Spark A Synapse

I'm 20 Weeks and Craving "Susan G Komen for the Cure" Donuts!

2011-09-05T20:20:00.007-06:00

There is an awesome new Facebook game going around that is increasing awareness of breast cancer. Now, normally, I would think that any status update in Facebook designed to help increase awareness of breast cancer should be fairly obvious, maybe something like this:

"Please put this on your status if you know someone who suffers from breast cancer. Breast cancer affects the lives of many. There is still no known cure for breast cancer, but we can raise awareness and a lot of our hard-earned money! 90% of it will not be spent on research, but on charity overhead, executive salaries, pensions, and catchy slogans: but this is OK, because we'll be RAISING AWARENESS. 93% won't copy and paste this, but will YOU make this your status for at least one hour?"

However, I've totally missed the ball here, because I would also ordinarily think any message to increase awareness of a disease that typically afflicts women (but sometimes men, too!) should be shared with men, right? Because it's about RAISING AWARENESS! Apparently, battling stereotypes about this disease, like the idea that only women get it, is the wrong idea, though. And now that I've seen this new plan that's going around, I have to say that it's such a brilliant plan that I totally agree.

Increasing awareness of breast cancer by telling men about it, OR by encouraging people to learn how to detect it early, like doing breast self-checks, is so lame. Also, it would be counterproductive to mention what might prevent it altogether! Like refined seed oils and sugars, hormones and pesticides in foods including soy or dairy, exposure to environmental chemicals, smoking, alcohol abuse, or lack of vitamins and minerals. Seriously, that whole diet schtick is sooooo 90s. And like, totally confusing. This is 2011 now! We have to get real, ladies!

OK, without further ado. I'm not supposed to share this with any men, but I do feel this is counterproductive, since after all, the point is to INCREASE AWARENESS. So in order to help out, I've decided to clue EVERYONE in, including those women who haven't gotten the message yet. The Facebook status game goes like this. OK, first you put a status update up like this:

"I'm 12 weeks and craving Strawberry Pop Tarts"

How do you figure out what to write? It's easy. The month of your birth corresponds to a pre-fab sentence telling people that you're "so many" weeks, and that number is determined by your birth month. If you were born in March, like me, you put that you're 3 weeks. I guess it is supposed to try to trick people into thinking that you could be that far along into breast cancer! OMG... SCARY!!! And totally obvious, right? The second part of the status update is that you are craving some type of junk food, and this is determined by the day of the month of your birth. Because we all know that gummy worms helps fight breast cancer!

So to sum up, all of those messages appearing in our Facebook Feeds, like "I'm 3 weeks and craving M&Ms" are supposed to increase our awareness of breast cancer. Get it? This is, like, the best. idea. ever! ( Well, actually, it really only tells people what your birthday is, but it's still kind of clever, right?)

I know this is going to make a lot of women really upset because I'm betraying our sex and giving away all the secrets, but seriously, I'm asking for forgiveness here because an idea this BRILLIANT has to be shared with the guys. The guys also have serious diseases that we need to RAISE AWARENESS of, like prostate and testicular cancer. But I suggest they could replace the references to obsession with candy with their very own fantasies: perhaps corn dogs, Hot Pockets, or maybe even porn stars!! Seriously, who needs Michael Milken's philanthropic research when you can just use obscure phrases?

Getting back to breast cancer, though, because that's what this IS all about... and we've got to get SERIOUS now, no more joking... We can all wear all the ribbons, t-shirts, bumper stickers, and wrist bands that say "i love boobies" until we turn PINK, but if it's not focused on helping people make the right changes in their lives to prevent breast cancer, what's the point? We know what the REAL preventative ANSWER is to breast cancer, but we still need to RAISE AWARENESS! Will you help?

Now, PLEASE! Go out and do your part and make you sure you spread the message about breast cancer! We HAVE to spread the message that by buying more donuts, cookies, KFC, and M&Ms, (and really, anything containing refined flour, seed oils, and sugars that we used to think for over 100 years actually FEEDS cancer), we can STOP breast cancer in its tracks!! Let's go, girls!!!

Re-post if you agree!!!!

A Few Thoughts on Family Lifespan and Generational Differences

2011-09-05T13:03:00.005-06:00

Since I've been researching genealogy, I've been thinking about lifespan (among other things) in my family members. I thought that detailing the generations might be interesting and informative.

My great-great grandparents

Longevity seems to be pretty common in this generation. Average lifespan of all my great-great-grandparents that I know about, mostly on my mom's side of the family, was 78.5. This is significantly higher than the average lifespan for this time period, but altogether not too surprising given that infant mortality is included in average figures of life expectancy for the nation. Generally, these family members died anywhere from 1940 to the mid-1970s, and average life expectancy was between 62 to mid-70 years of age for the nation as a whole during this time. Most of these ancestors on my mom's side of the family were farmers (not a surprise since most were born late 1800s). I don't know much about longevity or occupation on my father's side, so I look forward to researching that a bit.

Great-grandparents

Average lifespan of all 8 of my great-grandparents was an astonishing 84 years of age. This is to be expected because of better medical treatments compared to the previous generation, and the fact that lifespan generally includes infant mortality, which was higher in these generations, of course. But I still think the higher lifespan in these generations is pretty remarkable. Most of them grew up on farms.

I have two audio recordings of this generation: one of my great-grandmother (Holden) and one of my great-grandfather (Curtis). I treasure these, as it gives a unique window into their lives and the culture that shaped them. My great-grandmother, recorded sometime in the 1990s, talks about her frustration with fat-phobia of the age, how everyone back then had a big can of bacon grease or lard on the stove and made pie crusts with lard, and how all the kids grew up healthy and strong despite this sort of cooking. My great-grandfather discusses how his parents and brother set off on a cross-country adventure in 1916 to California. Of interest are the stories about how they cooked and slept while on the road.

Because my great-grandfather Curtis lived until I was 16, I can attest that he was thin and mostly healthy until a few months before his death. He shunned neither sugar nor fat. It's still a joke in our family about how he would never cut the fat off his steak, and would chew the fat on his steak loudly and obviously to "gross out" the grandkids and great-grandkids. He particularly liked to do this in restaurants.

Most of the food he and my great-grandmother ate was homemade and real food. Milk was obtained from a local dairy (never the grocery store) and always full fat. Meals were almost always home cooked and the sorts of foods I would be fed while staying with them as a very young child included melted cheddar cheese on toast, wild picked raspberries with milk and sugar on top, and homemade applesauce. There was a lot of both sugar and fat, but everything was homemade and pretty high quality, nutritionally speaking.

A typical breakfast for my grandfather consisted of a grapefruit, with many teaspoons of sugar piled on top the night before and left to soak in overnight. Both my great-grandparents grew up on farms, but were very enamored of sugar. Grandpa "Art" received boxes and boxes of candy at Christmastime, only some of which he would share with the kids and the rest was hidden in secret cupboards for the rest of the year. At the same time, sugar was really his only vice. He did not smoke, eat any other junk food besides candy, and he was an avid gardener of vegetables. Despite the sugar, the lifestyle seemed to serve him well. (It didn't fare so well with my great-grandmother who died at a much earlier age of 72). Many week-ends in the fall were spent preserving harvests of vegetables (canning, freezing) and fruits (applesauce, jams, and jellies) and this tradition has been carried on through my maternal grandmother, my mother, and I.

I have two great-grandparents who lived into their 90s. Only two great-grandparents did not live to see 74, while the rest (4) died in their 80s:

Parent: 82
Denno: 72
Leighton: 87
Blanchard: 93
Schultz: 82 (Alzheimer's)
Holden: 96 (diabetes)
Curtis: 85 (brain tumor)
Bass: 72 (heart disease)

Grandparents

I don't know average lifespan for my grandparents yet because two are still alive and currently 78. Lifespan in this generation is 75 if you consider an average of 71, 74, and 78, 78 but is likely to rise past 75 at least a bit.

My two paternal grandparents died at 71, 74 due to complications (both of them) of smoking and colon problems: cancer, obstruction, and subsequent infection. I have recently learned more about my paternal grandmother's health as she was modest and secretive with a desire not to worry others. She had colon cancer and a colonic obstruction. given that my great-aunt and her mother have ulcerative colitis and diverticulitis, it is likely that I have a mild form of these given my intestinal symptoms. When I get the money, I'll most certainly be checking this out.

My remaining two grandparents on my maternal side both have health issues. My grandmother has hypothyroidism and osteoporosis and my grandfather has Type II diabetes and heart disease and has had two cancers. Despite this, they are quite active and care for two toddlers 10 hours a day, 5 days a week. My grandmother is Curtis' daughter and some days seems to have more energy than I do. She seems to have inherited good health that comes from the farm stock. My grandmother laughs at the fact that we get raw milk and talks about making homemade cottage cheese as a kid.

Parents

What about the average lifespan of my parents? I have no idea how my biological father is doing, but guess he's not long for this world as he is a pretty near homeless alcoholic and a chain smoker. He is 56. I would be surprised if he makes it to 70. My mom died at age 54 after multiple cancers in her early 20s, followed by generally ill health the rest of her life: hypothyroidism, anemia, some skin cancers, and a lot of stress. She smoked off and on from age 12 to age 18, but also developed three cancers between the age of 25-27, probably largely from growing up downstream from a toxic waste dump and now Superfund site, former Griffiss Airforce Base. I wrote about that experience here.

Summary

Average lifespan of 8 great-great-grandparents: 78.5
Average lifespan of 8 great-grandparents: 84
Average lifespan of 4 grandparents: unknown, but likely will be under 80.
Average lifespan of parents: likely to be less than 70, even if father who is currently 56 lives to be 80.

Not very encouraging. But I can see clear links between lifestyle and disease in my family, so this is very motivating. It confirms a long held suspicion that I have, which is that longevity isn't primarily about genetics, but about lifestyle. I can also make clear links between some of my relatives' phobia of health professionals and their early deaths because they refused to intervene with clear health problems.

The presence of diabetes, heart disease, various cancers (especially colon cancer), and the general reduction in quality and quantity of life that I see in the past few generations leads me to think that:

exercise
avoiding junk/packaged food (refined sugars, wheat, and oils)
avoiding excessive alcohol
avoiding cigarettes
getting routine health checks
reducing stress that leads to chronic disease and infections

are all important. None of this is rocket science, but rarely is this formula followed in any given person. I'm OK on the food, smoking, alcohol, and stress aspects of lifestyle, but I need to work a bit on appropriate exercise and health checks: not just routine check-ups at the physician, but intelligent monitoring of bloodwork, food allergies, and intestinal health.

Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis? And a Note on "Genetic Testing"

2011-08-16T22:31:00.002-06:00

I've been wondering for about a week if I might have UC (ulcerative colitis) or Crohn's disease. Only the past week have I begun to put the pieces of the puzzle together and I’m not sure why it took me so long (years). Lest you think I'm Eve on Northern Exposure (once again I must share this hilarious part of the episode dealing with hypochondria: start at 3:27), here's the skinny.

Pre-2008

Back in March 2008 I went low carb and fairly “paleo” (but with dairy). I did this purely for health and weight loss reasons, and did not suffer any health problems at the time. For most of my life, I've considered myself to have a stomach of iron. I’ve never had a case of food poisoning. However, I suffered from severe constipation for my entire life without realizing it was abnormal. These constipation “problems” totally resolved on paleo.

But in August and Sept 2008, about six months after the new diet, I experienced two debilitating intestinal attacks that left me in bed and barely able to move for days. I was on the road working on my dissertation roughly a month before defending. One episode was after I ate 4 peanut butter cups and a bunch of toffee candies, and the other was about a month later. I was eating a lot of crap at the time. Fast food and wheat were on the list periodically as I was completely stressed out and on the road. Neither of these predispose to having time to prepare food properly.

During both of these times, it was the worst pain I've ever experienced: severe cramping, inability to move without severe pain, and much difficulty walking. Yes, it’s idiotic to eat that much candy in one sitting but it normally would never have made me that sick for days on end. It was literally my first foray into junk after starting “low carb.” I was also unable to go to the bathroom for days both times due to what I perceived at the time to be a blockage. The second time, about a week later, I don’t even remember eating anything terribly objectionable. I did not go to the hospital either time because I did not have health insurance. I did consider going to the ER, but abandoned the idea due to costs and the presumption that they wouldn't be able to do anything except refer me to a specialist, which I couldn't afford.

I have never considered myself to have any serious intestinal problems, and chalked both of these episodes up to stress and bad food. But before August 2008, I also suffered from a severe case of diarrhea after one restaurant meal with vegetable oils, but thought it was a one-off. Also, about five years ago, I’d also experienced a severe case of idiopathic erythema nodulosum (linked to Crohn’s) which was treated successfully with prednisone. Finally, I have experienced lower right anbdominal pain off and on for about 5 years. About four years ago it was once severe enough that I thought I was having appendicitis.

Post-2008

When I returned home in Sept. 2008, I went back on my stricter diet and had no problems and was basically symptom-free for two years. I never again felt the need to eat massive amounts of Reese's peanut butter cups! :) But over the past year or so, I've found that I have increasingly more intestinal issues: extreme constipation that seems to be triggered by cheese, and alternately diarrhea or very loose stool episodes that appear to be triggered by coconut milk or strong/old coffee. (The coconut milk is always canned and it could be guar gum.) The major difference I can think of is I don't supplement fish oil or vitamin D anymore, but dairy and gluten have not been completely absent the past three years. I get significant sun, but the lack of omega 3 in particular could be problematic.

Until May of this year I was doing strict paleo, dairy free, for several months. The reason is that I'm fairly certain now my mother had a severe case of Hashimoto's (exhaustion, severe hair loss, anemia, hypothyroidism -- all dead giveaways) which is linked to gluten and/or dairy and/or bacterial infections like Yersinia, and I was afraid I might also have the same autoimmune susceptibilities. But after my autoantibody thyroid tests came back negative in early June, I've been eating dairy again and allowing some gluten in. Unfortunately this has been accompanied by more digestive problems, mostly the nagging lower right abdominal pain and alternating loose stools and constipation.

Testing... Testing...

I’m pretty sure the triggers are dietary, so I'm eliminating the following things for awhile while I figure out what the triggers are:

nuts
nightshades
eggs
dairy
gluten

I do not suspect fruit as a problem, but it could be and should probably also be eliminated for awhile while I figure this out. I see no point in adding gluten back in, ever, as I suspect that is the primary if not the only trigger. And because microgram amounts can trigger reactions, we will need to be careful about cleaning up in the kitchen: my husband eats a lot of gluten.

Another type of testing

My 23andme genetic test indicates increased risk for UC, decreased risk for Crohn's and a mixed increased and decreased risk for celiac disease. I don't trust 23andme for this as there are a bunch of people on the site who have reported being diagnosed with UC, Crohn's or celiac and yet don't have increased risk or even have decreased risk with 23andme's genetic markers. I consider 23andme good fun and mostly warning for potential health issues but its results shouldn’t be used for medical diagnosis. I have never been genotyped for celiac other than this using more accurate celiac markers like HLA DQ8 (not in 23andme's microarray chip), and have never had a blood or stool test for celiac that tests gliadin mers (breakdown products of gliadin, and there are many). I should probably get these and a colonoscopy.

Before my mom died last year of a stroke, the last week she was in the hospital, she did not have a bowel movement the entire week but we went through her medical records and found that she'd had blood in her stool before. My also was severely anemic when admitted to ER (hemoglobin of 7) and so they were testing for things like ulcers that week before she died. They didn’t find any cause of bleeding, but I know that both Hashimoto’s and UC/Crohn’s can cause severe anemia. I'm pretty sure she would have eventually been diagnosed with Crohn's or UC if she'd lived long enough.

This doesn't mean I have UC or Crohn's, but it seems more likely based on my sketchy family history. I will be getting my maternal grandparents tested at 23andme and it will be interesting to see if they have the same SNPs as I do. However, I could have inherited these problems from the paternal side of my family, too. Both my paternal grandparents died of colon cancer, and people with UC and Crohn’s are at increased risk for both. It wouldn't surprise me if my paternal grandparents had had undiagnosed intestinal or autoimmune diseases.

Colorado daycare workers required to wear burqas

2011-07-09T15:08:00.005-06:00

OK, I exaggerate slightly for the purpose of generating a few hits. But seriously, I can’t really summarize it better than the source itself.

I could say a lot about the clothing requirement, which I think is the most heinous part of this bill. Colorado is not Salt Lake City, and no one should be required to dress like a Mormon to take care of kids. In 20 years (I used to say 50, and now with the rate of the downward spiral of this country, I've revised my thinking), I’ll be damned to wake up and find that everyone has to wear a burqa because some idiot thinks their three year old boy will be traumatized due to viewing my ankles.

But what really gets me worked up is food issues. There are simply few things more fundamental than the right to decide what goes into your body: whether it’s a pill or food or a doctor’s surgical implement.

The ignorance of a legislator thinking that our kids are unhealthy because they get too much whole milk really chaps my hide. Quiz time. 1) Does cow's milk or human milk have more fat? 2) How long do people in non-industrialized cultures without access to a grocery store breastfeed their kids, and how fat and unhealthy are they?

No one should need a doctor's note to feed their kid in a healthy way -- in a way that humans have done since the dawn of time. Period. The American Academy of Pediatrics lost all credibility when they said babies should get lowfat milk and approved statin drugs for 8 year olds. But then they were beyond redemption when they sanctioned female genital mutilation. I should require a pediatrician’s note to feed my kid healthily? If your pediatrician listens to the AAP then their advice is an impediment to health, not the other way around.

It seems that increasingly these days, only in America or the UK can you get away with proposing this type of garbage that regulates common sense out of existence. This is why I’m increasingly embarrassed to even call myself an American. This WAS the greatest country in the world. We have long ago lost that status and it is questionable whether we will ever regain it.

Back to the food. This is the way people in countries with a strong food culture feed their kids. Here are some school lunches in Slovakia, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and the Czech Republic. Even Kenya, dirt-poor, chooses something nutritious and fat-filled. I specifically chose countries that are more and less capitalist than the US, because the problem of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease to the rate of 25% of kids, and fat kids with heart disease and diabetes, isn’t rooted in capitalism or socialism. It’s about food culture, because the country with one of the worst food cultures outside of America (and also the world’s third most unhealthy and obese people) is the UK. What they are putting on their kids’ lunch plates doesn’t look much better than school lunches in the US. (But at least they can manage real plates and silverware instead of plastic sporks.)

Now watch how kids are fed in France. Watch and weep. (Of all the links I'm providing, this one is the most important.)

Real silverware, real plates, rotating food menus, and service at the table rather than having slop dropped on your plate by a “lunch lady.”

"You don't want a child to have fish for lunch AND fish for dinner...." Heavens, no! Seriously, is this the worst transgression the French can possibly think of when it comes to serving their kids?

See, it doesn’t matter what country or how capitalist. From Singapore to China -- veggies, meat and a starch, served with care and respect on real plates -- not slop in a trough without proper utensils -- is the predominant fare.

Now, I ask: Is it the whole milk and juice that is giving us the unhealthiest and most obese child population in the world? How about the quality meat and the salt (did you notice that part in the video above)? Or, rather, is it the mystery meat snausages in a can? How about the orange Goldfish crackers? No, not those? OK then, how about the fruit roll ups, the "breakfast" bars stuffed into a kids’ hands on the rushed drive to school at 7AM, the Gogurt, the Pop Tarts, the macaroni with fluorescent yellow cheese? If you can still think that it’s the whole milk (gasp!) and juice boxes that are giving making kids sick and fat then you’re deluded. Here is a 1936 school lunch in the USA, serving whole milk in a far bigger bottle than kids get today. By contrast, here are a few samples of what kids are getting in school cafeterias today. That is why our kids are fat. It ain't rocket science, folks.

In some regions of France, kids are being fed gourmet food in public schools for $2-$3 a day. That same amount of money puts a mystery “meat” burger with a side of tater tots and HFCS “strawberry” milk on a tray in the United States. Private or public, it doesn’t matter. I worked in a private school in Florida thirteen years ago. All of the five meals per week were sourced from local fast food joints.

Monday: McDonald’s.
Tuesday: Chick Fil A.
Wednesday: a local Cuban chain that served chicken, beans, rice and plantains... not terrible. Thursday: another fast food joint (can't remember which).
Friday: Papa John’s pizza.

This was a school with wealthy parents that drove Porsches and paid over $20k to send their kid to a private school. I think they could afford better, but they clearly didn't care. Neither did we.

And we wonder why kids can’t focus in school. Perhaps this, this, and this lend a clue: it’s the food culture and the culture in general in this country that are the problems. Coupled with idiots in positions of government who have zero scientific background doling out farm subsidies that make seed oils, refined grains, and refined sugars cheap, and who listen to CSPI, and then craft rules about what your kids should be eating. No conflict of interest there: none at all. Move right along, nothing to see here.

If people believe that our kids’ health depends on playing with multi-racial dolls -- that their health depends on never getting exposed to their daycare workers’ knees and elbows -- that avoiding whole milk or more than 6 oz. juice daily is the key to being thin and healthy -- then this country has sunk far below what I thought possible.

What I've Been Up To

2011-07-05T20:51:00.005-06:00

Perhaps I should redirect this blog once again to my personal life, and update it about 4 times per year. hahah. For those of you who think I've fallen off the face of the earth, not even close. Here's what I've been up to.

Fitness

I canceled my CrossFit membership for a variety of reasons. I was afraid of getting injured, I travel a lot which makes weekly commitments there difficult, it is almost an hour from my home, etc. I would pursue some other method of weight training such as a home gym with barbells or a gym membership, except I'm short on cash right now (see below for why) and I am not eager to spend an extra two hours in the car every week, already having a daily commute of almost two hours to work (one hour there and one hour back). I've come to accept that most people who live in the foothills on the Front Range have insane commute times, but I still don't enjoy it. For now, I spend many evenings per week walking with hubby and dog around the neighborhood -- which involves 1000 foot or so elevation rises since we live at 8400 feet. So that will have to be good enough, for now, til nasty weather hits and/or I have money.

Weight Loss

I am at my lowest weight in about a year since combining Seth Roberts' protocol of taking oil before meals, and combining this with a bland food protocol recommended by neurobiology researcher Stephan Guyenet. I have not lost that much weight, and I'm wary of proclaiming that I've found the holy grail with regard to weight loss because I'm tired of sounding like the boy who cried "diet success!" but I'm hopeful. I've put a lot of pieces together after various n=1 experiments over the past three years. Here are some of my conclusions.

1) Macronutrients don't matter for me. I can cycle from weeks of very low carb to weeks of carbs as 30-50% of my calories and it doesn't affect my weight or well-being at all. Zilch. In fact, I'm frustrated that I spent about two years believing that carbohydrate above 10-20% of calories was a problem. I am glad "low carb" works for so many people, but I am grateful for the acknowledgement in the paleo community that there is an enormous range of diets/macronutrient intakes that are healthy for humans, and that individual differences will necessitate individual optimization.

2) Intermittent fasting doesn't help me to lose weight. For most workdays of the past six months, I have eaten very little, if anything, making most days at least 18 hour fasts. That said, weight loss is not the only benefit to this. I am exceedingly glad that eliminating refined grains, sugars, and seed oils means I'm no longer a mental wreck when I can't get a hit of food, like a druggie, every several hours -- something I've suffered from most of my life.

3) Paleo alone (elimination of refined seed oils, grains, and sugars) didn't do much at lowering my weight. It's been said by prominent paleo bloggers that diet determines 80% of your weight. That's not true for me. Either I need to exercise more, reduce calories more, or adjust hormones. I struggled to lose 15 lbs on low carb paleo and was at my lowest 4 year weight at my wedding 2 years ago, after a lot of stress and starvation. Even at that time, I was still at least 15 pounds heavier than I think I should be.

4) Dairy is a major problem for me. 6 oz. of cheddar cheese in one sitting? A huge bowl of cottage cheese or full fat yogurt? A 16 oz. glass of full fat Jersey milk? Right over here! R i g h t. O v e r. H e r e. I have binged on dairy most of my life and I suffered from severe constipation problems without realizing it. (Until I experienced what normal stools were supposed to be like I had no basis of comparison. I thought it was normal to have a difficult bowel movement 1-2 times a week.)

When I discarded my preconceptions about full fat dairy, I was quite satisfied to eat two big tablespoon fulls of full fat greek yogurt and that was satisfying enough for me for practically a whole breakfast. But the same amount became less and less satisfying as time went on. A year later I was eating whole bowls of Greek yogurt, drinking 1/3 c. heavy cream daily in coffee, etc., and proclaiming that it didn't matter how much of this I was eating because only insulin determines fat retention: this was basically affirmed by most of the people I read at the time. Basically, I was superdouching with fats. Of course, you can get the idea this is good for you if you spend too much time listening to WAPF. I have great respect for the work of Weston A. Price and the general mission of WAPF, but I think the focus on dairy, loads of dietary fat, and fermented grains is potentially unhealthy for some people. Giving up dairy hasn't helped me to lose any weight, but I definitely feel better. Small amounts of milk, cream, and butter are probably not issues for me, but cheese was a major problem.

5) I am currently focusing on making food as boring as possible and it seems to be working. For many people, the paleo diet works wonders at weight loss. Many people will not need to go past the three of five steps listed here. But in the past several months, I've finally realized that I spend an enormous amount of time making appetizing meals that, quite simply, cause me to overeat. It's amazing how much time I spent avoiding the fact that I was overeating.

There is a huge focus now in the paleo community on making every paleo meal novel and exciting. I think there is a bit of an obsession in the low carb/paleo communities with assuring loved ones, who we want to assume a healthy diet, that food can still taste good without refined sugars, grains, and seed oils. "See, look how much steak and bacon I'm eating!" I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me before. If food tastes really good, you'll probably eat more than you otherwise would. I don't snack outside of meals, but when I find myself eating at meals, I definitely keep eating past the point of fullness at times merely because it tastes good. This morning I had some plain salmon cooked gently in water, with no added fat, and it was impossible to finish what was on my plate. This never happens to me. I can count on two hands the number of times in my life I've left food on my plate. I guarantee you that if I'd fried it in lard and added salt and spices, I would have eaten the last bite and possibly gone back for more.

This concludes the distended weight loss section. I do admit it's a bit liberating to not spend an hour cooking really tasty food every night, and leaves lots of time for other stuff. I just had to get those things off my chest and will issue another update in a half year or so. :) We'll see if my current thoughts are affirmed at that time.

Teaching

I am still having lots of fun teaching introductory biology to college students, but as I have perfected the courses as much as I can within the confines of institutional restrictions, its reward has begun to wane and I am getting bored. I very much enjoy the students, but I am disappointed with the lack of focus on mentoring quality students through independent studies. It is offered in the course catalog, but proves practically impossible for a variety of reasons.

Unfortunately, colleges can be dishonest places even though the one at which I work now has been better than others in the past. I find it disingenuous that students can be offered an education in biology without offering them the possibility of doing research if they want to do it -- especially when your course offerings say this is possible (duh!), when the costs are minimal to none, and when the professor is not even requesting payment for this mentoring. It is difficult to find a full time job in my area, because there are so many overqualified and educated people that want to, and already do, live in Denver. Many people with PhDs, who are overqualified to be teaching in junior colleges, are doing just that because they were trained in niche areas of biology for which there is no big market demand. Which brings me to the finale.

