It may not look like i'm busy to an outsider, but it feels like it to me. We got back to work on the downstairs WC; our first attempt at "woodgraining" has been easier and more successful than i expected. YEA!
I had put "Anatomy of an Epidemic" on my Amazon wish-list, and i got it for Christmas; it only took a few days to read, it was so interesting in content. Some of it was a bit "redundant in theory" because once you know the first dozen psych drugs didn't do what the public believes, the 13th is kinda predictable. But the last bit, talking about how psychiatry SHOULD be practiced takes away that hopeless feeling....
The mention of another book -- "The Myth of Mental Illness" -- piqued my curiosity, so i just bought it for Kindle. ... If i suddenly turn Christian Scientist, please be aware it's to put another layer of separation between me and the medical industry! Ye gods, compared to some of the egomaniacal quacks out there, Peat, Mercola and Kruse are shining beacons of reason!
Nonfiction of this nature does NOT make for good bedtime reading. Detective fiction does! I've started on George Simenon (Maigret) and Ellis Peters (Cadfael), since i've read everything Hammett, Chandler, Stout and a good chunk of Christie and Doyle (non-Holmes stuff is a lot less intriguing). The Cadfael has also put me in a medieval mood, as far as movies are concerned -- i need to re-read "The Name of the Rose"! Good movie, but leaves out a hell of a lot. For capturing that faith-centered, black-and-white, miracle-loving, unrealistic/unscientific mindset, though, you can't beat "Ladyhawke." ;-)
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
follow up on the "self-evident" truths, etc.
After my emmer-bread "first breakfast" I had a second-breakfast of scrambled eggs with bacon crumbled in. I finished editing my post and I climbed out of my reading-chair ... and felt very achey and tired! Just out of curiosity I took another blood-glucose reading -- it was fifteen points under my pre-breakfast reading!
Reactive hypoglycemia! I never noticed myself prone to that problem before....
My husband hasn't seen any negative results from the emmer bread. He likes it, but observed that it isn't as tasty as the rye. He gets the rest of the loaf!
My bowels have been rather unhappy today, too. Coincidence...? Anyway, I took some probiotics this afternoon. I think my supper is going to be some "cheese crisps" and kippers. (Cheese crisps are what I call quarter-ounce portions of cheese baked at 450 F on parchment paper till they're brown and bubbly. When they cool enough to handle, they're little disks of heaven!)
*******
AND
HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN!!!
I mentioned the other day that i'm reading all of Hyperlipid, from the beginning.
During a discussion of apoptosis, the comment section contains many excellent, clear-thinking inputs from pre-doctor Stephan Guyenet. It's SO SAD! From the bright pre-doc to the "good doctor" has been a biblically-epic fall from intellectual grace!
THAT was why I read him with enthusiasm about five years ago. He obviously had a fine grasp on physiological detail, and described it well. His photograph revealed a healthy good-looking man.
Not anymore -- on so any levels. :-(
Reactive hypoglycemia! I never noticed myself prone to that problem before....
My husband hasn't seen any negative results from the emmer bread. He likes it, but observed that it isn't as tasty as the rye. He gets the rest of the loaf!
My bowels have been rather unhappy today, too. Coincidence...? Anyway, I took some probiotics this afternoon. I think my supper is going to be some "cheese crisps" and kippers. (Cheese crisps are what I call quarter-ounce portions of cheese baked at 450 F on parchment paper till they're brown and bubbly. When they cool enough to handle, they're little disks of heaven!)
*******
AND
HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN!!!
I mentioned the other day that i'm reading all of Hyperlipid, from the beginning.
During a discussion of apoptosis, the comment section contains many excellent, clear-thinking inputs from pre-doctor Stephan Guyenet. It's SO SAD! From the bright pre-doc to the "good doctor" has been a biblically-epic fall from intellectual grace!
"Hey Peter,[wanna bet that post is one of the ones he's deleted since?]
"Nice post. I think the connection between insulin, hunger and obesity is not really appreciated in mainstream medicine.
"Gary Taubes has a nice discussion of it in "Good Calories, Bad Calories".
"I'm working on a post about obesity that touches on this; I'll probably post it within a week or so."
THAT was why I read him with enthusiasm about five years ago. He obviously had a fine grasp on physiological detail, and described it well. His photograph revealed a healthy good-looking man.
Not anymore -- on so any levels. :-(
"We hold these truths to be self-evident..."
...that ALL grains are created equal -- and they're BAAAAAD!
Uh -- no. Not even true when you separate "gluten grains" from the "safe starch" variety.
Ignore what i'm about to say if you actually have celiac disease, or if you're as sensitive to grain proteins as Peter at Hyperlipid. This is for people like me who, WHEN HEALED, can have an occasional small serving of wheat and not become bedridden. It's for people like Wooo, who can eat a LC wrap from time to time without overt symptoms.
Truth is, almost everything humans eat have a down-side. Severely intolerant people can eat very few things without significant distress. Environmental stresses can add to our bodies' reactive loads, and a small amount of a food can surprise us with how bad we can feel, after eating it with impunity last week. Nay-sayers don't believe sufferers -- it's gotta be all in their heads! -- but anybody who actually READS isn't in any doubt.
Did you see the latest, about the study comparing heritage wheat to the modern stuff? It's being admired because of the gold-standard way in which it was conducted, and showed objective evidence that Dr. Wheat-Belly has been right about the toxicity of modern strains, which have been conventionally hybridized, NOT even GMO-altered.
I wanted to check out something, so ran my own not-very-well-designed trial. I ordered some emmer flour and some heritage rye flour from the same farm/mill. I started a sourdough culture from spelt flour that I had around the house. It took extra-long to get going, because of the cold temperatures here, and the light-bulb in my oven doesn't work (an old-fashioned gas pilot light, OR a functioning lightbulb in an electric oven provide excellent gentle heat for yeast working -- but I currently have neither). When fit for use, one evening I started a sponge with warmed filtered water, a cup of starter and rye flour -- this provides extra fermenting time to help disable antinutrients. By morning it had risen beautifully. I added more flour, salt, molasses and butter, kneaded it in my Kitchenaid mixer, formed a loaf, and set it to rise again. Several hours later I baked it, then waited for the morning to begin my experiment.
I measured FBG, took my first-thing supplements and had a cup of coffee, and before I got any further I kicked myself for introducing more variables.... Oh well -- i'd just make the exact-same mistake before the next trial! :-) So I measured pre-food glucose again (it was a little higher than fasting).
I measured 100g of the bread and heated it in the microwave a few seconds to make up for the fact that I was eating it dry. It was good, as 100% rye sourdough always is, to me! With it, I had a second cup of black coffee. I measured glucose at 1/2-hour, 1/2-hour, 1-hour, and 1-hour intervals. It wasn't hard to wait till the period was over to have more coffee or anything else to eat. I noticed no "gluten symptoms."
So far so good! I replenished my sourdough starter with rye (to make up for "contaminating" my rye bread with spelt in the first round), and when it was ready I prepared the next loaf -- the emmer wheat version. I took my cup of starter and cup of warmed filtered water and worked in some flour to start the same approximate volume and texture of sponge. I covered it and left it overnight on the counter. In the morning, very little had happened. There were a few bubbles, but not the beautiful uniform rise that the rye sponge had displayed. I added the molasses early to help fuel the buggies, placed the bowl in a pan of warm water, once ... twice ... finally putting everything in a lightly-warmed oven. Virtually nothing happened during half a day! Not wanting to ruin my concoction, when I started mixing the dough in the afternoon, I added some proofed yeast along with my salt, butter and flour.
