cherry banana ice cream

Ingredients:

1 bag frozen cherries (10 oz)

1 banana

1 oz walnuts or cashews (raw)

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup pomegranate juice or soy milk (I'm guessing, I don't usually measure, add more if you find you need it)

2 tsp Dr. Fuhrman's cocoa powder (optional--I put 1 tsp in housemate's, left it out of mine)

Combine the nuts and liquid in the blender first. Blend until smooth. If you need more volume for the blender to work, add some of the cherries. Then add the rest of the ingredients and blend. You'll need to work with the plunger to blend it. A powerful blender is required.

Note: I rarely make it with the cocoa powder because I'm sensitive to the caffeine. It's great without it.

Serves 2 (about 3/4 cup per serving)

Calories per serving: 186; protein 3g, carbs 36g, fat 5 g (24%).

For fun, compare this to Haagen-Daaz cherry vanilla ice cream

serving size 1/2 cup (note: that is smaller than my ice cream!)

Calories: 260, protein 4 g, carbs 23g, fat 15 g (58%)

Since I don't eat dairy, I can't do a taste test, but I like how mine tastes.

Feb. 28 food

Brekky: another smoothie--I'm tweaking the recipe.  This one has more greens than before.  I also want to have less of the pomegranate juice.  Even though it's healthy, I don't like buying those bottles and then recycling them.  I think this is the only food I buy in a container now!   It will be a while before I run out, but when I do, I don't think I'll be buying it on a regular basis anymore.   0.5 oz brazil nuts

snacks:  I was gone until 3 pm and doing physical labor so had a lot of snacks:  an apple, 3 carrots and 2 essene buds that I brought.  plus an apple, 2 oranges, some carrots and celery sticks that others brought.  

Late Lunch/early dinner:  baked sweet potato.  apple-cabbage dish.  I still love this dish.  It is so easy to make and so good.

Dessert:  cherry banana ice cream.  My new favorite ice cream--super simple.  I added cocoa to housemate's and I think that was even better.  I've been avoiding chocolate because of the caffeine but I might make an exception for this.  Maybe 1.5 tsp of cocoa powder is low enough caffeine...or I could remember to add vanilla next time and then I won't want the cocoa.

took my supplements.

Total calories 1520, protein 30 g (6%), carbs 319 g (77%), fat 28 g (17%).

I didn't wake up hungry today.  Maybe this is the right amount of calories for me even though the websites I googled tell me I need more.  Does menopause give you lower metabolism?  I've had a lot of skipped periods lately (yeah!).  

starches and grains

I thought Dr. McDougall's newsletter this month gave some good arguments for eating starches and grains.  He points out that humans have been eating this stuff for 3000-10,000 years and our genes have adapted to digest them (making us different from chimpanzees in that regard).  Some of the raw food promoters say we should be eating like the apes and chimpanzees since we are so similar--so greens, fruits, and nuts.  This is pretty similar to what Dr. Fuhrman recommends too but he also recommends cooked food including cruciferous vegetables, beans and some grains and starchy vegetables.   Fuhrman recommends eating much more greens and cruciferous vegetables than McDougall.  McDougall argues that we should follow the same diets several non-western cultures follow(ed) (the ones who haven't adopted the Standard American Diet yet), which are mostly starch-based, because these societies are (were) long-lived and healthy.  I think there is merit to that, but I agree with Fuhrman that we shouldn't just copy a successful way of eating if we think we can also improve on it.  Not only that, many of us don't figure this out until middle age, so not only do we want to improve our health but we probably have to make up for years of abuse.  So piling on the greens and cruciferous vegetables probably does some good.  So overall, I still think Fuhrman is the best program.  And he is an active MD, and has treated tens of thousands of patients.  There's nothing like first hand experience.  But McDougall's newsletter did remind me that our bodies have adapted to handle starches and grains and they can be a healthy part of our diet and provide us needed calories.  Fortunately, sweet potatoes fall in that category.  I am in love with sweet potatoes.  and beets.  but sweet potatoes even more.   And I shouldn't forget brown rice.  I'm going to make some tomorrow to eat with our chili.  I think it helps me digest beans more.

The tipping point

I just finished Malcolm Gladwell's book, "The Tipping Point."  It's about how social viruses spread and become epidemics.  I want to spread the virus of eating healthy.  Gladwell says there are three main ways:  1)  the law of the few; these are special people that make a big difference and spread the word:  the mavens, the connectors and the salesmen.  The mavens are people who know everything about some things and people turn to them for advice.  The connectors know lots of people.  The salesmen are good at convincing people.  2) stickiness.  The message has to stick, and not go in one ear and out the other.  3) the power of context.  Now I've already started forgetting how this one works.  oh yeah, depending on your situation and the environment around you, the message may or may not stick.  He gives an example of how crime went down in New york city when they cleaned the graffiti off the subways and cracked down on minor offenses.   Suddenly the standards for behavior, and the expectations went up.  

So, knowing all this, how to I spread the message of healthy eating?  Let's start with #1, the law of the few.  I could call myself a maven since I have been obsessed with this topic for a few years now and have learned a lot.  However, I am not a great communicator (orally anyway), though I'm sort of respected by my friends.  But I'm pretty introverted.  I haven't told most of my friends or family about my blogs because I think they would think I'm crazy.  You can see I have a long ways to go to become one of the "few".  However, I could work the maven angle.  And you don't have to be a communicator to spread the virus, you just have to know one and convince them to spread it.  Same with the salesmen.  The book gave an example of a great communicator:  the hair stylist.  I have a really cool hairstylist, cool enough to be convinced about this healthy eating stuff, and then spread the word.  I can't think of any salesmen I know...  okay on to #2)  stickiness.  This is hard because of so much ingrained thinking about healthy eating.  The automatic reaction from most people is "I'd rather enjoy life than be miserable and live a few years longer," not realizing that you will enjoy life more and be more happy when you don't have continous aches and pains.  But there is the very ingrained and strong association of healthy eating with deprivation.   So how to combat that?  There's the power of example.  Some of my friends and family were very interested to learn more about healthy eating after I lost 30 lbs and felt and looked so much better than before.   That seems to be the most effective.  For people who didn't know me before I became healthy, I don't have much influence.  Talking to people about healthy eating doesn't work very well--though I have to admit I haven't tried very hard.  I really don't want to come across as preachy and make people defensive.   So in fact, I shut down the virus before it can even have a chance to start because I am so reluctant to talk about it.  I have started to bring healthy treats to various functions, and the surprise is that people seem almost relieved to see fruit instead of muffins.  They go, "oh good, fruit!" (with some exceptions of course!).    So that is another good approach.  Yeah, I think the approach has to be through their stomachs and not my mouth.   Okay, on to #3), the power of context.   ummmm.   So what is the best environment (place & time, situation) to plant the seed in people?  I don't know.   Not meal time, unless it's a meal I have cooked.  Oh, I guess inviting people over for meals could be effective.   Unfortunately for completely unrelated reasons, I can't do this very often.  I had a vegan cooking class last fall and since then one of the students turned vegan!  However, I think that was a fluke.  She was motivated already when she took the class.  Ah, that's the key, identifying people who are already motivated.  Maybe you start with the mavens--get them on board first and then try to spread the word.   One thing I should do is start an ETL (Eat to Live, Fuhrman's program) meetup group in my town.  I'm kind of shy about such things but I really think I should do it.  Maybe that should be my first goal.  And I should convince my hair stylist.  And bring great healthy food to my church potlucks.  That's a good start.