Research

My PhD research was a really long and difficult slog. I was a highly motivated student as an undergrad and master's student who was going places. But then things went seriously awry. When I started my master's degree, I got less than six hours of sleep nightly. I was mostly lacto-ovo vegetarian due to budget constraints. This meant I subsisted on pasta, rice, beans, doughnuts, sandwiches, hydrogenated soybean oil coffee creamer, and vending machine snacks as sole carbon sources for roughly 10 years. For around two years I drank at least one strong pot of coffee daily. As a result, I was an impossible person to be around, and I let hassles with the college bureaucracy demotivate and depress me. To offer an example, I recently purchased a bunch of lab equipment, used, on EBay. Not only did it cost me 1/10 the amount it would new, I did not need to buy it from special vendors with state contracts. Nor did I need to wait a month for the necessary purchase orders to be obtained through a slothlike bureaucratic office, just so that I could order a measly pair of bloody PCR primers that only cost $30 and couldn't afford, since I only made $12k a year!!! Just writing this paragraph brings back horrible memories that raise my blood pressure and cortisol levels.

As a result, I lost my focus and drive, and it took me 8 years to finish a PhD degree that probably should have taken me only four. I haven't published a thing since 2004, despite the fact that my dissertation describes around ten new genera, scores of new species, and plenty of other interesting stuff basically unknown to science. I think the whole process was so mentally taxing that I needed a serious break from it after officially graduating.

But while I've enjoyed the bucolic existence these past few years, it's time to live up to my potential.

As a result, I've kicked myself in the ass and decided to start doing mycology again in a serious way, beginning with publishing the new species and genera above. I've also begun to set up a basement molecular biology lab to pursue mycological research again with some European colleagues. I did all the ordering for this lab in a DAY on Saturday. None of this is possible in a university environment. I admit, working in a university environment offers many freedoms and benefits. What I write here should not be in any way considered a slight against those who have chosen that life (I may yet choose it at some point in the future myself), but I eventually found it very confining and tiresome.

Eventually, when I can afford it, I will probably purchase a research scope with drawing tube so I can continue new taxonomic work at home indefinitely. For those of you who weren't aware, I actually have some artistic talent. Those are some new fungal species described back in 2004 from a class of fungi called Laboulbeniales: obscure and tiny Ascomycetes that grow on the exoskeletons of insects. Here are pictures of some other photogenic ones. I estimate anywhere from 10 to 50 thousand species of this particular class of fungi exist, based on potential numbers of hosts and the degree of host specificity. Only 2100 species are currently known to science. This is no anomaly. These figures generally reflect most hyperdiverse but poorly known/documented groups of organisms: prokaryotes, insects, fungi, etc. Even around 50% of plant species are estimated to be currently undescribed.

The diversity of life on earth is amazing and staggering.

So, I'm pretty happy and pretty busy. And that's what I've been up to!

Paleo Diet Gets Dissed, and a Few Numbers

2011-06-11T16:33:00.002-06:00

The Paleo diet was ranked the worst of 20 diets by US News and World Report recently, below even diets like veganism. (Apparently, nutritionists and US News and World report haven't heard of vitamin B12, genetic maladaptions of beta carotene conversion to retinol in 50% of the population, taurine, choline, DHA, or excess phytoestrogens.) Cordain et al have already issued a nice rebuttal to this silly ranking, and it that includes scores of references to the actual scientific literature -- what a concept.

Yep. Apparently, eating nothing but fresh, unprocessed meat, fish, eggs, nuts, vegetables, and fruits is just too controversial.

See, it’s not the USDA subsidized crap like Hot Pockets, doughnuts, cookies, candies, ice cream, cakes, baked goods, and fake "foods" that are to blame for Americans getting fatter and sicker every decade. Nope. It’s gotta be the red meat and eggs (both of which have gone down in per capita consumption over the past 4 decades as grains, seed oils, sugars, and dairy have gone up).

The idea that the paleo diet would be placed at the bottom of the list by a nutritionist or some idiot reporter is a concept that is easy to understand... just like all nutritional concepts proposed by reporters and dietitians these days. All you need to do is look at the list of diets.

Many of the “diets” ranked high on the list are just weight loss regimens offered by giant companies making millions off of high profit margin “food” products. Seriously? Don’t get me wrong -- it’s possible to lose weight on Weight Watchers or even to make good food choices when following the program. But what are many people on Weight Watchers eating? Low-fat, industrially processed garbage. If you think what most people on Weight Watchers is healthy, go the freezer section of the grocery store sometime and read the ingredients list to a container of fat free Cool Whip, Weight Watchers TV dinner, or Skinny Cow ice cream treats.

Having a family rife with heart disease, hypothyroidism (including Hashimoto’s), Type II diabetes, and multiple cancers, I’m naturally interested in keeping on top of my health. Both grandparents on my paternal side died of colon cancer -- a rather nasty way to go, if you ask me. You could say that the genetic deck isn’t exactly stacked in my favor.

So I do keep track of this stuff a lot more intensively than your average PCP would. Here are a few n=1 health numbers after 3 years of paleo eating (attempt to strictly limit or eliminate grains, seed oils, or refined sugars) and several months now of being largely dairy-free. This is from last week's bloodwork that I ordered. Let's take a look-see, shall we?

Total cholesterol: 143

HDL: 66 (ideal)

LDL: 69, if you use Friedewald calculation. Down from 2009. My actual LDL is probably around 42 using the more accurate formula published by Iranian researchers in 2008.

Triglycerides: 42 (ideal), down from 50 something in 2009

Triglyceride/HDL ratio: 2.2 (ideal)

Hemoglobin, hematocrit, and folic acid: all at the high end of ideal

A1C: 5.6, down from 5.8 in 2009 (not ideal, but certainly an improvement)

C reactive protein: 0.89 (low risk for cardiac event and general inflammatory marker)

Homocysteine: 4.4 (low end of reference range, another marker of inflammation)

Lots of other numbers there, but I won’t bore you with the details. Every single value of three pages of results except for my TSH is smack in the middle of the reference range.

My A1C is a little higher than I’d like. More weight lifting might help: my sugar intake is already very low and is restricted almost entirely to fruit. I also ordered a full thyroid panel and anemia check, as I tend to feel a little sluggish at times. My TSH is a little low, which might indicate a sluggish pituitary. Lest you think I’m starting to sound a little like Eve on Northern Exposure, no major problems there.

So to wrap things up, I'd just love to know when the health benefits are about to expire as a result of eating paleo. But I guess it’s just my “good genetics” and “young age," and I'll just have to check back with the bloodwork regularly with all the “artery-clogging” grass-fed beef, pastured eggs, and coconut products I’m eating.

Check out the current tally of people who say the’ve been helped or not by the list of 20 diets. That’s enough censure in itself, I daresay.

“The conventional wisdom is mostly wrong. All one need do is take a look around.” -- Richard Nikoley

A Few Thoughts on the Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T19:05:00.003-06:00

I didn't really anticipate getting caught up in the royal wedding. Two days ago I didn't even know the day on which it would be held. Then saw a comment on Facebook by a friend and got excited about what the dress might look like.

For all those who remain mystified, I think this is mostly a girl thing. I don't know many women who don't like weddings. And let's face it: a royal wedding is the ultimate wedding.

Predictably, there were negative comments with regard to the royal wedding today. Everything from bitching out those damned royals to radio talk show hosts bemoaning the fact that the British don't know how to make a decent sandwich. Predictable criticism of only what one can find to disagree with: the monarchy, the church, or all the money spent.

I woke up this morning to the coverage of the wedding and was surprised to find that the beauty of it all brought tears to my eyes. Today is not about the money, the church, or the monarchy, for me. It's about the good in life.

Many people in modern culture, including me, are starving for some taste, class, grace, harmony and beauty. Much of that is in rare supply these days. Here we have a young accomplished couple who have been in love for ten years who conduct themselves like royalty, regardless of their social status. Frankly, I think it's nice to be able to expect that there are a few famous people in this world who won't stoop to the lowest common denominator of trashiness that we can expect from 99.9% of the rest of the world's "celebrities." Why do people need to tear this down?

I haven't seen so many wonderful hats since the taping of My Fair Lady, and that alone is worth celebrating. The only thing I can complain about is that Cwm Rhondda was sung a little too slowly.

Forgive me for the British phraseology, but I'm a little tired of all this American whingeing over the royal wedding. If you can be audacious enough to wonder why others can enjoy this, I can be audacious enough to wonder how people can only post mean-spirited stuff about the good and the beautiful in life. The British put on a great show today, and if I were British, I would be very proud today.

Ask yourself what is more uplifting. This? Or the princess below? I know my answer.

Of Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald's: Butter and the Not Butters

2011-04-03T15:28:00.003-06:00

When I set up my Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald's experiment last October, I set up three treatments (water, no water but covered, and open to the air) for butter, margarine, and Smart Balance "healthy" spread. Here are the pictures and jar numbers.

I threw out the fries and burgers a couple of months after setting up the experiment because we'd clearly learned that the amount of microbial growth is influenced by the water activity of the food. But the fats never really grew mold, and my husband was anxious to get them out of our sunroom in time for our Thanksgiving party. Can you blame him? I stuck all the jars in our mudroom and pretty much forgot about them until a few months ago. Overall the project is pretty disgusting. All the fats in these jars smell like plastic because they are pretty rancid.

I've been meaning to post an update on this project, but with 5 biology classes to teach, the semester has been very busy and I have far more important priorities than whether mold grows on fats.

Well, here we are, six months later (ewww!). We have mold in some of the jars and it's been there for awhile now, and an update is very overdue. Here's what we have. Hang onto your seats. This is going to be exciting.

Groundbreaking McMold results: Do molds grow on industrial fats?

Jars 10-12 (margarine): a very slight bit of mold in the jar with added water (jar 10). No mold in jars 11 or 12.

Jars 13-15 (butter): Mold in jar 13 (jar with added water). No mold in jars 14 or 15.

Jars 22-24 (Smart Balance): Again, mold in jar 22 ( the jar with added water). No mold in jars 23 or 24.

Well, that's it, folks. Fungi are capable of breaking down pretty much any carbon source as long as they have some water. Surprise.

Take home messages:

1) Even after 6 months, there's no mold growing on any of the fats in the jars that were dry. The rumor with pictures from the 1980s, spread around by the Weston A Price Foundation folks, that butter will get used by wild animals while industrial fats won't probably needs to be replicated and documented scientifically. My husband feeds chipmunks Sugar Frosted Flakes and they eat those over wild foods. That doesn't make Sugar Frosted Flakes healthy.

2) While Smart Balance and margarine are pretty gross, whether or not we eat something probably shouldn't be dictated by whether it will be eaten by wildlife or broken down by microorganisms. I wouldn't eat compact discs or rocket fuel, either.

If anyone would like to see some pictures of the molds growing on these fats, I'd be happy to take pictures later in the week when I have time. You'll be able to verify that these are the original jars by comparison to the pictures of the jars in the link above, which are all a little different in shape and size. Just leave a message in the comments field if you're interested.

Locavorism: Is it a Problem?

2011-04-02T16:49:00.003-07:00

Diana Hsieh recently discusses locavorism in the paleosphere:

I was a bit surprised by the number of paleo-eaters who place importance on eating locally-sourced foods. I regard locavorism as focusing on an inessential -- and potentially a waste of one's limited resources. (It's also dangerous, in that locally-based food economies incur far greater risks of famine.) The proper focus, I think, should be on finding the best-quality foods within the constraints of one's available resources -- meaning time, energy, and money. That may mean buying at a local farmer's market -- or at a large grocery store.

She then goes on to ask:

So am I missing something about the value of local foods? If you try to buy local, I'd love to hear in the comments why you think that's important. Is it a value in and of itself -- or merely a proxy for better-quality food?

Sustainability

I’ll get to why I tend to buy local (with a lot of exceptions) in a moment, but first: why do many paleo eaters have a focus on local eating? Apparently they were asked about various food sources with regard to sustainability.

The two original questions on “sustainability” in The Paleo Community Survey are “Do you think a paleo diet is a sustainable solution for feeding a large population?” and secondly, “Which of these sustainability practices do you consider important?” with the following choices: 1) buy local, 2) pastured livestock, 3) home gardening/farming, 4) managed fisheries, 5) permaculture.

I assume the concern over “whether paleo is sustainable” has mostly to do with the amount of meat eaten on such a diet and common questions about whether enough meat can be produced for everyone on earth. I consider this an interesting, but non-essential issue that would work itself out in a free market over time. In any case, there are good reasons to believe that myths surrounding the amount of how much meat the world can produce simply aren't true.

Sustainability might also refer to the long-term resilience of the soil when it comes to vegetation production and the problems posed by horticulture in general (soil salinity, soil erosion, etc.). I’m just not sure what “sustainability” means in the context of these questions, although I think I’ve probably hit the two aspects of sustainability that most people talk about in the “paleosphere”, especially in light of the answers provided for question 2, above.

Why buy food locally?

I buy quite a few food items locally, though I don’t make a fetish of it. These items include milk, beef, pork, eggs (sometimes, but they aren't always available in winter), and vegetables and some fruits in summertime. The only things I can’t find locally at some point in the year are nuts and oils: these are things that truly can’t be grown except in a certain region.

Besides animal products, I do try to buy produce from local farmers in summertime. The vegetables taste far better and are fresher. It's been my experience when I've been able to have my own gardens: homegrown and home ripened is best, and if it's not a vegetable that needs ripening, the fresher it is, the better it tastes. When I used to have my own gardens, I would pick the vegetables just a few minutes before using them.

As long as I can’t produce my own produce, I'd like to see farmers who can produce these items stay in business. I'm not eager to rely an alliance of government/industry thugs that likes to strike fear into the hearts of Americans about the health hazards of homegrown and locally-produced food (examples of this type of behavior are actually not unknown).

There may also be other reasons to believe that locally grown vegetables are more nutritious than the more popular varieties in grocery store markets. It's possible that plant breeders, over the decades, have been selecting for varieties that tolerate micronutrient deficiencies, i.e. they produce the same yield in terms of biomass, but with lower micronutrient concentrations.

Varieties grown by producers who sell their crops locally are not necessarily the same varieties grown by producers who sell to grocery stores, for some practical reasons. These varieties often don't ship well, their shapes aren't suitable for packing, they ripen too quickly, and they're somewhat unattractive, etc. Thus, I can find all sorts of interesting vegetables and varieties of those vegetables that I can't find in any grocery store, such as different varieties and colors of carrots, greens like sorrel, kohlrabi, a greater diversity of edible fungi, etc. Not only that, I've also read about other possibilities, such as that over the centuries, plants are being selected for lower omega 3 (ALA) content, because they won't rot as quickly. (Omega 3 fatty acids are very susceptible to rancidity and thus, spoilage). So it makes some sense to me to choose older or heirloom varieties of plants that have a short window of opportunity in terms of ripeness. It also makes sense to me to eat as wide a variety of plant species as possible.

I think it’s logical that better tasting vegetables might be more nutritious, particularly when produced by people who have an incentive to care about their land (they have a long-term stake the business). To that extent, eating locally might not simply be a proxy for freshness and nutrition: it might be essential to it. Of course, I can’t prove that.

And all that said, I still rely on the grocery store heavily for many food purchases (fruits, chicken, fish, nuts, oils, and vegetables in wintertime), and I’m very grateful that a wider regional, national, and international food distribution system is in place.

But can buying food locally cause a famine?

Actually, I think the possibility of famine when it comes to local eating is largely impossible, and has historically only happened when the government is inept or evil. Yes, eating from your own backyard is risky over the long haul due to a severe weather event wiping out all the crops on your land or in the surrounding community. Not only that, farming is tough and it takes capable, knowledgeable people to do it.

But widen up the land area to even a few hundred square miles (most people would still consider this a pretty small local distribution system) and natural disasters become a non-issue unless it's a severe drought that we're talking about. (In cases where severe droughts are commonly encountered, it might be wise to ask if the food being grown in that area is actually appropriate. We have federal subsidies to grow rice in the Arizona desert. This is stupid.) Even recently, in the severity of a 9.0 earthquake, food is still being produced locally in Fukushima prefecture in Japan. The only thing preventing its distribution is the government (assuming you could get people who wanted to buy it).

In the most extreme cases of locavorism I can think of that are widely publicized, with the goal of “reducing food miles” we are talking about people who source all their food from within 100 miles of where they live in order to reduce fuel used to transport their food. This is idiotic if for no other reason that the fuel involved in trucking food is a very small cost of what it takes to produce the food overall. I can probably dig up some statistics on this to support my point. All sorts of environmentalists accept this point, and it's why some of them are ardent opponents of eating locally.

But let’s put that issue aside for the moment. What does that extreme scenario represent in terms of the foods eaten? In a northern latitude of the US this would mean eating a lot of stored tubers in the winter and not much else for vegetables. If you look up articles with “100 food miles” you will find that these are usually the types of veggies that extreme locavore adherents are eating in the wintertime. Could such a situation result in a famine? Well, only if the people doing so were relying on tubers for 100% of their food.

Has that ever happened? Yes. But even in this extreme case, the Irish potato famine was caused primarily by the lack of harvest of a singularly important crop in the diet of an entire small country (potatoes) due to a few exceptionally rainy years in a row, and probably could have been prevented if the country hadn’t been forced to be a net exporter of foods because of British regulations and laws. Dairy and meat continued to be exported from Ireland, and other foods were prevented by the British government (Ireland was then part of Britain) from being imported, until it was too late to save everyone from starvation. So even in an instance where people are eating locally, such as this, it’s probably not going to be a problem unless the population is also reliant (or forced to be so by an inept, evil government) on 1-2 foods for the bulk of their calories.

It’s not unknown, even in recent decades, for a single vegetable to go off the market briefly because it’s been hit by a pathogen. Even then, I wouldn’t worry about all vegetables in the US being produced in a small area of the US (California) for half the year -- if not a local, at least a regional situation -- unless I depended on 1-2 vegetables for 100 % of my calories.

The long-term security of using a mostly local system (eating food produced within a radius of a few hundred miles) of mixed-product farms (one farm, even in northern latitudes of the US, is capable of producing a wide variety of meat, eggs, dairy, vegetables, fruits, and grains) would actually be quite high, I think. This was the system in place for most of the US for most of history (with the exception of grains) and I simply can’t think of a situation where this would ever cause a famine.

In fact, I think local and regional food distribution and processing systems for foods that are capable of being grown in many areas of the country, probably make good sense. Only in the past few decades have food production systems become highly centralized and it has created problems in terms of food-borne illness outbreaks becoming much more difficult to track to the source.

Truly, there are only a few things that can’t be grown in most of the country (oranges and almonds come to mind). The only thing currently preventing local vegetable production in most of the country (the midwest) are USDA regulations that prevent land usage for growing anything other than subsidized crops. While it might not be maximally efficient to grow potatoes in New York or Kansas, it doesn’t mean that it’s grossly less efficient than growing them in Idaho any more than it’s grossly less efficient to grow strawberries all over the country in summertime rather than merely in California. In fact, the government is the only thing standing in the way.

I think whether one eats locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally is a red herring when it comes to food security. A bigger problem might be the ever-decreasing variety of species that contributes to most of the world’s caloric intake. Instead of increasing reliance on a few varieties of a few crops (wheat, corn, rice, soy, canola, cotton) for carbohydrates and oils, with a few companies battling against the plant pathogens of these select few crops in a virtual arms race, it might be wiser to allow the free market to convert most of the world’s arable land from monocropping of a few species to more diversified, mixed-product farms and ranches. That would be a very secure system.

New Year's Resolutions

2010-12-27T18:43:00.002-07:00

Get fit. For me, this means continuing my current CrossFit and eating protocol to lose fat (likely 30 pounds of fat, although I can't be sure of how much til I get there) and gain muscle.

Get organized. For me, this means spending less time in useless activities like Facebook, and more time working on academic publications, teaching, and business endeavors. It also means spending less time in the car (1.5 to 2 hours daily!) listening to radio, and more of that time listening to informative podcasts or audiobooks.

Stay in touch with family and friends. Self-explanatory.

Live more fully. For me, this includes making more quality time with my husband, my dog, and my friends during non-work hours. It also means making more money so that I can both pay off debts and spend time traveling with my husband during the 10 weeks I have off from my job as a biology professor each year. At this point, I would like to make it a goal for us to take two major vacations yearly outside the country.

CrossFit: Back on Track

2010-12-27T17:57:00.005-07:00

Of course, you wouldn't have known I was off track, now, would you? I haven't written about it.

In early November I came down with a flu-like illness and earache that kept me from going to CrossFit for a week. After that, the semester got quite busy with my teaching duties. Even after I was fully well, I kept making excuses to not go back to CrossFit. I'm ashamed to say that I made those excuses for {{{drumroll}}} 6 weeks. I know, it's ridiculous. I think most of the people at the gym probably thought I was dead. Well, more realistically, they probably didn't think of me at all and just forgot I existed. hahah.

There are a few reasons it took me so long to go back. Here they are, in no particular order.

Nerd, interrupted

Most of the people in my gym are very athletic. This is Boulder, Colorado we're talking about. People in Colorado are in much better shape than the rest of the nation. And in Boulder? People are fitness fanatics in Boulder. They are more fit here than in the rest of CO, I think.

So basically, I am surrounded by supermen and superwomen in the gym every day. One of the women in my class can do clean and jerks with 145 lbs. These are superpeople we're talking about. Especially to me, since I did literally nothing for physical fitness except take leisurely walks and otherwise sit on my ass for the past 10 years. Don't get me wrong. It's fantastic (not the sitting on my ass part). They're fantastic, in performance and their attitude toward total noobs like me -- this isn't just high school gym class all over again. And it's very motivating to look and them and realize that someday I will be a lot fitter.

But while it's motivating to be in "nerd, interrupted" mode, it's also intimidating. We've had some people injure themselves fairly seriously as of late. Perhaps I shield myself from injury naturally due to my general wariness to perform odd movements and I'm really not putting myself at risk of injury, and that's just fine with me. I have no desire to throw out my back, pull muscles, or break bones, especially since I don't have health insurance right now. However, the possibility that it could happen was causing me some anxiety, I think. Now that I think of it, certain people are simply more prone to injury due to their proclivity to be daring, I think. I'm not one of those people, so I'm not sure this fear of broken bones and such was really rational in the first place.

I've always been a little concerned about it, but the anxiety about physical injury started in earnest when I suffered a slight knee injury that lasted a week due to some weird stretch that we did after a WOD one day. I have a long history of knee problems, going back to a hike in New Zealand 10 years ago when I threw my kneecap out of its socket three times on a long hike. Because I was stuck in the country for 6 months, I never really got physical therapy for that injury until well after I needed it when returned home to the US. Sadly, I've never really recovered from that injury in a broader sense. I have protected my knees from strange movements for 10 years. There are some dangers here to taking a person who has been very sedentary for the past 10 years and throwing them into an intense physical fitness routine that includes deep stretches and deep squats. I knew there was a risk, but when it became more real, I became frightened. It's good for me, but I certainly want to do it carefully, since it's definitely not fun or inexpensive to push your kneecap out of its socket.

Laziness

We live far from the gym (40 minutes). On non-work days when I choose to go in, the round trip and the workout takes around 3 hours of my time. It's worth it, but sometimes -- often, actually -- it's easy to make excuses to stay in bed. And as a result of the anxiety described above, I was not getting restful sleep. I would keep waking up 4-5 times during the night and stressing about CrossFit during what should have been sleep time, leading to me deciding not to go in when my alarm went off.

Winter Doldrums

Even in CO, where we have 300 days of full sun per year, winter can get you down.

Lack of Progress

I've been frustrated by lack of progress in weight loss. Of course, when you're only going in 1-2 x weekly, you can't expect a lot. You get what you put into it, and I needed to be going in more often on a weekly basis over the past 6 months than I have. I already knew that eating paleo for 3 years didn't do a whole lot for my weight loss, probably because I wasn't seriously overweight to begin with. No one to blame for my ever increasing lack of musculature over the past 10 years but myself.

Anxiety

I've been anxious that one of these days, I might simply be unable to complete a WOD. This one doesn't have anything to do with my knee issue. I find that I do get dizzy quite a bit during WODs, and I seem to take a lot longer than most people to recover from the soreness. There have been days when I've been completely wiped out with exhaustion after a WOD and can do nothing but sit around on the couch for a whole day. Thank goodness I didn't need to work on those days. I don't think this is normal, or healthy. I don't know if the problem is me or CrossFit, but this has happened far more often with endurance type workouts in comparison to lifting.

So those are all of the little reasons I've avoided CrossFit for 6 weeks. UGH. In any case, I'm back in business and I wish that I had not waited so long to get back into the gym.

Goals and Conclusions

I'm going to try to make up for lost time over the next 6 months. I am not sure what my ideal weight is going to be after muscle gain, but I suspect I have about 30 or more pounds to lose. My goal? To look and feel better than I did 12 years ago when I started grad school.

I have been using the Leangains dietary protocol for the past 3 weeks. Although I am not doing the types of workouts that Berkhan recommends (heavy lifting only on alternate days), our CrossFit affiliate is a strength-biased program, so I suspect I will still see results with this dietary protocol, in conjunction with only eating paleo foods.

There are a few things I'm going to do to improve my odds of success. The dietary aspect is easy for me, since it was just a matter of dialing in fat and increasing the protein, so not a whole lot to say there.

I'm going to make an effort to do back to back workouts, since I find that the worst soreness sets in between 48 to 72 hours after a workout. This usually means it's impossible for me to go back in until 4 days after, which means that I'm only getting in 1-2 workouts weekly. It's not enough. I'm hoping that by doing back to back workouts, I'll be able to go in at least 3 x weekly.

Second, I'd like to focus 1-2 of those workouts on the weightlifting class on week-ends. I find that I very much enjoy the weightlifting aspects of CrossFit more than the WODs. I feel pumped, rather than exhausted, after a WOD that has a greater proportion of strength training as opposed to endurance-type exercises. The best WODs for me are exclusively strength-based, such as a workout consisting of only clean and jerks (unless I'm doing 160 clean and jerks, as I had to do one day...). I love Olympic lifts and I could see myself doing them forever. It's so fun to keep adding weight, and lift something heavier than you've ever lifted before. Kettlebell swings, toes to the bar, and box jumps? Not so keen on those. I also suspect that once I do gain some muscle mass (and the Leangains dietary protocol should help with that), my weight loss will progress faster.

So, that's that. Partly, I'm writing all of this to keep myself accountable. But I'm also writing to help others.