From the beginning, this loaf was different. I've been baking bread from scratch for forty years. FOUR DECADES of hand-kneading of all kinds of different flour combinations. This stuff was extraordinarily gluten-y! The rye dough wasn't very glutinous compared to wheat flour -- during the mixing and kneading period, I stopped often to scrape down the bowl and move the dough back into reach of the dough-hook. By comparison, just as soon as the emmer dough was stiff enough, it didn't want to let go of the dough-hook! When I stopped the machine this time, it was to move the dry flour into the dough, because the mass had been sliding around on top of the unmixed stuff, not working it in. When it was worked enough, I made a loaf as before. Even with the addition of yeast, it took as long to rise as the just-sourdough-leavened rye did. This stuff was just ... odd!
This morning I ran my experiment with the same "mistakes" as the first trial. Same supplements, black coffee, blood-sugar reading, 100g of dry warmed bread with another cup of coffee. BG readings at 1/2, 1/2, 1, 1....
The first thing I noticed after the emmer-bread breakfast -- I was hungry! The rye stuck to my ribs very nicely, but it's been a temptation to go get another cup of coffee "too soon" today! I don't remember what we had for dinner the night before the rye trial, but I don't think it was more or less filling/satiating than the soup and fried tilapia we had last night. I slept well both "night-befores", too.
To my surprise there wasn't a big difference in the blood-glucose rise and fall. They started at 90+-4, and topped out at 140+-5. I started the experiment from a higher FBG, because I had chugging along in ketosis before I did all this. But the differences from one day to the other were well within the known variability of my Reli-On meter. The BIG differences were subjective and observational -- but they do open up room for speculation and further experimentation!
There's no doubt in the world that heritage dark rye and emmer wheat flours have SIGNIFICANTLY different quantities of gluten in them. For those individuals who find wheat to be minimally problematic -- ie, the dose defining the toxicity -- this is big. Yes, rye is a gluten-grain, and making a quality sourdough rye didn't help Peter cope with bread any better. But to damn rye in the same phrase as damning wheat -- not even the same ballpark! It's like damning ovo-lacto-vegetarianism in the same breath as veganism!
I have further experiments to try -- I find this FUN! I plan to compare Bluebird to Bob's Red Mill rye, and home-ground farro to intact-grain to commercially-milled. But my very first round confirms how much less damaging my body finds "real-sourdough 100% rye" to any other grain-based bread I've eaten.
... An' i'll tell ya, the Welsh rarebit we indulged in a few days ago, using the rye and Kerrygold cheese, was absolutely wonderful! (it's even better with some anchovy-paste added....)
Uh -- no. Not even true when you separate "gluten grains" from the "safe starch" variety.
Ignore what i'm about to say if you actually have celiac disease, or if you're as sensitive to grain proteins as Peter at Hyperlipid. This is for people like me who, WHEN HEALED, can have an occasional small serving of wheat and not become bedridden. It's for people like Wooo, who can eat a LC wrap from time to time without overt symptoms.
Truth is, almost everything humans eat have a down-side. Severely intolerant people can eat very few things without significant distress. Environmental stresses can add to our bodies' reactive loads, and a small amount of a food can surprise us with how bad we can feel, after eating it with impunity last week. Nay-sayers don't believe sufferers -- it's gotta be all in their heads! -- but anybody who actually READS isn't in any doubt.
Did you see the latest, about the study comparing heritage wheat to the modern stuff? It's being admired because of the gold-standard way in which it was conducted, and showed objective evidence that Dr. Wheat-Belly has been right about the toxicity of modern strains, which have been conventionally hybridized, NOT even GMO-altered.
I wanted to check out something, so ran my own not-very-well-designed trial. I ordered some emmer flour and some heritage rye flour from the same farm/mill. I started a sourdough culture from spelt flour that I had around the house. It took extra-long to get going, because of the cold temperatures here, and the light-bulb in my oven doesn't work (an old-fashioned gas pilot light, OR a functioning lightbulb in an electric oven provide excellent gentle heat for yeast working -- but I currently have neither). When fit for use, one evening I started a sponge with warmed filtered water, a cup of starter and rye flour -- this provides extra fermenting time to help disable antinutrients. By morning it had risen beautifully. I added more flour, salt, molasses and butter, kneaded it in my Kitchenaid mixer, formed a loaf, and set it to rise again. Several hours later I baked it, then waited for the morning to begin my experiment.
I measured FBG, took my first-thing supplements and had a cup of coffee, and before I got any further I kicked myself for introducing more variables.... Oh well -- i'd just make the exact-same mistake before the next trial! :-) So I measured pre-food glucose again (it was a little higher than fasting).
I measured 100g of the bread and heated it in the microwave a few seconds to make up for the fact that I was eating it dry. It was good, as 100% rye sourdough always is, to me! With it, I had a second cup of black coffee. I measured glucose at 1/2-hour, 1/2-hour, 1-hour, and 1-hour intervals. It wasn't hard to wait till the period was over to have more coffee or anything else to eat. I noticed no "gluten symptoms."
So far so good! I replenished my sourdough starter with rye (to make up for "contaminating" my rye bread with spelt in the first round), and when it was ready I prepared the next loaf -- the emmer wheat version. I took my cup of starter and cup of warmed filtered water and worked in some flour to start the same approximate volume and texture of sponge. I covered it and left it overnight on the counter. In the morning, very little had happened. There were a few bubbles, but not the beautiful uniform rise that the rye sponge had displayed. I added the molasses early to help fuel the buggies, placed the bowl in a pan of warm water, once ... twice ... finally putting everything in a lightly-warmed oven. Virtually nothing happened during half a day! Not wanting to ruin my concoction, when I started mixing the dough in the afternoon, I added some proofed yeast along with my salt, butter and flour.
From the beginning, this loaf was different. I've been baking bread from scratch for forty years. FOUR DECADES of hand-kneading of all kinds of different flour combinations. This stuff was extraordinarily gluten-y! The rye dough wasn't very glutinous compared to wheat flour -- during the mixing and kneading period, I stopped often to scrape down the bowl and move the dough back into reach of the dough-hook. By comparison, just as soon as the emmer dough was stiff enough, it didn't want to let go of the dough-hook! When I stopped the machine this time, it was to move the dry flour into the dough, because the mass had been sliding around on top of the unmixed stuff, not working it in. When it was worked enough, I made a loaf as before. Even with the addition of yeast, it took as long to rise as the just-sourdough-leavened rye did. This stuff was just ... odd!
This morning I ran my experiment with the same "mistakes" as the first trial. Same supplements, black coffee, blood-sugar reading, 100g of dry warmed bread with another cup of coffee. BG readings at 1/2, 1/2, 1, 1....
The first thing I noticed after the emmer-bread breakfast -- I was hungry! The rye stuck to my ribs very nicely, but it's been a temptation to go get another cup of coffee "too soon" today! I don't remember what we had for dinner the night before the rye trial, but I don't think it was more or less filling/satiating than the soup and fried tilapia we had last night. I slept well both "night-befores", too.