So what book am I going to read next?  "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie.  Ha!  

sleep

Do we need 8 hours of sleep every day?  I sleep less and less as I get older.  I wake up early and want to get going on the day.  It doesn't feel like it's for stressful reasons, but for happy reasons, enjoying life.  I go to bed too late because I work in the evenings and don't wind down, plus I want to read in bed before going to sleep.  I think I only sleep about 6-7 hours a day.   I have catch-up days where I sleep almost 8 hours.   Is that bad?  I feel okay.  I used to sleep much more.  I wonder if I need less sleep since I am more healthy than I used to be and my body doesn't have to work as hard to remove toxins.  

another morning smoothie

This is almost the same as my original morning smoothie but adds a bag of spinach (substitutes for some of the juice).

Ingredients for 2 servings:

1 banana

1 package frozen mixed berries or cherries (10 oz bag)

8 oz pomegranate juice

8 oz soy milk or pomegranate juice or water

2 Tbsp flaxseeds

2 Tbsp sunflower seeds

1  5-oz bag of spinach

1.5 ml DHA

4 gentle care vitamins

6 Osteo-Sun (vitamin D and some calcium)

Blend half the liquid, seeds, vitamins, and spinach. Add the rest of the liquid, berries and banana, and blend some more.  Makes two 18-oz servings.  I freeze one of them for the next day (plastic glass with foil on top or water bottle).   I got tired of trying to remember to take all those darn vitamins so I am now putting them in the smoothie.  It seems like a lot of vitamins but they are actually a lower dose than most, except for the vitamin D which is typical. 

If you want a treat, it's really sweet with cherries and all juice (my soymilk is unsweetened)  

Total calories per serving: 335. Protein: 10 g. Carbs: 55 g. fat: 12 g (31%)

tahini-rutabaga sauce

Ingredients:

1 rutabaga or turnip

part of an onion or leek (optional, I almost always forget this)

1 oz (about 2 Tbsp) sesame seeds or 1 Tbsp sesame seeds and 1 Tbsp sunflower seeds

juice of 1 lemon

some water or liquid from the veggies if you are steaming veggies to eat with this

peel, cutup the rutabaga or turnip, steam until tender (probably at least 20 minutes for the rutabaga in a regular pan, or 2 minutes in pressure cooker). Blend everything in the blender until nicely pureed. Makes a good sauce to top over vegetables or kale.

Total calories: 325, protein 9 g (9%), carbs 50 g (58%), fat 12 g (33%).

We usually split this into two servings.

feb. 27 food

Brekky:   spinach-mango smoothie, 0.5 oz brazil nuts

Lunch:  steamed kale with a sesame-rutabaga sauce.  This is one of my all-time favorite dishes, which probably indicates that I am very weird.  fruit salad, 2 carrots.  part of a smoothie when I was making a new batch to freeze.

Dinner:  big easy salad, two baked beets.  an apple.  I wasn't hungry by the time I got to the apple but I ate it anyway and it was delicious.  The beets were like dessert (top right in the picture).  I just ate them as is after baking them in their skins.  Yum!   The salad had lots of lettuce and arugula, some edamame and corn, 4 olives (unsalted!) cutup, yellow and orange bell pepper, and 1 Tbsp Dr. Fuhrman's D'Angou Pear vinegar.  It was really good.

took my supplements. 

Total calories 1551, protein 46 g (9%), carbs 278 g (66%), fat 44g (25%).

This is the same amount of calories I had yesterday.  I woke up a bit hungry this morning.  Does that mean it's not enough?  But I feel I had plenty to eat today.  I didn't get hungry for dinner until 6:30 pm.   Finished dinner at 7:30 pm.  According to some website I googled, I should eat 1800 calories per day.  But the fact that I get cold a lot means my metabolism is probably lower than average.  So maybe 1500 calories is the right amount.  

Free College Education

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to attend Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, or Berkeley, I found an amazing resource called academicearth.org, where you can actually watch lectures on over 25 topics by professors at these institutions. Check it out. It might be a great way to spend some time on the computer instead of just looking at youtube.

Here is a sample lecture from MIT by Thomas Friedman on "The World is Flat 3.0" - a fascinating presentation on globalization and the future.

mammograms

To all women:  Read this article.  Read the whole thing.  Bottom line:  forget the mammograms, eat lots of greens and take your Vitamin D every day!

Dietary Fiber and Mineral Availability

Mainstream health authorities are constantly telling us to eat more fiber for health, particularly whole grains, fruit and vegetables. Yet the only clinical trial that has ever isolated the effect of eating a high-fiber diet on overall risk of death, the Diet and Reinfarction Trial, came up with this graph:



Oops! How embarrassing. At two years, the group that doubled its fiber intake had a 27% greater chance of dying and a 23% greater chance of having a heart attack. The extra fiber was coming from whole grains. I should say, out of fairness, that the result wasn't quite statistically significant (p less than 0.05) at two years. But at the very least, this doesn't support the idea that increasing fiber will extend your life. I believe this the only diet trial that has ever looked at fiber and mortality, without also changing other variables at the same time.

Why might fiber be problematic? I read a paper recently that gave a pretty convincing answer to that question: "Dietary Fibre and Mineral Bioavailability", by Dr. Barbara F. Hartland. By definition, fiber is indigestible. We can divide it into two categories: soluble and insoluble. Insoluble fiber is mostly cellulose and it's relatively inert, besides getting fermented a bit by the gut flora. Soluble fiber is anything that can be dissolved in water but not digested by the human digestive tract. It includes a variety of molecules, some of which are quite effective at keeping you from absorbing minerals. Chief among these is phytic acid, with smaller contributions from tannins (polyphenols) and oxalates. The paper makes a strong case that phytic acid is the main reason fiber prevents mineral absorption, rather than the insoluble fiber fraction. This notion was confirmed here.

As a little side note, polyphenols are those wonderful plant antioxidants that are one of the main justifications for the supposed health benefits of vegetables, tea, chocolate, fruits and antioxidant supplements. The problem is, many of them are actually anti-nutrients. They reduce mineral absorption, reduce growth and feed efficiency in a number of species, and the antioxidant effect seen in human plasma after eating them is due largely to our own bodies secreting uric acid into the blood (a defense mechanism?), rather than the polyphenols themselves. The main antioxidants in plasma are uric acid, vitamin C and vitamin E, with almost no direct contribution from polyphenols. I'm open to the idea that some polyphenols could be beneficial if someone can show me convincing data, but in any case they are not the panacea they're made out to be. Thanks to Peter for cluing me in on this.