CrossFit isn't roses 100% of the time. If you are reading this and have had an onset of anxiety about CrossFit, I hope that this post helps. Some tips, and some of which I gleaned from a new poster at the gym. Get back in the gym. Your fears are mostly irrational and they are increasing your cortisol levels and making things worse for you -- and not just mentally. To some extent, the fear of the workout is worse than the workout itself. Just set a schedule, stick to it, and walk through the gym door. That's the hardest part. Do not obsess every day about whether you are going to go to CrossFit. Just do it. Easier said than done, I know! But doesn't it help to know that you're not the only one who feels this way? :)

WalMart Defends its Fascism

2010-12-09T13:36:00.007-07:00

WalMart is teaming up with the Department of Homeland Security to broadcast messages about the DHS "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign in 600 of its stores. This is the creepy new "public service announcement" that will be broadcast in WalMart, narrated by no less than the head of the Department of Homeland Security herself, Janet Napolitano.

I mostly ignored WalMart's possible sale of goods made by the slave labor of political dissidents in China. I ignored WalMart's push for government-run healthcare. But now, this is really something I can't ignore. So I wrote the following email to WalMart.

I was recently dismayed to learn that you have teamed up with the Department of Homeland Security to encourage your customers to keep an eye on other customers and "say something" if they see something suspicious.

This is absurd. Most public places in America, let alone WalMart stores, are not dangerous, and we do not need government public service announcements to remind us to report something "suspicious." Trust that the government will be next at defining what suspicious is rather than leaving it to common sense.

This "campaign" will do nothing to make Americans safer or more secure. This, just like the new TSA screenings at airports, has nothing to do with safety and is simply an excuse to see what sorts of government control Americans will put up with.

I will not be shopping at WalMart until you stop, and renounce, this outrageous textbook fascism. It's no secret why Homeland Security has chosen to align with the country's biggest producer of consumer goods. It just wants to see what sorts of nonsense ordinary Americans will put up with on its inexorable march toward a police state. Shame on you, WalMart, for becoming part of the DHS takeover of America.

Many people laughed ten years ago and made jokes about the "Homeland" begin akin to the "Fatherland" of the Third Reich.

Is it really so far off? I was totally gobsmacked to receive, in response to my message, the following "confidential" email from WalMart. I started bolding the outrageous portions, until I realized I was bolding the whole damn thing. See for yourself:

Thank you for your message.

Dear Monica,

Thank you for your recent inquiry. It's important to Walmart to help protect the safety of the communities we serve all across the country. We're proud to be the first national retail partner of the Department of Homeland Security's awareness campaign "If You See Something, Say Something". Everyone has a role to play and this is one way our company can help do our part, by providing these public service messages.

All Walmart stores that are equipped with video screens (nearly 600) at the checkouts will feature a short video message from Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano encouraging customers to report any suspicious activity to their local law enforcement.

Walmart is a place where people gather - in many towns, it is where neighbors might see one another the most. -We want our customers and associates to always be vigilant, whenever they are out in public, to help them ensure their personal safety and the safety of their community.

For more information, please visit our website @ www.walmartstores.com/pressroom and search for the article under 'recent news' or search the site using the phrase 'Homeland Security'.

Sincerely,
Walmart Customer Care

"Walmart is a place where people gather - in many towns, it is where neighbors might see one another the most. We want our customers and associates to always be vigilant..."

Sometimes truth is worse than fiction. You can't make this stuff up. People are making analogies to George Orwell's 1984. I think there is another apt analogy. This is straight out of Harry Potter 5 where Professor Umbridge, as a Ministry of Magic agent, infiltrates the school, enacts over 100 decrees at her whim, and enlists student spies in the Inquisitorial Squad.

Obesity in Laboratory Animals and Domestic Pets: Think it Could Be the Food?

2010-11-24T10:30:00.004-07:00

A fascinating study was just published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, concluding that obesity has risen among 24 different populations of 8 different species of domestic and lab-reared animals over the past several decades. Increases in obesity per decade was not significant (p< 0.05) for macaques, dogs, and lab rats. Increases in obesity were significant for chimps, vervets, marmosets, mice, cats, and urban and rural rats. What's fascinating is that they also found that urban feral rats were were more likely to gain weight over time than the rural rats:

...we examined a population of animals living close to people but not under their direct control. For the 1948–2006 time period, male rats trapped in urban Baltimore experienced a 5.7 per cent increase in body weight per decade from 1948 to 2006 and a nearly 20 per cent increase in the odds of obesity. Similarly, female rats trapped in urban Baltimore experienced a 7.22 per cent per decade increase in body weight, along with a 26 per cent increase in the odds of obesity. From 1948 to 1986, male rats trapped in the rural area gained 4.5 per cent in body weight, while females gained 5.2 per cent, and the increases in the odds of obesity were, respectively, 19 and 26 per cent.

Well, could that be because the rural rats were eating more wild foods instead of industrially processed junk foods from garbage cans?

While the study has some conclusions with which I agree, particularly that physical activity is probably not a factor in weight gain (self-reported physical activity has gone up among Americans) and that epigenetics may also play a role, I was disappointed that the authors did not hypothesize at all about about how food quality might have changed for pets and lab animals over the past decades. They mostly talk about food quantity:

But these factors cannot account for the findings in the laboratory animals that are on highly controlled diets, which have varied minimally over the last several decades. These animals are typically fed ad libitum, so if weight increases are attributable to increases in food consumption (which is possible), it is difficult to understand why animals in controlled environments on diets of constant composition are consuming more food today than in past decades.

The authors then go on to hypothesize about pathogens, environmental contaminants, and "climate change" as potential factors in weight gain.

It's not a stretch to imagine that foods for pets and lab animals might have changed their ingredients over the past forty years as farm subsidies made soy and grain products cheaper. Pet foods are made with waste products from human food production, so pet foods probably loosely approximate human processed food in mineral, fatty acid, carbohydrate and protein quality and content, if not macronutrient proportions. I would be very curious to know for sure how rat chow, cat food, and dog food might have changed over the past half decade in their mineral, seed oil and fructose contents, among other things. We already know that the foods humans were eating, and that urban rats were getting out of garbage cans from the 1970s to 2000s increased in their fructose, omega 6, and carbohydrate contents over time. What about commercial pet diets? Seems like a very plausible hypothesis to me.

Is something in the environment making everyone gain weight? Probably. But I think there are some more logical hypotheses to test when it comes to humans and domesticated and lab animals besides climate change, environmental pollutants, and obesity viruses. Is it really possible that an obesity virus can significantly contribute to obesity in 6-9 different species concurrently? It seems a bit fantastic to me. Anyway, those things can be tested, or at least, their contributions to obesity estimated, by looking at obesity in wild populations and zoo animals.

Let's put some rats out in the wilderness for 50 years and see if they gain as much weight as urban and rural rats. Maybe there are even some data on rat weights over time from New Zealand, where rats are a major problem and have recently been successfully exterminated from a number of remote islands.

Stephan Guyenet over at Whole Health Source has a comprehensive series of posts on overweight and potential factors that may contribute to it. For now, I'll leave you with a few selections from that list to think about:

Have Seed Oils Caused a Multigenerational Obesity Epidemic?

US Weight, Lifestyle and Diet Trends, 1970-2007

How to Give a Rat Metabolic Syndrome

Rats on Junk Food

Of Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald's: Day 26

2010-11-16T08:58:00.014-07:00

Time for another McMold update! For those of you who haven’t been following, here’s the experimental design and initial pictures, and a video of the 17 day results.

Let’s get right to it. Here's Day 26. Salted homemade fries. From left to right: dry (no growth), lid (mold), lidded with water (bacteria).

Salted McD's fries. From left to right: dry (no growth), lid (mold), lidded with water (bacteria and mold).

Unsalted homemade fries. From left to right: dry (no growth), lid (mold and bacteria), lidded with water (bacteria).

Unsalted McD's fries. From left to right: dry (no growth), lid (fungi), lidded with water (bacteria).

And here's a closer picture of the burgers. Homemade on left, McD's on right. From top to bottom: dry (no growth on either), lid (mold on homemade, bacteria on McD's), lidded with water (bacteria on homemade, mold on McD's).

Fries

Basically, what this experiment has shown is that under very high water activity, the fries have problems cultivating molds but bacteria will grow just fine. At lower water activities , molds will grow just fine. Obviously, none of the fries in the top row are rotting because the water activity is too low for either bacteria or fungi.

This little experiment demonstrates that the salt, at least in the amounts McDonald’s uses, and types of fats or fat content have nothing to do with decomposition, as some food scientists have been claiming in popular news reports. It’s all about the moisture: not the salt, not the fat, and not the preservatives, at least for french fries. The amount of moisture determines whether the fries decompose, and also the type of decomposition: bacterial or fungal.

An interesting study could be set up with many more replicates to determine if there is any difference in species composition of fungi and bacteria in the jars under different water activities. This might be of marginal interest to mycologists, but probably not to the general public, and it would be a lot more work, so I probably won’t do it. There are also personal concerns, such as objections from spouses.

Burgers

I think it’s possible that the different textures of the buns might have something to do with the microbial growth in these jars, but it would take far more replicates to determine exactly what is going on. None of the burgers are growing copious amounts of mold as the fries are. Ideally, a much bigger experiment could be done testing a variety of different types of buns -- e.g. storebought white, whole grain, organic, and homemade -- under different water activities to find out what sort of microbial growth is fostered. For bread specifically, it seems logical that preservatives might alter the rate of microbial growth, even if they can’t stop microbial growth altogether. Otherwise, why would the food industry use them?

Conclusion

We can conclude that food pretty much rots, whether it comes from McDonald’s or anywhere else. It just needs some moisture to do so.

I am on the verge of discarding the fries, since I don't think there is any more to be learned from them. Stay tuned to see what develops on the burgers and the butter and “not butter”s.

Update: 11/16 Replaced an incorrect photo.

All New, 100% Guarantee! Weight Loss Solution! The Twinkie Diet!

2010-11-09T07:52:00.005-07:00

You're going to love this, if you haven't already seen it. Man loses 27 pounds eating 3/4 of his food as Twinkies and the like, daily. This is about as intelligent an "experiment" as the woman who is leaving 1 McDonald's burger out for 6 months and "proving" that it doesn't rot.

Most of my writing over the past month has been devoted to the "McDonald's doesn't rot" meme floating around the internet and getting picked up by the likes of major media outlets like CNN. But let's get real... just because McDonald's rots doesn't make it health food, and I would never use my experiment to try to make that point.

But wait... you can lose weight on Twinkies! The new health food!

This guy went from a diet of "healthy whole grains and fruit" to junk food, but with both diets having probably equal proportions of macronutrients. But he cut calories to around 67% of his needs and lost weight. He's a nutrition professor. You have to love that. Really, a nutritionist or a dietitian would be the only type of person stupid enough to abandon all common sense in order to subject themselves to this diet. I would never go on this diet, damaging my health, in order to prove that people in "food deserts" can lose weight on junk food.

You can lose weight be restricting your calories eating almost anything. This is news? Imagine eating only 2/3 the food you eat now. This would be tough. Of course, when you allow yourself a Twinkie every three hours when you're having a sugar crash, it might make things easier.

I was also fairly lean on a donut-, cookie-, brownie-, sandwich-, pasta-, and rice and beans-diet in grad school. I weighed quite a bit less than I do now, actually. Of course, I was also 6 years younger and a miserable, nervous wreck. My leanness didn't last, though. It also caught up with me until I was at an all-time high on the scale.

The big thing missing in this article is how he felt on this diet. I think this is an important indicator of health that people forsake for traditional measurements of "health" including cholesterol (I didn't realize anyone still cared about that) and the scale.

Do I really need to point out that this diet is a recipe for your body to burn lean muscle mass over the long term in order to satisfy metabolic requirements? Anyone who wants to see (literally, as pictures as provided) what the effects of this type of diet are over the long term need only read about Ancel Keys' starvation experiments in Good Calories, Bad Calories.

Gotta love this one:

"These foods are consumed by lots of people," he said. "It may be an issue of portion size and moderation rather than total removal. I just think it's unrealistic to expect people to totally drop these foods for vegetables and fruits. It may be healthy, but not realistic."

I love this. "These foods" he's talking about are Hostess Twinkies, Little Debbie snack cakes, and the like.

So let me get this straight.

It's "practical" to eat vending machine snacks every few hours and wipe out your food budget, but it's impractical to plan a little and eat real food that you bought and prepared from the grocery store, maybe 1-2 meals daily, and not be hungry all the time.

It's "practical" to have to be within 100 yards from a vending machine or a calculator most of the day to make sure you're not going over your limit but impractical to eat meats and vegetables like your grandparents did 70 years ago, and be a normal weight without even having to think about it because your appetite functions properly and will regulate how much you eat.

How times have changed. Now we have "nutritionists" telling us we can lose weight by eating Twinkies, so long as you eat few enough in terms of calories to force any outcome. Would anyone have listened to this sort of nonsense 70 years ago if it came from a "nutritionist" whose body fat is still almost twice what it should be, even after losing 27 pounds? No, instead they listened to this type of thing, from a man who looks like he knows what he's talking about:

Now, if Jack Lalanne were telling me to eat Twinkies in order to look like he still does, I might be listening.

Listen closely to what he says. Refined sugars (and wheat, notice!) as bad, sugars in fruit are not as bad because they come with other nutrition, i.e. minerals. Lalanne's prescription? "Protein and fruit" for breakfast, more protein and veggies for lunch, same for dinner. Basically? Paleo, primal, whatever you want to call it. This man was way ahead of his time, and so were our great-grandparents who had enough common sense to know that a steady diet of this type of stuff isn't healthy:

Every Monday and Wednesday, I teach 3 hours in the AM and 3 hours in the PM. I'm away from the house for 14 hours. Sometimes I don't eat anything on those days, and sometimes I have a small late lunch, which is my first meal of the day. Then I eat when I get home at 10PM. The only thing I have during my classes is some water.

Yet all the while I'm teaching, I'm watching students have to take frequent breaks, like drug addicts, to get their hits of vending machine snacks and sodas. They can't go even 3 hours without food. Almost all these students (young and old) eat junk, and that is all they eat during the class. I have seen two students this whole semester bring cut fruit or vegetables for snacks. By and large, they are almost all snacking on sugar, all the time. With "news" like this in the media, telling them they can lose weight by eating junk so long as they don't eat too much, it's not hard to understand why.

Let's use some common sense, people. Someone might be able to lose weight eating 8 Twinkies a day if that's about all they eat. And I might be able to show that Twinkies rot in my jars. Doesn't make 'em health food.

Of Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald's: Day 17

2010-11-07T11:45:00.006-07:00

The story that McDonald's food is immortal and forever resistant to decomposition has gotten massive amounts of public attention. When Richard Nikoley blogged about my preliminary results, he made a perfect comment:

...everybody and their extended family has seen the hyperbole by Morgan Spurlock, Sally Davies, Mike Adams and others, has forwarded breathless emails to their entire address book, posted links to their Facebook pages and, how could they possibly resist...? Tweeted with self righteous glee.

Well, folks, it's time for a little reality check. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt over at Serious Eats just showed that McDonald's burgers do, indeed, rot. So did a blogger in China, back in May. And so did another blogger, again, way back in May.

But... how about the fries? McDonald's fries have different types of fats, plenty of salt, and preservatives. Mike Vaughan has a nice write-up on McDonald's fry ingredients, calling for an experiment on them.

On Oct. 21, before I knew about the other experiments that had been completed or were in the process of being conducted, I set up a well-controlled experiment to find out whether McDonald's burgers and fries rot or not, and if not, why not. In particular, I was interested in the lack of decomposition of the fries, observed by so many different people.

I have 18 different jars of McDonald's and homemade burgers and fries, and it's Day 17 of my experiment. And we've finally hit the mother lode of mold! Check it out:

McMold Day 17, Part III from Monica Hughes on Vimeo.

I'll save my commentary on this issue for another post.

What about the butter and the "not butter"s, you ask? There's nothing visible growing on any of them. Check back again for another update. As for the fries and the burgers, I'll be keeping them until they're too disgusting to keep anymore. When I throw away one set of fries, I'll throw away all of them. Likewise with the burgers. I won't be throwing away parts of the experiment before it's all over, as Morgan Spurlock did.

Stay tuned for next week's "McMold" update!

Correction: I incorrectly state in the video that 1/6 c. water was added to the foods. Actually, 1/3 c. water was added to burgers and fries. 1/6 c. water was used for the butter, margarine, and spreads.

Of Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald's: Day Nine

2010-10-31T11:09:00.004-07:00

Have you heard about the Unhappy Happy Meal that just won’t decompose over the course of a few months... or over a decade? Have you seen Morgan Spurlock’s McDonald’s burgers that decompose, but the McDonald’s fries that don’t?

While I never much studied mold during my graduate career as a mycologist, I decided that I had to know if this was real! So I set up my own little experiment to test a few simple hypotheses about this supposed lack of decomposition. I hypothesized that the lack of moisture, presence of salt, or presence of certain types of fats might be responsible for the lack of decay.

For those of you who want all the details, here are the initial posts in which I describe the experimental design and motivation for the study.

Of Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald’s: Day One
Of Mushrooms, Molds and McDonald’s: Day Two
Of Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald’s: Day Three

Well, it’s been over 9 days now. In fact, Day 9 was Friday, and.... We’ve Got Mold!! BUT... Is it on McDonald's?? For those of you interested in the nitty gritty results, I recommend jumping to 8:20 of the first video and then finishing up with the second. To those of you who haven’t followed the experiment, the entire two videos may be of interest.

McMold Day 9, Part I from Monica Hughes on Vimeo.

McMold Day 9, Part II from Monica Hughes on Vimeo.

Further Comments on the Experiments

One thing I forgot to photograph was the rice. The rice with water looks like it’s fermenting: no filamentous fungi. The rice with a lid doesn’t have any visible mold. The rice without the lid does have some green mold and a zygomycete growing at the base.

One other note. The decay that Morgan Spurlock sees in his big “regular restaurant” wedge-shaped fries? I highly suspect this is due to their much lower surface area to volume ratio, which prevented the fries from drying out as quickly. Who knows what other variables weren't controlled for in Spurlock's experiment. There aren't a whole lot of details in his video.

Cultural Context and Commentary

Because those of you who know me know I can't resist.

Isn’t it odd that tests of Burger King, Wendy’s, Popeye’s, or Taco Bell meals never make headlines? What magical, mystical thing is it about McDonald’s that makes it so much worse than every other fast food chain? That it’s a big and profitable corporation? It seems that ever since Morgan Spurlock released his documentary Supersize Me, McDonald’s is the poster child for all of the supposed evils of fast food. Yet Spurlock has already been shown by Tom Naughton to be “full of bologna”. This is a lot kinder way of saying it than I would say it.

We live in an intellectual wasteland. Really, Sally Davies, how original is it to put a Happy Meal on top of a fridge and then publish the results to Flickr? What does it say about our culture when this type of “experiment” with no variables draws massive amounts of media and blogger attention? What does it say when the vast majority of people in our culture don’t even have enough imagination or creativity to set up a decent fourth grade science experiment, for the most part? What does it say about the mainstream media, who are more interested in “he said, she said” hearsay bullcrap than being bothered to set up a few jars of food on a desk to settle the matter, once and for all?

Will this make headlines? Probably not. You see, there are few people in modern culture today that can interest themselves, due to being raised in a two-second-attention-span-theater-of-the-absurd. People would rather fall for bullshit hook, line, and sinker, if it’s sensationalistic, without being bothered to think a little. Pathetic.

Let me just get this out of the way. Full disclosure. I don’t own stock in McDonald’s, and I don’t eat at McDonald’s on a regular basis because their food mostly consists of sugar-, grain-, and seed oil-laden food. In my opinion, the meat is not the problem. If McDonald’s went back to frying their French fries in beef tallow, I might eat some on occasion. Yes, I have stopped there occasionally for a bunless burger or salad, and I try to keep the dressing minimal. But snowballs will freeze in hell before that is more popular or socially acceptable than grabbing some sugary, organic, dried fruit from Whole Foods (which, because of its low water activity, probably also wouldn’t rot for decades if you set it out on on a plate on the top of your refrigerator).

It’s sad that I have to offer that paragraph of a disclaimer above. But, we live in an era of simpletons where everyone is either “for” or “against” something and we all feel compelled to cover our asses and apologize for everything rather than just, simply, call out bullshit immediately when and where we see it.

Despite my claims to the contrary, I fully expect that if my experiment makes its rounds among the blogosphere that grandiose rationalizations will emerge, because everyone has to believe that everyone else has an agenda. And honestly, I’m going to secretly enjoy reading conspiracy theories about how I’ve gotten paid by McDonald’s to have set up the experiment, or that I have a McDonald’s “connection” by virtue of my third cousin, twice-removed, having worked there 19 years ago as a teenager, or some other such bullshit.

Really, I am just a mycologist interested in seeing whether McDonald’s rots, and if it doesn’t, why it doesn’t. That was the primary reason for this experiment. Of course, I will admit it is always fun to piss off some people, and demonstrate that others are idiots. I expected that the results of this experiment would do both those two things, and it has at least done the latter, so far.

Whether margarine, Smart Balance “healthy spread”, and butter foster microbial growth equally is a remaining question. This latter claim that microbes won’t touch margarine is yet another claim in the foodie/paleo community -- a claim for which I have seen very scant documentation indeed, apart from some personal pictures of someone’s backyard that look like they date back to the 80s.

I’m sure some people are disappointed because they want McDonald’s to be so lacking in nutrition and so full of preservatives that it doesn’t rot. But this is science and truth we’re talking about. Anyway, who cares about whether McDonald’s rots? All this nonsense floating around the foodie community about how food should rot is just silly. A lot people in the paleo-ish food community think fermented grains are just fine to eat, and guess what... it’s very difficult to get grains and beans to rot under dry conditions, too. Whether something rots is certainly a poor indication of whether you should eat it. Think about it. Rocket fuel and compact discs can be broken down by fungi, too.

As the World Turns

Please link to my posts the next time you see some nonsense in the media about how McDonald's doesn't rot. Also, I think more independent experimentation is necessary to combat this silly myth that McDonald's doesn't rot, so consider setting up your own experiment.

Stay tuned for next week's McMold update!

Honeybees Did Not Exist in the Americas 400 Years Ago

2010-10-23T11:50:00.002-06:00

I'd like to share this excellent commentary, Honeybees are Not Essential to Our Ecosystem. Go read the whole thing, because it's really quite funny.

The author correctly points out that as far as we know, honeybees are essential to agriculture. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that any number of other pollinators endemic to the Americas wouldn't kick into the picture if honeybees declined even further. This all brings me to another point, which has become so much more obvious to me after starting to eat paleo. I now look at biological knowledge in an evolutionary context.

The entire episode of so-called Colony Collapse Disorder, which seems to be a possible combination of different pathogens and possibly pesticides, seems fairly predictable. The honeybee has been removed from its normal geographic range and ecological niche and made into a farm animal. Yield of honey production has been the characteristic that has been maximized through artificial selection as the supreme value, along with other values such as a disease resistance, handling ease, overwintering ability, tendency to swarm, variation in propolis production, heat tolerance, and pollination activity. Guess what happens when you breed for certain traits? You're almost certain to decrease other traits unwittingly.

We're also keeping these animals at high densities on a wide geographic scale and moving them around the globe at unprecedented rates that have probably never before been seen in millions of years over the history of honeybee existence. Is it really unexpected that the honeybee might experience some diseases and disorders, or that resistance to mites, viruses, and Nosema might not have been optimized over the past 50-100 years as breeders focused on other things?

The world is not coming to an end. An astute commenter on the article writes:

As far as I know Apis mellifera was domesticated about 6000 years ago. Many plants were domesticated about 11000 years ago. Which animals were our pollinating friends in the 5000 years in between?

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. 100 years from now, the human race will probably still be here if it doesn't kill itself off, and I wager so will most of your favorite veggies and fruits.

Of Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald's: Day Three

2010-10-23T10:20:00.002-06:00

I had a big pot of cooked, but relatively fresh (i.e. no visible microbial growth) jasmine rice in my fridge from the last time I made beef curry. So I decided to add three rice jars (lidded, lidded with 1/3 c. water, and dry) to the experiment yesterday to see how another starch source holds up over time under varying water activity. Expect to see pictures of these jars along with the rest when I made my first observations on decomposition.

Have a great Saturday!

HT to Robert O'Callahan for the link on water activity.

Of Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald's: Day Two

2010-10-22T12:06:00.010-06:00

Here are close ups for the start of the experiment, so that we can track the amount of decomposition on each food.

In each case, the jars are in order, from left to right: dry (left), lidded (middle), lidded with water (right). Dry jars are covered with cheesecloth secured by a rubber band. Lidded jars are covered with Kirkland (Costco) brand plastic wrap secured by a rubber band. (If the smell gets too bad, I might have to change the types of lids or move the experiment to the garage.)

Here goes.

Jars 1-3: Salted McD's french fries

Jars 4-6: Unsalted McD's french fries

Jars 7-9: McD's burgers

Jars 10-12: Margarine, Market Pantry brand (Target)

Jars 13-15: Salted butter, Market Pantry brand (Target)

Jars 16-18: Salted homemade fries

Jars 19-21: Unsalted homemade fries

Jars 22-24: Smart Balance "healthy spread" (There are labels still on the outside of these jars, so I wanted to photograph from above so as not to obscure the food.)

Jars 25-27: Homemade burger fried in beef tallow from US Wellness Meats, with Market Pantry brand (Target) white buns, topped with Heinz ketchup (cane sugar, not HFCS). No pickles or onions on the burger.

That's all for now.

Of Mushrooms, Molds, and McDonald’s

2010-10-21T20:22:00.013-06:00

The Unhappy Happy Meal

No doubt you’ve heard of that unhappy Happy Meal by now. You know, a blogger buys a Happy Meal, lets it sit out at room temperature for months (or years), and documents the lack of decomposition.

I’m a little bored by this experiment, perhaps because I’ve done it myself -- not intentionally -- and have arrived at similar results. You probably have done so, too, if you’ve ever eaten fast food.

Before becoming more interested in food quality and starting to eat a paleo diet around 2.5 years ago, I used to eat at fast food places on a pretty regular basis in grad school. You’re really busy, on a budget, and you just don’t have time for eating, let alone sourcing good food. Vending machine snacks can quickly become a sole carbon source. I tried to eat right at home, but my breakfasts and lunches were abysmal. Trust me, the space underneath my driver’s seat had become a repository for more than a few french fries, half moon cookies, and donut fragments. Every one or two years when I got up the motivation to clean out my car, I discovered some withered french fry ghosts. Well, guess what? There was never anything growing on them.

A fellow mycologist posted recently about this latest Happy Meal experiment to Facebook, saying that even fungi won’t touch McDonald’s! Then I got an email from another mycologist asking, “If “bugs” don’t touch McDonald’s, why should we?” But then another colleague commented that he thought it had more to do with the lack of water activity in the meal than anything else. (“Anything else” presumably means the lack of nutrition, taste, or the presence of a heck of a lot of preservatives.)

I got to thinking that this last comment made pretty good sense. Given time, many species of fungi can degrade rocket fuel and polycarbonate on CDs. the rocket fuel problem seems to be a particular issue in the tropics. Given what I’ve learned about decomposition over the past 10 years (I have two graduate degrees in mycology), I was pretty confident that, given ample moisture, fungi and other microbes really shouldn’t have much of a problem with a Happy Meal.