To my surprise there wasn't a big difference in the blood-glucose rise and fall. They started at 90+-4, and topped out at 140+-5. I started the experiment from a higher FBG, because I had chugging along in ketosis before I did all this. But the differences from one day to the other were well within the known variability of my Reli-On meter. The BIG differences were subjective and observational -- but they do open up room for speculation and further experimentation!
There's no doubt in the world that heritage dark rye and emmer wheat flours have SIGNIFICANTLY different quantities of gluten in them. For those individuals who find wheat to be minimally problematic -- ie, the dose defining the toxicity -- this is big. Yes, rye is a gluten-grain, and making a quality sourdough rye didn't help Peter cope with bread any better. But to damn rye in the same phrase as damning wheat -- not even the same ballpark! It's like damning ovo-lacto-vegetarianism in the same breath as veganism!
I have further experiments to try -- I find this FUN! I plan to compare Bluebird to Bob's Red Mill rye, and home-ground farro to intact-grain to commercially-milled. But my very first round confirms how much less damaging my body finds "real-sourdough 100% rye" to any other grain-based bread I've eaten.
... An' i'll tell ya, the Welsh rarebit we indulged in a few days ago, using the rye and Kerrygold cheese, was absolutely wonderful! (it's even better with some anchovy-paste added....)
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
dietary tweak?
This is something I've been speculating on for a LONG time....
Having read the Archevore archives in toto last week, I just started at the beginning of Hyperlipid -- this is gonna take a LOT longer!
One of my favorite series, over there, is on the FIAF: fasting-induced adipose factor. It begins by talking about this hormone and what it does
I've long wondered if alternating dietary schemes might be a good idea -- let your body get used to one sort of fuel, then flip to another one. I've seen success in miniature, as have many other people -- merely requiring our bodies to adapt to a different fuel seems to cause a wastefulness of resources. This concept seems to prove itself as "new-vegan high," the fat-loss people sometimes see in adding fiber/resistant starch, a first-time Atkins convert, et al.
But in reading Peter's post YET AGAIN, after learning more about WHAT plant foodstuffs do WHERE in our guts, I just had a revival of interest and a clearer idea of something I might try. If I still continue a low-carb diet but increase the soluble fiber and resistant starch, I will surely encourage my colon-ies (pun intended) to reproduce. If I then drop back to ZC, they SHOULD think that the food supply just ran out, and pour on the FIAF!
Hmmmm.... Is this what salad-lovers are doing when they eat "mostly plants" and grow thinner and thrive on Atkins? For me, with my generalized vegetable "intolerance" it's going to be tricky, but definitely worth an experiment.
Having read the Archevore archives in toto last week, I just started at the beginning of Hyperlipid -- this is gonna take a LOT longer!
One of my favorite series, over there, is on the FIAF: fasting-induced adipose factor. It begins by talking about this hormone and what it does
"Fiaf (amongst its many other actions) blocks the action of lipoprotein lipase, that enzyme which packs on the pounds of fat in humans. Fiaf is normally made by our liver, muscles and in particularly by our gut wall in times of starvation. It appears to be a signal to the body to stop storing fat, crank up blood triglycerides and start running metabolic processes on fat, but fat derived from our adipocytes (obviously, it's a starvation hormone, there is no dietary fat).
"But Fiaf from the gut wall is under the control of the gut bacteria. Active bacteria stop Fiaf production, inactive (hungry) bacteria allow Fiaf to be produced. It's pretty obvious that starvation gives quiescent gut bacteria, to the point where starvation actually mimics not having any gut bacteria at all.
"Germ free mice really do have no gut bacteria at all, so they produce lots of Fiaf, all of the time. This suppresses their LPL and so they are slim, whatever they eat! Bacteria added to their gut immediately suppress Fiaf production from the intestine wall and so allow recently colonised (ex germ free) mice to store fat as soon as ever they have access to food. Lots of fat.
"Also the mice rapidly become insulin resistant as well as obese. That's interesting.
"But under more standard laboratory conditions Fiaf is ONLY produced from the gut of normal animals in times of starvation. My presumption here is that it is the hunger of the GUT BACTERIA that allow Fiaf levels to rise, which allows the stored fat of the host to be burned, in order to keep their microbial bioreactor (our colon) alive. A dead host is of no use to a bacterium."
I've long wondered if alternating dietary schemes might be a good idea -- let your body get used to one sort of fuel, then flip to another one. I've seen success in miniature, as have many other people -- merely requiring our bodies to adapt to a different fuel seems to cause a wastefulness of resources. This concept seems to prove itself as "new-vegan high," the fat-loss people sometimes see in adding fiber/resistant starch, a first-time Atkins convert, et al.
But in reading Peter's post YET AGAIN, after learning more about WHAT plant foodstuffs do WHERE in our guts, I just had a revival of interest and a clearer idea of something I might try. If I still continue a low-carb diet but increase the soluble fiber and resistant starch, I will surely encourage my colon-ies (pun intended) to reproduce. If I then drop back to ZC, they SHOULD think that the food supply just ran out, and pour on the FIAF!
Hmmmm.... Is this what salad-lovers are doing when they eat "mostly plants" and grow thinner and thrive on Atkins? For me, with my generalized vegetable "intolerance" it's going to be tricky, but definitely worth an experiment.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
too paleo or not too paleo
(that is one of the questions.)
Between Wooo's recent slap at the "paleo-blogosphere," the comments after it, the asshole I chastised yesterday, and a current experiment, I've thought quite a bit about the lifestyle and dietary framework we label "Paleo." Complex subject! Some people deplore how this promising concept has gone downhill (i'm in that camp), others say it was just a fad to begin with. People like Sisson will surely say that it's as firm and valid as it ever was, and I hope that twenty years down the line, they'll be shown to be correct.
What the best writers have always agreed about -- it's not meant to be a reenactment, but a template. We cannot replicate the foods available to our ancestors any more than we can replicate their societies. What we can do is mull over what their lifestyles must have included, deduce what must have ameliorated the threats against health, wellbeing, successful reproduction, and so on, and then see what we might learn from this and profit thereby.
I see this learning and profiting process somewhat like I do that of my reenacting hobby. The EXACT replication of everything is NOT POSSIBLE. Yes, I wear garments my great-grandmother would not find unusual, from the skin to the outermost layer. But I did not grow up wearing a corset EVERY SINGLE DAY from my earliest adolescence, and as a result my trunk is a modern "construction" with ribs a little constricted halfway up (from a bra capable of supporting my double-Ds), but NOT constricted at the waist, which they would have been if i'd been born a century earlier. My feet are "healthy" by modern standards, not narrowed by decades of wearing shoes that were fashionable by nineteenth-century dicta.
When I show school-children the rations that an American Civil War Union laundress would have been issued, they're seeing modern flour (cleaner and whiter than it should be), modern salt-pork (leaner than it should be), and modern beans (more uniform than they should be), ... among other things. We can show generic examples, but we cannot show exactly what there WAS.
