a sandwich.” And he left her there. [laughs] She could come to my house if she was hungry, and I could go to hers. We also had a lot of fruit trees around. When we were growing up the boys would throw these apples at us. [laughs] We did have apple and pear trees.

They threw apples at you all! [laughs]

Oh yeah, they would throw the apples.

Wow! I find it interesting that you were in the inner city, and you had fruit trees around. So, in your old neighborhood, are those trees still there?

Well, my neighborhood is barely there. So, I grew up on Staten Island which was the ruralist of the five boroughs at the time and we lived on the north shore which is where majority of the housing projects were. I lived in what they called garden homes and not the high-rise housing projects. So, we had a little yard and we had trees. There were fruit baring trees and walnut trees. Some of our older folks who came up from the South brought those traditions with them: they had little gardens. Though we were poor, we had a little plot of grass to grow some food.

Nice. You mentioned that your mom went on a health food kick. Why do you think that was?

I just recently asked her that question. My mom was a professional ballet dancer. She has an interesting history: I‘ll share it with you. My mom had polio as a child so part of her convalescence she was under therapy. She was told do one of two things: swim or dance. She chose to dance. She got really serious about it and auditioned for the Dance Theatre of Harlem when they were first forming and became one of the original ballet dancers for the Dance Theatre of Harlem. At that point she became fanatical about her body. She was one of the oldest dancers. She was 25 with 3 children. None of the other dancers had children so she felt she had to go above and beyond to keep up with the other dancers. She became fanatical about her body: what she put in it and how she treated it. So whatever wind she was on we were subjected to it. [laughs]

Gotcha.

Yeah, cod liver oil and naturals. Really that quote-unquote 1960s health food kick stuff. I recently found her book by Dick Gregory which is Natural Diet for Folks who Eat: Cooking with Mother Nature. My mother bought this book for one dollar and ninety-five cents. I have it and the pages are actually yellowing. It was one of those books that was done as part of the social justice and civil rights movements that were moving us and moving African Americans back toward our traditional ways of eating. So, she was reading that book and reading The Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s How to Eat to Live. She was reading and instituting those principles into our home.

Okay, I see. I have not read that specific Dick Gregory book you mentioned but I have read his autobiography in which he mentions that very book and his role during the time of those movements. I find it curious that there was a need for that kind of readdress back then. You know? In the 70s?

No, it was the 60s.

The 60s? And there were issues with the standard African American diet then?

Definitely. It was and let me tell you why. This was when the Standard American Diet was coming into play. You have a period of time where leisure and more women going into the workplace was on the rise. So having more processed foods was becoming a common thing as well as just being poor. They would give the processed items to the poor. You know what? It was the 70s. Dick Gregory’s book Cooking with Mother Nature was published in the 70s. Read it; it has some really great information throughout the chapters. But yeah, it was a time when people were leaning more toward leisure and convenience. Women were entering the workforce and away from their homes for most hours of the day.

Would you say it’s been easy adjusting to the food we currently have in America?

I think there is a whole generation, my generation, who do not know how to cook real food. I am pleased when you and I work with young families and listen to those young parents. Even though they are on Doctor Google and WebMd and may not be getting the best information, they are striving to do better for their children and to understand and to know. There has been a whole generation who didn’t do that. That’s my generation. My peers do not know how to pick a vegetable; don’t know how to cook real food. My generation is one where we were chasing the dollar and getting the corporate jobs. Yes, we wanted to have families, but it was easier to open up a box or a can or a bag rather than to take the time. Because it really takes time to nourish yourself, you have to take the time to learn how to nourish yourself. My generation didn’t do that, and they didn’t teach this to their children. Now I am on my soapbox. [laughs]

That is powerful and a very good takeaway. You seemed to appreciate the traditions brought up from the South. Do you garden?

Yes. I have always had a little garden. I lived in Seattle, WA and that is where my boys where born. It was there that I actually got into eating more nutritiously. We had a local food-coop within walking distance of my home. They had a signup where you could volunteer to do store tours. I signed up and did a series of orientations about the bulk items in the store. It was wonderful! I learned a lot volunteering and then translated that to my home. I started by having pots in my house to grow a few things. I had family childcare and began teaching the children how to grow things outside. Fast forward to living here, I was primarily growing herbs. Being an herbalist, I wanted to see the plant medicine itself. A few years ago, the father of a good friend of mine, who was an avid gardener, passed away and we decided to resurrect his garden. Three of us got together: one master gardener, Diane; one novice gardener, that’s Charlene; and one brand newbie who was just interested and that’s Iqrama. We got together and started gardening. Now we have 6 beds. We have grown enough to sustain our 3 households and then some.