After dropping my opinions on Richard Nikoley’s excellent blog, expressing my skepticism that McDonald’s Happy Meals are immortal, Richard made a comment that he would set up his own experiment on decomposition of McDonald’s food. I was glad someone was going to investigate, and then I forgot about that matter for about a week.

Then, I saw another video by Morgan Spurlock (of SupersizeMe fame) demonstrating that McDonald’s french fries don’t decompose, replete with narration about how gross it is when food decomposes, and how gross it is when food doesn’t decompose. Seriously, you just can’t win. Check it out:

I’ll point out that there are ample criticisms of Spurlock’s work. I’m not going to accuse him of lying in this french fry experiment, but I’m seriously distrustful of his work and motives. Interestingly, he did test some other wedge-type restaurant fries and they grew black mold right away. At the end of the experiment, weeks later, his assistant supposedly threw the McD’s french fries away rather than keep them to see how long they did take to degrade. Really?

The Need for a Good Mold Study

At first, I thought this was probably all about water. But I got to thinking... where have fungi ever had the chance, evolutionarily speaking, to encounter concentrated sources of polyunsaturated and manmade trans fats like those found in McDonald’s french fries? Maybe it’s the fats. Or ... maybe it’s the salt. Or maybe it’s something else altogether. Maybe Spurlock and others are spoofing, or ignorant, and McD’s fries actually do decompose given the right conditions. The scientist in me determined to find out.

I have to admit, part of my motivation is that I’m a little tired of dumb attempts to smear McDonald’s. I don’t actually eat at McDonald’s anymore, because I think the vast majority of stuff sold there isn’t healthy. (I don’t eat 90% of what’s sold in a grocery store, either.) But I’m tired of the predictable rants against the “big, bad, greedy corporation” backed up by less than scientific studies. I’m even more tired of the public buying into this pseudoscientific junk, which is generally generated by a bunch of know-nothing, politically motivated morons at groups like Center for Science in the Public Interest and Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine; vegetarian front groups who want to control what you eat, not by persuasion through reasoning and logical arguments, but by lobbying for more and more regulations because they think you’re too stupid to decide for yourself. I hate these groups partly because they lie. PCRM claims that Big Macs are cheap because the beef is subsidized. That’s not even remotely the case, but I’ll deal with PCRM’s assertions about food subsidies later.

People eat McDonald’s because they think it’s tasty, cheap and easy. Seriously, despite what you may have heard, people don’t pull up to the drive thru at McDonald’s thinking that they’re eating at a health food joint. No one I know -- no one -- thinks that eating at McDonald’s is the healthiest food choice they could make. And despite the fact that America has an obesity crisis on its hands, it probably has a lot more to do with billions in federal subsidies for corn, wheat, and soy that makes high fructose corn syrup, frankenoils, and flour artificially cheap, and the generally pitiful food culture in the United States, as opposed to the profit motive of the big, evil, greedy corporation. In this case, McDonald’s.

You know what else? I’m really tired of McDonald’s taking the heat when it comes to fast food. There are reasons to be pissed with McDonald’s, sure, like their waiver from the government’s new healthcare program. But honestly, that says more about our government than it says about McDonald’s.

Listen, there are a gazillion other fast food chains out there serving very similar food. It is possible to make relatively healthy choices at McDonald’s, just like it’s possible to make relatively healthy choices in any grocery store, despite the fact that 90% of the stuff sold in a grocery store is, nutritionally, utter crap. McDonald’s sells salads and apples that, without the frankenoil dressings and sugary dips that come along with them, are a reasonable choice.

Take Starbucks, by comparison. While McDonald’s is the poster child of evil food that foodies love to hate, Starbucks never gets picked on, yet the vast majority of the stuff on their menu, whether it’s a sugary coffee drink or a brownie, is a coronary event waiting to happen. A 20 oz. Starbucks blended mocha frappuccino has a whopping 72 grams (that’s 17 teaspoons) of sugar in it. That’s around 17 times the amount of sugar dissolved in the blood of your entire body at this very moment.

Morgan Spurlock’s video on the french fry experiment concludes by stating, “How long would they have lasted? Try this experiment for yourself.”

Fine, Spurlock. You’re on!

The Experiment

It wasn’t until I saw Spurlock’s goofy video attempting to prove that McDonald’s is so lacking in nutrition that even microbes won’t touch it, that I decided to set up a little experiment of my own. Even according to Spurlock’s experiment, I was sure I’d see decomposition of the hamburgers without too much trouble. Although Spurlock says that the "regular restaurant hamburger" has mold on it after 2 weeks, I can't see any. Conveniently?, they threw it away after 3 weeks so they couldn't compare it to the McD's burgers. So I decided to make a homemade hamburger with beef from Costco and some cheap white buns. And I thought I’d like to test a few other variables that could affect decomposition rates, particularly with regard to McDonald’s fries. You can see in Spurlock's video that all the glass containers holding burgers were moist inside, but the fries were not.

Here are the variables in which I'm currently interested:

1) moisture
2) salt concentration (for french fries only)
3) different frying fats
4) other stuff in McDonald’s vs. homemade food. Preservatives and "chemicals"? This is usually what the McD's haters are claiming.

This led me to the following experimental design:

McD’s burger
Homemade burger fried in beef tallow
McD’s french fries with salt
McD’s french fries without salt
homemade french fries with salt
homemade french fries without salt

All of these were subjected to three treatments: glass jar without lid, glass jar with lid, glass jar with lid and 1/3 c water.

McDonald’s used to use a mixture of mostly beef tallow and around 7% cottonseed oil for their fries. Then they switched to a new vegetable oil blend some time during or after the 80s. So, I decided it might be interesting to test the effects of McD’s vegetable oil blend against some grassfed beef tallow from US Wellness Meats. There are some other variables that I won’t control for this particular time: such as the width of the french fry or the temperature of the cooking oil. The McD’s folks in Boulder were very helpful at providing french fries without salt.

Because I suspect that the frankenoils that McDonald’s uses might have something to do with their lack of decomposition (if that was really a real phenomenon observed by Spurlock), I decided to do a butter, margarine and “healthy spread” experiment as well.

Here’s the experimental design for the fats:

Butter
Margarine
Smart Balance

Each one is subjected to three treatments: glass jar without lid, glass jar with lid, glass jar with 1/6 c. water and lid.

Study Limitations

I already know that there are two clear limitations to these experimental designs.

1) There are no replicates.

2) There are a number of other interesting variables that could be tested, such as the effect of light, temperature, or another fast food chain, such as Burger King, on decomposition rates or what sorts of microbes colonize first.

Nevertheless, for simplicity’s sake, I decided to stick with just the variables above. Without even adding replicates, adding just two more variables would triple the amount of food I’d have to test. Likewise, adding in just two more replicates would bring the number of glass jars to 72.

I don’t have that many glass jars, and I’m not interested in spending all day making homemade french fries and hamburgers ... or writing up grant proposals so that I can afford to test decomposition rates of McDonald’s foods. Moreover, my husband just isn’t ready for our house to be filled with hundreds of jars of rotting food to satisfy the curiosity of his strange mycologist wife! Can you blame him?

Some Pictures

I wanted to make sure that I didn’t create unintentional bias by pulling out a bunch of old glass jars that have sat in my kitchen for a few years and thus, have varying levels of inoculum. So, I ran all my glassware in the dishwasher before beginning the experiment. Here it is:

Here’s the stuff I bought from the store. I meant to test two different types of Smart Balance but ended up not having enough jars, so I only tested the normal one, not the lowfat version.

Here’s the beef tallow and potatoes. Getting ready to make the homemade french fries.

Scale and french fry cutter.

Here are the potatoes I peeled and cut.

Here are the homemade fries.

I weighed all the McD’s fries and distributed equally into three jars for each type of fry (salted and unsalted). Then, I weighed out an equal amount of fries for each homemade treatment, and tried to distribute roughly 500 mg. salt on the fries. (I don’t have that sensitive of a scale at home, so I used slightly less than 1/4 tsp. salt, which is 590 mg.) I tried to keep the jars at the same size within each food item tested. I used smaller jars for the spreads and butter.

I placed all burgers (homemade or not) at the very bottom of the glass jar, and added water to the requisite jars. I noticed that the homemade burger took up the water readily, while it took the McD’s burger several minutes to absorb the same amount. That was interesting.

Homemade hamburgers: happy or not? We’ll see...

And here’s the entire experimental design, set up in my sunroom. You can see that curiosity is killing these cats.

Will the McDonald’s fries decompose? Will my homemade fries decompose? Is it the type of fats, the lack of water, or the salt that hinders decomposition of fries? Or none of these? And what about the burgers, the butter, and the “not butter”?

Today, Thursday Oct. 21, is Day 1 of the experiment. How will it end?

Stay tuned! Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your comments about how you think the experiment will turn out!

Friday, Oct. 22: Added some links, fixed some typos, added embedded Spurlock video and additional comments on the video.

Bad Dreams and a Crazy WOD

2010-10-02T14:35:00.002-06:00

Last night I had some bad dreams about my mother. I kept re-living both the experience of watching her have her stroke, and then the minutes before her death a week later, over and over again. Nights like this don't happen as often to me now, but when they do, they really suck. I felt like I was in the Stargate episode "The Gamekeeper" where Daniel Jackson has to relive his parents' death over and over again for someone else's amusement.

So you can imagine that I really didn't feel like getting up this morning. I just wanted to pull the covers over my head and stay in the darkness.

But... I'd only been to the gym to work out once this week on Tuesday. It's my goal to go in three times weekly. I was planning on going to work out on Thursday, but when I'm having trouble getting up and down off the toilet without assistance due to the delayed onset of muscle soreness, it's kinda hard (uh, impossible, not to mention quite likely destructive to my health) to motivate myself to go in and do another epic workout.

This AM I was feeling almost back to normal (physically), so I dragged myself out of bed and fired up the computer. I figured I'd check out the gym's blog where the WOD (workout of the day) is written down. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. I hoped it would be monster tire truck flipping, my favorite!

I n s t e a d . . . .

For time:
Run one mile
50 deadlifts (barbell/weight from the floor to your hips)
30 power cleans (barbell/weight from the floor to your shoulders)
20 thrusters (barbell/weight at your shoulders, then do a deep squat and come back up and push bar over your head in one explosive movement)
Run another mile

((((((( !?!WTF!?! ))))))))

Uh, does Satan really exist?

I knew I could get through the lifts. But... I haven't run a mile since 9th grade.

I'm not sure what I was thinking as I got the workout gear on, except that I'd better just go in and get it over with, since there are no workouts at my gym on Sundays. Heck, after the crappy dreams, why not just pack all the torture into one morning?

I asked my husband if I was crazy for going in to do this workout. He encouraged me to go, and he said I would be fine. Honestly, I really needed that encouragement. (But also, I don't think he was really paying attention to me as I told him what the workout entailed.) As I left, I called out, "OK, honey, I'll either see you at home in a couple of hours or I'll see you at the hospital!"

(Did I mention I haven't run a mile since high school?)

I ran the first mile without too much of a problem and without stopping. I couldn't believe it. This really goes to show you what a few months of jumping on boxes, pullups, pushups, kettlebell swings, "wall balls", burpees (the ultimate wind sucking exercise), and Olympic lifts can do for your cardiovascular system.

Then came the weightlifting. This was actually not the worst part. I've discovered that I love lifting weights. I did roughly 100 lifts in around 11 minutes. (And I probably could have handled about 10 more pounds than I put on the barbell. Next time I will try a similar workout with more weight.)

But.... There was that last mile to run, stretching out in front of me to what seemed like infinity. I put my Big Girl pants on and just did it. I had to stop and walk a few times. Honestly, running is so painful and boring. How on earth can people think it is fun? (Crazy people, you know who you are.) But guess what? I finished. The whole workout took me around 35 minutes, and I finished at the end of the pack, but I finished. (Seriously, who works out that hard for 35 minutes? Humor me as I revel in the accomplishment.)

I am continually amazed at what I've been able to accomplish in CrossFit. If you had told me I would be able to run a mile without stopping three months ago, I would have looked at you like you'd grown two heads. Forget adding in 100 Olympic lifts and running another mile after it all!

Sometimes before I go in, I look at the workouts and think, "That doesn't look too bad, I can do that." On other days, I think that really, there's no way that I'm going to come out of that gym alive. Today was one of those days. I've learned something really important over the past few months -- something that I really wish everyone I care about could experience for themselves. I am capable of things that I never thought were even remotely physically possible for me, and I am continuing to get even stronger. The weights I was lifting 3 months ago are insanely easy compared to what I can lift today. Every time I go in, I'm challenged with a new and different workout that I have no idea how I'll get through. But every time, I do get through it. It's an incredible feeling.

Here's something else. I know that this type of accomplishment is possible for everyone I know. Once you decide to just do it, it's actually not really all that hard. It just takes persistence.

On the way home, I realized what a good thing I'd done for myself by going in. I was not lying in bed feeling sorry for myself about dreams that I couldn't control, and I realized that in time, they will decrease in frequency and hopefully pass altogether.

Really, though, I should just stop freaking myself out by looking at the WODs on the WOD blog before I go in to do the workouts!

Saying Goodbye

2010-08-07T17:06:00.002-06:00

I've been at my parents' house cleaning it out for my dad's move back to NY. I've found some gems, including a diary of hers from 1984 when she was suffering from cancer and we were living in the Adirondack wilderness.

I cleaned out my mom's closet and the kitchen. I think cleaning the kitchen was worse than cleaning the closet and being around her clothes. My mom was always in the kitchen, and I felt like I was violating her property by taking most everything out of the kitchen and taking it to Goodwill. I wish I'd gotten to spend one more Thanksgiving with her. Really, I wish I'd just gotten another day with her. I'd give anything for just that.

It is very difficult to be cleaning out my mom's stuff so soon, but it has to be done. I keep telling myself that it's just stuff. But the littlest things make me break down in tears unexpectedly. I think it's because I know that when her things are gone, they are gone forever, and that means she's really gone, too. There won't be any more hiding behind a house full of possessions and trinkets that make me think that the next minute, she'll be just around the corner.

Losing my mother has been terrifically hard.

My Journey to CrossFit

2010-08-03T09:44:00.007-06:00

It's been ages since I've posted to this blog, but I have a story that I want to share.

I've been eating "paleo" for approximately 2 years now. While it works well at keeping my weight down without having to consciously think about the amounts of food I'm eating, I found that I wasn't achieving the body composition I wanted.

Last October, I went in for a routine checkup. My HDL and triglycerides were awesome, but my A1C was a little high at 5.8%. Sure, there's a range of healthy lab values for any given test, but I'd been eating paleo for a whole year! Why wasn't my A1C lower? It should at least be down near 5%! (A1C indicates the amount of sugars that are bound to your hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen around in your body. Higher values indicate that someone is on their way to Type II diabetes.)

I started to put the pieces of the puzzle together with others on the OEvolve list. A high fasting glucose (near 100 mg/dL) at noon after a low carb day indicated that my gluconeogenesis capability was high (yay! I'm a fat burner, not a sugar burner!), but my muscles were becoming insulin resistant in order to shunt enough glucose to my brain. I was a little concerned about that, since Type II diabetes runs in my family. I decided that I really needed to do a little high intensity resistance training and not only replicate the ancestral diet, but ancestral physical activity as well. This would get my insulin sensitivity in my muscles back up and I'd be able to lower my fasting glucose down to more reasonable levels.

I went to the community center gym 4-5 times to do Body By Science resistance training, and I definitely felt results, but I was bored. Maybe it was because I didn't have anyone to talk to. I stopped going to the gym in January.

I've always been an outdoor exerciser. Growing up on a northeastern lake, I can't even remember learning to swim. But as a kid, I wasn't very coordinated, and I was always the last one chosen to be on a team in gym class -- except for the one day during the schoolyear when we were in the pool!

After 10 years of education and summer fieldwork in a forestry school, I can wield a big chainsaw with no problem. Instead, I'm intimidated by the myriad fitness machines in gyms that I don't know how to operate that are probably far less dangerous. There were other issues, too, as Veronica Garza describes:

I have always had a fear of working out in public. I hated going to gyms because I worried that people would make fun of me if I couldn’t figure out how to use the complicated machines. Worse, I worried that they would think to themselves, “It’s a good thing she’s here. She really needs to be exercising more.” The truth is that nobody really thinks those things when you walk into a gym, but I had never found a place welcoming enough for me to feel otherwise.

I felt the same. After I started eating paleo, I even felt that way about CrossFit, too. I follow pretty much all the paleo blogs, and even though I moderate a forum of over 250 paleo eaters, when I read terms like "WOD", "clean and jerk", "burpee", and "snatch" (especially "snatch" -- can someone please rename that exercise?), my brain goes into freeze-up. CrossFit was an alien world with alien language and freaky-looking exercises I was confident I could never perform. I would never fit in that type of environment. People would laugh at me for sure. I knew I needed to do some sort of physical activity, but I was having a difficult time figuring out exactly what to do to get back in shape. I remained sedentary for six more months.

Then, tragedy struck on May 27, 2010. In an instant, my whole world changed. My 54 year old mom had a major stroke. After an enjoyable outing with my parents that day, we came home and 5 minutes after she stepped out of the driver's seat, I saw her lose the capacity to understand and create speech. Within a minute afterward, she'd also lost the ability to move anything on the right hand side of her body. I watched her become confused and try to fight the the paramedic and emergency hospital staff for several hours. I felt like my mother was gone. I could not be confident that she'd even recognized us in her last minutes awake, and I wondered if we'd ever get her back again. Additionally, my dad suffers from major health problems and was very dependent on my mom. She was a rock that held our whole family together. What was going to happen to the both of them now?

Before, when someone told me that their family member had a stroke, it was like they said that person had just eaten some strawberries. Sure, I knew what stroke was: that most strokes cut off oxygen supply to the brain, and that the person loses those particular functions that the oxygen-deprived area was responsible for. And I'd been around stroke victims, but I'd never known those people before their strokes. So, really, I had no concrete experience with a stroke.

That day, the experience of stroke was seared into my brain forever. When something like that happens that fast in front of your eyes to someone you never thought it could happen to, it changes your perspective on life completely. A few times since then, I've seen people get up from the table and walk funny because their foot is asleep, or make a funny face at me as if they've lost comprehension. My heart begins to pound. The emotional reaction is nearly automatic. Then... "Oh my god, they're having a stroke."

The doctors were baffled as to why my mom had had a stroke, because she didn't have a history of hypertension or "high cholesterol." I asked to see her bloodwork. Her HDL was in the 40s, her triglycerides were around 100. Not terrible. But not great, either. But within a few seconds of reading down the list, I realized exactly why she'd had a stroke.

1) Her A1C was 6.8%. No one knew that my mom was pre-diabetic. Diabetes is a risk factor for stroke.

2) Her CRP levels were off the charts. This indicates inflammation: inflammation is a sign of risk for all sorts of western diseases, including stroke.

3) She had inadequately treated hypothyroidism and a history of 2 cancers in her 20s. Both of these place an individual at a high risk for blood clots. My mom's stroke was an ischaemic stroke caused by a blood clot.

Over the course of a week, she worked very hard at recovery. She became able to move a bit on her right side, and she was learning to swallow again. She recognized all of us and was working valiantly to recover her speech, her understanding, and her movement.

But she died a week later, on June 3, of a saddle pulmonary embolism, which is a massive blood clot that fills up the pulmonary artery. I had never felt the power of death or darkness more strongly than I did in that moment, as I watched her hyperventilate to bring oxygen in that would never make it to the rest of her body, and her skin lose its pink color within seconds, with her hand continually reaching toward me as if to say, "This is the end. I'm sorry. I love you." She lost consciousness holding my hand.

In that moment I felt very strongly, and continue to believe, that humans are not meant to die in sudden, violent deaths through heart attack, stroke, pulmonary embolism, or by long, drawn out degenerative diseases like cancer. In hunter gatherer cultures, if people are able to reach old age, they decline for a few days and then die in their sleep. Everyone knows they are going to die, and the death is peaceful. Everyone has a chance to say goodbye.

For a month, I wondered how life could possibly continue without my mom. I struggled to get the horrible images out of my memory. (I'm still struggling with that.) A month after that, I resolved that I had to do something to improve my health to my personal best. I knew that simply eating right would probably never get me to where I wanted to be with regard to fitness, and my mother's experience scared the hell out of me. I didn't want to find myself in the same situation 20 or 30 years from now. Of course, no one can control their health destiny 100%. But I was going to try my best not to wind up in such an incapacitating situation.

So on July 17, I went in for an orientation class at my local CrossFit gym. For around 45 minutes, we did shoulder presses. Fun! I thought, "Well if this is it, I can definitely do this!" Then, we were assigned a mini workout, which consisted of three rounds of

running around the building
20 stick jumps
15 burpees

I was the last one to finish, and I thought I would die. Sure, you hear people say all the time, "I'm gonna die!" Uh, well, as I was struggling to complete the workout, I really did think I would die. I sat and coughed for 15 minutes after the workout.

As I sat there with searing lungs I reflected on my own personal history. Sure, I was never particularly coordinated or athletic, but I'd at least been in shape once. "I still hold an unbroken record for breaststroke at my high school! How on earth could I have let myself become this out of shape?" I wondered. The instructors said, "Good job" as I left. I thought, "Um... yeah, right!" I was totally embarrassed. How could I have allowed this to happen to myself?

I went in for five more sessions. These times, I didn't think I was going to die, but I dreaded each session before I went in. On the long ride in to town to CrossFit, I wondered what sort of weird new movement or superhuman feat was I going to have to perform this time? Yet here's what I found (in the words of Veronica Garza):

Although the workouts were testing and required a lot of effort, I was capable of completing them. My siblings helped me to start off at a level I was capable of achieving. This meant getting into a resistance band to complete pullups, doing pushups on my knees, and running shorter distances than what was prescribed. Everyone was very encouraging and I really felt like they wanted me to succeed.

I was astonished to find the same things. The people at the gym did want me to succeed. They were benevolent and patient. Hm, this was not what I'd experienced in high school gym class with impatient or indifferent gym teachers and classmates.

So last night, I signed up for a year of CrossFit. My goal is to go in 3 times weekly for 1 hour sessions each. (I'm not sure I'll be able to meet this goal right away, but surely I'll be able to do two sessions weekly).

Though I'm not sure I'll ever be able to deadlift 300 pounds, that doesn't matter. I'm on my way to experiencing this type of attitude, and it's a powerful thing:

Most importantly, I feel healthier, happier, fit, and more confident. Every day I am challenged with a new workout in the gym, but I know that every day I will get through it. This attitude now extends to every aspect of my life. I now realize that I am capable of achieving things that I never thought possible.

I'd like to extend a big thanks to those that have linked in blogs and Facebook about CrossFit, CrossFit folks everywhere, but particularly those at Flatirons CrossFit. My experience there has been nothing but positive. I'm a bit of an academic geek, so for my whole life I've shied away from the stereotypical "meathead." But I've been pleasantly surprised to find that the instructors there are patient and that I can learn a great deal from them. The gym patrons are nice, too. Sometimes people just walk up, shake my hand after their workout, and ask if I'm new.

Part of the point of this post is to encourage the unathletic, the overweight, or the out of shape people who may or may not be working out in an exercise program of their choice. If you are disappointed with your results over time from doing nothing (or... doing lots of "cardio", aerobics, or all manner of exercise machines), I encourage you to eat paleo, AND... check out CrossFit. I knew about CrossFit for two years, and I'm kicking myself for not trying it sooner. You won't be disappointed, and it will whip your ass into shape in very short order. And you CAN do it. At any fitness level, the instructors will work to scale the workouts for you.

I'll wrap it up with an inspiring video of Veronica Garza, who started CrossFit only a year ago. The video is totally amazing, and for CrossFit newbies, it will give you an idea of the types of exercises you will learn in short order, without a bunch of confusing terminology and symbols.

A year ago, it looks like she was doing overhead squats with approximately 30 lbs. Now she's deadlifting 300 pounds! Holy cow! (HT to Richard Nikoley of Free The Animal).

G7 Stories - Veronica Garza from G7 Athletics on Vimeo.

Can I stick with CrossFit for a year, too? I think I can. I certainly know that my mom would never want me to have to experience what she did.

Here's to you, Mom. This is how I want to remember you.

Colorado Mountain Home for Sale

2009-10-28T12:55:00.002-07:00

Hello, anyone who still reads this blog!

If you know anyone who might be interested in buying a beautiful home in the mountains in Colorado, please take a look at our advertisement on EBay, which has more information and photographs, and pass the link along. Thanks!

Reject the Cultural Revolution For What It Is

2009-09-04T11:23:00.005-06:00

I’ve grown tired with blogging about politics in general, and rarely do so anymore. I’m too busy living. However, this whole “Obama school speech” fiasco merits a bit of my snarky attention. It won’t be deep cultural or political commentary, just my own blunt thoughts that will hopefully give a few people a new perspective. Particularly those who have been clogging up my Facebook feed with political opinions. A minor annoyance, but quid pro quo. If you’re already bored to tears about hearing about this issue, I can’t really blame you. Feel free, as with anything else I write, to move along.

Much ado has been made about the President’s speech to schoolchildren. Both sides are up in arms about it, expressing their righteous indignation about one thing or another.

Suddenly, thousands of conservatives are horrified about a presidential address to public school students. It’s unconstitutional, he wants to brainwash them, they will protest, they will keep their children home from school, give them earmuffs, tell them to look away, etc., etc., etc.

Coversely, people who are creeped out about the President speaking to their children are branded by liberals as back-water, inbred, uneducated, white supremacist Christian fundamentalist racists who can’t spell, etc., etc., etc.

Yawn.

First, Reagan, George HW Bush, and George W Bush administrations all had a presence in the public school system. Does anyone remember Nancy Reagan’s obnoxious “Just Say No” campaign? What a barrel of monkeys that was. I’m young enough to remember how well that went over when we were herded into the gymnasium. Blah. If any of these presidents had issued a message to students saying that students should work hard to get ahead, that education is important for the future, that it’s “cool” to be smart and not do drugs, and that too much time shouldn’t be spent in front of the TV or playing video games, etc., it wouldn’t have struck me as odd.

Maybe that’s part of the problem. Maybe such messages should faze us. Increasingly, in today’s culture of grade inflation, schooling is presented as some sort of singularly important goal. An eighth grade education used to be sufficient to get along in the world. Now we have people graduating from high school who can't read. Even so, now “everyone should graduate from high school.” And now, in recent decades, alarming statistics are being thrown around that “only” around 25% of people attend college, and shouldn’t everyone have the “right” to attend college? Etc. Everyone has “rights” to an education… not just high school but college, grad school, and soon, who knows, maybe an eternity of publicly funded continuing education programs until the age of 70.

Why is all this considered good? My husband is a high school dropout, and he’s a genius. (That’s why he dropped out. He’s done rather well for himself, too.) Ben Franklin was self-taught. If I have kid(s), they’ll be self-educated with sensible guidance, but not schooled. Not over my dead body. They won’t be taught that formal education is a virtue in and of itself.