Paleolithic-era people in different parts of the world had a gigantic difference, from one to the next, in what flora and fauna were available to them for consumption. GIGANTIC. Then, from one year to the next there might have been large differences in weather-contingent foodstuffs. When one source is scarce, another would have been made-use-of, even if it was less desirable -- better Top Ramen than no food at all, a struggling student of today might say! Much as a paleo-idealist might like to imagine the bounty of nature when there were fewer of us to compete, those of us who read a goodly amount of HISTORY know that droughts, disease, wildfire, excessive rain, and other such catastrophes were fatal to man, animal, and plant-life alike. Famine HAPPENED.
So when we get people who say "those people ALWAYS ..." or "those people NEVER ..." -- it's just nonsense! Those people DID when they COULD, but when they couldn't, they "made do." They DID eat high-cellulose vegetables, because they filled an achingly hungry belly. They ate bugs. They ate slightly-toxic things, which they learned to treat in such ways that they became at least a little nutritious ... like acorns and pokeweed and grass-seeds.
When they could get it, they lapped up honey -- you know, that "sugar" which Bill the Asshole said we MUST NOT be apologists for ... whatever that means. They boiled down tree sap to make more sugar. They ate rotting fruit, which is loaded with sugar (and alcohol).
Are we being less "paleo" or more so, when we make excursions from deer-liver and a starchy tuber for dinner? Does it really matter? Do we have to work out with rocks and branches, or sprint a lot to be true to the ancestral fitness template that SOMEBODY has speculated on? I kinda suspect that digging clams and climbing trees is equally legitimate, exercise-wise. As a correlation, carrying your day's groceries in a large city from the store to your house is probably very similar. In the 'burbs we may have to carry a backpack when we walk the dog to be comparable. But crossfit ... I doubt that a large proportion of the population had that kind of workout on an everyday basis!
A concept like primal/paleo, taken reasonably, can result in some really helpful behaviors. Taken like prairie fundamentalists take protestant Christianity -- ignorantly, with no historic insight, and the "more is better" mindset of fanaticism -- the paleo template becomes burlesque. NO GRAINS (despite Native Americans' use of wild rice)! NO DAIRY (despite the fact that we all start life on "dairy"). Lots of plants and tubers (despite the fact that many of them are loaded with toxins and antinutrients). Are shellfish really paleo? Are fruits legitimate, despite the fact that the fruits available to us now are artificially cultivated to be high-sugar? Given the desirability of real versus processed food, WHAT IS "REAL FOOD"?
Using science as well as REAL HISTORY (as opposed to ignorantly-imagined old-fashioned-ness), we can construct credible concepts of how our ancestors survived the harsh world in which they lived. The harsh world in which we live now is very different, but still perilous. We have tools that our forebears didn't, though -- we can see how our genes predispose us to disease, whereas they could only see what weaknesses ran in families and to only ally themselves with the most hardy (at least, the higher social classes, who had choice but not the pressure to mate with only others of their own caste). We have scientists who are/were interested enough to pass us GOOD recommendations for overriding our shortcomings -- as opposed to their fellows who only care(d) about promoting their own fame or wealth.
We have a lot of advantages now. Some are context-related in their beneficence (like antibiotics), and some are mixed blessings (blood- and image-based-screenings in search of disease in the "healthy" population). Some are life-saving concepts carried to extreme (caesarian-section delivery where not always indicated). Some are "pure" beneficent intervention (appendectomy and other surgeries), where survival would be impossible in its absence. We also now have genetic sequencing, which allows us to know how our own SNPs predispose us to ruin. We have SOME information to help us ameliorate it.
Longer lifespans now? POPPYCOCK. We have less infant mortality, less infection-based death, and surgically-sourced lifesaving, that's all. We also have a toxic, stress-exacerbated, advertising-misled society and lifestyle. We have a food system which is nothing less than HORRIFIC -- CAFO meats and GMO plant matter! It's a testament to human resilience that we survived the industrial revolution. Will we survive the technical revolution? Time will tell -- but a paleo TEMPLATE could help.
Between Wooo's recent slap at the "paleo-blogosphere," the comments after it, the asshole I chastised yesterday, and a current experiment, I've thought quite a bit about the lifestyle and dietary framework we label "Paleo." Complex subject! Some people deplore how this promising concept has gone downhill (i'm in that camp), others say it was just a fad to begin with. People like Sisson will surely say that it's as firm and valid as it ever was, and I hope that twenty years down the line, they'll be shown to be correct.
What the best writers have always agreed about -- it's not meant to be a reenactment, but a template. We cannot replicate the foods available to our ancestors any more than we can replicate their societies. What we can do is mull over what their lifestyles must have included, deduce what must have ameliorated the threats against health, wellbeing, successful reproduction, and so on, and then see what we might learn from this and profit thereby.
I see this learning and profiting process somewhat like I do that of my reenacting hobby. The EXACT replication of everything is NOT POSSIBLE. Yes, I wear garments my great-grandmother would not find unusual, from the skin to the outermost layer. But I did not grow up wearing a corset EVERY SINGLE DAY from my earliest adolescence, and as a result my trunk is a modern "construction" with ribs a little constricted halfway up (from a bra capable of supporting my double-Ds), but NOT constricted at the waist, which they would have been if i'd been born a century earlier. My feet are "healthy" by modern standards, not narrowed by decades of wearing shoes that were fashionable by nineteenth-century dicta.
When I show school-children the rations that an American Civil War Union laundress would have been issued, they're seeing modern flour (cleaner and whiter than it should be), modern salt-pork (leaner than it should be), and modern beans (more uniform than they should be), ... among other things. We can show generic examples, but we cannot show exactly what there WAS.
Paleolithic-era people in different parts of the world had a gigantic difference, from one to the next, in what flora and fauna were available to them for consumption. GIGANTIC. Then, from one year to the next there might have been large differences in weather-contingent foodstuffs. When one source is scarce, another would have been made-use-of, even if it was less desirable -- better Top Ramen than no food at all, a struggling student of today might say! Much as a paleo-idealist might like to imagine the bounty of nature when there were fewer of us to compete, those of us who read a goodly amount of HISTORY know that droughts, disease, wildfire, excessive rain, and other such catastrophes were fatal to man, animal, and plant-life alike. Famine HAPPENED.
So when we get people who say "those people ALWAYS ..." or "those people NEVER ..." -- it's just nonsense! Those people DID when they COULD, but when they couldn't, they "made do." They DID eat high-cellulose vegetables, because they filled an achingly hungry belly. They ate bugs. They ate slightly-toxic things, which they learned to treat in such ways that they became at least a little nutritious ... like acorns and pokeweed and grass-seeds.
When they could get it, they lapped up honey -- you know, that "sugar" which Bill the Asshole said we MUST NOT be apologists for ... whatever that means. They boiled down tree sap to make more sugar. They ate rotting fruit, which is loaded with sugar (and alcohol).
Are we being less "paleo" or more so, when we make excursions from deer-liver and a starchy tuber for dinner? Does it really matter? Do we have to work out with rocks and branches, or sprint a lot to be true to the ancestral fitness template that SOMEBODY has speculated on? I kinda suspect that digging clams and climbing trees is equally legitimate, exercise-wise. As a correlation, carrying your day's groceries in a large city from the store to your house is probably very similar. In the 'burbs we may have to carry a backpack when we walk the dog to be comparable. But crossfit ... I doubt that a large proportion of the population had that kind of workout on an everyday basis!