Nice!

The newbie is always wanting to do these grandiose things like grow enough to sell. I tell her we need acres to do that but she’s just not getting it. I did teach them how to can because I have been canning for years. I think it is rewarding to preserve food, and I think it is even more rewarding to grow and preserve your food that you’ve grown. We had an abundance of tomatoes one year and we made what we called awesome sauce. We had an abundance of jalapeños, so I pickled those and made and canned pepper jam. I can soup all the time. One year we had 4 turkey carcasses, and I made a vat of turkey soup with a bunch of our vegetables. I canned that and gave it out as holiday gifts. I like to garden because I like to play in the dirt. [laughs] There is nothing more rewarding, relaxing, and meditative than to be outside digging in the dirt, smelling the earth, watching the plants grow, and feeling the sun on your face with the reward of harvesting your own crops. I try to encourage anybody to grow. You can garden in a pot. You can do it in your house. If you have a nice sunny window. You don’t necessarily need to be outside or to have a lot of space. It doesn’t take much. All you need is soil, seeds, sun, water, and love.

That is good to know because I have always said that once I’m settled in my dream home, I will have an abundant garden in my backyard. I’ve never thought to do any type of indoor gardening or something on a small scale as you’ve mentioned. I have houseplants and my daughter says I have too many. [laughs] Now I am thinking of potting something and growing it indoors. Maybe I will start with some herbs since I use fresh herbs just about every day.

Absolutely. Start there. I went to a classroom last summer and a teacher was growing squash, green beans, and cherry tomatoes in the window of her classroom as science experiments. So, yeah do it.

What was awesome about the awesome sauce? [laughs]

We called it awesome sauce because it tasted awesome. [laughs] It was basically alllllll [sic] the herbs in the garden and many different types of tomatoes and peppers from the garden. I will send you the recipe for the awesome sauce and for my savory hot sauce and pepper jam.

Thank you! I am going to make your recipes using my own herbs and peppers, especially bell peppers because they are too expensive. [laughs]

Bell peppers are so easy. You can do it.

I am going to do it and let you know how I do. You gone have me out here growing and pickling foods left and right. [laughs] What does a typical day of meals look like for you now?

I should start by saying that there is a compromise that has to happen in my house. My partner is a caveman. [laughs] I’m not a big meat eater and there is a compromise that has to happen in my house because of that. My partner said, “I’m not eating that vegetarian stuff all the time.” I said, “I know, I know.” He’s definitely the meat and potato type and I am not. Basically, I do the vegetables and grains. Therefore, he does the meats and I choose whether I want to partake in that. He is now primarily cooking using his air fryer, but he still deep fries his turkeys. [laughs] I am not averse to cooking meat because I do. However, I choose to roast. I will roast fish and lamb every once in a while.

I usually start my week with a big pot of a bean something. It could be a spicy red lentil, navy bean soup, or vegetarian chili. I do that so it could be eaten during the week. I belong to a community supported agriculture, CSA. Therefore, every other week whatever is harvested we receive. I have learned to cook whatever we get. Right now, we have a lot of roots and greens. [laughs] That is what is growing in season. Since we have fresh greens, carrots, beautiful beets, and turnips, it makes for a really nice winter salad. I always prepare a sauteed vegetable medley because we eat a lot of vegetables. Today I will be sautéing some carrots, bell peppers, squash, onions, and celery and will eat that with red quinoa. Jeffery will have it with a piece of baked lake trout so he can get his flesh on. [laughs]

Get his flesh on! [laughs] I love it. Tell me more about being a member of a CSA harvesting and providing fresh, seasonal vegetables.

It is called community supported agriculture. You buy shares. Some are year-round and some are just for the summer. You can look them up and find them in your own community. It is very reasonable. I am probably paying $600 for the year. It’s just Jeffrey and me. I joined the CSA because I didn’t want my tomatoes traveling 3,000 miles. [laughs] We can talk about the pesticides and the preservatives but what about energetically? What is happening to this life i.e., live food traveling from Central/South America or the West coast? By eating local and in season: the quality, the energy, and the food is just so much better. And it is not that expensive.

One of the best kept secrets is that the USDA has subsidized a lot of local farmers’ markets so that those with food stamps or SNAP could get 2 for 1 on their SNAP amount. We here in Howard County are working with our county executive to expand that program and the USDA is going to give us a match. We want to help recipients here get those benefits for fresh, local produce thereby getting double the amount for their dollar than if they were going to a grocery store. If they feel the farmers’ market is too far for them, we are going to have a rolling farmers’ market – a mobile market. We will be going right into those communities that have the food desserts and bringing fresh produce right to them.