I went to a public school system and turned out fine… at least, most of my friends and family think so. Ha. I know plenty of other people who have sent their kids to a public school and it seems to be working out fine for them. I don’t condemn that choice. However -- why is schooling presented as a singularly important value? Why don’t we think about that question for a change? And if the public schools are so goddamn great, why don’t many of our public “servants” trust their offspring to them? I dissent from the very message that everyone needs an “education”, much less a public one, for some greater collective good. If you don’t like my dissent, remember that “Dissent is patriotic.” ha.

But I’ve gotten off on a tangent. I think there is another deeper concern here that is very valid. And that is the main concern I wish to address.

This is not just a straightforward presidential address about the importance of staying in school so that we can all live the quintessential American dream. (As I said above, I don’t even agree with that message, but whatever…) No, this is an address being presented as benevolent at best, harmless at worst, that is probably going to be laden with, and possibly accompanied by, creepy collectivist notions and classroom activities that ask schoolchildren to reflect on questions such as:

“Why is it important that we listen to the President and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?”

“What is the President trying to tell me?”

“What is the President asking me to do?”

Are you fucking kidding me? “What is the President trying to tell me?” “What is the President asking me to do?”

Seeing our elected officials as some sort of know-it-all, authoritarian figures that they should unquestioningly respect (worse, obey) is completely contrary to one the principles that the founders of this country held dear: individual intellectual independence. To put it plainly, the questions above are downright creepy. If people don’t like the analogies between the formation of the Hitlerjugend and Obama rallying support from youth, I suggest viewing this.

People would also do well to remember that the left routinely compared GW Bush to Hitler. Now the shoe is on the other foot and they can’t handle it.

Citizens and children are not here to serve elected officials. This whole “school speech” thing more easily be ignored outside the context of the Obama administration’s other activities: citizens being encouraged to report their neighbors on a White House website for making “fishy” statements, White House officials using social media to gather data on citizens, etc. And it could be more easily ignored if we did not see iconic images and words of the nation’s leader, everywhere you go, all the time:

If you deny that the images above are strongly propagandistic, you’ve been living in a cave your entire life. I took the above images from the web using a Google Image search of “Obama vintage.” The upper right picture is a take on the “Che Guevara” t-shirts that I saw numerous idiot western tourists wearing, all over Tiananmen Square no less, on my last trip to Beijing in 2005. The one at the bottom middle with the star has clear Soviet connotations. This is not conspiracy theory stuff.

I'll grant that the same sort of nationalistic personality cult emerged around George Bush in the fundamentalist Christian community, with pictures of him on church bulletin boards, overhead projectors, and even cardboard cutouts that kids would pray to. It was downright scary. However, it was largely confined to the private sphere and rejected by the culture at large. The Christian right eventually became deeply disappointed with Bush after finding out that he was not “God’s man in the White House” after all.

Here’s the crux of the problem. Given the administration's actions thus far, there's perfectly good reason to believe this will not be a benign little presidential speech about working hard and staying in school. Obama is a narcissist in permanent campaign mode, going around the country trying to sell his collectivist-altruist “brother’s keeper” agenda (whether it’s education, healthcare, or anything else), with an army of followers and teams of youth calling anyone who doesn’t agree with the Great Leader names/traitors/un-American/unpatriotic. Who knows, maybe this blogpost will get me landed on a new special “terrorist watch list.” Sound familiar?

Earth to Obama & Co: Some of us are getting tired of the “Country/Others/First Follow-The-Leader” bullshit. We didn’t like it under Bush and we don’t like it now. We didn’t vote for Bush. Or Obama. Or McCain. We are weary of you and your petty little band of miscreants, and we want you to go home and snooze for awhile.

As always, a bit of humor helps.

How to Scare People With Statistics

2009-09-03T16:25:00.003-06:00

For those of you who don't know yet, I'm writing a book with a friend on pregnancy and pre-pregnancy nutrition. I know... a far cry from mushrooms for sure [yes, I'm still very interested in those], and I'm not a certified nutritionist, but it's something I've learned a lot about in the past two years.

In any case, today my friend and I came across the following statement: "Listeria is a serious threat: it has been responsible for 2,500 illnesses and up to 500 deaths a year. Some studies estimate that 30% of those deaths involve pregnant women and their fetuses. Listeriosis can cause miscarriage or premature birth."

I hate statements like this. First, it's designed to scare people. Second, it's basically out of context bullshit.

Let's accept as a fact, for the sake of argument, that 30% of the deaths from listeria are pregnant women and their fetuses. OK, but women are in childbearing years for approximately 25 years of their 77 year life. Guess how much that is? Exactly 30%. Since we're counting the fetus as a death also, that is no more death by listeria, on average, than experienced by the rest of the population. Clearly, just because a pregnant woman gets listeria, it doesn't mean that she or her fetus are more likely to die because of that infection than anyone else.

So why are we telling pregnant women to avoid things like raw seafood, sushi, and pate? Because health professionals and government bureaucrats apparently have a mystical belief (yes, mystical, mythical, quasi-religious, i.e. without evidence or proof) that pregnant women are fragile beings, somehow more susceptible or likely to die of infection than anyone else. Where is the evidence? And both liver and seafood are the TOP sources of vitamin K2-M4. Additionally they supply vitamins A, D3, and essential fatty acids in high amounts. K2-M4 and D3 are critical vitamins for skeletal and immune system development, respectively (actually, skeletal development is dependent on both) and are sucked up by the fetus in high amounts. This is, incidentally, why pregnant and lactating women so often begin to suffer chronic dental problems they've never seen before getting pregnant.

Essential fatty acids are crucial for a developing infant's brain. Deficiency of D3 and K2 is CHRONIC in American society, and vitamin D3 (and probably K2) is seriously depleted in pregnancy and lactation. While food is not an excellent source of D3, it is the ONLY source of vitamin K2. K2 forms provided by plants and bacterial fermentation are likely not as well-utilized by humans.

So, in essence, these recommendations cut of the two prime sources of what is probably the most well-utilized form of vitamin K2 in humans.

What behavior really represents the greater risk here? A miniscule chance of a woman and her fetus dying from listeria (0.00016 percent, to be exact)? Or the mother and/or her fetus being at increased risk of asthma, autoimmune and other immune disorders, dental decay, ALL cancer, depression, and the likelihood that the developing child will have to wear braces because its skull didn't develop normally?

Ugh.

Correction: It just occurred to me that obviously all the women of childbearing age aren't pregnant all the time, so the rate of death of pregnant women and their fetuses IS probably a lot higher than that of the average population (duh, Monica). Still, 500 deaths in the entire country every year due to listeria is very low, and I think these recommendations are doing a lot of harm. Your risk of dying in a car accident is about 1%, as opposed to .00016% (risk of dying of listeria).

My Kind of Vacation!

2009-06-05T21:40:00.000-06:00

THE ULTIMATE ADVENTURE CRUISE

To The Point News
Thursday, 07 May 2009

To The Point is excited to offer the ultimate adventure cruise along the pirate-infested coast of Somalia!

We board our luxury cruise ship in Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden near the entrance to the Red Sea, and disembark in Mombassa, Kenya, seven adrenaline-charged days later.

Starting at $5,200 per-person (double occupancy, inside room) and $6,900 (veranda complete with bench rest), you'll relax like never before.

That's because you are welcome to bring your own arsenal with you. If you don't have your own weapons, you can rent them from our onboard Master Gunsmith. Enjoy reloading parties every afternoon with skeet and marksmanship competitions every night!

But the best fun of all, of course, is Pirate Target Practice.

For the object of the cruise is to sail up and down the Somali Coast waiting to get hijacked by pirates. The weapons rental costs are as follows.

Rent a full auto M-16 for only $25/day with ammo attractively priced at $16 per 100 rounds of 5.56 armor-piercing:

On a budget? Rent a full-auto scope-mounted AK-47 for only $9/day with 7.62 ball ammo at $12 per 100 rounds:

Hello! Nothing gets a pirate's attention like a Barrett M-107 50-cal sniper rifle; only $59/day with 25 rounds of armor-piercing ammo affordably priced at only $29.95.

Need a spotter? Our professional crew members can double as spotters for only $30/hour (spotting scope included, but gratuities are not.)

Want to make a real impact? Rent an RPG for only $175/day with three fragmentation rounds included!

Also included: Free complimentary night vision equipment - and throughout the night, coffee, pastries and snacks are always available on the main deck from 7pm until 6am.

Our deluxe package comes complete with gourmet meals and all rooms offer a mini-bar.

But that's not all! Twin mounted miniguns are available for rental at only $450.00 per 30 seconds of sustained fire!

We guarantee that you will experience at least two hijacking attempts by pirates or you'll receive an instant $1,000 refund upon arrival in Mombassa.

How can we make that guarantee? We operate at 5 knots just beyond 12 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia , thus in international waters where pirates have no rights whatever. In fact, we make three passes through the area's most treacherous waters to ensure maximum visibility by Somali "mother ships".

We repeat this for five days, making three complete passes past the entire Somali Coast. At night, the boat is fully lit and bottle rockets are shot every five minutes with loud disco music directionally beamed shoreside to attract maximum attention.

Testimonials from previous participants in the Somali Cruise:

"Six attacks in 4 days were more than I expected. I bagged three pirates, my wife nailed two, and my 12-year old son sank two boats with the mini-gun. This wonderful cruise was fun for the whole family" -- Fred D., Cincinnati , OH

"Pirates 0, Passengers 32! Well worth the trip! Can't recommend it highly enough!" -- Ben L., Bethesda , MD

"I haven't had this much fun since flying choppers in ' Nam . Don't worry about getting shot by pirates... they never even got close to the ship with the crap they shoot and their lousy aim... reminds me of a drunken juicer door-gunner we picked up from the motor pool in Phu Bai!" -- Dan J. -Denver , CO

Come on board and bag your own clutch of genuine Somali pirates! But cabin space is limited so you need to respond quickly. Reserve your package before June 30th and get a great bonus -- 100 rounds of free tracer ammo in the caliber of your choice. So sign up for the Ultimate Somali Coast Adventure Cruise now!

Spring

2009-04-26T21:10:00.005-06:00

Is it here yet? Not really. Summer doesn't really come until June up here and even then we can get flurries. But there is a lull in winter weather all the time so that we can enjoy spring-like activities. Our 4.5 feet of snow is already pretty much gone. Amazing.

I opened my hive for the first time since last fall. The bees are quite numerous, have not used up much of their winter stores due to the mild weather earlier this winter, and seem healthy. However, the queen has become extremely unproductive. This happens when you capture swarms. The bees are free and it's fun to do, but you just don't know how old the queen is. There are very few new larvae. I will have to re-queen soon since there is no sign that they are making a new queen. However, there is no sign of illness, either. That's good.

Unfortunately, all the people in the country selling "survivor stock" queens, particularly the company I'm interested in buying from, are booked for queens through June. Damn. These queens are bred without medications in attempts to develop disease-resistant queens -- unlike most of the queens you can buy everywhere that are bred for maximum honey production, etc. Disease resistance is basically thought to be a myth in the beekeeping community, but I will re-queen again this fall with survivor stock. I would also like to get 1-2 more beehives in case of a swarm of this hive, or to capture more swarms.

A brief word on my current thoughts on beekeeping. Typically, beekeepers kill hives any time foulbrood is encountered and heavily medicate for Nosema and varroa mites. Most people intensively manage their bees. There is even some new evidence that by providing comb with cell size that is slightly too large, instead of letting bees making their own preferred cell size, humans are making bees susceptible to varroa mites!

After consideration, I don't think any of this is wise. Without some sort of natural selection taking place, we will not develop resistant bees. Pay now or pay later. For too many decades, commercial beekeepers have followed the "pay later" philosophy in an attempt to maximize production. The parallels to industrial agriculture are striking. And it isn't working. "Colony collapse disorder" appears to be a combination of a new virulent strain of Nosema, pesticides, and other stresses such as varroa mites. It is not one factor but you will not hear about it in the media because people like to look for simple causes. The real world is not that simple sometimes. Michael Bush has been keeping his bees without medications for decades and does fine. I have a lot to learn about beekeeping as I've only been doing this for three years, but I've decided to try this approach also.

The sky is not falling and I have stopped believing that any apocalypse is coming with regard to so-called CCD. Bees have been around for millions of years and they would be and will be fine without our help. However, if we keep burning hives with foulbrood and slamming hives with antibiotics twice a year, we will not breed resistant bees. If we keep medicating for Nosema twice a year, we will not breed resistant bees. If we keep miticides in the hive year-round, we will not breed resistant bees. (We will breed resistant foulbrood, Nosema, and mites, though!) More and more, I'm coming to see parallels between the health of humans, their pets, their livestock, etc. All of these organisms are sick for perfectly logical reasons: humans are treating symptoms rather than root causes. Over the long run this simply makes the problem worse. This doesn't mean "artificial" inputs are never needed. But it does mean that they shouldn't be excessively used as a band-aid to replace an organism's natural mode of survival. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Enough on that.

The smoker used to calm the bees.

The bees.

In other spring news, I figured it was time to start working on our yard. We are holding our wedding reception at the house so I have a lot of work to do, especially since I did no gardening last year and I am completely unfamiliar with the Colorado climate. Today, I planted 400 annual and perennial seeds, with more on the way. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully they will germinate, not get eaten by critters, and will do well in our harsh climate and dry soil. I tried to pick varieties that would do well in these conditions. You can see I'm about to run out of egg cartons for seeds! I am also in the process of planting bulbs outside. Phew!

It was a day full of spring activity. I'm exhausted, but it felt great!

Dumb Blonde

2009-04-08T21:37:00.003-06:00

Blonde jokes bug me because I am a blonde. But this is too funny. Almost as bad as Miss Teen South Carolina.

Hoo boy, check it out:

Great Atheism Posters

2009-04-08T17:46:00.003-06:00

I found these interesting atheism posters through Jason's blog. Having grown up in a fundamentalist Christian home, I can appreciate these. (I'm not bitter anymore. Religion is just ridiculous.)

My almost-favorite.

My favorite. Even in my rather enlightened liberal Christian college environment (as of ten years ago) they were still spreading the idea in Western Civilization classes that the Dark Ages weren't really all that bad. Seriously.

Global Warming Alarmists (i.e. Scientific American) on the Defense?

2009-04-01T10:43:00.002-07:00

From Robbservations. Post and linked article well worth the read.

Then there's this from RealClimate, James Hansen's mouthpiece. Admittedly an April Fool's joke, but of late they've really been on the defense, with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Are the climate alarmists feeling the heat? Perhaps so.

Vitamin D Results

2009-03-27T17:13:00.002-07:00

I just got my results. My vitamin D level was only 30 ng/mL. That is after over a year of supplementing with cod liver oil, which has 500 IU per 1/2 tsp. I take around 2 tsp. at a time, or 2000 IU. This was also after several sessions of sitting out in the sun this spring at high altitude, 8400 feet. Granted, I have not taken the cod liver oil religiously every day. However, my diet is very good (raw milk, eggs, meat, occasional liver [very high in vitamin D!!]) and although food is not a sufficient source of vitamin D, I probably get around 400IU daily in my food, the government's recommended level.

I can only imagine what my levels would have been on a worse diet without any supplementation at all. Yikes!

This certainly helps to explain why I've always been very susceptible to colds and flu and why I got one cold already this winter and had to take a megadose of vitamin D (50,000IU) a couple of weeks ago in order to ward off yet another cold. I'm not sure what my levels are now after having taken that megadose, which was only about a week after I sent in my test. The expert graphs at grassrootshealth.org indicate that supplementation of every 1000IU for four months will raise D levels 10 ng/mL. Since I want to be at 80 ng/mL, I'll adjust my daily dose toward my target level if I can figure out how much a one-time 50,000IU dose would have raised my levels.

It's quite clear from the small sample size of the population so far at grassrootshealth.org that the majority of the population is deficient, just like I was. I think this serves as a great reminder that you have zero idea what your vitamin D levels are unless you get yourself tested. It's also corroborating evidence that the government's recommended daily intake level stinks.

Get your levels up high enough (60-80 ng/mL) for long enough and you begin to dramatically decrease your risk for a wide range of diseases and health problems. See grassrootshealth.org for more information.

Blizzard Update II

2009-03-27T07:45:00.004-07:00

This was yesterday. The actual level is up to her shoulders now.

Now for the cleanup!

Blizzard Update I

2009-03-26T11:18:00.003-07:00

From the Weather Channel:

Winter storm to pound Denver today and tonight: March is known for its big snowstorms in Denver and Thursday's storm may produce the heaviest snowfall the city experiences all season.
Denver's average seasonal snowfall is 61.7 inches (1971-2000 period). The city has only received 19.1 inches of snow this season. This is obviously well-below average.

I can tell you that the forecast for our area is not that accurate. Of course we are not in Denver and we will easily get more snow than Denver, but the national weather service was predicting 1.5 to 2 feet total for our area. We are already at 1.5 feet and it's only 12.30PM. The snow warning is in effect for 18 more hours. We estimate that we could get at least 3 feet.

Here are some more recent pictures. The picture I took in the post before was only a few hours ago. It's really coming down, as you can see.

This is our BBQ grill where were just grilling in 70 degree weather last week.

The bees are no doubt in a tight ball keeping warm and feasting on stored honey. They will be back out as soon as it hits 55 or more.

Just a couple of hours ago, we have even more now.

Yes, that's Robb in his bathrobe outside with Dora.

Changing Weather

2009-03-26T08:03:00.003-07:00

The weather in the mountains of Colorado is always changing. In January you can get 70 degree cloudless days, or flurries in mid-June.

Last winter was incredibly cold. We went an entire month without it getting above freezing. (Precipitation was still relatively low compared to the 2006-2007, though). This year, we've had a real dearth of snow -- only about 2 feet so far -- and March, usually the snowiest month, brought no precipitation whatsoever. In fact, it's felt like summer the entire month. Some of my time outside has been in flip flops and sleeveless shirts. We have had very different weather than some on the east coast, which has been slammed with snow.

As a result of this dry summer-like weather, forests are extremely dry. My neighbor has lived here for 16 years and we got together last week-end to assess our properties and make plans for tree thinning and slash cleanup for fire mitigation/pine beetle prevention and said she's never seen it so dry. A few weeks ago, our county instituted a fire ban.

Here are some pictures of my bees just a few days ago in sunny, 70 degree weather foraging for pollen. You can see the pollen baskets are full on a few of these bees (bright yellow balls on their legs). I have no idea what the pollen is. I can't imagine they are collecting it from flowers as I've seen none in bloom yet. Pine pollen, maybe? Resourceful little critters.

Conversely, here is the weather today:

Needless to say we are happy it is snowing. 1.5 to 2 more feet are forecast. This puts us out of danger of a forest fire... for the time being, anyway. Hopefully we will get hammered in April, too. (Never thought I'd hear myself wishing for so much snow.)

Swimming in Milk

2009-03-25T19:59:00.002-07:00

We are virtually swimming in milk in this house. We get a gallon of raw milk weekly which is really more than we can use. Currently I have a quart of two week old milk that will be fed to the dog over the rest of the week. There is also about 1/2 gallon of homemade kefir in my fridge -- it's a bit more convenient to make than yogurt and lends itself a bit better to smoothies. (Have you tried kefir? It's a fascinating, slightly alcoholic drink I just started to make with some of Diana's donated kefir grains. I do love the products of fermentation!) And then there is about 3/4 gallon of fresh milk, with another gallon on the way on Friday. I've found it difficult to make butter from the skimmed cream because I usually end up getting some milk in it. So when I want to make butter, I just order a quart of cream from the farm and that amount of butter is enough to last a few weeks. I often make homemade ice cream, too, which is not as sensitive to a little adulteration with milk.

All in all, we are overflowing with milk. Whew! How to use it all?

I came across a great post by Liz at Nature's Harmony Farm Blog. Get a load of those gorgeous bottles of milk. Do those look delicious or what? Their calf is weaned so they are now getting 3-4 gallons of milk daily. YIKES! That's over 20 gallons weekly! Turns out she has been making cheese:

I have been skimming this cream by the quart full. First, I made butter. Then, Tim made ice cream. But we still had more cream, so I ventured on to make cream cheese. Wow, was this easy! Now we make these things on a regular basis and are experimenting with different flavors of ice cream and making cream cheese dips. All delicious!

But once you skim off the cream, you are still left with gallons of milk. Since Honey is a Jersey cow with a little Swiss, her milk has a very high butterfat content. If the milk has sat for more than a day before skimming, the heavy cream on top is as thick as paint. Even with the cream skimmed, her milk is not like skim milk. It is even thicker than 2% milk, but not quite like whole milk. I've been drinking LOTS of chocolate milk...YUM! But we needed to use up this milk, so I've been dabbling with cheese making.

I've made some simple cheeses before, but it uses a lot of milk and can get expensive. Now I have all of the Farmhouse Cheddarraw materials, but not the know-how. It always seemed so complicated to me to make cheese, especially hard cheese which needs to be aged. But I've been reading and decided to jump right in. I made the cream cheese and mozarella first. Easy! Then I made Queso Blanco. Easy! With my confidence up I decided to try a Farmhouse Cheddar. Easy! I couldn't believe that it worked - at least I think it did. I won't actually know until it ages for two months.

I think this would be an excellent way for me to use up some of my milk. Nourishing Traditions has great ideas for many fermented milk products but is light on cheesemaking details. Cheesemaking has always seemed complicated to me, but I'm now skeptical how hard it actually is since I've seen how easy it is to make butter, etc. So I dropped a note and asked her where I could find out more about making cheese. It sounds fun!

I'll keep you posted if I end up doing it.

Seafood Casserole

2009-03-25T06:26:00.004-07:00

I always enjoy surfing other peoples' blogs for recipes. Of late, I've been slow roasting steaks via Richard's method and it works fabulously. The other night we had tri tip steaks that were to die for and all I added were salt and pepper.

I don't "do" casseroles of the type seen above anymore. Most of my cooking is stovetop, crockpot (heavenly to make bone broth and smell it all day long), or on the grill. However, I've made a similar casserole dish, stovetop style, twice now (the second time was just last night) and thought I'd share it in case any of you want to try it out. This is the type of meaty casserole with loose juice you can often get in Korean restaurants. The ingredients here are by no means Korean, and it doesn't even remotely taste Korean but it is that same style and should be served in a bowl. Try it out if you can find some seafood on sale.

Ingredients

shrimp
scallops (quantity of all these depends on how many you are feeding)
canned tomatoes -- around 14 oz?
green beans (fresh, frozen) OR asparagus (preferably fresh)
white wine (any type you'd like to have with dinner)
butter
coconut oil
heavy cream
salt

Start off by melting coconut oil and butter in a pan at low temperature. 2 T. of each should do for a meal for two, maybe a bit more of the butter. It should be enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Fry the shrimp and scallops and low temperature until they are cooked about halfway through. Add about 1/2 cup or so of white wine. I prefer sauvignon blanc but probably any white wine will do. Add green beans (or asparagus, if you prefer asparagus) and tomatoes (with juice). Simmer for 5 minutes. Add about 1/2 c. heavy cream, possibly more, and salt to taste. Reduce the sauce to your liking.

Serve in a big bowl and be sure to give each bowl a good helping of the sauce. Enjoy with the same wine you used in the dish. This would be perfect recipe to mop up sauce with bread if you eat it. I don't. I just eat the solid ingredients with a spoon, dipping shrimp as necessary, and then drink by spoon whatever juice is left at the end.

Unfortunately I didn't take a picture but you can imagine how pretty it is with the variety of colors. And trust me, it's delicious.

Thinking "Outside the Box" on Diet

2009-03-24T12:26:00.004-07:00

What box? The low-carb box.

You've just heard me praise the benefits of a low carb diet for glucose control in diabetics in the past post. While this is true, we should always be on the lookout for controlled studies or good observational studies that contradict what we think we know. More specifically, we should refine our understanding of exactly what entities are problematic in certain food groups which we are already suspicious of as causing health problems.

I recently read a blogger who said that maybe people are too uptight about carbs. I think this is true, but perhaps not for the same reasons. What do I mean by that? Well, there's a certain attitude out there that health is largely genetically determined and that we can eat whatever foods are available to us so long as we do so "in moderation." In other words, it's not really up to us whether we get obese or get heart disease or diabetes. It's pretty much genetically determined. The only thing we can do is try not to eat too many calories, exercise a bit, hope for the best, and then throw drugs at a health problem once it arises. I strongly disagree and the best science available to us does not support such an assertion. When you come to learn that certain foods are a type of slow-acting poison, the idea of "moderation" seems absurd.

That said, we really do need a better understanding of what types of foods and what entities in those foods cause health problems before making swift or premature judgments. We do have solid ideas, but limiting "carbs" may be too simplistic. Perhaps not all carbohydrate-laden food is bad for our health. (I'm speaking strictly from a standpoint of health, not temporary enjoyment. If you are after temporary enjoyment in the absence of context of any health goals, you can justify eating just about anything.)

There are some foods with a pretty high carbohydrate fraction that I believe could be part of a healthy diet. For instance, I'm not at all convinced that potatoes are harmful to anyone but the glucose-intolerant (i.e. the obese, pre-diabetic, and diabetic). We know that the Irish ate a heck of a lot of potatoes. Until the potato famine, the Irish were almost completely dependent upon potatoes. My guess is that they would have done poorly if they did not have any source of animal protein or fat, but I wonder if there is any evidence of diabetes, heart disease, etc. at that time. It would be fascinating to know whether this population from 1600s to the mid 1800s was exempt from other western diseases of civilization that some increasingly believe are caused by carbohydrate.

Not only did the average Irish family of six consume 250 lbs. potatoes weekly, the population doubled from 1800 to 1845. Because the climate was so remarkable for growing potatoes, people were able to be fairly leisurely and abandon other food production — and married earlier, had larger families, and were able to nurse more newborns. That means an average of 6 lbs. potatoes per person per day. Although potatoes are starchy -- in other words, full of sugar, yes -- they have a fair amount of complete protein unlike other vegetables. Six lbs of potatoes is 2500 calories, with 63 grams of protein if one just eats potatoes. That makes potatoes start to sound pretty decent as a major part of the diet and a source of all essential amino acids. (All of the historical information comes from Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds by George Hudler.)

Although these numbers above may be a bit off for average daily intake (6 pounds is a lot -- this means men would have had to eat more to compensate for less intake among women and children), we do know that the Irish relied on potatoes heavily. When corn was imported from America to aid in alleviating the famine, the Irish rejected it, even though they were starving. Apparently their digestive systems were very conditioned to potatoes. In light of this, it would be fascinating to discover more about Irish health at that time. Were they fat? Did they get heart disease? What about diabetes?

This reflects an evolution in my thinking on such dietary matters over the past year. Gary Taubes calls for a more heavy evaluation of the carbohydrate hypothesis at the end of his book Good Calories, Bad Calories. He wouldn't have called for such an evaluation if he considered it proven. Many cultures enjoy a heavy carbohydrate intake with seemingly few health problems (diabetes, cancer, obesity, heart disease) that plague western civilization. Notably, these cultures often chiefly eat starchy tubers or rice. Potatoes lack some of the toxins found in grains and legumes that are suspected of causing modern health problems. In light of this, it would be fascinating to know more about the body composition and health of the Irish just prior to the potato famine if such case studies exist (I'll leave it to health experts to search for and evaluate that information, though). Such information could provide a basis for the types of experiments that Taubes calls for at the end of his book.