A concept like primal/paleo, taken reasonably, can result in some really helpful behaviors. Taken like prairie fundamentalists take protestant Christianity -- ignorantly, with no historic insight, and the "more is better" mindset of fanaticism -- the paleo template becomes burlesque. NO GRAINS (despite Native Americans' use of wild rice)! NO DAIRY (despite the fact that we all start life on "dairy"). Lots of plants and tubers (despite the fact that many of them are loaded with toxins and antinutrients). Are shellfish really paleo? Are fruits legitimate, despite the fact that the fruits available to us now are artificially cultivated to be high-sugar? Given the desirability of real versus processed food, WHAT IS "REAL FOOD"?
Using science as well as REAL HISTORY (as opposed to ignorantly-imagined old-fashioned-ness), we can construct credible concepts of how our ancestors survived the harsh world in which they lived. The harsh world in which we live now is very different, but still perilous. We have tools that our forebears didn't, though -- we can see how our genes predispose us to disease, whereas they could only see what weaknesses ran in families and to only ally themselves with the most hardy (at least, the higher social classes, who had choice but not the pressure to mate with only others of their own caste). We have scientists who are/were interested enough to pass us GOOD recommendations for overriding our shortcomings -- as opposed to their fellows who only care(d) about promoting their own fame or wealth.
We have a lot of advantages now. Some are context-related in their beneficence (like antibiotics), and some are mixed blessings (blood- and image-based-screenings in search of disease in the "healthy" population). Some are life-saving concepts carried to extreme (caesarian-section delivery where not always indicated). Some are "pure" beneficent intervention (appendectomy and other surgeries), where survival would be impossible in its absence. We also now have genetic sequencing, which allows us to know how our own SNPs predispose us to ruin. We have SOME information to help us ameliorate it.
Longer lifespans now? POPPYCOCK. We have less infant mortality, less infection-based death, and surgically-sourced lifesaving, that's all. We also have a toxic, stress-exacerbated, advertising-misled society and lifestyle. We have a food system which is nothing less than HORRIFIC -- CAFO meats and GMO plant matter! It's a testament to human resilience that we survived the industrial revolution. Will we survive the technical revolution? Time will tell -- but a paleo TEMPLATE could help.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
why it's really, REALLY stupid to offend a blogger....
Dion Fortune wrote in her book "The Sea Priestess" that "people who value public opinion are at a very great disadvantage in dealing with people who don't." When i first read that, it struck such a chord with me, i found it worth remembering....
I don't know if "Bill" (obviously not OUR Bill L.) cares about his reputation or not -- except that he's carefully cultivating public opinion that he IS an asshole -- but i'll do what i can in my small way to make sure the world hears what a low reputation he OUGHT to have. THAT is why being rude to people on the 'net because they can't slap you across the face for real ... is still a bad idea.
I don't have Andreas Eenfeldt's blog DietDoctor.com on my list because his message tends to be rather elementary. When i sometimes read his latest title on other people's blog lists, though, i occasionally pop into his (and others') out of curiosity, just to see if there's any usable info. "Is There a Safe Amount of Sugar" turned out to be as empty as usual, but i read the comments anyway. Mistake! The poor doctor's audience is well fitted to his message.
Do you remember in old Loony Toons episodes where Daffy Duck lisps past a major head-injury "THIS MEANS WAR"? Yeah. And i don't play Ms. Niceguy any more -- it doesn't pay. So here on my own turf, i'll ADVERTISE what a brainless GIT he is. Playing with hyperbole and projection techniques just like the worst trolls are wont to do.
It's SUCH a pity that paid-for blog sites like DietDoctor don't make people identify themselves better, or i'd let it be known what Bill's real name and contact info are. So that anyone googling his name will be immediately informed what a stupid shit he is, how meaningless and worthless his comments, and how TINY HIS DICK. How not one word if valid information is likely EVER to pass his lips, though i'm willing to bet he's a big proponent of resistant starch and Nikolean "philosophy." There's no doubt of his nationality, though -- he's obviously a proud patriot of Fuctardia.
;-) Now, THAT was fun. Eddie, may i nominate Bill for one of those gold-plated trophies over at the Low Carb Diabetic?
I don't know if "Bill" (obviously not OUR Bill L.) cares about his reputation or not -- except that he's carefully cultivating public opinion that he IS an asshole -- but i'll do what i can in my small way to make sure the world hears what a low reputation he OUGHT to have. THAT is why being rude to people on the 'net because they can't slap you across the face for real ... is still a bad idea.
I don't have Andreas Eenfeldt's blog DietDoctor.com on my list because his message tends to be rather elementary. When i sometimes read his latest title on other people's blog lists, though, i occasionally pop into his (and others') out of curiosity, just to see if there's any usable info. "Is There a Safe Amount of Sugar" turned out to be as empty as usual, but i read the comments anyway. Mistake! The poor doctor's audience is well fitted to his message.
Do you remember in old Loony Toons episodes where Daffy Duck lisps past a major head-injury "THIS MEANS WAR"? Yeah. And i don't play Ms. Niceguy any more -- it doesn't pay. So here on my own turf, i'll ADVERTISE what a brainless GIT he is. Playing with hyperbole and projection techniques just like the worst trolls are wont to do.
It's SUCH a pity that paid-for blog sites like DietDoctor don't make people identify themselves better, or i'd let it be known what Bill's real name and contact info are. So that anyone googling his name will be immediately informed what a stupid shit he is, how meaningless and worthless his comments, and how TINY HIS DICK. How not one word if valid information is likely EVER to pass his lips, though i'm willing to bet he's a big proponent of resistant starch and Nikolean "philosophy." There's no doubt of his nationality, though -- he's obviously a proud patriot of Fuctardia.
;-) Now, THAT was fun. Eddie, may i nominate Bill for one of those gold-plated trophies over at the Low Carb Diabetic?
Friday, February 14, 2014
a little universal LOVE, this valentine's day
I'll do my best to avoid all ranting behavior today. ;-) Reason one, my husband is a good guy and deserves a good mood from me, this of all days. Reason two, although ranting gives me a sense of satisfaction, it doesn't contribute to actual HAPPINESS. To help maintain cheerfulness, I think i'll be staying away from facebook, particularly.
The things that piss me off, on that site, are distinctly "lack of love" stories. The Kansas legislature passing a bill which legalizes anti-gay discrimination. Another city which requires special licensing before it's legal to feed the poor. One place in Florida where the homeless are being jailed because they're keeping warm in public with BLANKETS -- the nerve of them!
A lot of these hateful jerks call themselves Christians. They're not. And the Christ knows it.
Frankly, I don't know what's the matter with them. This has gone far BEYOND "oh, they're frightened because their world is changing." This isn't fear, it's a sense of license that they can be as nasty as they have wanted to be all along, but have been inhibited by public opinion -- you know, that "political correctness" which teabaggers have turned into a dirty word, just like "liberalism." To be liberal ONLY means allowing others freedom (look it up) -- it isn't by definition the foolish excessive "left-ness" that most people use it for.