Whole grains would be a good source of water-soluble vitamins and minerals, if it weren't for their very high phytic acid content. Even though whole grains are full of minerals, replacing refined grains with whole grains in the diet (and especially adding extra bran) actually reduces the overall absorption of a number of minerals (free text, check out table 4). This has been confirmed repeatedly for iron, zinc, calcium, magnesium and phosphorus. That could well account for the increased mortality in the DART trial.

Refining grains gets rid of the vitamins and minerals but at least refined grains don't prevent you from absorbing the minerals in the rest of your food. Here's a comparison of a few of the nutrients in one cup of cooked brown vs. unenriched white rice (218 vs. 242 calories):

Brown rice would be quite nutritious if we could absorb all those minerals. There are a few ways to increase mineral absorption from whole grains. One way is to soak them in slightly acidic, warm water, which allows their own phytase enzyme to break down phytic acid. This doesn't seem to do much for brown rice, which doesn't contain much phytase.

A more effective method is to grind grains and soak them before cooking, which helps the phytase function more effectively, especially in gluten grains and buckwheat. The most effective method by far, and the method of choice among healthy traditional cultures around the world, is to soak, grind and ferment whole grains. This breaks down nearly all the phytic acid, making whole grains a good source of both minerals and vitamins.

The paper "Dietary Fibre and Mineral Bioavailability" listed another method of increasing mineral absorption from whole grains that I wasn't aware of. Certain foods can increase the absorption of minerals from whole grains high in phytic acid. These include: foods rich in vitamin C such as fruit or potatoes; meat including fish; and dairy.

Another point the paper made was that the phytic acid content of vegetarian diets is often very high, potentially leading to mineral deficiencies. The typical modern vegetarian diet containing brown rice and unfermented soy products is very high in phytic acid and thus very low in absorbable minerals. The more your diet depends on plant sources for minerals, the more careful you have to be about how you prepare your food.

Just a Reminder

I will not tolerate comments that are disrespectful or threatening to other commenters or myself. Feel free to disagree with anyone here, including me, in a courteous tone. I enjoy the intelligent discussions we have here, and I don't want them to degenerate into troll wars.

logging nutrition

I previously thought that keeping track of my calories and nutritional intake is going overboard, is micromanaging, is obsessive, and a waste of time. Actually it's been a good educational exercise. I think it's a great way to fine tune your eating plan. You can see what foods costs a lot in calories and fat, and decide if they are worth it to include or if you want lower quantities. It's been good for me for regulating the nut intake. And it's great to find out which foods you like that you can eat tons of. For example, I love carrots. I can go crazy with those babies. And I like fruit. I can only go a little crazy with fruit but I like them more than nuts, so can eat them instead. And things I love like beets and sweet potatoes, well, I can go crazy with them too. Fuhrman recommends we limit the starchy vegetables, but I think that's more for people trying to lose weight. I'd rather have baked beats than grains any day. So go for it!

So as it's turned out, it's actually kind of fun to log the calories and nutrition and you learn a lot doing it. This CRONoMeter program is easy to use. I won't do this forever, just until I feel I've learned what I want to learn. And not only do you learn a lot, it helps you regulate your intake. Check out this article from SparkPeople.com. They refer to a major study in the New England Journal of Medicine that shows that no matter what diet you go on, if you track your calories, you are more likely to lose weight. I know someone who lost 50 lbs in the last 6 months and she tracks her calories too. So I learned something new! Thanks to Howard for turning me on to this.

Feb. 26 food

calories in parentheses

Brekky: smoothie (270). 0.5 oz brazil nuts (93). (363)

Lunch: spinach-mango smoothie (302), apple (95), two carrots (50). (447)

Dinner: oatmeal (303) + berries&banana (179) + 0.5 oz walnuts (93). another carrot (25).  kiwi (46). snacked on arugula (12) while making housemate's smoothies and orange juice. Put too much juice in housemate's smoothie, so had to eat some (70). (728)

took my supplements. DHA has 9 calories

Total calories 1559, protein 39 g (8%), carbs 284 g (68%), fat 42g (24%).

I feel that I ate plenty today, though I was hungry by dinner time. I could either eat more for lunch or eat an earlier dinner and then a snack before bed. Fuhrman is against snacking but he's also against overfilling yourself. I could eat more for breakfast. I'm thinking of changing my smoothie recipe again. more on that later.

I ate a lot of greens in the smoothies (was out much of the day from early in the morning, so smoothies were easy to prepare the day before and take with me); so I thought, I could have oatmeal at dinner. I am not excited by grains anymore. Oatmeal by itself is quite bland. Vegetables and fruit, on the other hand, all have taste. Even bland-looking white cauliflower has a very nice taste all by itself (when cooked anyway, I'm not a big raw cauli fan though I have to admit I haven't tried it in a while, okay I will try it tomorrow). So you have to flavor the oatmeal. Well, I'd just as soon eat the stuff that flavors it, the fruit and nuts, and then have something else like my favorite apple-cabbage dish--at least while I can still afford all these expensive items. I do realize grains are cheap. So I'll have them when I get poor---that'll happen soon enough (I've always worried about that since I have a fun but insecure job).

Food and Sex Change Places

George Will has a terrific article today responding to an essay by Mary Eberstadt titled "Is Food the New Sex?". Laying the basis of his comments from Eberstadt's piece:

Imagine, says Eberstadt, a 30-year-old Betty in 1958, and her 30-year-old granddaughter Jennifer today. Betty's kitchen is replete with things -- red meat, dairy products, refined sugars, etc. -- that nutritionists now instruct us to minimize. She serves meat from her freezer, accompanied by this and that from jars. If she serves anything "fresh," it would be a potato. If she thinks about food, she thinks only about what she enjoys, not what she, and everyone else, ought to eat. Jennifer pays close attention to food, about which she has strong opinions. She eats neither red meat nor endangered fish, buys "organic" meat and produce, fresh fruits and vegetables, and has only ice in her freezer. These choices are, for her, matters of right and wrong. Regarding food, writes Eberstadt, Jennifer exemplifies Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative: She acts according to rules she thinks are universally valid and should be universally embraced.

Betty would be baffled by draping moral abstractions over food, a mere matter of personal taste. Regarding sex, however, she had her Categorical Imperative -- the 1950s' encompassing sexual ethic that proscribed almost all sex outside of marriage. Jennifer is a Whole Foods Woman, an apostle of thoroughly thought-out eating. She bristles with judgments -- moral as well as nutritional -- about eating, but she is essentially laissez-faire about sex.

This is striking in its accuracy of observation and its implications. Eberstadt concludes:

Today "the all-you-can-eat buffet" is stigmatized and the "sexual smorgasbord" is not. Eberstadt's surmise about a society "puritanical about food, and licentious about sex" is this: "The rules being drawn around food receive some force from the fact that people are uncomfortable with how far the sexual revolution has gone -- and not knowing what to do about it, they turn for increasing consolation to mining morality out of what they eat."

This underscores something that Dennis Prager says frequently regarding the distinction between the Left and the Right: The Right fights evil. The Left fights Global Warming. The morality of the Left seems so absurd that it is difficult to comprehend.

supplements

Here are the supplements I take every day: Dr. Fuhrman's DHA, 2 gentle care vitamins, and 3 Osteo-Suns (vitamin D and some calcium). The links to the supplements give a better description than I would, so if you want to find out more about them just click on them. And here is another link to Dr. Fuhrman's vitamin advisor page.