I think this excerpt from Stephan's most recent post adequately sums up my evolving thoughts on carbohydrate:

...there's a difference between post-meal glucose and insulin surges and chronically elevated glucose and insulin. Chronically elevated insulin is a marker of metabolic dysfunction, while post-meal insulin surges are not (although glucose surges in excess of 140 mg/dL indicate glucose intolerance). Despite what you may hear from some sectors of the low-carbohydrate community, insulin surges do not necessarily lead to insulin resistance. Just ask a Kitavan. They get 69% of their 2,200 calories per day from high-glycemic starchy tubers and fruit (380 g carbohydrate), with not much fat to slow down digestion. Yet they have low fasting insulin, very little body fat and an undetectable incidence of diabetes, heart attack and stroke. That's despite a significant elderly population on the island.

Yes. And we're also aware of two other native groups in Europe through Weston Price's research that apparently did not suffer from modern health problems yet they had high carbohydrate intake from soaked/sprouted grains. These are are a world of difference biochemically from "whole grains" advocated by health authorities today in phytate, lectins, protease inhibitors, and even gluten content in the case of long sourdough fermentation. Traditional processing of grains removes or greatly reduces these entities. Modern processing does not (and especially since quick-rise techniques have been adopted). Again, from the same post:

Let's take a look at how healthy cultures eat their carbohydrate foods. Cultures that rely heavily on carbohydrate generally fall into three categories: they eat cooked starchy tubers, they grind and cook their grains, or they rely on grains that become very soft when cooked...

The human digestive system is delicate. Cows can eat whole grass seeds and digest them using their giant four-compartment stomach that acts as a fermentation tank. Humans that eat intact grains end up donating them to the waste treatment plant...

Grain consumption and grinding implements appear simultaneously in the archaeological record. Grinding has always been used to increase the digestibility of tough grains, even before the invention of agriculture when hunter-gatherers were gathering wild grains in the fertile crescent. Some archaeologists consider grinding implements one of the diagnostic features of a grain-based culture.

Carbohydrate-based cultures have always prioritized digestibility and nutritional value over GI. Have nutrition authorities suddenly gotten smarter than them in the last 20 years?

I recommend his blog and the comments line of each post for some good skeptical thinking on the glycemic index, what types of carbohydrate are probably unhealthy, what types of processing are healthy and even necessary for our foods, and what we know about human health throughout human history. Much of the information on historical use of carbohydrate seems lost on, or ignored by, the larger "paleo" and "low carb" communities. All of the information on the effects of agricultural products on human health is lost on, or ignored by, our modern nutritional "authorities" and thus, the vast majority of the population.

The same type of critical thinking needs to be applied to "processed food." It's critical to examine the definition of a processed food as well as what types of processing are good and bad for our health. That said, when it comes to human diet, which we know from anthropological studies experiences heavy selection pressure, the precautionary principle is in order. In other words, deviating from the evolutionarily prescribed path needs to be proven to be healthy. What does that mean? It means that the burden of proof is on new foods in use for only 10,000 years or 40 years -- not the foods that humans have been eating for millions of years, foods that were selected for by evolution over time.

Positive Personal Improvements in Type II Diabetes

2009-03-24T10:07:00.005-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I dropped a note on Dr. Eades' blog about my frustration with my grandfather's situation. He's 78 and has been a Type II diabetic for 25 years. He managed his condition relatively well without insulin for at least a decade. However, years of slamming himself with too high of a carbohydrate intake (although probably relatively low compared to most Americans) hasn't helped, and his kidneys recently started to fail.

At my wits end (and knowing that low carb would definitely help my grandfather), I sent him Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution last week at Dr. Eades' suggestion. My grandfather had been ordered on a low potassium diet for awhile by his doc around a month ago. Incidentally, it seems this is a slightly carb limiting diet as well, although he can still have one piece of white bread daily. He is not allowed to have bananas and a lot of other carb-heavy stuff so I suspected he is incidentally controlling his blood glucose in addition to ridding the body of potassium, although that is not the intention of the diet.

He has now read Diabetes Solution almost in entirety and told me he’s learned a ton.

Here are the results of 3-4 weeks on the low potassium diet (which is a semi-low-carb diet, although I’m honestly not sure exactly how many grams he’s eating daily) and after just 1 week of reading Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution and incorporating some dietary suggestions from that book as well:

25 lbs. weight loss in approximately a month.

Waking glucose levels down to 95 ng/mL… not sure what they were before, and it's still not ideal, but it’s definitely an improvement.

Insulin usage down more than 50% — used to be 8-10 units at a time, now down to around 4 at a time. His diet is not even uber low carb yet.

Increased energy.

He and my grandmother are pretty excited about these positive results, although he is finding the low potassium diet limiting (he cannot have things such as tomatoes). I suspect that if they just get over their fear of fat (he has "high cholesterol" and is on statins -- UGH! -- my next target once I learn about his lipid profile) and increase their range of foods they will be a bit more satisfied on a low carb diet. Also, once he is able to be off the low potassium diet his range of choices in food will increase a bit more.

I get the sense they will both definitely continue low carbing, their health and well-being will improve, and my grandfather will add some time to his life. I'm very pleased and excited for him.

As a commenter on amazon said of Diabetes Solution, "If the ADA disappeared tomorrow but this book remained, prognosis for all diabetics would be improved."

Unfortunately, that's too true. That sentiment also applies to the rejecting much of the conventional wisdom of the American Heart Association, which ultimately comes not from good medical research but straight from mouths of the USDA/Big Agriculture.

How Much is a Trillion Dollars?

2009-03-21T17:04:00.001-07:00

Just see here.

Crazy Low Vitamin D Level

2009-03-17T16:31:00.002-07:00

From my Google Reader sharing feature (love that thing!) I found this blogpost from a blogger previously unknown to me named Sara. Sara describes how she lives in the Pacific Northwest and was told by her doctor that 95% of people living in this region are vitamin D deficient. Similar numbers come from those living in upstate New York where I used to live, coming in only second to Seattle in cloudiness.

Learning more about health and nutrition have become an important part of my life and it takes just a small effort to inform others. So without further ado, here's Sara's story:

Since my last "annual" checkup 5 years ago, the medical establishment has created an easy blood test measuring levels of vitamin D. Dr. F and I quickly agreed I should be checked. My assumption was that my levels would be fine or very close to fine because I am serious about my health care, and I take my cod liver and coconut oil on a daily basis.

I don't think coconut oil has vitamin D, but cod liver oil sure does. Even if Sara was taking just 1/2 tsp. of regular, unfermented high vitamin cod liver oil (and I'll be she was taking more than that) she would be getting 500IU of vitamin D. That's on the order of what most multivitamin pills contain, 400IU, and would far exceed what most Americans would get in their food daily. A cup of lowfat milk has only 98IU of D3. An egg? Only 85IU. You'd have to eat 4.7 eggs, assuming no other D intake from food, to get even the paltry amount of vitamin D3 recommended by the FDA's absurdly low RDA level of 400IU.

But back to Sara. I'll bet she was getting at leat 1000IU of vitamin D daily. Was Sara's supplementation good enough? Let's find out:

My results came back yesterday. The scale for vitamin D sufficency is measured, I am pretty sure, on a scale from 0-100. Healthy range is 33-100, and acknowledging that is a crazy huge range, Dr. F says she likes to see her patients at around 50. I weighed in at an alarmingly low 12.

So after supplementing with cod liver oil for who knows how long, this woman's vitamin D levels were only 12 ng/mL!!

Get yourself over to Grassroots Health and order up a cheap $30 25-hydroxyvitamin D test if you cannot get access to one via your healthcare plan (some people can't, I've recently discovered, without going through other ridiculous hoops like getting a bone density test first). Even if you are supplementing you simply don't know whether your serum levels are adequate. I've heard other stories (anecdotes, yes) but of people supplementing on the order of 2000 IU daily for months and still having suboptimal levels of vitamin D. This is a very important vitamin not only for bone health but innate immunity (and thus, all sorts of infectious and autoimmune diseases and your ability to fight cancer once it has formed).

According to the docs over at Grassroots Health, a daily supplement level of 100 IU should be enough to raise your levels over time by 1 ng/mL. So, if your levels come back at 20 ng/mL and you want to be at 40ng/mL, supplement with 2000IU daily. If you want your levels to up around 60-80 (which would be much better), supplement with 4000-6000IU daily. Then re-test in a few months.

As I said before, it's going to be very interesting to see what my vitamin D levels were as of a week ago when I sent in my first test, because I've been supplementing with vitamin D3 (through cod liver oil) for almost a year now. However, I spent 10 of the last 12 years of my life in Syracuse, NY, noted for its cloudiness. A few days after I sent in my test I started to come down with a cold (sneezing, coughing, body ache), my second cold this winter. I took 50,000IU of vitamin D3 the next day and knocked it flat.

Here's to your health!

Inspiring Comment

2009-03-12T16:22:00.002-07:00

Over at Richard Nikoley's blog there's a really great comment at the end of this post, by a guy named Scott Miller. It's very inspiring, so I want to quote the whole thing. I agree with a great deal of this. Make sure you read the post and the rest of the comments, though. Without further ado, here's Scott's comment:

Humans are designed as if by the lowest bidder, with serious sub-optimal systems that require specific inputs, otherwise a cascade of problematic chain reactions take place, often causing visible warning symptoms (headaches, eczema), and often not (sudden heart attack). These inputs include vitamins, minerals, water, sunlight, air, amino acids, fats and probably others. (Note that carbs doesn't appear to be a necessary input.)

But, back to my main point... We are not optimally engineered via evolution, which is a key reason seemingly small changes in inputs (lack of sunshine, changes in diet over the last 100 years) have dramatically worsened the health of "advanced civilization."
The paleo diet is perhaps the best *natural* diet for ensuring the ongoing perpetuation of our species, but one must ask the obvious question: Can science create an even better diet, perhaps building upon the paleo diet? And how would this diet be better?

One way is to provide optimal, science-proven inputs, versus inputs at levels that are merely good enough to ensure the survival of our species.

It turns out there are numerous supplements that provide improved levels of health at higher-than-paleo quantities. It also turns out that there are other natural and non-natural substances than have a profound net positive benefit on human health. One of the ones making news in the last three years is resveratrol. But there are literally several dozen others, and you cannot get these at optimal levels relying on diet alone.

Frankly, I don't think you can get nearly enough K2 from diet alone, for example. I make sure I get MK-4 (15m daily) and MK-7 (1mg daily) from supplements. Yes, a paleo diet might get you a decent quantity of K2, but not at levels shown to reverse arterial plaque in studies--the level I come closer to taking.

It's our birthright to live to 90. What we eat, and how we live, can subtract or add to that average. Eating a poor diet can subtract 55 years. I'm personally shooting for 100+. It's not a dream. Most of us can make it. We just need to try.

Duh

2009-03-11T16:10:00.003-07:00

This just in. A "new study" finds that vitamin D deficiency is a problem for teenagers:

Teens in the study with the lowest vitamin D levels were more than twice as likely to have high blood pressure and high blood sugar. They were also four times more likely to have metabolic syndrome, defined as have three of more conditions that contribute to heart disease and diabetes — including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, big waists and high cholesterol.

The study's leader, Jared Reis of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said more research will be needed to determine if vitamin D is really behind the health problems and whether getting more would make a difference.

"We're showing strong associations that need to be followed up," he said.

Ya think? Let's see. Most people with sufficient levels of vitamin D as measured by the serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D test are supplementing with at least 2000 IU daily. The government's recommendations? 400 IU. Oh, and for any of these kids that happen to venture from their troglodyte existence these days, how about that other government recommendation to slather on plenty of sunscreen so they'll block production of vitamin D, get a whopping dose of UVA (because their sunblock doesn't block it) and increase their risk for ALL cancer, and ummmm, death.

"We're at the tip of the iceberg," said Dr. Robert Eckel.

No, Dr. Eckel. Just you are at the tip of the iceberg. For some of us, the iceberg melted awhile back.

On average, none of the teens were getting enough vitamin D. Whites had the highest levels, blacks had the lowest levels and Mexican-Americans had levels in between.

No kidding. Why would that be? Think about the results above and how they makes complete sense based on ancestry and the evolutionary history of all. humans.

Experts say there are many questions that still need to be answered about vitamin D, including how much people need.
"As time goes on, we're getting a better idea of what we need and how it's functioning in our bodies," said Adrian Gombart, a vitamin D researcher at Oregon State University.

Some of us already knew it. Long ago. Translation of the "expert" opinion above: "Give us more research money."

The thing that drives me absolutely crazy about the news report is that they suggest people are deficient because of their food, particularly a lack of milk. OK, a crap diet will make you burn through your vitamin D stores faster, but no one these days could get sufficient amounts from food. Especially not the lowfat milk with, at most, 100 IUs of vitamin D3 in a cup. !? Probably the only people who ever got sufficient amounts solely from food were the Inuit, who lived in the far north, had dark skin, and and ate a very very high fat diet (vitamin D is fat soluble)! Duh!

Don't wait for next of a gazillion "studies" to "prove" it, folks. The power of vitamin D was documented scientifically by Weston Price in freaking 1939, not to mention tons of other publications at this point, and already makes complete sense from the standpoint of evolutionary logic. You make up to 7500 units by sitting in the sun for ten minutes. So the government increases recommended levels by 200 IUs to 400 IUs and tells them to drink more lowfat milk. It's absurd. It boggles the mind.

Get your cheap vitamin D test today and contribute 5 minutes of your time to a much more widespread study, the DAction study, to find out whether you are deficient, and start. freaking. supplementing. By sun or by mouth. It's not a controlled trial but they are collecting epidemologic data pre- and post- test. Presumably they'll be able to uncover strong associations with health improvements post-supplementing.

If you have access to free tests via your health insurance, get the 25 hydroxyvitamin D test. Not the 1, 25 dihydroxyvitamin D test. 25% of physicians order the wrong test.

Weight Loss Update (II)

2009-03-11T12:35:00.003-07:00

I'm not so sure I should call these posts weight loss updates, since it's fat loss I'm trying to achieve. Nevertheless.

I posted about 2 months ago on my progress. At that time I'd lost 14.5 pounds total. I've now lost 18 pounds and have reduced by body fat percentage to 30% (a reduction of16% total fat from my original body fat percentage, which was 36%). My goal is to get down to approximately 18-20% body fat, which means a target weight loss of 18-22 more pounds, but that's as yet uncertain. You're simply not sure what your weight should be unless you're occasionally re-measuring body fat.

I'm pleased with these results although I seem to be achieving them more slowly than hoped. I'm not sure whether I'll make it to my target weight loss before the wedding or not, but if I don't, that's fine. I'm happy with the progress I'm making. Originally, I thought I only needed to lose about 25 pounds. From my starting weight, and based on this post regarding ideal body fat percentage and changing perceptions of obesity in our culture, I honestly now feel that an ideal weight loss for me, from my starting point, is closer to 40 pounds total. And I'm nearly halfway there.

My current regime consists of a fast 1-2 times weekly, once on Wednesday and the other on Saturday or Sunday. I'm going to start kicking those fasts from 24 hour fasts to 36 hour fasts, and making sure I do them twice weekly (rather than just once). I expect that this will dramatically improve my insulin sensitivity, as starting fasts about 2 months ago did before.

Today is a fast day. I won't eat today. This afternoon, I walked for 45 minutes up several hundred feet in altitude, interspersed with sprints. I've always detested running but I love these sprints. I feel afterward as if I've had a full body workout. As for what I eat, I no longer obsess too much about carbohydrate from fruit or milk, though I still avoid bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice and probably will largely avoid these things for the rest of my life. My guess is that my daily carbohydrate intake is below 60 grams. Type II diabetes runs strongly in my family -- and none of my family members were obese when it set on. I don't want to get it and I'm quite confident now that I never will. I'm pretty sure that if I get my vitamin D levels up and keep them there my risk of cancer decreases dramatically, too. That's an enormous relief, since my mother came down with three cancers around age 25 and many other people in my family have cancers as well. It doesn't mean I'll never come down with cancer. But I'm dramatically decreasing the chances. It's very empowering to be able to take action and release yourself from that kind of fear.

I also ordered a blood glucose meter, which I'm looking forward to using. I'll make sure to report back on serum vitamin D levels, glucose levels, and possibly a lipid profile when I get those done. Too bad I don't have numbers from last year before I started all this. I would imagine dramatic improvements.

Post-workout, I usually lay in the sun for 40 minutes -- 20 each side. Feels great. Though I'm fair and this is high altitude (albeit winter) I've had no problems yet. It will be interesting to see how this affects my serum vitamin D levels in addition to supplementation.

Get a Cheap Vitamin D Test

2009-03-08T13:43:00.004-07:00

I've had precious little time for blogging, either here or on FA/RM, due to working three part-time jobs and planning a wedding. That is something I plan to remedy in time.

In the meantime, here is a "public service announcement" I sent out as an email to loved ones this AM. This is long but worth it. You could literally add years to your life.

Most Americans are deficient in vitamin D. If you want to know just how outdated the government's "RDA" levels are, consider that "RDA" dates back to the WWII rationing period. Most people in the northern hemisphere probably need to have intake of around 2000 IU daily in the winter and possibly up to 7500 IU daily, depending on skin tone, age, etc. The FDA recently changed the recommended intake levels from 200 IUs to 400 IUs. Wow, how good of them.

Unfortunately, many sunscreens on the market only block UVB that causes burns, but this is the wavelength which your body uses to make vitamin D that protects you against cancer. (Don't trust the manufacturer's assertions. Check for the chemicals that really protect against UVA if you insist on using sunscreen: titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, avobenzone (Parsol 1789), Mexoryl SX (Tinosorb). If your sunscreen is just a UVB blocker, it doesn't block the UVA that causes cancer. Translation: thanks to a sunscreen that helps you sit out in the sun all day long without burning, you're getting a massive exposure of cancer-inducing UVA without the protection of melanin or vitamin D produced from UVB. Think about how unnatural this is from an evolutionary standpoint. You would naturally reduce your exposure to sun to avoid burning, but what exposure you would get would be beneficial. Further, consider natural populations that live in very northern latitudes with high skin melanin to begin with: e.g. the Inuit. These are people who should be very vitamin D3 deficient. Where did they get their vitamin D? They traditionally got high levels of vitamin D3 in their food.

Vitamin D is not just about rickets. Yes, it is fat soluble, but warnings of fat-soluble vitamin toxicity are grossly overstated. You might get there if you eat nothing but liver for a week. Further, the high grain diet recommended by the USDA's food pyramid will make you burn through your vitamin D (and vitamin C) stores at a faster rate. The result? Most Americans are deficient. They have enough vitamin D to prevent rickets, but not heart disease, cancer, etc.

Vitamin D is an incredibly important hormone (not really a vitamin) that's crucial to not only bone health but innate immunity and cardiovascular disease prevention and reversal. Get your levels up far enough and you virtually eliminate your risk of getting cancer. Not just skin cancer, all cancer.

Sound crazy? It is. Sound too good to be true? It's not. One of my favorite bloggers said it once very eloquently: humans are robust and healthy, just like any other living organism, when they occupy the right ecological niche. How could it be otherwise? Neither our indoor lifestyle nor our modern agricultural diet -- which bears no resemblance whatsoever to what our paleolithic ancestors would have eaten -- helps us occupy this niche. There's no doubt we've begun to evolutionarily adapt to grains and legumes, but not enough. The question is whether you want to be part of evolution going forward and "do your part" for future generations of the human race, or whether you want to do your part for you and eat the best diet you can for the genes you already have.

See more on vitamin D and its association to a wide variety of diseases that we think are normal, genetic, or non-preventable here, here, here, and here. The data will blow you away. Yes, it's correlation, not the causation that can be proved with a controlled trial. But the data become more convincing when you consider that healthy hunter gatherer cultures eating a more paleolithic-type diet (meat, veg, nuts, fruits, starchy tubers, NO non-sprouted grains NOR non-sprouted legumes) and getting adequate vitamin D intake do not get diseases of civilization such as cancer. It's been documented for 100 years or more. And the argument that they didn't live long enough to develop these diseases has been blown out of the water.

OK, off the soapbox. But I only preach because I care. Here's what you can do for yourself:

GrassrootsHealth is an independent non-profit organization offering vitamin D tests for only $30 per person, which is less than half the cost of the test if you order directly. In exchange for getting a cheap test, you offer some basic health information and can continue the twice yearly tests for 5 years if you like. The organizers of the study hope to get data on millions of individuals over a five year period. This is a great opportunity to see whether you have adequate vitamin D levels, either from your diet (unlikely unless you are supplementing with 15 times the level recommended by "the authorities", as I do) or from sun exposure. If you haven't gotten tested, you really don't know whether you're deficient in vitamin D or not. Over 50% of Americans are deficient even by government standards (which are themselves a bit too low. 40 ng/mL is a bit too low, get it above 50 or ideally to 80).

Those of you with health coverage could probably get this test for free, but it's great to be able to just do a blood spot test and not have to leave your house. Furthermore, you'll be providing valuable information from an epidemiological standpoint (i.e. what is your current level of D, how does that correlate with health status, and will your health status change by ameliorating your vitamin D3 levels as tracked over 5 years?) in order to conclusively prove that the status quo of our healthcare system is woefully outdated.

Treatment of these diseases is wonderful and many of my friends and family have had their lives saved by chemo, etc. so my statements shouldn't be taken as any sort of slight to those of you working in the healthcare industry. But the fact is that we can prevent the vast majority of cases of these diseases, and if that would happen then most of the pharma/medical research industry could move on to a more worthy goal: studying disease that is truly not preventable by any means... or helping us all live 120 years or longer. I'd like to see that day -- rather than endless fruitless research comparing the sick to the sicker and trying to "prove" the health "benefits" of a modern lifestyle (lowfat, indoor, etc.) we haven't had for 99% of our evolutionary history.

Here's the link to sign up for the DAction study. Assuming your change your vitamin D intake as necessary based on the results of the test, it could be the most important thing you actually do for your health, ever. I've just signed up for a one-time test of $30. I'll probably continue my participation for at least a year after this.

Just FYI, if you live in NY state, I am sorry to inform you that your nanny state government has decided on your "behalf" that you shouldn't be able to have access to a reduced price vitamin D test. Presumably, they're afraid you will irrevocably damage yourself with a minute pin prick to draw blood. Hard to say what their reasoning (or lack thereof) is but this is pretty much par for the course for NY state.

Rather than get too political (I could go on and on but I won't), once again, residents of NY state lose out. Most residents come in at under 25 ng/mL due to the low level of sunshine. Get this test some other way, folks. Better yet, consider moving to another state. I miss these things about NY: my family, farmer's markets, lush summer vegetation and higher humidity, lakes, and locally grown apples. But life is definitely better out west. Especially considering 300/365 days of full sun yearly as opposed to nearly the exact opposite for upstate NY where I lived most of my life. I just laid out in my swimsuit for 1 hour and a got a (hopefully) good dose of vitamin D. I feel great.

By the way, I got a whopper of a cold three weeks ago despite supplementing with 15 times the level of vitamin D recommended by the authorities and having a pretty tight, grain-free diet. It's going to be really interesting to see what my serum levels of vitamin D are. I suspect years of life in upstate NY, and nearly 33 years of slamming myself with white flour and sugar, has resulted in less than optimal vitamin D levels, even with nearly a year of supplementation. I'll keep you posted.

I'm a Red Pen!

2009-02-11T09:32:00.001-07:00

Yikes! From Gus. Well, I suppose as a professor this comes naturally.

You Are a Red Pen

You have an eagle eye for detail, and this often means you end up finding mistakes in people's work.

You may seem quick to criticize or correct, but you think accuracy and truth is important.

You like to be involved in every project. You feel like you put the polishing touch on things.

You would make a good editor, detective, or accountant. When facts matter, you're the person to call on.

What Office Supply Are You?

The Stiff Inflammatory Brush of Diet

2009-02-10T17:42:00.003-07:00

From Richard Nikoley of Free the Anima l, a prime source of health information, we find this fascinating introduction from heart surgeon Dr. Lundell:

Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. Let’s say you kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.

What is this inflammatory process? What causes it? Go find out.

Plastic Bags Illegal

2009-02-10T17:04:00.004-07:00

Well, folks, it was just a matter of time. Westport, CT has banned the use of plastic bags by retailers. You won't be able to buy one even if the store wanted to sell them. What is worse is that there was no opposition to this. The Thinking Mother has the story.

Besides all that is wrong politically with this action, I share the author's annoyance on a practical level. It's another regulation invented by dolts that isn't actually going to reduce plastic bag usage until plastic bags themselves are banned everywhere (sheesh, why am I giving these people ideas?):

As I said in my other blog post our family reuses all the plastic bags we receive. We also decline use of bags in some stores. If I don’t have those bags to reuse I will have to start buying new factory made plastic bags to use as trash bags, bags to give stuff away in (such as for charity donations) and for general use (holding wet bathing suits in a beach tote bag). If consumers like me stop reusing plastic bags and start buying new plastic bags made in factories (such as by Glad company) then the use of plastic bags has not been reduced it has just been displaced as another cost to the consumer rather than a cost to the store.

Precisely. And that is why the plastic bag nutsos won't stop here with their madness.

I used practically every plastic bag I could get my hands on for picking up dog doo when I lived in a city. And I rarely threw a plastic bag in the trash without using it for something else first. In fact, I didn't have nearly enough plastic bags and sometimes had to buy them. I still find them extraordinarily useful for wastecan liners in my house even though I don't pick up my dog's poop anymore (we live in the middle of nowhere and the waste is greatly reduced with raw feeding). Why should I buy them when I can get them for free at the store if a store is willing to give them away as a courtesy? If they are banned for carryout in stores, then I'll have to buy them off the shelf -- until those are banned, too. Which is the goal, of course.

Not everyone shares my view. A highly educated and successful plastics executive recently told me that it was "counterproductive" to wrap up trash and throw it in a landfill. I didn't bother to inform him that no matter what trash he throws in his bin, it doesn't matter one iota whether it is wrapped up in plastic or not because it is pretty much gone from the nutrient cycle forever. This is a person with three cars and a gynormous mansion and he is worried about throwing away plastic bags. I don't have a problem with his lifestyle, but honestly -- do these people think?

This plastic bag brouhaha bugs me to no end. First, plastic bags make up a miniscule portion of landfill waste (though I'm not concerned about a lot of what goes into landfills). Something like 3% or less. If you are going to get worked up over a few plastic bags, just kill yourself right now and get it over with because your impact on the planet is far greater than a few puny plastic bags.

There are rational environmental concerns, I think. For example, it's disturbing to me that we dump valuable nutrients in the ocean -- nutrients that should be going back into our food. That's not sustainable -- defined as a practice that can be carried out indefinitely without adverse consequences, directly or indirectly, on human health. (But that should be rationally dealt with by establishing private property rights in the ocean.) But my rational environmental concerns don't include plastic bags going into landfills. The plastic was originally under the earth's crust. I could care less whether it now sits in a landfill.

