consumer warning! media ignorance causes ranting behavior in bloggers!

An important news release from autodescribed authorities in a highly-respected ivory-tower institution has proclaimed ... the same old bullshit!!!

grrrr....

Use of "artificial sweeteners" (funny, that ingredient NEVER appears on labels, though i often see aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, acesulfameK, etc) is correlated with the existence of FAT PEOPLE!  Says one talking head obesity researcher, "Studies in mice and rats 'subjects' have shown that consumption of noncaloric sweeteners dampens physiological responses to sweet taste, causing the [subjects] to overindulge in calorie-rich, sweet-tasting food and pack on extra pounds."

WHERE DO I BEGIN???  Variations on a theme of this have been posted all over facebook and the blogosphere.  In the case of the former, it's some of the more intelligent info that A FEW of the people i know EVER post.  Amongst the latter, there are two sub-groups:  of one, i'm not at all surprised because it's typical of why i don't read THEIR blogs, but ... i AM a bit puzzled why the ones i regularly read might feel this is worth repeating.

This is not the first time i've made public my opinion about "artificial sweeteners" (<--  fyi, massive understatement).  These products range from widely-toxic to slightly-irritating -- why the temptation to lump them all together?  I can think of a couple of reasons, and they say ugly things about the state of research.

Either the Insulated Ones of Organized Academia are so tunnel-visioned they don't appreciate that toxicity is a spectrum, or they have so much contempt for the people they're in business to "help" that their attitude oozes all over every condescending word they utter.  Go back to the third paragraph above and re-read the quote -- i barely edited the Purdue University bitch who made the pronouncement (i changed her "mice and rats" to "subjects" and changed "animals" to the same word, in brackets).  Dare i insinuate the obvious -- "packing on pounds" is NOT what LAB RODENTS are capable of doing -- but of course, "packing on ounces" just doesn't have that pejorative ring.

I'm kinda inclined to think the problem with the thinking of such researchers (and the media "personalities" who parrot them) is THIS -- they believe that the obese are evil disgusting gluttonous lazy hedonistic horrible animals who DESERVE nothing tasty (which is why it's awful that they can improve their health with bacon, butter and steak).  They BELIEVE that fat people should be sentenced to a boot camp where some obesity-resistant fashion model can yell at them while they're driving up stress hormones and ruining their joints (AKA "burning fat") on a treadmill for hours every day.  They believe that the sin of being overweight should be penanced away with self-flagellation, mental anguish, a low diet of bread and water, and dried peas in the shoes.

Ooh, sounds vaguely reminiscent of something ... how about the "Dark Ages" and Inquisition?

Fuck 'em. 

I apologize to the "nice ladies and gentlemen" who read here.  I thought of using a euphemism, but the strength of my anger and contempt couldn't be expressed even by "piss on the self-righteous assholes."  ;-)

The people i know who STILL struggle with their weight, and do so valiantly and self-denyingly day-in-day-out DESERVE the solace of an occasional "sweet."  On a hot summer day, after chores in the garden or doing housework, or cheering their kids at a ball game, you can bet the farm that a cold diet soda is an appropriate treat for the sugar-avoider.

eat low-carb, or punish yourself

That title was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek.  I have to announce this up front, or some doctorate-types would insist that i'm 1) lying; 2) ignorant; 3) unqualified to open my mouth in public; or 4) all the above.

Reading all the commentary (in TPJ-approved sites) on why the Kitavan diet isn't a high-carb diet in the "modern world's" sense, something occurred to me:  a truly high-carbohydrate diet is all about Biblical-style asceticism!  YES!  If you eat a high PERCENTAGE of your diet as carbs you have a few choices to make, to keep yourself from embodying the Deadly Sins of Gluttony and Sloth.

You can eat your huge percentage of carbohydrates in comparatively meagre quantity.  A very low CALORIE diet can afford to be high-carb!  And what do we call a very low calorie diet, kids?  STARVATION.  Saints used to be very fond of that; it shows that you value spirituality more than worldly hedonism -- and you get really kewl visions and stuff -- sometimes you get to hear God talk to you!