Feb. 25 food

Okay today my goal was to eat more:

Brekky:  smoothie; 1 oz brazil nuts

snack at co-op:  2 essene buds (sprouted wheat berries, almonds + raisins).  they are small and they taste like a muffin, but without the unhealthy stuff.  

Lunch:  baked sweet potato, cabbage salad (2 servings), fruit salad (same as Monday's).  I ate too much cabbage salad--was mindlessly eating while on a long telecon.  

by now I was full and was up to 1100 calories I think.

Dinner:  now I wasn't so hungry even though I waited until 6:45 pm to start making it.  So I made a big salad but went easy on the ingredients.  It had lettuce and arugula, 1/3 cup peas, 1/3 cup corn (from freezer, thawed in microwave), part of a bell pepper, and olives!  These olives are dried, unsalted, uncured olives from Peru.  I got them after reading strix's post about them.  They are interesting.  They are a little bitter.  But they grow on you.  I cut up 4 of them and put them on the salad.  They are 100% fat, but it was only 30 calories.  I see why they make oil out of them!   I also put on some balsamic vinegar (Dr. Fuhrman's of course).  Here's a picture of the salad before I remembered to some yellow bell pepper:

The black pieces are the olives.   I also had a small bowl of split pea and carrot soup, 2 carrots, and 2 kiwis for dessert (I wasn't hungry by this point but these were sure good--I suddenly like kiwis).

Total calories:  1567, protein 42 g, carbs 261 g, fat 52 g (30% of total calories).

okay so I got up above 1500 calories.  But I feel like I overate at lunch (the snack and the extra cabbage salad) and maybe dinner too (mainly because of lunch).  Oh well, I do know that 1200 calories isn't enough because I was waking up hungry.  so maybe something in between is good.  

Brother's Keeper

I haven't written a poem in a while, but I was delighted to have some time to compose this one on my vacation.

Brother's Keeper

by John Laukkanen

2/25/09

It is never "just"!

The smallest piece one can weigh

(a sip of drink or bit of crust),

weighs down a thief bit by bit,

pounding him to dust.

It is never "just"!

Though it start as only one,

and a white one at that, I trust.

One more, two gray, and a black

fill to brim and bust!

No, it is not "just"!

The one thing you do not have

costs more than is told by your lust.

Have you n'er seen scars on men

whose fire it has brushed?

It is never just ~

the vengeance your anger takes.

The hateful fist or tongue's full gust

takes your own humanity

with its final thrust.

No, these are unjust!

This false counsel that you keep

forgets the bond 'tween each of us:

Keep self, and keep your brother ~

It's your sacred trust.

A few thoughts on Minerals, Milling, Grains and Tubers

One of the things I've been noticing in my readings on grain processing and mineral bioavailability is that it's difficult to make whole grains into a good source of minerals. Whole grains naturally contain more minerals that milled grains where the bran and germ are removed, but most of the minerals are bound up in ways that prevent their absorption.

The phytic acid content of whole grains is the main reason for their low mineral bioavailability. Brown rice, simply cooked, provides very little iron and essentially no zinc due to its high concentration of phytic acid. Milling brown rice, which turns it into white rice, removes most of the minerals but also most of the phytic acid, leaving mineral bioavailability similar to or perhaps even better than brown rice (the ratio of phytic acid to iron and zinc actually decreases after milling rice). If you're going to throw rice into the rice cooker without preparing it first, white rice is probably better than brown overall. Either way, the mineral availability of rice is low. Here's how Dr. Robert Hamer's group put it when they evaluated the mineral content of 56 varieties of Chinese rice:

This study shows that the mineral bio-availability of Chinese rice varieties will be [less than] 4%. Despite the variation in mineral contents, in all cases the [phytic acid] present is expected to render most mineral present unavailable. We conclude that there is scope for optimisation of mineral contents of rice by matching suitable varieties and growing regions, and that rice products require processing that retains minerals but results in thorough dephytinisation.

It's important to note that milling removes most of the vitamin content of the brown rice as well, another important factor.

Potatoes and other tubers contain much less phytic acid than whole grains, which may be one reason why they're a common feature of extremely healthy cultures such as the Kitavans. I went on NutritionData to see if potatoes have a better mineral-to-phytic acid ratio than grains. They do have a better ratio than whole grains, although whole grains contain more total minerals.

Soaking grains reduces their phytic acid content, but the extent depends on the grain. Gluten grain flours digest their own phytic acid very quickly when soaked, due to the presence of the enzyme phytase. Because of this, bread is fairly low in phytic acid, although whole grain yeast breads contain more than sourdough breads. Buckwheat flour also has a high phytase activity. The more intact the grain, the slower it breaks down its own phytic acid upon soaking. Some grains, like rice, don't have much phytase activity so they degrade phytic acid slowly. Other grains, like oats and kasha, are toasted before you buy them, which kills the phytase.

Whole grains generally contain so much phytic acid that modest reductions don't free up much of the mineral content for absorption. Many of the studies I've read, including this one, show that soaking brown rice doesn't really free up its zinc or iron content. But I like brown rice, so I want to find a way to prepare it well. It's actually quite rich in vitamins and minerals if you can absorb them.

One of the things many of these studies overlook is the effect of pH on phytic acid degradation. Grain phytase is maximally active around pH 4.5-5.5. That's slightly acidic. Most of the studies I've read soaked rice in water with a neutral pH, including the one above. Adding a tablespoon of whey, yogurt, vinegar or lemon juice per cup of grains to your soaking medium will lower the pH and increase phytase activity. Temperature is also an important factor, with 50 C (122 F) being the optimum. I like to put my soaking grains and beans on the heating vent in my kitchen.

I don't know exactly how much adding acid and soaking at a warm temperature will increase the mineral availability of brown rice (if at all), because I haven't found it in the literature. The bacteria present if you soak it in whey, unfiltered vinegar or yogurt could potentially aid the digestion of phytic acid. Another strategy is to add the flour of a high-phytase grain like buckwheat to the soaking medium. This works for soaking flours, perhaps it would help with whole grains as well?

So now we come to the next problem. Phytic acid is a medium-sized molecule. If you break it down and it lets go of the minerals it's chelating, the minerals are more likely to diffuse out of the grain into your soaking medium, which you then discard because it also contains the tannins, saponins and other anti-nutrients that you want to get rid of. That seems to be exactly what happens, at least in the case of brown rice.

So what's the best solution for maximal mineral and vitamin content? Do what traditional cultures have been doing for millenia: soak, grind and ferment whole grains. This eliminates nearly all the phytic acid, dramatically increasing mineral bioavailiability. Fermenting batter doesn't lose minerals because there's nowhere for them to go. In the West, we use this process to make bread, which would probably be a good food if it weren't for the gluten. In Africa, they do it to make ogi, injera, and a number of other fermented grain dishes. In India, they grind rice and beans to make idli and dosas. In the Phillipines, they ferment ground rice to make puto. Fermenting ground whole grains is the most reliable way to improve their mineral bioavailability and nutritional value in general.