"Political correctness" was a way to try to get impolite people to behave politely. It, too, got out of hand in some circles ... but that doesn't mean the concept wasn't sound in its beginnings. It just meant that you don't call your buddies "retarded" because people who overhear you, who might be "developmentally challenged" or have loved ones in that predicament, feel bad. THAT'S WHAT PROPER MANNERS DO -- make people comfortable. Being considerate -- that's proper manners. Applying the Golden Rule. Not being rude and hurtful, just because one has a mean and nasty nature -- society is built on certain basic civilities, but some people aren't taught them so if they aren't naturally sensitive, they don't know -- and it isn't REASONABLE to blame people for what they've never learned. Ergo, societal rules saying what you should NOT do, as a very minimum -- political correctness.
Despite the theoretical desirability to live in small tribes as hunter-gatherers, the world has moved on and it's just not possible unless you're rich enough to buy your own island. If we HAVE to live in a "society" we HAVE to behave in a social fashion. This requires civility. It requires a certain generosity of spirit, because when we look around us these days, we see what happens when that goes out the window.
The breathtaking hatefulness of an abnormally large segment of society these days is going to catalyze catastrophe. It amazes me that they think they can get away with it and rise above the mess that is fermenting. I do my best to pity rather than despise them, as is my instinct....
On the other hand, I see the discussions of really wonderful people on certain websites, that assure me that the WHOLE world hasn't got their priorities thoroughly bassackward. I treasure the ones I read of and communicate with every day.
May ALL the world get a glimpse of what love OUGHT to look like, today -- and every day. May people of goodwill be rewarded for the service they do the world. May the misled and deficient see the light before it's too late.
The things that piss me off, on that site, are distinctly "lack of love" stories. The Kansas legislature passing a bill which legalizes anti-gay discrimination. Another city which requires special licensing before it's legal to feed the poor. One place in Florida where the homeless are being jailed because they're keeping warm in public with BLANKETS -- the nerve of them!
A lot of these hateful jerks call themselves Christians. They're not. And the Christ knows it.
Frankly, I don't know what's the matter with them. This has gone far BEYOND "oh, they're frightened because their world is changing." This isn't fear, it's a sense of license that they can be as nasty as they have wanted to be all along, but have been inhibited by public opinion -- you know, that "political correctness" which teabaggers have turned into a dirty word, just like "liberalism." To be liberal ONLY means allowing others freedom (look it up) -- it isn't by definition the foolish excessive "left-ness" that most people use it for.
"Political correctness" was a way to try to get impolite people to behave politely. It, too, got out of hand in some circles ... but that doesn't mean the concept wasn't sound in its beginnings. It just meant that you don't call your buddies "retarded" because people who overhear you, who might be "developmentally challenged" or have loved ones in that predicament, feel bad. THAT'S WHAT PROPER MANNERS DO -- make people comfortable. Being considerate -- that's proper manners. Applying the Golden Rule. Not being rude and hurtful, just because one has a mean and nasty nature -- society is built on certain basic civilities, but some people aren't taught them so if they aren't naturally sensitive, they don't know -- and it isn't REASONABLE to blame people for what they've never learned. Ergo, societal rules saying what you should NOT do, as a very minimum -- political correctness.
Despite the theoretical desirability to live in small tribes as hunter-gatherers, the world has moved on and it's just not possible unless you're rich enough to buy your own island. If we HAVE to live in a "society" we HAVE to behave in a social fashion. This requires civility. It requires a certain generosity of spirit, because when we look around us these days, we see what happens when that goes out the window.
The breathtaking hatefulness of an abnormally large segment of society these days is going to catalyze catastrophe. It amazes me that they think they can get away with it and rise above the mess that is fermenting. I do my best to pity rather than despise them, as is my instinct....
On the other hand, I see the discussions of really wonderful people on certain websites, that assure me that the WHOLE world hasn't got their priorities thoroughly bassackward. I treasure the ones I read of and communicate with every day.
May ALL the world get a glimpse of what love OUGHT to look like, today -- and every day. May people of goodwill be rewarded for the service they do the world. May the misled and deficient see the light before it's too late.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
news flash to the "good doctor"
My blogosphere friends surely know who i'm referring to, though i haven't read him in over two years, and only referred to him recently because of one of Fred T's recent posts. Hell, even Wooo hasn't thought it worthwhile to blog about his BS in a long time! :-)
Looking through someone else's blog list just now, though, i saw his latest title "how to eat less" or some such thing.
LATE-BREAKING NEWS!!! I DON'T WANT TO EAT LESS!
Eating less is bad for me! Eating less gives me hypothyroid symptoms! Eating less makes me cold, and feel like shit!
To those who want to eat less -- haven't you tried that before? How well did it work; was it sustainable? Are you deluded enough to think that calorie restriction makes you immortal, or do you get a feeling of nobility from suffering, like a medieval religious fanatic?
Eat a very-low-carb diet and you WILL eat less, but you'll also feel less hungry. After you conquer those potato- and rice-cravings (ie, become fat/ketone-adapted), you will also crave ALL glucose-raising carbs less. Dump sugar, wheat, and industrial seed-oils, and the temptation to snack generally drops like a rock. Fill up on lamb chops and your favorite vegetable, and be amazed at how long it is before you're hungry again.
On VLC i find myself looking at my daily calories and wondering what i might have in the kitchen that could tempt me to get my intake UP to where it needs to be to lose weight more efficiently!
I actually was hungry this morning! It's rare that i have any appetite before noon, but i celebrated with a big plate of bacon and eggs today, and enjoyed that ghrelin rush while breakfast was cooking. Of course, i wasn't interest in lunch though, more's the pity....
And that guy wants me to eat LESS? How can someone be an obesity specialist and not realize that lowering intake tends to cause lowered metabolism as well? Pathological neurobiology, too? The ONLY piece of work by Ancel Keys that wasn't a pile of horseshit -- the starvation experiment -- showed what happened to healthy young men when they were eating the kind of things "the good doctor" wants YOU to eat ... oh, and they were "moving more" too! If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, what does that make HIM?
Looking through someone else's blog list just now, though, i saw his latest title "how to eat less" or some such thing.
LATE-BREAKING NEWS!!! I DON'T WANT TO EAT LESS!
Eating less is bad for me! Eating less gives me hypothyroid symptoms! Eating less makes me cold, and feel like shit!
To those who want to eat less -- haven't you tried that before? How well did it work; was it sustainable? Are you deluded enough to think that calorie restriction makes you immortal, or do you get a feeling of nobility from suffering, like a medieval religious fanatic?
Eat a very-low-carb diet and you WILL eat less, but you'll also feel less hungry. After you conquer those potato- and rice-cravings (ie, become fat/ketone-adapted), you will also crave ALL glucose-raising carbs less. Dump sugar, wheat, and industrial seed-oils, and the temptation to snack generally drops like a rock. Fill up on lamb chops and your favorite vegetable, and be amazed at how long it is before you're hungry again.
On VLC i find myself looking at my daily calories and wondering what i might have in the kitchen that could tempt me to get my intake UP to where it needs to be to lose weight more efficiently!
I actually was hungry this morning! It's rare that i have any appetite before noon, but i celebrated with a big plate of bacon and eggs today, and enjoyed that ghrelin rush while breakfast was cooking. Of course, i wasn't interest in lunch though, more's the pity....
And that guy wants me to eat LESS? How can someone be an obesity specialist and not realize that lowering intake tends to cause lowered metabolism as well? Pathological neurobiology, too? The ONLY piece of work by Ancel Keys that wasn't a pile of horseshit -- the starvation experiment -- showed what happened to healthy young men when they were eating the kind of things "the good doctor" wants YOU to eat ... oh, and they were "moving more" too! If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, what does that make HIM?
long winter making my eyes tired!