Instead of eating very little every day, you can also choose to eat as much as you want today, and nothing at all tomorrow -- it balances out the same way.  If you prefer to eat every day, you can also decide to eat for a very short time.  Fasting is a multi-disciplinary-approved means of self-denial.

OR ... you can eat enough to saturate your bodies with all those strengthening "energy foods" and work extra hard to make them go into the SPECIFIC tissues you want them in.  Punishing the body to chasten it was also very popular in the height of the monastic era (AKA the Dark Ages).  If you worked hard enough you could make your body forget it has all sorts of horrible urges like ... a LIBIDO!  Ewwwww....  Where's that Ben-Gay -- i mean HAIR SHIRT?

;-)  Thanks but no thanks.  Their self-righteousness is not for me!  The believers in Gluttony and Sloth (reincarnated as food reward) may think i'm damned because of my faith in the Golden Calf (BEEF, yes!), but i'm not afraid.  Even if they're right about my destination, their idea of hell has no terrors for me -- and the music there is said to be much better.

"I have to eat what i enjoy eating"

I have a friend who thinks he's losing his sight.  It's apparently an unusual condition, and his treatment is progressing via experimental means.  I don't believe they've given him any counselling on how nutrition may impact his prognosis, but it's hard to tell -- he's one of those who is not amenable to discussing his food choices. My title today is a more-or-less direct quote.

Pity.  If only more doctors had a clue about epigenetics and a truly science-based grasp of nutrition, they might possibly convince their patients that their intake has a significant influence on general health, NOT just their weight.  My friend is a hard-worker and is not fat, but he loves candy.  I strongly suspect that the blood-sugar spikes aren't doing his eyes any good.

Some people you just can't help.  Whether it's that they don't believe nutrition affects their physical condition, or they think the gains won't be enough to repay the "privation" ... i can't tell ya.  Perhaps they've tried the dumb little fads they've read about in the popular media, and have naturally gotten no benefit -- that's a distinct possibility.  Now, they won't even consider making changes; "i have to eat what i enjoy."

One female relative doesn't believe there's anything wrong with her food choices, and won't entertain thought that she might be gluten-intolerant.  Another has bone, stomach and intestinal issues, but is an adamant believer in "moderation" and hates taking pills (even though K2 comes as a sublingual); she glares and says, "you eat what YOU like!" ... What she doesn't seem to understand is that i forgo an awful lot of things i think are tasty because i know they're not good for me, and that i've deliberately cultivated an acceptance of things i didn't originally like (liver!) because i know they ARE.

I guess it boils down to what we value in life.  If one's chief joys are gustatory, and one is able to be in denial about the impact diet makes on well-being, i have to shrug my shoulders and quit trying.  For myself, being able to inhabit a "vehicle" which delivers minimal pain for an acceptable amount of mobility and energy, is worth a little self-denial.

Yep -- i like cookies, lasagne, margaritas, tamales and italian bread, too.  I just don't think they're worth the suffering they inflict.

"if you really don't want to see it no more ... then don't watch"

Here i go, quoting again.  ;-)  Extra credit, if you can identify the movie.

Am i the only one who would rather not watch videos and listen to podcasts?  In blogs and on facebook, the damned links are everywhere ... frequently without any description of what it's about.  I have to say, i'm deeply grateful to the bloggers who offer transcripts of the talk, or at least list topics with timestamps so i can fast-forward to the good stuff.

I HATE sitting around listening to the slow pace of non-professional talkers and their "UH"s!!!  Of course, some people are a delight to watch/listen to; Lustig or Naughton, i'll attend-to all day.

In the Vimeo recordings of the Ancestral Health Symposium lectures last year, people with interesting and important things to say spoiled their messages with horrendously bad delivery.  (I hope they'll improve themselves before this year's presentations.)  What a pleasure it was when a few of them could combine significant information with good style, though!