But isn't having a rice cooker full of steaming brown rice so nice? I'm still working on finding a reliable way to increase its nutritional value.

Greed - by Milton Friedman

Here is a blast from the past! Very interesting defense of Capitalism:

Feb. 24 food

Brekky:  smoothie, 0.5 oz brazil nuts

Lunch:  Cabbage salad, baked sweet potato, steamed broccoli and cauliflower.  and skin of housemate's baked potato--I like potato skins.  This was a really good lunch.  The cabbage salad was really good and I love baked sweet potatoes.  Here's a picture:

Dinner:  Okay, I thought I needed more calories to I tried to eat a lot:  cabbage salad, 2 baked beets (sooo goood!), arugula with edamame and vinegar (super easy and good!), a kiwi, a small orange.    I just baked the beets at 350 for 1.5 hours, and ate them after they cooled.  I didn't bother to peel them, just cut off the ends and ate them with my fingers--the peels protected them from the beet juice.   I'm going to be eating a lot more baked beets.  I love them, and they are still local in Wisconsin.   Here's an ugly picture of the half-eaten dinner, showing the cabbage salad and beet.

Here's a prettier picture of the arugula and edamame.

Total calories:  1274.  ack!   protein 37 g, carbs 207 g, fat 44 g (31%).    This does not seem to be enough calories.  I was hungry at dinner time but I'm supposed to be.  I am not hungry at 10 pm.  Maybe I just need fewer calories than I thought.  Maybe this explains why I am on the thin side.  My fat intake was reasonably high (a good thing) because of the walnuts in the cabbage salad.  So I probably had 2.5-3 oz of nuts and seeds.  Should I try to eat more calories?   The way to do that would be to eat grains.  But I think grains are boring and take time to cook.   Maybe I could have some oatmeal with dinner.  I'd be willing to do that. 

The Airzoo

Yes, I'm not sure what the difference between and Air "Museum" and an Air "Zoo" is either, but we went to Kalamazoo for the day to find out.

We saw a lot of airplanes and got to go on some "air" rides, including 3 simulators (one where Jimmy controlled the airplane as we shot at tanks on the ground, one where we flew to the International Space Station, and one where Jimmy went to Mars). That's a lot of flying!

We also got a lesson on aerodynamics and did some fascinating experiments to prove air exists, has weight and why wings lift an airplane.




We also had the privilege of having two different veterans talk to us about the planes that were in the museum (oops! Zoo). They had everything from a replica of the Wright Brother's plane to the NASA space capsules. Additionally, the Zoo has the world's largest wall mural in the world (300 feet by 32 feet), which depicts the history of flying. It is very impressive.

They also had the fastest plane ever built, which was designed to take pictures from as high up as 85,000 feet.



They also had a 4-D theater that showed a brief movie about one of the attacks during WWII as well as a lot hands-on activities for visitors to do.

Feb. 23 food

Brekky:  smoothie; 0.5 oz brazil nuts

Lunch:  3 small carrots, split pea and carrot soup (see yesterday's post), fruit salad (same as yesterday).  

snack:  kiwi.  I know, I'm not supposed to snack (according to Dr. Fuhrman).  I wasn't hungry, just in the kitchen making smoothies so was around food.  but it was just a kiwi.  and it was good.

dinner:  big easy salad. this time with peas instead of edamame (since my soup had more than enough legumes in it).  0.5 oz brazil nuts.  small orange.

Total calories:  1370; protein 41 g; carbs 244 g; fat 36 g (24%).

I'll list my supplements too:  2 gentle care (vitamins), 2 osteosun (vitamin D), 1 oz DHA.  It's fun to check out the vitamin and mineral amounts in my diet too (using the CRON-o-meter program).  I'm usually over 100% on everything except B12 and D, which are 0%.   Fortunately my supplements take care of them. 

This doesn't seem like enough calories.  But I was plenty full after my meals--the soup made me feel full all day.  I had 2 oz of nuts/seeds (1 oz of brazil, 0.5 flaxseed in smoothie, 0.5 sunflower seeds in salad).  This contributed 30 grams of fat and 340 calories so I can see why they are useful for calories in addition to being healthy.  And I can see where if you eat too many you will eat a heck of a lot of calories.  I really like brazil nuts so am glad that I got to eat them.  Dr. Fuhrman recommended to me brazil nuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds to keep my heartbeat regular (described more in this post).

feb 22 food

Brekky:  small morning smoothie

snack:  apple

lunch:  pureed turnip and rutabaga, peas and carrots

snack:  fruit salad (strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, banana--split with housemate)--really good.   several carrots while preparing dinner.  made a large batch of smoothies for housemate and added too much juice so ended up eating about 6-8 0z of leftover smoothie.  it was yummy

late dinner:  split pea and carrot soup; 0.5 oz walnuts.  The soup recipe is another wild and crazy one from Fuhrman.  It has lots of carrots and carrot juice, an entire bunch of celery, 2 bunches of greens, and 4 zucchinis!   You puree the zucchinis and greens after cooking.  It is not the prettiest looking soup with those dark greens, but it tastes quite good, and is super nutritious.

total calories:  1550; protein 54 g; carbs 300 g; fat 26 g (15% of total).  Notice how much protein it is--plenty!  Half that was from the 3 bowls of soup.  I didn't eat enough nuts and seeds--I'm still working up to that after last week's extreme unpleasantness.  Also I need to eat them earlier in the day because that's when I exercise.   Today I was hungry and very tired after riding my bike and snow shoveling.  

Also, I think instead of making soy milk (e.g., for the pureed veggies), I'll use pureed pumpkin seeds (or other nut/seed) and water.  My soy milk maker makes more than I like to drink before it gets old, and the seeds are probably healthier and will give me some needed fat and calories.  

Also Fuhrman says you shouldn't snack but I was hungry today after several days of not eating enough.  

Finally, what do you think about my eating berries out of season from South America?  Is it unethical?  I do it partly because I can now and I don't know if I will be able to in the future.  Now I'm fully employed and food transportation prices are still relatively cheap.  In the future I could lose my job and oil will get much more expensive.  So I figure why not enjoy it while I can.  But if it's unethical, I'll reconsider--I guess it's bad for global warming--on the other hand, shipping such large volumes in those gigantic containers in those gigantic boats is actually quite efficient compared to driving your car to the store (and I bike anyway).  I get fair trade, organic bananas.  The berries are organic, but not fair trade. 

WHARTON ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

I hope you have had an opportunity to view some of my new posts including recent interviews that I have given regarding the health care system and possible reforms, especially in light of the economic crisis. Today, I am very proud to report that I received the Wharton School of Business Alumni Achievement Award from the Health Care Administration Program, arguably the best in the country. The Alumni Association noted that Jefferson is an acknowledged leader in the field, due in no small part to the creation of our Jefferson School of Population Health and our innovative Masters Programs in Public Health, Health Policy, and Quality and Safety. It was a privilege for me to receive the award and to share in the reflected glory with my current team of outstanding faculty at Jefferson. It was also a real treat to see some of my previous professors and mentors, including those who participated in the roasting!!! Wharton taught me many lessons that I use each and every day. Do you think we can teach leadership skills necessary to help us reform our broken health care system?? I know we can and I want to hear what you think too. DAVID NASH

What's In A Name?