Start infringing on some small right like the right to buy a plastic bag. Once people accept that you can go on to violate other rights in the name of the planet, like the right to eat meat. Think I'm kidding?

The madness needs to stop. "Carbon footprint" is a phrase that just needs to be wiped from the human vocabulary, in my not so humble opinion.

CUTE!!

2009-02-10T17:03:00.001-07:00

I have no idea how they got this footage, but it's adorable. Watch to the end!

BPA, Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes

2009-01-30T18:46:00.006-07:00

Hello, readers. I thought I should let you know about two important recent papers published just a few months ago.

In short, it appears that small amounts of BPA in an experimental study on human fat tissue to suppress a key hormone (adiponectin) regulating insulin sensitivity and thus metabolic syndrome and diabetes. The second study is observational, but also shows that those with increased levels of BPA in their bodies have higher rates of diabetes -- this second group reports statistics as odds ratios, which I must say I've never liked, but the error bars are not overlapping on the diabetic/nondiabetic group. Almost every disease state measured has higher levels of urinary BPA as opposed to the "control" group.

There are a ton of studies already on rats showing insulin resistance as an effect of BPA. All along people have said, "Well, rats aren't humans." This is true, but now we have these two human studies, one experimental and one observational supporting this hypothesis of a link between BPA and insulin disorders.

Correlation is not causation as far as the second study is concerned, but it appears as if the mechanisms are known for this and this chemical, even in tiny microgram amounts, is as potent as a steroid hormone in human studies. Very disturbing. I think we need another randomized observational study that can compare BPA levels over a longer time period. I think we need some more studies to clinch this, but in my estimation, these two studies and many rat studies are ample reason for anyone with possible insulin issues, and perhaps even people who don't, to attempt to avoid BPA (canned goods, most plastic containers).

I am not saying BPA should be banned any more than I think sugar should be banned. And I obviously don't believe BPA is solely responsible for current record high levels of Type II diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. I think wheat, sugar, vegetable oils, BPA, other endocrine disruptors, and god knows what else in our modern diet and lifestyle combine to create a potent brew that increasing numbers of people simply can't handle as their individual threshholds are tipped.

Needless to say, I think the precautionary principle is appropriate when it comes to our food and how it is prepared. It is not wise to deviate from a natural course until we learn more. We are unwittingly creating problems only to see them decades later. Of course, it goes without saying the government should not be involved in any of this dietary stuff and have too often made all the wrong answers absolute dogma. I do not agree with the idea that BPA should be regulated, but there are two problems here. First are the people that assume that because the FDA might ban it, it must be safe because whatever government does is to be distrusted. Second are the people that assume that the government actually has their back when it comes to "public health" decisions, and whatever is on a grocery shelf or sold at the pharmacy is OK. Yeah right.

Caveat emptor!

Vitamin K2 Deficiency

2009-01-27T20:04:00.003-07:00

Stephan hits it out of the ballpark once again.

Unfortunately, too many people in our society suffer from this vitamin deficiency in early life and the effects are irreversible. Get your short course in vitamin K2 by reading Stephan's post. Get the long course by reading Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

If I ever have children they won't suffer the same fate as I did -- painful and expensive surgeries and orthodontics (I've had eight teeth removed, my mouth is so small).

Pregnant ladies, eat your liver and/or dairy products from grass-fed cows. Please don't listen to the conventional medical/nutritional establishment on fat soluble vitamin toxicity -- or their ignorant nonsense about the equivalence of all dairy. If you are worried about pathogens, heat some raw milk. Vitamin K2 will survive the pasteurization process, I believe, but grocery store milk is all deficient in this crucial vitamin.

Your children will thank you. They will grow up with a nice broad face and beautiful straight teeth -- and you will avoid thousands of dollars in medical costs, as if the benefits to your children aren't enough!

Engaged!

2009-01-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone -- Robb proposed marriage to me yesterday, and I accepted!

Now which one of you wants to move to CO and become my personal trainer to get me in shape for wedding time? :)

One Thing I Love About Colorado

2009-01-21T11:51:00.002-07:00

Today, in mid-January, it's about 58 F outside. Tomorrow there could be a blizzard, but I've been doing reading work outside in a tank top and shorts today. Perhaps it's the intensity of the sun at high altitude (@ 8400 ft.), but I'm not really that chilly.

Going back outside now!

The Nature of Collectivism

2009-01-21T09:20:00.008-07:00

My last post was about an inspiring vision of individuality and freedom. In reading these comments on Richard Nikoley's post, one of the commenters linked to these incredible pictures of the inauguration.

Here is a sample:

While I don't believe pictures are arguments, they can certainly be symbolic. As a beekeeper, I see a perfect visual analogy of collectivism in that picture. That is exactly what my bees look like from above when I open the hive.

This picture symbolizes everything that is wrong with society today as we open up the American hive and look down, both physically and philosophically, from above. We see a herd mentality of duty to the collective and ultimately, a society of sacrifice for the group or the leader for "the common good". While individual bees benefit from such a social arrangement of perceived sacrifice due to their genetics and their means of survival, humans do not.

As Richard said:

That, my friends, is the essence of individualism, and there could be no greater contrast between that individualism and those old, tired, collectivist ideas straight from the zookeeper's manual -- hauled out and polished up for those ignorant of the failures of history -- delivered by the new Zookeeper-in-Chief, himself.

Indeed. And in such troubling times, I prefer to focus on a positive vision of individualism instead.

Our True Nature

2009-01-20T17:38:00.002-07:00

Our true nature is not to be zoo animals -- of the physical or mental sort.

I got this video from Richard Nikoley of Free the Animal. Richard has some great comments on the inauguration today, too. Check it out.

As for this video: wow. Just... wow. Looks like a blast. Given my recent weight loss and my relative athleticism as a teen, maybe it's really possible if I work up to it.

Strong. Happy. Healthy. Free.

Weight Loss Update

2009-01-12T08:55:00.002-07:00

I haven't posted about my weight loss efforts in a long time. In fact I haven't posted anything in a long time! But today I couldn't resist posting an update, in case anyone is still reading this thing. :)

I haven't posted because there was pretty much no weight loss there for awhile! But today, I stepped on the scale, and lo and behold, I was under 150 for the first time in 1.5 years. That was pretty exciting!

I lost roughly 7.5 pounds pretty effortlessly incorporating low carb dieting of the Protein Power type this past summer. My weight loss seemed to stall a few months later. I lost a few more pounds, but I'd been pretty much stationary since October. According to Dr. Eades, this often happens with smaller people. Not only do they have to count carbs, they have to watch intake, especially if they're going too high on cheese or nuts.

I'm happy to report that I've now lost a total of 14 pounds, 5 of it in the past several weeks. YAY ME! How did I do it?

First, not by counting or watching anything. :)

To be honest one of the things I did was that I stopped focusing on carbohydrate so much. Sorry low carbers, I really like my milk! My diet is almost identical to before except I don't worry about any extra carbs I'm ingesting from fruit or milk. I have as much as I want -- which usually isn't more than 1 glass milk and one piece of fruit daily. It's true that your body doesn't need carbohydrate in foods but I like those foods.

Still, my carbohydrate intake is really low, still 50 or fewer grams daily compared to before at around 20-30 grams daily. Most of the time I have berries instead of apples or such, because those are lower in sugar. I never eat bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, or anything like that. At least not for now. I'm not categorically opposed to potatoes or rice but I'm convinced wheat is probably a bad idea, at least for me. It makes me too hungry, and if I can't be thin and satisfied eating bread, I can certainly live without it. I've also learned a lot about the molecular biology of wheat that scares me. In fact, giving up bread has not been a sacrifice at all. Only the first week or two of giving up bread was difficult. I feel much better this way. Now I mop up the egg yolk with bacon instead of bread.

But that's not all I did -- obviously I began eating more calories from carbohydrate so I figured I had to try a different strategy besides simply "low carb". I was confident I wouldn't really gain weight but I still wanted to lose. So, I started incorporating intermittent fasting about a month ago. Richard has written a great deal on this topic, it's my primary source of information on IF. That's how I dropped over 5 pounds. I've lost 2 pounds just in the past week by doing two fasts, 24 hours each. I didn't even exercise. However, the previous week I did several high intensity workouts during a fast, of the type seen here.

I have one of those kettlebell things. Yes, they're fun!

Intermittent fasting is not really a method of caloric restriction because I do eat like a horse the day afterward, and I don't worry about that. In fact, so long as I'm avoiding certain foods I don't limit my intake or deprive myself at all. I eat as much as I want of any food so long as it doesn't have starch, sugar, or vegetable oils. Eventually at my goal I may add in some more starch.

Fasting appears to trigger growth hormone which helps with weight loss. And of course, when you are fasting that long your body has to release fat to use as fuel to turn protein into glucose to keep your body running. Your body definitely gets used to making its own fuel. But what abot muscle loss from the protein being burnt? In the long run, though, you don't lose muscle because of the release of growth hormone. That's why our paleolithic ancestors could still hunt down prey after a day or two of fasting, without weakness. And if you're doing the type of workouts that build muscle, you definitely aren't losing muscle. You're gaining muscle. Pretty cool, huh? More than ever, I'm learning that weight loss and gain is a hormonal issue, not calories in/calories out. Those hormones are drastically altered by diet and lifestyle. In my case, my diet was never all that terrible. I've never been into sugar very much. However, I never would have been able to carry out a 24 hour fast just a year ago because I ate a lot of starch that affected my insulin and blood glucose levels. It would have been torture. Now, because of what I'm eating, it's almost imperceptible.

Perhaps by this summer I will post some pictures of myself. I'm honestly not sure what my target weight is going to be. It's going to depend on a constant re-evaluation of my body fat. I would estimate I have at least 20 more pounds to lose, but I'm expecting much leaner body composition than I've ever had in my lifetime, even as a teenager doing hours of cardio in the pool each day, so the muscle gain might mean less actual weight loss in poundage.

Thanks to all those resources on the right hand side who have educated me about diet and physiology. I really owe them all, including commenters Cheerwino, B. Dietz, and Thrutch, a debt of gratitude for mentioning phrases I'd never heard of, like "insulin resistance". The conventional wisdom has failed so many people. I'm embarrassed that as a biologist I never discovered these things before. It really speaks to the detrimental effect of conventionl wisdom.

I'm spreading the news.

What. An. Idiot.

2008-12-27T11:33:00.003-07:00

Perhaps the most infamous Bush quote of all time: "I've had to abandon free market principles to save the free market."

What can I say? At least conservatives (and liberals!) can't say they weren't told that Bush was actually a socialist.

The Physics of Santa Claus

2008-12-25T07:49:00.003-07:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! If you haven't seen it before, I bring you the hilarious piece The Physics of Santa Claus!

No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen. (As a fungal taxonomist I can tell you that there are far more than 300k organisms to be described and even roughly 1-2 mammals per year keep on being discovered, so it most certainly does not rule out the discovery of flying reindeer!--MH)

There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, and assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of his sleigh, jump down the chimnye, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course we know to be false but for the purpose of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking aabout .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 punds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (refer to point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal load, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecrafts re-entereing the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy per SECOND, EACH! In short, hey will burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousanths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centripetal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead by now.

Free Agriculture -- Restore Markets (FA/RM)

2008-12-09T19:29:00.000-07:00

Currently we have FIRM, CSG, repealthebailout.net, and hints of an activist group for individual rights in education, thanks to the pioneering work of Lin Zinser, the Hsiehs and others. Now, for those interested, I've established a group to promote individual rights in agriculture, FA/RM (Free Agriculture -- Restore Markets).

I invite you to visit FA/RM at fa-rm.org and review our materials, particularly the FA/RM blog. There are two USDA and EPA proposals that, if they are allowed to go forward, will adversely affect every person in the country that eats and further violate the individual rights of all Americans. Most agricultural issues are not immediately obvious to the general public or even well-publicized in the mainstream media, so please visit the blog and take a look at some of the issues that are at stake. Under proposed EPA taxes on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the USDA admits that up to 2 million smaller farmers could be put out of business and would not be able to meet the compliance costs of the proposed GHG regulations. Combined with increased costs to producers to comply with the USDA's additional NAIS program (particularly if information from NAIS is eventually provided to the EPA), this could literally devastate a significant portion of the food supply of the United States. There are other important issues as well: food choices, food quality and safety, and the distortion of the market through long-existing government regulations and welfare programs.

I'd like to thank my current two FA/RM contributors. Guy Adamson provided me with the idea and name for this activist group in the first place, and Diana Hsieh provided website design, thoughtful comments, and helpful additions to the site!

Safety is Stunting Kids

2008-12-04T15:32:00.001-07:00

Boy did I love this one, shared by RationalJenn. It's a story about how utterly irrational our public school system's absentee policies are, fueled by our nonobjective court system. When I taught middle school one of my ninth graders fell out of a tree after school had been officially dismissed. Accidents happen and sometimes it's really not anybody's fault - except the teenager who has been horsing around and feels she is invincible. I wasn't going to apologize for that and I'm glad no one ever asked me to. But that was a private school, ten years ago. A lot seems to have changed.

Think about it. If a kid never suffers any consequences from his or her actions, how will they learn what is dangerous? I'm not talking letting your kid suffer serious bodily harm. Certainly if your baby can't sit up and keeps falling over on his back and whamming his head, you need to put a cushion behind him. At this stage of development, that's something out of the child's control. But what about a kid who has not yet learned to walk and is balancing himself against something unstable, like an exercise ball? Let's say there are no sharp objects around for him to crack his skull on. Let the kid fall. After a couple of falls he'll stop balancing against the ball and choose a more stable object. Babies aren't idiots. That is a cause and effect they can understand at a relatively young age. He will have learned the consequences of his actions.

What happens when kids are never allowed to fall -- literally and figuratively? Well, look at society today and you have your answer. We have a society filled with people that want to blame everyone else for their failings.

This fall on my way home from NY I stopped in at a friend's house. Her approach to parenting was refreshing. You'll see by scrolling down that there is a good bit of dust, 5 pets in the house that he interacts with, and some other things the kid is chewing on that many parents would freak at. (He also chews on the phone and her car keys, his favorite toys.) She doesn't get worked up about this and he is a very healthy baby. There is no high chair, no crib, no playpen, and no stroller. That may be a bit minimalistic for some but I though to myself, "Hell, this is the way to parent. I have enough crap for myself. Why do I need more of it for a kid?" For the first time ever, I actually considered that maybe I would be an OK parent someday. He moves around the house and is happy, I believe partly because he is not constantly restricted in his movements.

Anyway, go read the safety article:

We have to start thinking about changing everything we’re up against. A society that encourages and rewards crazy law suits. Schools that treat growing children like babies (even 17-year-old football players). And especially adults who use the word “safety” the way 2-year-olds use the word “No!”

It is a word that stops all rational conversation in its tracks. “Safety” brooks no give-and-take. It is the trump card we play when we don’t want to have to bother thinking a little harder about which rules really make sense, and what effect they’re having on our kids, whom we’d really like to see grow up and act responsibly already.

Why Diabetes is Skyrocketing

2008-12-04T09:37:00.001-07:00

Perhaps I should have entitled this, "Why Listening to Your Government-Educated Doctor Will Make You Sick."

This AM, I came across this article, which explains a new partnership between the FDA and WebMD. I know a tad about WebMD because one of my clients did a survey of their continuing medical education (CME) participants and found that 80% of the participants preferred WebMD as a primary source of up-to-date medical information.

In light of this article, I decided to surf around a bit on WebMD to see what I could find. I already knew WebMD was not the greatest source of information, but the simplistic pseudoscience being presented there is really quite amazing. Now that they’ve partnered with the FDA I suspect it will become even less objective than it was before.

If you click on anything that says something about cholesterol (as if total cholesterol even means anything -- it's a complete bullshit number as any halfway educated person knows) there are ads for Crestor everywhere. Apparently WebMD cannot see through the pseudoscience of the JUPITER trial. Then I thought, "Well just out of curiosity, let me see what they have to say about diabetes."

My jaw is still hanging down in shock. I don't deal with diabetes in my day to day medical writing, so I'm relatively unfamiliar with what is still being promoted in the mainstream medical community as a good diet for diabetes. Here is what is being promoted:

Remember the good-old food pyramid you learned about back in school? A balanced diet includes a variety of foods: carbohydrates (starches), fruits, vegetables, milk and dairy, meat, poultry, fish, and healthy fats. Eating a balanced diet helps you keep your glucose within target levels, control your weight, and reduce the risk of complications like neuropathy, heart disease, and stroke.

The food pyramid. Wait, it gets worse:

Choose fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, and whole grains often.

Eat 2 cups of fruit and 2 1/2 cups of vegetables daily (for someone eating 2,000 calories).

In other words, eat at least 50 to 100 grams of extra sugar so your glucose levels will skyrocket and you will have to buy more insulin to lower it!! Cha ching!!!

It doesn't end there:

Make at least half the grains you eat whole grains.

Decrease saturated fats and trans fatty acids by choosing lean meats and poultry, and low-fat or non-fat dairy products.

Substitute monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats (from fish, nuts, and vegetable oils) for saturated and trans fat fats. Carbohydrates digest more slowly and don't "spike" your blood sugar the way sugars do.

Oh, really? Apparently, the folks at WebMD are clueless about biochemistry. First, let's take the fat biochemistry. Monounsaturated fats have 1 minor difference from a saturated fat. It's called one double bond. Now for this carbohydrate nonsense. Yes, starch is marginally better. but starch is largely digested in your mouth to form sugar before it even hits your stomach. Starch is hundreds of glucose molecules joined together. Any freshman biology major in college has learned this. And finally, as basic math tells us, if we decrease fat something else has to go up when keeping volume constant. Protein and carbohydrate go up.

It gets even worse:

Most of what you eat should be healthy carbohydrates. Include whole-grains, fruits, vegetables and low fat milk. Whole grain breads and cereals, brown rice, beans, lentils, potatoes, and corn tortillas are good choices.

Have fun trying a new kind of starchy vegetable, like baked yams, oven-roasted carrots, or cooked lentils, instead of white rice or dinner rolls.

Have fun with starch. I love it. Whole grains, whole grains. Potatoes. Tortillas. Fruits. Beans. Brown rice. Bread. Starch. More whole grains. Just keep repeating it and they will believe it and buy it. I guess that is the logic here. Cha ching! If you are wondering why this is sounding like an agricultural advertisement, wonder no longer. The food pyramid is a USDA invention. Talk about a conflict of interest. The USDA has subsidized the grain industry for decades. Now they have to foist this glut of junk on the American public because there is so much of it that even people overseas won't buy it, 40% of last year's grains are still in government storage bins, and the USDA doesn't know what else to do with it.

I'm not done yet. Their final tip of advice is to eat less fat. Not fewer carbohydrates. Less fat:

Try to stick to 3 - 5 servings of fat a day (or as advised by your doctor). Remember that 1 serving of fat is only 1 teaspoon of olive oil or margarine.

There you go. Eat less than 2 tablespoons of fat per day and load up on carbohydrates to treat a disease of too much carbohydrate in the blood. Make yourself fat and even more insulin resistant than you already are by pumping your body full of insulin by eating more and more sugar.

Absolutely surreal.

Both obesity and diabetes are correlated with the rise of carbohydrates in the diet. It's not as if this information cannot be found on government websites but somehow this reality is not translating into objective medical advice:

To cure diabetes, eat more carbohydrates. To lose weight, eat more carbohydrates. What makes people fat and gives them diabetes? Must be fat. !? Look at the graphs above. Fat is making people fat!? It's absurd.

Now, go make yourself feel better and check out what Dr. Eades has been eating lately. That is what doctors everywhere should be telling diabetics to be eating. Dr. Eades has treated hundreds of diabetic or overweight patients who have reversed their Type II diabetes with diet alone and have gotten off their medications entirely, not to mention increased their LDL size, raise their HDL, and lowered their triglycerides. By eating protein and fat and bring carbohydrates WAY down to less than 10% of daily caloric intake. Are doctors taking notice? Some of them are. But the majority are still looking at the whole grain, lowfat religious bunk on WebMD, if my client's survey is any indication of where the majority of doctors go for their continuing "education". Well, it's a great way to increase insulin and Crestor sales...

What you just read above is the pseudoscientific garbage that many Americans and our politicians want to nationalize as "universal healthcare". This is the biggest scam ever and it has been going on for 40 years. Americans should be outraged. Instead, they are asking for this nonsense advice (which will continue to escalate healthcare costs into the stratosphere) to be paid for by every single American at the point of a gun.

More on EPA Tyranny

2008-12-02T20:16:00.001-07:00

Apparently the EPA has not lost any time in calculating how much to tax agriculture under its new plan to cut CO2 emissions, according to NoNAIS:

In a massive power grab the EPA is attempting to tax all sources of greenhouse gasses. If your cow farts they want your money. Same goes for your pigs. Your house. Anything.... If the ~~USDA~~ EPA has their way it would impose an annual tax of $20 per pig and $87.50 per cow. Who knows how much they’ll tax your home or wood stove but you can bet once they get their slimy claws into your life they’ll never let go.

(link inserted by me) Moreover, as explained by the blog author, Jeffries:

In the Federal Registry the USDA comments discuss:
If GHG emissions from agricultural sources are regulated under the CAA, numerous farming operations that currently are not subject to the costly and time-consuming Title V permitting process would, for the first time, become covered entities. Even very small agricultural operations would meet a 100-tons-per-year emissions threshold. For example, dairy facilities with over 25 cows, beef cattle operations of over 50 cattle, swine operations with over 200 hogs, and farms with over 500 acres of corn may need to get a Title V permit. It is neither efficient nor practical to require permitting and reporting of GHG emissions from farms of this size. Excluding only the 200,000 largest commercial farms, our agricultural landscape is comprised of 1.9 million farms with an average value of production of $25,589 on 271 acres. These operations simply could not bear the regulatory compliance costs that would be involved.

Jeffries explains that presumably, the cost per animal is calculated through the Title V regulations. Here are more comments by Jeffries in the comments to his post:

Very important: realize that this is not a tax on cows, pigs or other livestock. This is a ‘tax’ on any emissions. According to the EPA documents they will gain the power to regulate your home, your apartment, your corn field, your rice paddies, your livestock and any other source of greenhouse gases (GHG). Yes, I said corn and rice field. Any crops that produce or disturb the soils to till may produce GHG and fall under Title V regulations.

You say, well, I don’t have 200 pigs or 500 acres of corn field. Perhaps, but do you like to eat? Consumer food prices will be driven up.

You say, well, I buy from local farmers with less than those minimums. Perhaps, but do you really think those minimums will stay the threshold? No, the EPA will continue to expand it’s powers.

Then remember the little bit about homes… They want to regulate your home. Forget having a wood stove. Forget cooking over the grill in the summer. You will have to make your house meet EPA standards, pay fees to get it inspected and approved or have it condemned. Want to talk housing crisis? Very few homes in America will meet the standards. This means all those homes will get dumped on the market for pennies on the dollar. That will create a new round of foreclosures and depress real estate prices further. The EPA is throwing gas on the fire.

This is far beyond a mere $20 per pig tax. Go comment now.

Here are statements from another commenter. Having just read Harvest of Sorrow about the dekulakization of towns in Russia, I couldn't agree more with her comparison of what our future situation might look like in the United States if we don't act and speak out:

Absolutely mind-boggling the pace of government regulations put into effect to control and regulate citizens and farmers during the early years of the 20th century, causing famine, death, waves of people, literally everyone that was not in bed with government, being hauled off to prison camps for minor infractions of the “Code”, and in the end the downfall of Russia because of onerous regulations that were absolutely ridiculous, yet people lived in fear, AND DIED, from them. People that were just trying to survive by raising a few chickens… Millions were put to death, even children on the altar of what is best for society and the common good.

It appears we are headed there just as swiftly through Sustainable Development, Agenda 21, and the mantra - GO GREEN.

How sad. Our once great nation filled with strong individuals has met its match. Will we rise to the challenge that the peasants in Russia were unable to meet?

We can only hope…

I couldn't say it better myself. It is happening, and it is not a conspiracy theory. It is all there in the government documents if you care to read them. Get ready to fight not just for your ideas, but for the most basic right to eat the food you want. Those of us eating a lot of animal products and non-grain based frankenfoods to maintain our high quality of life and health will have a great deal to lose if this nonsense goes forward. In my opinion, we will lose far more than if healthcare becomes socialized, although that is also a very important issue.

You thought I was joking about them regulating how many chickens you can have? Hardly. I will be discussing these issues of farming regulation and its potential effects on our lives on my new activist website. Stay tuned for its release and activist opportunities.

What a Difference 36 Years Makes

2008-12-02T15:55:00.001-07:00

Go check out this comparison in the New York Times of the typical American diet in 1970 vs. the typical American diet in 2006. It is very enlightening.

Of course, I wasn't around in 1970 so I can't really vouch for the authenticity of this. I would bet it is mostly accurate, though, based on the things I remember eating as a very young kid.

To sum up: ENORMOUS increase in vegetable oils and grains, those darlings of the USDA Food Pyramid we are supposed to get more of to reduce our risk of heart attack. Also, LARGE increases in fruit, vegetables, and high fructose corn syrup, coupled with a relatively large decrease in dairy consumption (outside of cheese, which has increased). Apart from the HFCS, this is great, right? The USDA says fruits and veggies are great. Relatively large increase in fish and poultry, with a fair decline in red meat consumption. Good, right? Lean meats good! Red meats bad! Small decline in sucrose consumption.

Now, what foods are bad for us and have caused an increase in diseases of civilization (cancer, heart disease, etc.), with diabetes and obesity skyrocketing in the past several decades? Why, logically, it must be the things that have gone down! It must be the beef, the eggs, the veal, the pork, the lard, the butter, and the whole milk! At least, according to the USDA, the American Medical Association, the American Dietetic Association, the American Diabetic Association, the National Institutes of Health, the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Cancer Society, Citizens for Science in the Public Interest, and the American Heart Association.

I wonder how much longer these groups will harp on the animal fats and encourage us to eat more whole grains and polyunsaturates? Want to bet? Don't think this excludes the American Diabetic Association, either, which calls for around 60% of calories to come from carbohydrates (about an extra cupful of sugar daily) in order to treat a disease of too much carbohydrate in the blood.

This is not rocket science. And rocket science has gotten us a hell of a lot further and that was 40 years ago.

Think of how far medical research could have gotten us by now if the government was not focused on funding research on diseases that are very likely caused by the government's grain and vegetable oil religion.

Real Results

2008-12-02T13:39:00.001-07:00

Richard of Free the Animal has a post at Mark's Daily Apple telling us his story of weight loss and health improvements on a "primal" diet. Paleo, primal, low carb, whatever you want to call it. I don't get worked up about the terms and the same exact thing will not work for all of us. I now regularly enjoy Richard's blog and his story is quite inspiring, too:

I’m a blogger with over two thousand posts under his belt going back five years this month, to November of 2003. And, until May of 2007, about 18 months ago, I was a big fat blogger — one usually filled with rage over politics and all sorts of other societal elements far removed from my direct control. The blog was supposed to be an outlet; but instead, I was a basket case of stress, with blood pressure consistently measuring 145-160 / 95-105, probably well on my way to some cardiac event or stroke within a decade. To make matters worse, I took prescription medication daily, both for gastric reflux (pretty predictable) and for sinus allergies I’d suffered from since my teen years.