^^^ attempt at humor -- don't take it seriously.
It remains cold and snowy here in St. Louis! I like cold and snow, but we're not getting the breaks we usually do. The midwest can usually count on a significant "January thaw;" it just isn't happening that way, this year. And although one CAN take walks when there's ice and snow on the pavement, i don't get the same kind of effect -- one doesn't stride the same way, and one keeps some muscles tensed to avoid slipping and tripping ... and different shoes DON'T help significantly.
I've been doing what i usually do when there's a good reason to stay inside (which applies to heatwaves, too): i cook and do housework, i run the errands i must, i work on any special project we might have on hand, i interact with my husband and dog, and i read. In this extended cold season, i've read a LOT.
The last two days i read the entire archive of one blogger with whom i almost entirely agree, despite the fact that he's "normal" -- he realizes people are different and doesn't paint with too broad a brush. Harris, like Sisson, seems to understand that ideal starch intake will vary with carb tolerance and activity level. It looks like his diet was similar to mine, until he started doing a lot of physical work. He even expressed his doubts of the universal wholesomeness of low-carb vegetables which jibes with my experience. Too bad he stopped blogging, but maybe said all he really had to express....
Wooo's last few posts combined with what i read certainly confirmed my philosophy: food, for normal people, is fuel; food, for people with significant physical limitations, is fuel AND MEDICINE. The dual role cannot be allowed to go unappreciated!
Normal people can take in any reasonable mixture of foods (even a little of the "neolithic agents of disease"), make energy out of it, extract the necessary minerals, amino acids and fats, convert provitamins to their active counterparts, store what's left over from required processes, and retrieve as needed.
People with genetic predilections toward ABnormal processes, or who have been infected, injured, or otherwise damaged so that their bodies do NOT perform as described above, don't have the luxury of eating like a traditional Swiss or Kitavan. We have to tweeze out every little detail of our bodies' misperformance we can identify, and consciously counteract and work around the limitation. We can't eat without taking into account what we REQUIRE for health, but can't convert, manufacture, or absorb.
To use me as the poster child of FFFery, i can't rely on my digestive system to pull out the iron i need to keep my thyroid function adequate, despite the generous quantities which i'm THEORETICALLY getting from my diet. I make every effort to eat red meat at least every other day, and i breakfast on eggs any time i breakfast at all. If i don't use an iron supplement every other day, i start losing hair generously. Back when my husband was working out of town i had plenty of time to experiment, and it became blatant -- stop supplementing, lose hair; start supplementing, hairbrush and bathtub much less "cluttered." Over and over -- lather rinse repeat. A certain "mineral zealot" who comments on a number of blogs warned me how DAAAAANGEROUS iron is ... but you can't GENERALIZE in the world of foodasmedicine! My digestive system just doesn't tease out the iron in my food.... Incidentally, i alternate copper supplements with the iron, except on the days i eat liver or oysters, because i DO seem to get the benefit of my minerals from those sources -- don't ask me why!
One of the major improvements in energy i observed came when i began supplementing REAL vitamin A. To this day, it INFURIATES me when i read about this or that vegetable contributing A to the diet -- i don't always manage to restrain myself from cyber-screaming YOU CAN'T GET VITAMIN A FROM ANY VEGETABLE SOURCE!!! NO vegetable has vitamin A, and almost half of the women in a British study CLEARLY could not convert carotenes adequately. Yet the lies are reproduced over and over and over again. Sadly, the lies are repeated by people with very good intentions, too.
"Normal" people do fine, and "abnormal" people are accused of lying on their food logs....
Until people in the medical industry start listening to and believing their patients AS THE DEFAULT, patients who are willing to do what it takes to get better have only one choice -- SELF-EDUCATION. The system does everything it can to discourage this, and to protect its monopoly. Thank god there are HEALERS out there who are willing to share the intellectual wealth! I don't care if they DO sell books or supplements on the side, the fact that they pour streams of free, useful, empowering information into the world from their websites is the intellectual generosity that deserves our gratitude and admiration!
What works for people who are similar to us MAY NOT work for us, but what clearly does NOT work for the majority of people hasn't got a snowball's chance of being effective. Professionals who have seen thousands of people, and who have benefitted a large number of them, are a damn good reference. People who may have a bit of a swelled head.... People who may want to make some extra money (who doesn't?), but who are pleased when their knowledge helps someone.... People who get irritable when arguing with the stubbornly ignorant....
[...back to my reading. great thing about the internet, you can magnify the pages....]
It remains cold and snowy here in St. Louis! I like cold and snow, but we're not getting the breaks we usually do. The midwest can usually count on a significant "January thaw;" it just isn't happening that way, this year. And although one CAN take walks when there's ice and snow on the pavement, i don't get the same kind of effect -- one doesn't stride the same way, and one keeps some muscles tensed to avoid slipping and tripping ... and different shoes DON'T help significantly.
I've been doing what i usually do when there's a good reason to stay inside (which applies to heatwaves, too): i cook and do housework, i run the errands i must, i work on any special project we might have on hand, i interact with my husband and dog, and i read. In this extended cold season, i've read a LOT.
The last two days i read the entire archive of one blogger with whom i almost entirely agree, despite the fact that he's "normal" -- he realizes people are different and doesn't paint with too broad a brush. Harris, like Sisson, seems to understand that ideal starch intake will vary with carb tolerance and activity level. It looks like his diet was similar to mine, until he started doing a lot of physical work. He even expressed his doubts of the universal wholesomeness of low-carb vegetables which jibes with my experience. Too bad he stopped blogging, but maybe said all he really had to express....
Wooo's last few posts combined with what i read certainly confirmed my philosophy: food, for normal people, is fuel; food, for people with significant physical limitations, is fuel AND MEDICINE. The dual role cannot be allowed to go unappreciated!
Normal people can take in any reasonable mixture of foods (even a little of the "neolithic agents of disease"), make energy out of it, extract the necessary minerals, amino acids and fats, convert provitamins to their active counterparts, store what's left over from required processes, and retrieve as needed.
People with genetic predilections toward ABnormal processes, or who have been infected, injured, or otherwise damaged so that their bodies do NOT perform as described above, don't have the luxury of eating like a traditional Swiss or Kitavan. We have to tweeze out every little detail of our bodies' misperformance we can identify, and consciously counteract and work around the limitation. We can't eat without taking into account what we REQUIRE for health, but can't convert, manufacture, or absorb.
To use me as the poster child of FFFery, i can't rely on my digestive system to pull out the iron i need to keep my thyroid function adequate, despite the generous quantities which i'm THEORETICALLY getting from my diet. I make every effort to eat red meat at least every other day, and i breakfast on eggs any time i breakfast at all. If i don't use an iron supplement every other day, i start losing hair generously. Back when my husband was working out of town i had plenty of time to experiment, and it became blatant -- stop supplementing, lose hair; start supplementing, hairbrush and bathtub much less "cluttered." Over and over -- lather rinse repeat. A certain "mineral zealot" who comments on a number of blogs warned me how DAAAAANGEROUS iron is ... but you can't GENERALIZE in the world of foodasmedicine! My digestive system just doesn't tease out the iron in my food.... Incidentally, i alternate copper supplements with the iron, except on the days i eat liver or oysters, because i DO seem to get the benefit of my minerals from those sources -- don't ask me why!