You may not recognize him by his official name, but here it is:
William Arthur Philip Louis Windsor Schleswig-Hostein-Sonderborg-Glucksburg-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Seriously, that's his legal name. You probably better know him as Prince William.

This actually is more of a national history than a personal name. His "last" name (the last 7 names in the list) identifies his family heritage as if you added the maiden names of all your previous grandmothers to your own name (hyphenating them all, of course). For us Americans, it would be a hodge-podge of nationalities as it is with Prince William (English, German, Dane, Russian, Greek, and Rumanian). The only difference is that each marriage in his ancestry was closer to a National Treaty with another country, as opposed to the run-of-the-mill kind of marriages that happen in our families.

Either way, imagine the conversation as a 5 year old trying to learn his name? So what name is on his driver's license? Imagine filling in those circles for nationalized tests? I guess a lot can be in a name.

big easy salad

Not a New Orleans salad, just big and easy.  (note:  I changed the recipe so some of my old posts aren't accurate)

Ingredients:

lots of lettuce

lots of arugula (optional but I love it)

1/2 orange or red bell pepper

1/3 cup frozen sweet peas & 1/3 cup frozen corn  (or 1/2 cup sweet peas; or whatever you want!)

or

1/2 cup frozen edamame (more  fat and protein than the peas & corn)

4 sun dried peruvian olives (unsalted, uncured), when in season (I just ordered a case)

1 Tbsp Dr. Fuhrman's vinegar (these are sooo goood--I try a different flavor each time)

cut up the olives into small pieces and soak in the vinegar (could do this all afternoon or for 5 minutes while preparing the salad, I usually do the latter).  Microwave the peas and corn in a little water for 30-60 seconds to thaw.  Chop the lettuce so you can fit more onto the plate.  Add the olives and vinegar so it mixes in with the lettuce and arugula first.  Chop and add the pepper.  Add the peas and corn.  If you want more fat, add some ground sunflower seeds.  Yummy!

total calories:  172, protein 7 g (15%), carbs 28 g, fat 4 g (21%).  version with 1/3 cup peas and 1/3 cup corn

total calories:  188, protein 12 g (23%), carbs 20 g, fat 7 g (34%).  version with 1/2 cup edamame, no peas & corn.

Feb. 21 food

Brekky:  smoothie

snack:  apple, 2 carrots, cantaloupe.  

late lunch:  kale with sweet potato sauce

Dinner:  big easy salad (a variation on the apple-arugula salad)

Total calories:  1230.  protein 36g, carbs 217 g, fat 34g (25%).

This doesn't seem like a lot of calories, yet I'm not hungry.   I was hungry at lunchtime but it was 2 hours late (I knew it would be and brought a snack).  It was a medium activity day, not high (working at the church in the morning, snow shoveling later in the day, veg-ing the rest of the time, took a nap).  I had about 1.75 oz of nuts and seeds (0.5 oz flaxseeds in the smoothie, 0.75 mixture of almonds and pumpkin seeds in the kale sauce, 0.5 oz sunflower seeds in the salad).  The edamame in the salad had another 3g of healthy fats.  25% fat intake seems reasonable for a medium-activity day. 

Bees and Debaters

I recently watched a couple of great movies that I wanted to pass on.

The Secret Life of Bees with an all-star cast was a wonderfully inspiring movie taking place in 1963 and following the struggle of Blacks to vote and a white girl to reconcile her past and her place in the world. The script is witty, powerful, and realistic. The music is moving. I actually watched it twice before I had to return it - something I've never done before. Although it has a young girl in the movie, it is not recommended for kids under 12.
Here's a trailer:





I then re-watched the movie The Great Debaters, which is based on the real-life events of Wiley College and the amazing debate team of 1935. The speeches and quotes from great literature were inspiring. It reminded me in many ways of another favorite movie of mine, The Emporer's Club.
Here's a trailer:

Prayer

Here is a profound declaration about prayer from John Piper, posted on Between Two Worlds:

"But the hard truth is that most Christians don’t pray very much. They pray at meals—unless they’re still stuck in the adolescent stage of calling good habits legalism. They whisper prayers before tough meetings. They say something brief as they crawl into bed. But very few set aside set times to pray alone—and fewer still think it is worth it to meet with others to pray. And we wonder why our faith is weak. And our hope is feeble. And our passion for Christ is small.

And meanwhile the devil is whispering all over this room: “The pastor is getting legalistic now. He’s starting to use guilt now. He’s getting out the law now.” To which I say, “To hell with the devil and all of his destructive lies. Be free!” Is it true that intentional, regular, disciplined, earnest, Christ-dependent, God-glorifying, joyful prayer is a duty? . . . Is it a discipline?

You can call it that.

• It’s a duty the way it’s the duty of a scuba diver to put on his air tank before he goes underwater.
• It’s a duty the way pilots listen to air traffic controllers.
  
• It’s a duty the way soldiers in combat clean their rifles and load their guns.
  
• It’s a duty the way hungry people eat food.
  
• It’s a duty the way thirsty people drink water.
  
• It’s a duty the way a deaf man puts in his hearing aid.
  
• It’s a duty the way a diabetic takes his insulin.
  
• It’s a duty the way Pooh Bear looks for honey.
  
• It’s a duty the way pirates look for gold.

I hate the devil, and the way he is killing some of you by persuading you it is legalistic to be as regular in your prayers as you are in your eating and sleeping and Internet use. Do you not see what a sucker he his making out of you? He is laughing up his sleeve at how easy it is to deceive Christians about the importance of prayer.

God has given us means of grace. If we do not use them to their fullest advantage, our complaints against him will not stick. If we don’t eat, we starve. If we don’t drink, we get dehydrated. If we don’t exercise a muscle, it atrophies. If we don’t breathe, we suffocate. And just as there are physical means of life, there spiritual are means of grace. Resist the lies of the devil in 2009, and get a bigger breakthrough in prayer than you’ve ever had."

Maybe the best response to reading this post is to stop what you are doing, put down the laptop, push away from the desk, and kneel for 5 or 10 minutes in dedicated prayer. I will.

How to Eat Grains

Our story begins in East Africa in 1935, with two Bantu tribes called the Kikuyu and the Wakamba. Their traditional diets were mostly vegetarian and consisted of sweet potatoes, corn, beans, plantains, millet, sorghum, wild mushrooms and small amounts of dairy, small animals and insects. Their food was agricultural, high in carbohydrate and low in fat.

Dr. Weston Price found them in good health, with well-formed faces and dental arches, and a dental cavity rate of roughly 6% of teeth. Although not as robust or as resistant to tooth decay as their more carnivorous neighbors, the "diseases of civilization" such as cardiovascular disease and obesity were nevertheless rare among them. South African Bantu eating a similar diet have a low prevalence of atherosclerosis, and a measurable but low incidence of death from coronary heart disease, even in old age.