Rant over!  ;-)  Starting "irony alert":

Here's the film clip.

"Sumer Is Icumen In"

We didn't have much of a winter this year, and unless Mother Nature sends us a nasty late freeze (knocking on my skull...), the warm season is upon us here.  Time to prepare a new spot for tomato-growing, and remove the leaf-mulch from the sunchoke bed.  It's a pleasure living in the mid Mississippi valley as i do now; the Salt Lake valley was good too, but when i lived in the southern plain states i used to dread "sumer icumen in" -- too friggin' hot.

It'll be easier to do the before-breakfast walking that Donaldson recommends as an important part of his "Strong Medicine" when it's not so doggone chilly.  Got to buy some more REAL charcoal to cook steaks over, too -- they're just not the same done over a gas flame.  The grill and the crockpot will probably do most of the cooking for six or seven months now.

Everybody seems to get a charge out of springtime, but it was a college English teacher who made an impression on me by discussing the song entitling today's blog.  I'd learned it in an elementary-school music class (modernized lyrics), but had no idea what it was about till he described a medieval British winter for the working classes.  A fire-heated hovel without glass windows would be dark and smokey, and who could afford candles -- a tallow dip or betty lamp would be the best one could do.  Getting out and about was a cold and dirty business with paving a rarity.  As food stores slowly got used up, the monotony and limited nutrients probably got pretty tedious and energy-sapping.

Then, one glorious day, the sun came out and roads dried up, green shoots started poking through the ground, one's chilblains healed, and "a young man's fancy lightly turns"....  Singing about it seems highly appropriate.

i, too, am a ghrelin junkie

Sitting here, reading my morning blog-fix, i've been luxuriating in an atmosphere of contentment, punctuated by the occasion growl of my empty belly.  :-)

When i started reenacting, over 15 years ago, it came to my attention that i had been missing out on some creature comforts for most of my adult life.  There is NOTHING more viscerally satisfactory than warming oneself beside a roaring fire when it's cold enough to snow.  Nothing.  If there's something that comes close, though, it's eating something exceptionally nutritious when you're very, very hungry.

Most people in the western world don't allow themselves to become very hungry.  Either they've been brainwashed to think that eating frequent small meals is the optimal way to fuel oneself, or their high-carb WOE piques their appetites shockingly often.  Maybe, even, social pressures encourage them to eat when they're not that hungry, so they never get an opportunity to REALLY work up an appetite.  They don't know what they're missing.

I won't try to recap the benefits of allowing oneself to get significantly hungry -- J Stanton has done that already, and he's immensely readable.  I'll just dangle this carrot in front of your salivating mouth....  I'll describe how good it feels when Meg and i have spent the day demonstrating to busloads of school-kids, what life was like for a Civil War laundress; the kids have gone and it's cooler and quieter; the stew we put to cook hours ago is full of tender chunks of beef and vegetables a-point (after hours of just grabbing a nibble -- think foraging...).  We serve it up so hot you can't eat it at once, but you can't resist tasting, and burn your tongue, and slice some (nut-based) bread to go along with it, with gobs of lovely butter, and a glass of red wine.  This is intentionally-delayed gratification at its best!

So, yes -- i'm ENJOYING being hungry, because the trade-off is so good.  Good for the diet, too (check out this one, as well...)!

post-scriptum:  Re-reading another Stanton gem found me this:  “The synthesis rate of brain serotonin was about 30% lower in rats fed for two hours than in rats fasted for 24 hours.”  ...Which, in context, implies that i get a bigger ADDITIONAL "high" out of eating when i delay it.  We've all heard that "hunger is the best sauce" -- and now we see that it's been supported in the laboratory.

further enlightenment

I got a flash of insight this morning as i was finishing my first cup of coffee:  although fulfilling the "hot caffeinated beverage" function for which it's intended, coffee without heavy cream is much less of a pleasure-delivery system than it used to be.