I was 46 years of age when I got fed up with it all. By this time, I had racked up over 5,000 miles walking the first hour of every weekday morning over a period of five years. Walking, by itself, doesn’t work — at least not for me.

Tipping the scale at 230 (5′10), 30%+ body fat, I decided to really and finally do something definitive about it. And I blogged about it extensively — mixed in with all of the ineffective, stress-inducing political toxins. But having now racked up nearly 60 pounds of fat loss and almost 20 pounds of lean muscle gain — now at 190 and closing in on 10% BF — I finally decided to blog about health and fitness exclusively last September. I’ll not be looking back. I’m enthusiastic about helping others achieve real results.

How did he do it? Go read the whole thing.

Richard touches on one of the reasons that I, too, don't blog much about politics anymore. It makes me stressed and I don't want to be stressed. I want to be happy. However, farming and nutrition policy have become a big passion of mine. In my opinion, mainstream nutritional advice (and unfortunately, 90% of the medical advice associated with it and resulting itself from poor nutritional advice) is the biggest government-created health scam of the 20th century. I plan to do something about it. Much of what I am going to post on a new site has already been written behind the scenes and I'm excited about getting started.

In personal weight loss news, I have lost about 11 pounds since mid-summer eating things like this and this.

I plan on losing roughly 30 more pounds. It could be more or less and really depends more on my body fat percentage once I get there. For those of you that know me personally, this amount of weight loss sounds like a lot. However, based on this assessment, I think it's about right. The reason it has been slower than I anticipated is for several reasons. First, I've had a few setbacks due to stress around dissertation production time. Second, I'm fairly certain I've been eating too many of my calories from fat (roughly 70-80%) rather than the 60% or so that it should be. From now on, I'm aiming for 60% calories from fat, 35% from protein, and no more than 8% from carbohydrates. (It is often more like 3-5%.) Third, according to Eades, it can be more difficult for smaller people to lose weight without reigning in intake. Plus, I never ate junk (sugar or grain-based frankenfood) in large quantities to begin with (unless you call potatoes, pasta and bread junk). I haven't really made a conscious effort to reign in intake and yet I've still lost 11 pounds without exercise. That's pretty decent. So, I'm confident I can lose further by more frequent weight training, bumping up protein, cutting down fat percentage a bit, and keeping carbohydrates low.

Unfortunately, I do not have any baseline values for a lipid profile (HDL, LDL, LDL particle size, triglycerides), fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and HbA1c. I would be willing to bet all those numbers have improved due to a general lack of starch and sugar in my diet over the past 5 months or so. I don't worry in the least about what the numbers actually are now because I do not believe I have ever seen or heard of anyone's numbers deteriorate to a worse condition on the kind of diet I am now on. My numbers would only be another small addition to the pile of data that already exist from just about everyone else I have talked to or that has posted on this subject (there are scores more examples of changed lipid profiles in the comments at Dr. Mike). All I care about is how I feel. And, truth be told, my energy levels have never been more constant.

My thanks go out to all commenters on my posts and those on the right hand panel who have educated me about evolutionarily appropriate fitness and eating. All of this started earlier this year when I read Weston Price's classic work Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. That book has changed my life in a way that only one other book has (Atlas Shrugged). Gary Taubes writes in the back of his epic book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, that he was highly influenced by Price's research as well. I can't recommend either of these books more highly. The both of them in combination gives an individual what one of my friends has referred to as "The Atlas Shrugged of Nutrition."

Corrected: replaced Richard for Robert, twice. Duh!

Bailout Explained

2008-12-02T08:11:00.001-07:00

Looks like the math our government uses!

Macintosh vs. Winduhs

2008-12-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

Recently, Diana wrote about descending into the 10th circle of PC Hell after her Mac's video card weirded out on her:

So in the meantime, I'm working on my old PC laptop. That's not going to be fun... The setup is now unfamiliar, so I'll be doing all kinds of stupid things. Windows will do its usual dumb things like asking me to reboot every few minutes after an update. (Yes, that's happening already.) The keys on the keyboard are really cramped and hard-to-press. My space key onlyseemstowork intermittently. So I'll have to fight this machine -- like all PCs must be fought.

I can certainly identify with those statements after having been in PC hell myself for almost three years now. Three years ago my Macintosh laptop died and I bought a PC to replace it, thinking I would save money. What a mistake.

There are a couple of professional applications I use which are only available on PC in older versions with fewer options -- and they are command line driven (yuck). I could deal with that, the retarded Winduhs updates, etc., but this summer I reached my limit of patience when using Microsoft Office 2007 for the first time on a university computer. I took me five minutes to figure out how to print a Word document with this asinine new software. Granted, one would have the same problem using Microsucks Afarce 2007 on a Mac but at least when I finally switch over to Mac again, I will be able to buy iWork for half the price and see how I like it.

But in my experience, it is not just the software applications (for some of us) and operating system that are better with Macintosh. Macs are high quality machines without squeaks, creaks, and cheap plastic pieces that break off for no apparent reason. When I owned one I did not spend a fortune on anti-virus and firewall stuff, either. And here is another big problem I did not have to deal with as a Mac user: the surly and recalcitrant customer "service" representative from Outer Slobovia.

Of course, there are problems with any computer. My Mac hard drive died three years ago after 3.5 years of intensive use. However, I've never had a PC hard drive last even three years. I too experienced the bomb and the sad Mac as seen here:

Thankfully, my computer crash happened sans the PC boyfriend/lack of backing up cluelessness. And even though I might get the bomb and the sad Mac again, I'll take Mac over PC any day!

Tip For a Happy Turkey Day

2008-11-26T14:23:00.000-07:00

I just don't think my Thanksgiving would be complete without this message from Big Brother!

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service suggests you discard any turkey, stuffing and gravy left at room temperature longer than 2 hours; 1 hour in temperatures above 90 degrees (you know, if you are serving by the pool). Be sure to put those goodies away right after the meal. Divide leftovers into smaller portions. Refrigerate or freeze in covered shallow containers for quicker cooling. Use refrigerated turkey and stuffing within 3 to 4 days. Use gravy within 1 to 2 days. If freezing leftovers, use within 2 to 6 months for best results.

Look. If you are dumb enough to eat turkey that has been sitting at room temperature for 12 hours, you deserve what you have coming to you. But two hours? Please. And I certainly haven't ever experienced any ill effects from eating 3 day old refrigerated gravy or 6 day old refrigerated stuffing. Your tax dollars at work. Reminds me of those morning local news broadcasts reminding me to wear a hat and coat in -20F weather. Duh.

Oh, I'm sorry. But you know it just wouldn't be me if I couldn't snark at these ridiculous government guidelines! :)

We will be having a most excellent meal with friends that have prepared what looks like a spectacular menu. Queso, turkey with chardonnay gravy, sweet potato soufflé, sangria cranberries, roasted cauliflower and broccoli, green bean and cheese casserole (my contribution in addition to homemade apple pie -- just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without these two items!), and various pies and other additions I may not yet know about. Plus a heckofalotta wine, for us at least! Woohoo!

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

Marrow, Cancer, and RFID Chips

2008-11-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

Stephan has a good article on roasted marrow bones. I have some grassfed Angus marrow bones in my freezer and have been wondering what to do with them, since I'm not big on soups... Yum. I'll be trying that soon. And getting lots of vitamin K2 in the process, no doubt. Then maybe I'll boil up the bones and make a nice stock.

In other news, Gina Kolata at the NY Times reports that cancers sometimes mysteriously go away. Of course, if she could bring herself to admit that maybe Gary Taubes is right, that maybe carbohydrates exacerbate the growth of cancers, which might ordinarily taken care of by our immune system if we were eating the right foods, then maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't need to chalk up these cancer cures to mystery. Maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with the patients' diets. I doubt we'll be able to expect that type of critical investigative reporting anytime in the near future, though, since Gina Kolata is a carburator of the deepest dye. It will take another 40 years for those dyed in the wool of the upside down USDA food pyramid to admit a link between carbohydrates and uncontrolled cancer growth. In the meantime, don't look to the Times for your nutritional advice (or any other mainstream media source, for that matter).

Finally, I had always pretty much dismissed the idea of RFID implanted chips causing cancer as a leftist conspiracy. You know, the chips that the USDA wants to implant in every animal in the US to keep us safe from terrorism and disease and that are already being implanted in practically every shelter animal across the country (including my own). Turns out there might be something to it after all. If it's true, it's yet another instance of the supposed watchdogs FDA and USDA asleep at the wheel. Or worse, in bed with the industries of their choosing.

Fair and balanced? Who is to say. Liriodendron reports, you decide.

Christmas Cards for Sale

2008-11-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a great Christmas Card. If I was sending Christmas cards this year, I'd send this one. Maybe next year!

Merry Newtonmas! :)

Falling in Public

2008-11-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

Diana has an absolutely hilarious video of a woman falling during her wedding that you should see. Go check it out. I really like what she says about it, too: "If anything remotely like this had happened to me on my wedding day, I would have nearly died from the shock, then I would have nearly laughed myself to death. Then I would have finished up the vows."

Both the video and Diana's comments instantly reminded me of a scene from Sex and the City that I absolutely love. "Because when real people fall down in life, they get right back up and keep on walking."

Nationalize the US Auto Industry?

2008-11-18T10:36:00.003-07:00

I don't think so.

I just received the most absurd and annoying email from General Motors. I have no idea how they have my email address but I suspect it is because I own a Pontiac and have "supported GM" with my purchase in the past. I own this vehicle not because I support GM but because it is really a Toyota, except for the exterior styling, and I could get it at a lower price through GM and at 0% interest rather than 3% interest from Toyota.

The letter encourages me to write my representatives in support of a government loan to GM. They have even set up a website where you can write a letter in support of more of your tax dollars being extorted to support their incompetence.

I support letting GM fail if they so deserve. They are failing from bad management practices, bad products, and government requirements regarding unionized workers, all of which Toyota does not have. I'm posting the letter here in case you would like to write your representatives opposing this bailout as well, and in case you would like to leave a message of non-support on GM's website. I find it offensive that GM is writing me asking my support for yet more extortion of my tax money because of some "greater economic good" and that they are somehow too big and important to fail. They are not. Enough is enough. Eventually, with everyone mooching from everyone else, there will be no one left to mooch from.

Oh, by the way, I just went to the site where you can send your so-called "personalized letter". This is a lie. It is a form letter that they will add your name to and therefore, I am deleting the link to this site because I don't support it. You can contact your representatives directly here and here.

Update: I've reinserted the link below, just because of the hilarity of the "sky is falling" attitude presented in GM's YouTube video inside this site. Go watch, it's really quite priceless.

Just remember: National security will be at stake if GM goes bankrupt and their employees lose their jobs making $150,000 a year to screw CDs into dashboards. If you do not write a letter in support to your representatives, PRONTO!, for more of your tax dollars being extorted to support their incompetence, the world will end. Shortly.

This would all be quite comical if Congress wasn't likely to support these bozos.

Here is the letter:

You made the right choice when you put your confidence in General Motors, and we appreciate your past support. I want to assure you that we are making our best vehicles ever, and we have exciting plans for the future. But we need your help now. Simply put, we need you to join us to let Congress know that a bridge loan to help U.S. automakers also helps strengthen the U.S. economy and preserve millions of American jobs.

Despite what you may be hearing, we are not asking Congress for a bailout but rather a loan that will be repaid.

The U.S. economy is at a crossroads due to the worldwide credit crisis, and all Americans are feeling the effects of the worst economic downturn in 75 years. Despite our successful efforts to restructure, reduce costs and enhance liquidity, U.S. auto sales rely on access to credit, which is all but frozen through traditional channels.

The consequences of the domestic auto industry collapsing would far exceed the $25 billion loan needed to bridge the current crisis. According to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research:

• One in 10 American jobs depends on U.S. automakers
• Nearly 3 million jobs are at immediate risk
• U.S. personal income could be reduced by $150 billion
• The tax revenue lost over 3 years would be more than $156 billion

Discussions are now underway in Washington, D.C., concerning loans to support U.S. carmakers. I am asking for your support in this vital effort by contacting your state representatives.

Please take a few minutes to go to (their website), where we have made it easy for you to contact your U.S. senators and representatives. Just click on the "I'm a Concerned American" link under the "Mobilize Now" section, and enter your name and ZIP code to send a personalized e-mail stating your support for the U.S. automotive industry.

Let me assure you that General Motors has made dramatic improvements over the last 10 years. In fact, we are leading the industry with award-winning vehicles like the Chevrolet Malibu, Cadillac CTS, Buick Enclave, Pontiac G8, GMC Acadia, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, Saturn AURA and more. We offer 18 models with an EPA estimated 30 MPG highway or better — more than Toyota or Honda. GM has 6 hybrids in market and 3 more by mid-2009. GM has closed the quality gap with the imports, and today we are putting our best quality vehicles on the road.

Please share this information with friends and family using the link on the site.

Thank you for helping keep our economy viable.

Sincerely,

Troy Clarke

Flying to Turkey Heaven

2008-11-18T07:37:00.001-07:00

This morning I came across a story about a seven year old being introduced to farm slaughter, entitled Childhood Innocence. This was a timely story for me, as I'd been thinking about how I would actually bring myself to slaughter chickens if I were to raise them. (Due to our predator problem, I've put this idea on hold but I had been thinking about raising them as source of eggs for myself and possibly a source of chicken for the cats.) Go read the story before you read the rest of my post.

This story doesn't bring me any closer to wanting to slaughter my own chickens, that's for sure. And I do not believe in heaven. But nevertheless, I found this story touching. This is a great Thanksgiving story about a child facing reality, understanding where our food comes from, and appreciating the people who grow it.

I don't believe such a situation would necessarily be appropriate for all children, particularly those that are not used to farm life. I know many people will disagree with me on this, including some people I am quite close to, but this story reinforces my belief that perhaps it is not healthy for humans to be so insulated from the reality of death. Maybe it is better to be as honest as possible, both with ourselves and with children, about such issues. Perhaps we all might appreciate life a bit more and live it to its fullest when we face some stark realities about mortality a little earlier on.

What I love about this story is that Mary Beth will enjoy her turkey on Thanksgiving day. She will understand where it came from and will nevertheless not have any guilt or fear about it. In my opinion, living life to its fullest and enjoying everything that life has to offer, without guilt or fear, is what Thanksgiving should be all about.

Beyond Organic

2008-11-15T11:26:00.002-07:00

True to my promise to provide you with a visual comparison of factory farmed vs. pastured eggs, for lack of better terms, here are the pictures. This was our breakfast. The eggs are fried in uncured bacon grease, which I believe to be very healthy for reasons described here and here.

You can no doubt distinguish the factory farmed egg. It's uppermost, with the larger, less translucent egg white and the yellower yolk with reduced size. Note the contrast to pastured eggs with the much larger orange yolks and much smaller whites of distinct texture. The bulk of the egg is supposed to be yolk, not white. Remember this the next time someone hits you over the head with their "animal fats are bad" nonsense.

In hindsight what I also should have done was fry alongside the eggs above some "omega 3" eggs, "cage free" eggs, "certified organic" eggs, and "certified free range" eggs. There are probably some nutritional differences in these eggs due to slight differences in diet but the actual appearance in the frying pan is minimal. You can do the test yourself. This lack of difference in unsurprising on further consideration of the facts. "Certified free range" eggs come from hens that are raised indoors and probably never see the sun, set foot on a blade of grass, or eat a single insect. "Cage free" hens are not in cages but are confined in a building. "Certified organic" eggs come from hens that eat the same high grain diet except that the grains are organic. They too probably never see a flash of sunlight in their entire lives. The one egg that might be significantly better is the "omega 3" egg that has a more appropriate omega 3/6 ratio. I refer to all of these eggs as "factory farmed". There are very minimal differences in the diet and living conditions of these animals in comparison to those allowed to see sunlight and eat grass and bugs.

These distinct differences in appearance of the eggs above are not a difference in chicken breed. Most factory farmed eggs come from leghorns, and so do some of the eggs I have gotten in the past from a friend's farm where the hens are allowed access to the outside. I don't know the breed of chickens that produced the pastured eggs above, which come from the farm where we get our milk, but they are pretty much the same in appearance to the pastured eggs from leghorns that I sometimes get from my friend's farm. It's not the breed. It's the diet. There could also be a big difference that comes with the age of the eggs but I don't know how much it contributes. The eggs above are less than a week old and are very difficult to break. The eggs from the store are up to 10 weeks old and break easily.

Despite independent testing by several different entities showing proven differences in carotenoid, fat, and vitamin content, pastured eggs are routinely claimed by "supermarket gurus", The Egg Board, the Egg Nutrition Council (!?), the USDA, and the US Poultry and Egg Association to have no nutritional difference to those that are factory farmed. Most Americans have never experienced the difference and until they do they will perpetuate such modern ignorance.

Do you see yet what you are up against?

Eggs Squared

2008-11-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

Check out this great picture of truly farm fresh eggs. Notice the difference in color to the pale yellow egg yolk of the eggs you buy in the store that are up to 10 weeks old from chickens who never see sunlight or eat the right food.

These eggs taste amazing. I have heard them described as "eggs squared." It is true. I wouldn't have believed it a year ago.

We have been eating store bought eggs recently because when I was away in New York I was not home to order from the farm. They are not the same in taste.

Fresh eggs from truly free range hens have differences in fat and vitamin content to store bought eggs -- whether supposedly free range, organic, "farm fresh" or otherwise. Check it out for yourself sometime if you can buy eggs from a farmer who lets his or her chickens roam and root for bugs. I don't believe the taste will disappoint.

Next week I will fry up some store bought eggs in the same pan as farm fresh eggs so that you can see the contrast for yourself. If we get our order of cream this Friday I will also make some butter and show you the difference in that as well.

When Antibiotic-Treated Means Antibiotic-Free

2008-11-11T09:32:00.002-07:00

Tyson Chicken labels its chicken as "raised without antibiotics and growth hormones." I frequently buy it for my pets. I won't be buying Tyson Chicken in the future. (Yes, the antibiotic-free raising techniques matter to me.)

Turns out that Tyson Chicken has been caught injecting pre-hatched chicks 2-3 days before hatching, with antibiotics. However, they continue to label the chickens they sell as "raised without antibiotics." The USDA told them to stop using the "antibiotic free" label after Tyson lost a suit brought by competitors for false labeling. Now Tyson Chicken is suing the USDA to keep using the term, because the previous USDA rules said that any antibiotic treatments given before the chick is two days old don't actually count.

!!?

It doesn't matter one iota to me that the USDA has changed its tune on this. Whatever shred of credibility the USDA had in my eyes when it came to food regulation is now gone. Combined with their squelching of independent testing for mad cow disease and their support of fraudulent labeling of cooked almonds as raw ones, I'd say we can start referring to the USDA as the Ministry of Truth. Welcome to 1984. "War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength." And now, Fraud is Truth. People talk about reform, but is the USDA's authority in this regard actually reformable? I think not.

This story is part of the reason why I don't trust USDA labels, why I want the USDA's ability to regulate food abolished, and why I am moving toward buying all my meat and eggs from producers that I can verify as honest. Certified Free Range and Certified Organic are meaningless and very deceptive terms, if not outright lies. An animal can be certified as Free Range by the USDA even if never sets its feet on pasture. That is certainly very close to fraud if not a case of outright fraud. Here is what Ayn Rand said about fraud. In short, it is an indirect use of physical force against another person.

I don't need any more government-approved fraudulent labels on my food. Last year, Tyson Chicken was completely within its legal rights (as defined by the USDA) to label antibiotic-treated chickens as raised without antibiotics. That is, until the USDA decided to change its tune following the suit brought against Tyson.

We need a truly free market in food, which in part means abolishing the USDA's ability to sponsor lies. The USDA should not have any authority to regulate food inspection or to prevent the local production, local slaughter, or direct farm to consumer sales of completely healthy foods. For them to be able to do so is a violation of an individual's right to trade freely to mutual benefit and even makes our food system demonstrably less safe.

We need companies to start telling the truth and to suffer the full consequences of not doing so. It is notable that without the previous USDA regulations that supported Tyson Chicken's fraudulent labeling, Tyson would probably have already stopped using the "antibiotic free" label by now due to the lawsuit brought by competitors and the subsequent court order. We won't have justice so long as companies can then turn around and sue a government agency that supported their fraud in the first place.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, consumers need to stop believing everything they read. Consumers have a misplaced confidence in the USDA and other government agencies to "protect" them. Ultimately, fraud will only come to some minimum level when the public stops supporting it with their dollars and starts being personally responsible enough to verify claims, either directly or indirectly through independent certification.

Frustration-Free Packaging

2008-11-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

This is just another reason why I love Amazon.

I'm certainly looking forward to not needing a chainsaw to open my Christmas presents this year. Amazon will get more of my business in the future.

How I Procrastinate

2008-11-06T16:45:00.001-07:00

So. I have a baby shower coming up this week-end that I am throwing for one of my friends. (Believe it or not, I have actually had fun with this.) I decided several weeks ago that I was going to make a diaper cake. It's not what you think. Yes, I know it sounds gross but just click on the link and see how nice they can be. All right... some of them are tacky.

Well, let me tell you, the directions are even tackier. For those of us who are childless all of these bibs and receiving blankets and other baby doo dads that you are supposed to hang off the side can just be a bit much. So I took the cue from this hip Alpha Mom and decided to make a really good looking and useful diaper cake. It doesn't have receiving blankets, bibs, or rattles. I also didn't put baby shampoo and talcum powder bottles in the center. I went for something a whole lot more practical.... booze!!! That's right, a bottle of wine for Mom and a bottle of whiskey for Dad so they can toast at the hospital after tearing apart 100 diapers tightly wrapped in and joined together with rubber bands... Am I good or what?

(I was reminded by several people that she will be breastfeeding. Whatever.)

Both parents are firefighters and have the baby's room decorated in fire trucks and dalmatians, so I thought this design was appropriate. Cute, no? I am looking forward to giving it to her because I know she'll love it. Also, I'm tired of the smell of baby powder in the dining room. Diapers are stinky even before they are used!

Obama Supporters Not Sure What to Do Next

2008-11-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

HT: Titanic Deck Chairs

Sometimes You Just Have to Laugh

2008-11-05T15:08:00.001-07:00

National Geographic News headline: Global Warming Threatens Lemmings in Norway.

*sigh* Besides the fact that the headline is just funny.... do these people think? Global temperature was 6 degrees warmer than it is now 130 to 140 thousand years ago. I have no idea how old this particular lemming species is, but I would wager significant amounts of money it has been around more than 100,000 years. Most mammal species exist for approximately a million years, often much more than that, which means there is a very good chance this particular lemming species has gone through many cycles where it has been much warmer than it is now.

The main causes of human-caused extinction are landscape modification which lead to habitat loss and introduced species that threaten island biota not adapted to competing or defending themselves against the introduced organisms. Personally, I think it is a tragedy to be losing these species, but we are not losing them from global warming. A few dead lemmings and polar bears does not a tragedy make.

What is so frustrating to me in all of this global warming hysteria is that people completely lose focus and blow out of all proportion the real issues in biodiversity research and conservation. Bats all across America are dying off from a potentially introduced fungus. Somewhere in the range of 40-50 bird species have gone extinct in New Zealand since humans arrived there and brought rats, cats, stoats and other non-native predators that killed flightless birds or those otherwise not suited to defense against land predators. (And directly by hunting 12 majestic species of moa to extinction for food, too.) And there are people out there getting worked up over some drowned lemmings.

My Family Values Include Separation of Church and State

2008-11-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

And in saying that, I do NOT intend to sway your vote today. Seriously, you should know by now that I could care less who wins the presidential election today.

The excerpts from this post by Richard at Free the Animal are absolutely delightful:

...I can imagine no civic duty higher than simply minding my own business.
Besides, there's evolutionary precedent. We're descended from hominoids, not bees & ants.
So; no, I didn't vote. I won't vote; not now, not ever. I can't imagine an exercise more undeserving of my time...
I did perform one act of voting, however, and it was with my feet; last evening. I walked out on a dinner with other folks as the conversation turned to Proposition 8 here in California, the one that seeks to prevent gays and lesbians from uniting themselves in marriage under CA law. I'm privileged to have have lots of dear friends, gays and lesbians both, some of whom have been partnered in excess of 25 years.
This "vote" is a vile and evil repudiation of their basic dignity as people. It's an embarrassment that such a fundamental right of free association and equality under the law is even up for a "vote." Should we put human life to a vote? How about liberty? Pursuit of happiness? Why not, if anything can be voted on; anything wrested from those less influential by those whose only claim is that they're more mighty in numbers?
This isn't a vote about whether to "allow" such marriages, which would be bad enough, because, as I told you, man's most fundamental civic duty is to first mind his own business, tend to his own peaceful affairs, and leave others likewise free to attend theirs. That, to my mind, is civilization. What we're witnessing today, a competition to see whose values get imposed upon whom is, to me, profoundly uncivilized.
...
In the end, I don't think we're very enlightened at all. Seems some people may still have to go to the back of the bus, drink from their own water fountains, and keep to their own restrooms.

Indeed. And how ironic that one of the people wanting to keep gays in the back of the bus is a black man. I was completely unaware until very recently that Barack Obama doesn't support gay marriage. (Um.... Hello.. Where the hell have I been?) That is stunning and bizarre. I suppose the best that can be said of this loser is that he won't actively oppose gay marriage like McCain would. Still, that he would allow his religion to affect public policy disgusts me. I am so glad I did not vote for this man.

Democrats, grow some balls. With this kind of opposition to religious statism, our country would be doomed. JFK would be rolling over in his grave to know that a democratic presidential candidate would allow his religion to influence public policy. As Paul Hsieh said,

Anyone who votes for Obama thinking that he will offer any kind of principled defense of church-state separation is going to be deeply disappointed.

Indeed. As always, the Ayn Rand Institute is making a principled defense of individual rights on this issue. Thank goodness we are not relying on the Democrats to protect individual rights. The battle would be lost.

What a dark day in American history, either way this election goes. On this dark day, I'm proud to follow that other morality, Objectivism.

Fuel Prices and the Evil Speculators

2008-11-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

In my previous post, I noted that as traditional "oil" supply eventually diminishes in the face of increasing demand (assuming we are correct that the supply is finite and not accounting for other factors like OPEC and government interference in supply) the price will gradually increase and alternative, currently expensive (or currently non-existent) options will become economically feasible.

Of course, we have all seen fuel prices decrease drastically lately. We all know the reason. The speculators don't believe the future demand will be as high as it was 6 months ago due to all the uncertainty out there with Washington's bailout shenanigans and the prediction of a depression.

I want to know, where did all the people go (ahem, Bill O'Reilly, I'm talking to you) who were condemning the evil speculators for raising the price of fuel? Where did they go? Why are they not now praising the wonderful, beneficent speculators for their role in lowering the price of fuel by over a dollar and half per gallon since last month?