How do we reconcile this with the archaeological data showing a general decline in human health upon the adoption of agriculture? Humans did not evolve to tolerate the toxins, anti-nutrients and large amounts of fiber in grains and legumes. Our digestive system is designed to handle a high-quality omnivorous diet. By high-quality, I mean one that has a high ratio of calories to indigestible material (fiber). Our species is very good at skimming off the highest quality food in nearly any ecological niche. Animals that are accustomed to high-fiber diets, such as cows and gorillas, have much larger, more robust and more fermentative digestive systems.

One factor that reconciles the Bantu data with the archaeological data is that much of the Kikuyu and Wakamba diet came from non-grain sources. Sweet potatoes and plantains are similar to the starchy wild plants our ancestors have been eating for nearly two million years, since the invention of fire (the time frame is debated but I think everyone agrees it's been a long time). Root vegetables and starchy fruit have a higher nutrient bioavailibility than grains and legumes due to their lower content of anti-nutrients and fiber.

The second factor that's often overlooked is food preparation techniques. These tribes did not eat their grains and legumes haphazardly! This is a factor that was overlooked by Dr. Price himself, but has been emphasized by Sally Fallon. Healthy grain-based African cultures typically soaked, ground and fermented their grains before cooking, creating a sour porridge that's nutritionally superior to unfermented grains. The bran was removed from corn and millet during processing, if possible. Legumes were always soaked prior to cooking.

These traditional food processing techniques have a very important effect on grains and legumes that brings them closer in line with the "paleolithic" foods our bodies are designed to digest. They reduce or eliminate toxins such as lectins and tannins, greatly reduce anti-nutrients such as phytic acid and protease inhibitors, and improve vitamin content and amino acid profile. Fermentation is particularly effective in this regard. One has to wonder how long it took the first agriculturalists to discover fermentation, and whether poor food preparation techniques or the exclusion of animal foods could account for their poor health.

I recently discovered a paper that illustrates these principles: "Influence of Germination and Fermentation on Bioaccessibility of Zinc and Iron from Food Grains". It's published by Indian researchers who wanted to study the nutritional qualities of traditional fermented foods. One of the foods they studied was idli, a South Indian steamed "muffin" made from rice and beans. Idlis happen to be one of my favorite foods.

The amount of minerals your digestive system can extract from a food depends in part on the food's phytic acid content. Phytic acid is a molecule that traps certain minerals (iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium), preventing their absorption. Raw grains and legumes contain a lot of it, meaning you can only absorb a fraction of the minerals present in them.

In this study, soaking had a modest effect on the phytic acid content of the grains and legumes examined (although it's generally more effective). Fermentation, on the other hand, completely broke down the phytic acid in the idli batter, resulting in 71% more bioavailable zinc and 277% more bioavailable iron. It's safe to assume that fermentation also increased the bioavailability of magnesium, calcium and other phytic acid-bound minerals.

Fermenting the idli batter also completely eliminated its tannin content. Tannins are a class of molecules found in many plants that are toxins and anti-nutrients. They reduce feed efficiency and growth rate in a variety of species.

Lectins are another toxin that's frequently mentioned in the paleolithic diet community. They are blamed for everything from digestive problems to autoimmune disease, probably with good reason. One of the things people like to overlook in this community is that traditional processing techniques such as soaking, sprouting, fermentation and cooking, greatly reduce or eliminate lectins from grains and legumes. One notable exception is gluten, which survives all but the longest fermentation and is not broken down by cooking.

Soaking, sprouting, fermenting, grinding and cooking are the techniques by which traditional cultures have been making the most of grain and legume-based diets for thousands of years. We ignore these time-honored traditions at our own peril.

fat intake

Here's a good post by Howard about what the experts (the ones we like) say about fat intake.  I'm going to monitor mine with this CRONometer program and try to determine what's ideal for me.

feb. 20 food

no regular meals today as I had a visitor, a long phone call, and then visitors again.  Also still wary about my tummy so ate fairly light.

pre-first-visitor I had a small fruit salad:  kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, banana

Then we went out to brunch.  I had a really bad bowl of oatmeal.  They "make it to order" which meant it was a quick-cooking mush that wasn't even warm.   Fortunately I brought some fruit to put on it, blueberries, strawberries and bananas.  I told them to put the raisins on the side but they forgot.  So I ate mostly the fruit, some of the oatmeal, and a few of the raisins.   

had a carrot and some arugula with vinegar for a rushed afternoon snack in between first visitor leaving and phone call.

Dinner: curried apple-cabbage dish.  definitely the best meal of the day.  1 Tbsp pumpkin seeds.

snacks with visitors:  some banana chips---amazing how much these taste like potato chips.  They were unsweetened.  a piece of dried mango, a few nuts.  

Total calories was only 1150.   Protein 30 g.  fat:  23 g (18%).   But I was sedentary today.  I certainly don't feel hungry right now.   I was hungry mid-afternoon but didn't have time to eat.

Perspective

I don't know who said this, but it made me laugh out loud.... and then cry (figuratively speaking).

"Not Take It On As My Own"

This is a wonderful recounting of personal thoughts by the US Airways Flight 1549 Pilot, whom everyone is calling a hero. The title of the piece in Newsweek is "All I Wanted Was to Talk to My Family, and Get Some Dry Socks". It reflects not just a humble man, but a very circumspect one. In particular is his understanding of how to handle people's gratitude and the "instant fame" that came as a result of his "just doing his job". He explains:

"It's been a difficult adjustment, initially because of the "hero" mantle that was pushed in my direction. I felt for a long time that that wasn't an appropriate word. As my wife, Lorrie, pointed out on "60 Minutes," a hero is someone who decides to run into a burning building. This was different—this was a situation that was thrust upon us. I didn't choose to do what I did. That was why initially I decided that if someone offered me the gift of their thankfulness, I should accept it gratefully—but then not take it on as my own."

This is such a discerning point of distinction for us. I would love to know what this man's faith is. But this perspective is very consistently Christian, as I can tell. There are so many times when we do a kindness, or offer something that is insignificant to us (maybe five bucks or fifteen minutes), but is huge to someone in need. Not that this compares to skillfully saving the lives of 155 people. But the response should really be the same: accept the thankfulness, but don't own it.

Be gracious to those to whom my small action has meant a lot, but don't swell up with pride at how generous or amazing I am, as if to keep tally of all my good deeds, both small and great. That's never the point of being kind, nor of doing your duty (Luke 17:10 "So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"). And when it comes to helping the poor, a neighbor, or a stranded motorist, let us not be confused -- helping is our duty.

A Matter of Honor

I was particularly impressed with this article from Newsweek on the matter of televising/photographing the caskets of military personnel returning to the US. I did not have a strong opinion on the issue, but this article has a great perspective, well worth considering.