Now, "duh" is the expected response to a statement like that.  If i stopped my analysis there, this would be the most banal post i could possibly write, but the way my mind works, it's the subtle ramifications that i find most intriguing.  I'm attracted to the tiny rills which swell the mighty river.

Two reactions will probably inhibit a lot of people who might otherwise try this dietary scheme:  the "i can't give up grains" response, and the "but i always ... because it relaxes/invigorates/pleasures me."  The problems are addiction, habit, and fear of loss of pleasure.  Been there.

The first time i specifically banished grains from my diet was when i started Atkins, about 8 years ago.  I don't specifically remember it being all that difficult, though i sorely missed a few foods which had been staples when i suffered under the low-fat paradigm.  But on the occasions since then, when i allowed myself to indulge in bread, rice, or oatmeal, i clearly felt the pull of such foods -- the urge to continue eating, scarfing them down, despite the lack of actual HUNGER.  When my husband was working in New Orleans ... OH MY GOD ... the wonderful french bread you could buy for a SONG at Croissant D'Or....

Some foods are physically as well as psychologically addictive.  Treat them as the evil seducers they are -- they want to convince you that it's all about innocent pleasures whose only downside is disapproval by puritanical anti-hedonists.  They're lying.  The downside is disease and misery.

Various blogs (and the recent book "Wheat Belly") explain why, with their discussions of the addictive properties of grains.  You don't notice it so much when it's a part of your everyday diet, but quit for a while and reintroduce -- WOW.  My name is Tess, and i'm an addict.  I won't embarrass myself by getting technical with talk of opioid receptors and endocannabinoids, but i'll willingly confess to being their thrall.  Just recently, during the holiday season, i allowed myself a treat in the form of "party mix" made with only rice chex and nuts, and the usual butter/spice topping.  i rationed my servings, but after the butter-rice combination hit my digestive tract, i felt the urge to stuff my maw like Cookie Monster!  Butter and vegetables don't have QUITE that strong an appeal.

A HUGE number of people actually exhibit signs of panic when they're asked to give up bread and cereals.  (Note to self:  add "auto-hypnosis" to "addiction" and "habit" above....)  If they believe they can't give up these things, they're very likely to saboutage themselves.  They're addicted, and the best thing they can do is go cold-turkey.  Eat pre-cooked mini-quiches for breakfast, and wrap your sandwich in leaf-lettuce rather than bread; order restaurant sandwiches and hold the bun -- it's not that hard to substitute.

Enter, "habit."  That glorious first cup of coffee of the morning, as a vehicle for cream ingestion ... i did it every day, and didn't think about it, because cream is "legal" in low-carb diets.  I expected to want it much more than i do, now that i've gotten used to coconut milk.  I expected cheese and wine to elicit cravings, because i love them and used them often.  I DIDN'T.  When i got back from taking my husband to the airport last night, i wanted to sit down with a cocktail; a month ago, i would have done just that.  But i didn't CRAVE it (because these are not physiological NEEDS) -- it was easy to resist.  I don't NEED all these things i consumed regularly, before.  I hardly miss them at all.

I suspect that "fear of loss of pleasure" may be a very strong motivation to continue eating things we shouldn't.  To get back to the cream and wine as exemplars:  i LOVE cream, and there's no reason from a low-carb point of view, why i shouldn't allow myself to enjoy it ... UNLESS it causes physiological effects which i'm significantly better without.  The ONLY WAY i'll ever learn exactly what these effects may be is to strictly CUT THEM OUT of my diet.  For the space of a month???  If this is the hardest thing i'll every do, i lead a charmed existence!  Hell, gestating a baby makes this look like dancing around the maypole.  The sheer pleasure of being able to walk around with less pain and more agility makes the "pain" of giving up "neolithic agents of disease" laughable.

Think about it.  Think of all the things you've dreaded doing, then found it wasn't such a big deal when you actually started.  I've discovered that being "perfect" on the PPC is MUCH easier than i ever anticipated.