One of the major improvements in energy i observed came when i began supplementing REAL vitamin A. To this day, it INFURIATES me when i read about this or that vegetable contributing A to the diet -- i don't always manage to restrain myself from cyber-screaming YOU CAN'T GET VITAMIN A FROM ANY VEGETABLE SOURCE!!! NO vegetable has vitamin A, and almost half of the women in a British study CLEARLY could not convert carotenes adequately. Yet the lies are reproduced over and over and over again. Sadly, the lies are repeated by people with very good intentions, too.
"Normal" people do fine, and "abnormal" people are accused of lying on their food logs....
Until people in the medical industry start listening to and believing their patients AS THE DEFAULT, patients who are willing to do what it takes to get better have only one choice -- SELF-EDUCATION. The system does everything it can to discourage this, and to protect its monopoly. Thank god there are HEALERS out there who are willing to share the intellectual wealth! I don't care if they DO sell books or supplements on the side, the fact that they pour streams of free, useful, empowering information into the world from their websites is the intellectual generosity that deserves our gratitude and admiration!
What works for people who are similar to us MAY NOT work for us, but what clearly does NOT work for the majority of people hasn't got a snowball's chance of being effective. Professionals who have seen thousands of people, and who have benefitted a large number of them, are a damn good reference. People who may have a bit of a swelled head.... People who may want to make some extra money (who doesn't?), but who are pleased when their knowledge helps someone.... People who get irritable when arguing with the stubbornly ignorant....
[...back to my reading. great thing about the internet, you can magnify the pages....]
Sunday, February 9, 2014
the luxury of having nothing to lose
I thoroughly respect and understand Wooo's attempts to conceal her identity. There are a lot of jerks who would LOVE to make her life difficult. Sidereal too -- her professional future could be made a no-go before it has a chance to really start -- she hasn't minced words when it comes to the malfeasance of her field! I still hope that "outing" Lifextension isn't going to be a problem for her!
Me -- I LOVE being in the position I am! I can say what I think about assholes and their professional associations in any field I want! What can anybody do? I don't depend on any business or organization for my livelihood or any benefits. Damaged reputation? BULLSHIT. :-D
I just read the short AND the long versions of the report by the Dieticians for Professional Integrity about the annual RDs' conference. Seems like there's a ban on photography on the "floor" where all the sponsors display! Wonder why that could be -- you think they may not be proud of the propaganda they're spreading? Maybe they think it looks bad that Coca Cola and Frito-Lay are providing informational materials to dieticians and YOUR CHILD'S SCHOOL PRINCIPAL on what a healthy diet is?
Do you suppose there MIGHT be some bribery and malfeasance at play, when the AUTHORITIES tell you that it's fine to eat all the starch you want, so long as you take the stairs instead of the elevator at the mall? Perhaps the cheap, synthetic vitamins added to the sugar-based cereals and pastries aren't REALLY part of a NUTRITIOUS breakfast???
We can't allow these doubts!!! It's better if Mom doesn't know that her guidance about what she should feed her kids, so that they can grow up healthy and be "the best they can be", comes straight out of the advertising department of Monsanto....
I left what I consider a scathing comment, naming a name which the (short) web article was too cautious to add. It will be interesting to see if it passes the moderator.
There's dirty work at the crossroads, babies! I consider it my duty and privilege to pour contempt and scorn for the duplicitous and absolutely CRIMINAL companies, associations, and -- yes -- INDIVIDUALS who are making big money by fucking you over. Being old and retired is a goddam LUXURY.
Feel free to vent here! :-D I LOVE it!
Me -- I LOVE being in the position I am! I can say what I think about assholes and their professional associations in any field I want! What can anybody do? I don't depend on any business or organization for my livelihood or any benefits. Damaged reputation? BULLSHIT. :-D
I just read the short AND the long versions of the report by the Dieticians for Professional Integrity about the annual RDs' conference. Seems like there's a ban on photography on the "floor" where all the sponsors display! Wonder why that could be -- you think they may not be proud of the propaganda they're spreading? Maybe they think it looks bad that Coca Cola and Frito-Lay are providing informational materials to dieticians and YOUR CHILD'S SCHOOL PRINCIPAL on what a healthy diet is?
Do you suppose there MIGHT be some bribery and malfeasance at play, when the AUTHORITIES tell you that it's fine to eat all the starch you want, so long as you take the stairs instead of the elevator at the mall? Perhaps the cheap, synthetic vitamins added to the sugar-based cereals and pastries aren't REALLY part of a NUTRITIOUS breakfast???
We can't allow these doubts!!! It's better if Mom doesn't know that her guidance about what she should feed her kids, so that they can grow up healthy and be "the best they can be", comes straight out of the advertising department of Monsanto....
I left what I consider a scathing comment, naming a name which the (short) web article was too cautious to add. It will be interesting to see if it passes the moderator.
There's dirty work at the crossroads, babies! I consider it my duty and privilege to pour contempt and scorn for the duplicitous and absolutely CRIMINAL companies, associations, and -- yes -- INDIVIDUALS who are making big money by fucking you over. Being old and retired is a goddam LUXURY.
Feel free to vent here! :-D I LOVE it!
Monday, February 3, 2014
more music
Well, since my musical tastes range from folk to swing to rock to classical, I have quite a stable of favorites to share ... but I try to restrain myself. There's a certain blogger I rarely read anymore, who loves to share HER favorites, and they tend to put me to sleep -- so I just don't want to go there.
But here's an artist whom not many people find familiar. We discovered Jimmie Spheeris back in the early '70s. He was run over and killed by a drunk driver in the '80s before he became very famous, but his few records are still favorites of mine.
Fortunately, youtube has quite a collection of his stuff. I hope Graham enjoys this more than the classic/folk I posted yesterday. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmNPnC6GgCA
But here's an artist whom not many people find familiar. We discovered Jimmie Spheeris back in the early '70s. He was run over and killed by a drunk driver in the '80s before he became very famous, but his few records are still favorites of mine.
Fortunately, youtube has quite a collection of his stuff. I hope Graham enjoys this more than the classic/folk I posted yesterday. :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmNPnC6GgCA
Sunday, February 2, 2014
drinking water KILLS ;-)
...Which is roughly translated from the old Auvergne song, "L'Aio de Rotso."
I first heard this in Kiri Te Kanawa's delightful album "Chants d'Auvergne." The CD conveniently comes with not only the lyrics, but an English translation of them. These old pastoral-society folksongs just show how universal ideas can be!
I didn't find a video of HER singing the song -- second-best is the best I can share with you. Inspired by the lowcarbdiabetic team and their "Saturday music night" I offer you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8f8NpHPvY
I first heard this in Kiri Te Kanawa's delightful album "Chants d'Auvergne." The CD conveniently comes with not only the lyrics, but an English translation of them. These old pastoral-society folksongs just show how universal ideas can be!
I didn't find a video of HER singing the song -- second-best is the best I can share with you. Inspired by the lowcarbdiabetic team and their "Saturday music night" I offer you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz8f8NpHPvY
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)