The article concludes, "The military's aim is to move the bodies from the battlefield to Dover in two days. If cameras are present to greet the caskets, there will be a great deal of pressure on the families to be there, too—an emotional and financial hardship for many. Some may want a public ceremony; some may want privacy and silence. Is there a better way to honor their privacy and meet their needs while making sure the public is reminded of the price of war? Canada may have an answer. The more than 100 Canadian soldiers who have fallen in combat in Afghanistan have been flown to Trenton air base, then driven 107 miles to the mortuary in Toronto. A stretch of Canada's Highway 401 has become known as the Highway of Heroes. When the military hearse drives down it, all other traffic is blocked; police and fire trucks, lights flashing, line each overpass, and hundreds of Canadians, flags in hand, wait along the highway. Perhaps fallen American soldiers could arrive at Andrews Air Force Base— with the sort of quiet, dignified ceremony I chanced to witness—and then be carried by hearse (anonymously; no family need be present) to the mortuary at Dover, 102 miles away by road and highway. The route could pass by the White House."

Cicero's Advise

Here's a great post that quotes Cicero responding to his contemporary situation, but strikingly sounds appropriate for us today:

"When politicians, enthusiastic to pose as the people's friends, bring forward bills providing for the distribution of property, they intend that the existing owners shall be driven from their homes. Or they propose to excuse borrowers from paying back their debts.

"Men with those views undermine the very foundations on which our commonwealth depends. In the first place, they are shattering the harmony between one element in the State and another, a relationship which cannot possibly survive if debtors are excused from paying their creditor back the sums of money he is entitled to. Furthermore, all politicians who harbour such intentions are aiming a fatal blow at the whole principle of justice; for once rights of property are infringed, this principle is totally undermined."

"The real answer to the problem is that we must make absolutely certain that private debts do not ever reach proportions which will constitute a national peril. There are various ways of ensuring this. But just to take the money away from the rich creditors and give the debtors something that does not belong to them is no solution at all. For the firmest possible guarantee of a country's security is sound credit...

"So the men in charge of our national interests will do well to steer clear of the kind of liberality which involves robbing one man to give to another."

Obama's Foreign Policy Failure (Empty Rhetoric)

Here is a good post from Ace of Spades rehashing Obama's speech in Germany and his results so far. The last paragraph is the most poignant:

"The failure is Obama's. Obama, who criticized President Bush for failing to get more support out of our European allies. Obama, who played Monday-morning quarterback to decisionmakers in Washington. Obama, who puffed himself up with cheap words. Obama, who led us to believe he could do better. He can't deliver."

And that's the rub for me. His campaign was so full of meaningless rhetoric and when he has to actually do more than just be "present", something he never demonstrated before he was elected, he proves soaring rhetoric and nice speeches aren't enough in the real world.

This is just one item in a long list of things like this. Here is another example:

Gitmo meets the standards of Geneva Convention

The only corrective action suggested in the report was "the most isolated prisoners, including the high-value detainees in Camp 7, should be allowed to pray and have recess together in rotating groups of at least three." So give the kids recess! That's the only violation (if you can all it that) to the Geneva Conventions at Gitmo! So much for all those atrocities that the Obama campaign ranted against in his "more just" approach to terrorists.

And then there is the continuation of the practice of rendition under Obama already posted on this blog. So much for all that change.

Feb. 19 food

Given my condition described in the previous post, I didn't eat until 4:30 pm today.  Then I ate half a small smoothie.  I seemed okay so a couple of hours later I ate the other half.  I made a fruit salad for housemate, so ate half an apple and half a banana.  I still seem to be okay at 7:10 pm.  

I'm experimenting with the CRONometer program to track your nutrition intake.  Here is today's summary:

I put in my age, height, weight and activity level and it chose a calorie range of about 2400-3000.   The percentages are relative to target daily intake.  I'm not sure if I'm "active" or "low active" since I'm active for about 3 hours a day and inactive the rest.  I set my fat percentage to be 30% so the target is 80g.   I'm going to aim for about 2 oz of nuts and seeds and see what that comes out to be.   The pie chart at the right shows the protein/carb/fat fractions.  Today obviously I am way low on calories and low on fat.   I don't know if I can track this every day if it's too time consuming, but it will be interesting to do it for a little while.

wo is me

warning:  graphic content ahead (vomiting and diarrhea).  So I woke up at 3:30 am and felt crappy and went into the living room with a blanket wrapped around me, and then I had to go "blow chunks."  I now understand that term applied to the act of vomiting.  I think one of the chunks lodged in my throat and has been burning there ever since.  God!  Then I had diarrhea the rest of the night, still do.  At least it isn't accompanied by cramps.  My bowls seem determined to get rid of everything.  And it's amazing how much stuff is in there.  

So how did this happened?  Well, I definitely overate.  I'm used to eating large volumes of low-calorie food but I ate about 5 medjool dates and probably 2 oz of cashews and 1 oz of walnuts (I put the walnuts in the dates), after I was full from dinner (I'm being totally honest here, which I hate!).  That's probably another 800 calories!  Then I topped it off a few hours later with a largish (not huge but not small) vegan chocolate chip cookie loaded with margarine, white flour, sugar, and chocolate fat.  I eat that stuff so rarely it's like a foreign substance to my body.  Maybe it was the straw that broke the camel's back.   Maybe it would have been okay to have had either the dates or the cookie.  I've heard other "healthy vegans" talk about how when they go off plan, they get really sick.  It's really true that my body can't handle this stuff anymore--at least in large quantities, though that's probably true for everyone.  

Now I missed my exercise class and today is my favorite workout (Brazilian Jutitsu exercises--propelling across a mat in every way except normal).  dammit.   oh well, I'll try to get some work done now.

feb. 18 food

Brekky:  morning smoothie, then apple after yoga class.

Lunch:  started out okay...some raw carrots, then vegetables in lemon-tahini sauce.  This is like comfort food to me, reminds me of casseroles from childhood (like chicken pot pie).    The vegetables were broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, and edamame.  It was yummy.  Dessert was a delicious fruit salad made from strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and bananas.  The quality of the berries varies dramatically from day to day.  Last week when I bought blueberries, they were bad.  Today, all the berries were good.  Oh well, the surprise makes life more interesting I guess.    Okay, after this I kind of went downhill.  I was making salad for housemate's dinner and had some leftover avocado and decided to make a dessert out of it by mashing with a date.  Well, that was sweet and good and I think it started the food cravings.  By now I was pretty full.  I had to eat dinner a bit early before I was really hungry.  I think when I get too full I then overeat more.  It's weird.  So for dinner I had a salad with Russian fig dressing.  Dessert was a kiwi and 2 small oranges.  Now I was very full and then I just kept eating!  I ate some cashews and then some dates with walnuts in them.  That sent me on a sugar high.  Then later at the grocery store I bought a vegan chocolate chip cookie!   It didn't really taste that great and left a bad aftertaste---I think it was the margarine (yuck!).  So much for my promise a few days ago to stop eating oil and sugar and refined flour.  uh, okay, now I will stop eating oil and sugar and refined flour?   Dang, my fingers are getting puffy.  Salt in the cookies?   One thing I've noticed, and others on the Fuhrman site have said this too, when you eat healthy for a while and then you try the junk food, it affects you way more than it ever did when you were eating junk food all the time.  It's interesting but geez, I wish I would just get over it and stop falling for the temptations.  And now I have a bit of a tummy ache...