That’s amazing! Let’s talk about the food of now – what do you love? What do you not love?

What I love about the food right now is that this is the land of plenty. It is amazing to me that for those of us who choose to go down the produce aisle [laughs], it is plentiful. Albeit coming from all over the planet, but it is still plentiful. We have choice. That’s what I love.

What I don’t love is that if you walk into the grocery store the amount of processed food is three quarters of the store. The real food is around the periphery of the store. You can go to the produce section of any store; I don’t care if it is Safeway, Giant, Stop and Shop, Wegmans, and even Whole Foods and they are all laid out in the same way. The real food is in the periphery and then there are a million aisles of processed foods. That’s what I don’t like.

I saw a meme one day that said, “If there has to be a health food section in the grocery store, what is that saying about the rest of the store?” [laughs] The designs of the store have the produce right at the entrance, but most people do not keep in that direction. A lot of it is seeking a level of convenience and most people are ignorant because they just don’t know that processed foods are not good for them.

Those are very good points. The processing of food has changed over time. When I interviewed my Granny, she talked about people liking to come to their house because they had store bought meat sometimes. It was a way of showing that they were not poor or not as poor. I told my Granny that I am sure what they had back then was actual meat, you know? We don’t have that same security. We have more fillers, preservatives, and genetically modified ingredients which is a mouthful in itself. In order to stock allllll [sic] the shelves in allllll [sic] these stores, something had to be sacrificed and that was quality and the actual integrity of the ingredients. The quality of food was sacrificed for mass production in my opinion.

Yeah, I agree. Within a two mile radius in my neighborhood, there is: a Safeway, a Giant, a David’s Natural Market, and Whole Foods. If I go out five miles, I can add Wegmans, Trader Joes, Costco, Wal-Mart, and Target. We have to realize how fortunate we are on one sense: on the second sense we have to realize why Americans are sicker or have more diet-related chronic diseases than any place in the world. It is because we have an abundance of processed foods at our fingertips, and we graze allllll [sic] day.

Do you feel that you are healthy? How have you been able to stay healthy?

I have one small meal and one large meal. That’s it. I feel that I am healthy in relationship to my peers. I am 60 years old. I feel I am healthy. I am very active as you know. I’m a yoga teacher. I walk every day and my walking is not necessarily for exercise. I need to be outside in nature. I’m a toddler. [laughs] I have a toddler spirit. So yeah. I walk every day and I do yoga pretty much every day. In relationship to my peers, I am healthy. In relationship to what Charlene knows, I can do better.

Wow!

Um hm, I feel I can do better.

I’m blown away. When I see you, I think you look great. I’ve even sat under your yoga sessions. I look at you as something to aspire to be like when I am your age. You maintain a healthy weight. You’re active and vibrant. You have clear, beautiful skin. You’re well. You’re always moving about. I am shocked to hear that you feel that you can do better.

Well because at 60 years old, I have regulated my eating habits. I was preparing meals and eating well, but I was eating distracted. I was busy. I was eating at my desk. I wasn’t eating mindfully. I was more mindful of what I put in my body when I was raising my boys. I have been striving to be more intentional and get back to a better place by returning to the awareness that I have had for 35 years. I am becoming much more intentional and mindful about the times of day that I eat and that I am enjoying the pleasure of communing with food. Does that make sense? When we’re eating, there’s this whole concept of nourishment and that this is sustaining our life. That’s what I want to do better with.

I can relate to motherhood/becoming a mother being a heavy influence on deciding to eat better and becoming more mindful of what you put in your body. Soon as I found out I was pregnant, I said to myself that she is going to be healthy and this is how I am going to make sure of it. So, I can definitely relate to that.

She will remember that too. When my boys left home and went to college, they went buck wild and was eating junk food and got sick. After they were out there living their lives, they came back to eating much healthier and paying attention to what they put in their bodies. I’m glad that the seeds were planted. [laughs]

They have the foundation; therefore, they have something to pull from when they need it. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me about this topic.

Absolutely! I love that you’re doing this. I think it is important for your readers to relate to this reality. This is work. I’ve been studying this and practicing it for many years. Change takes time. Those of us taking the time to practice this and to know both sides of it can better guide folks to do better with themselves. You know all the work that you’re doing is exactly that. You’re inspiring people to understand that this isn’t hard. You’re shining a light on it. This is how human beings have been eating for centuries, decades, millennia. We weren’t eating out of boxes, only cans, or a bag dammit. [laughs]

Photo credit: Markus Spiske via Unsplash