I am proud to be an American. Because an American can eat anything on the face of this earth as long as he has two pieces of bread.
-Bill Cosby
On my vacation in America, I have learned some very important things. This is my second time to really observe Americans in the wild since eating differently, and here’s some of what I gleaned:
Diet Coke with lemon…didn’t that used to be called Pledge?
–Jay Leno
Not long ago I was at a friend’s house. My friends are pretty typical Americans. They have a large kitchen with two long counters, a normal American-sized fridge and freezer, above- and below-counter cabinets, and a pantry. Here’s what was in them:
Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.
― Jane Yolen
It’s not actually books I have to recommend to you today, but interesting news in the world of science and nutrition. I’ve been sick, you’ve been sick, we’re all busy. So when you have a few minutes to relax, have a look at these and see what analysis you come up with. I’ve given mine, naturally.
It was the year my Aunt Clara went to visit her cousin. Now, her cousin was not only gifted on the glockenspiel, but being a screech owl, also sang soprano in the London Opera.
–Owl
The long silence has been due to illness. I got the flu and it was just too much to blog while living the rest of life. The main problem was not the illness per se, but all the pollution that greatly exacerbates the breathing difficulties of any illness that affects the respiratory system.
However other than having difficulty breathing, which is related to air quality, this illness was not nearly as bad as it used to be.
This is one of the benefits of living a life without refined flours and sugars: better health in general. You don’t get as sick as often, and generally when you do get sick it isn’t as debilitating or as lengthy. We all understand here that I’m talking about common illnesses, right? I can’t say what will happen if you go get malaria, tuberculosis, or polio.
Continue reading Stuff and Bother
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldiers knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
–Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Before we begin, calm yourself by watching the video delicious sardines. I took it at an aquarium in Japan. It’s called the Sardine Tornado, which would be a great thing for Aquaman to be able to create, if you ask me.
“Poirot,” I said. “I have been thinking.”
“An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.”
–Agatha Christie
In the last post we asked the question: WHY? Why so much sugar in a recipe when it wasn’t necessary for taste or texture?
Today I have a new “why.” It comes from this article, a form of which has come out on every major American news agency going. If you don’t care to read it all, I’ll summarize: you should now brush your baby’s teeth with fluoride toothpaste so he won’t get a cavity before he’s five, like most kids do.
WHY? Why should I give fluoride to a small child? Why has the cavity situation grown so dire that kids are developing them that young? I want to give the American Dental Association the benefit of the doubt. I can’t imagine it’s fun for a dentist to treat a five-year-old’s cavity, so I understand the dentists’ perspective here.
The one who burns his mouth for drinking milk too hot eats even yogurt carefully.
–Turkish Proverb
Let’s talk about dairy one last time. We’ve considered whether we need to abandon it entirely solely because we imagine our supposed Paleolithic ancestors didn’t eat it. We’ve looked at whether it is going to give us cancer (no) or save us from cancer (no). We talked about its insulinogenic quality.
If you’ve come through all that you’ve probably figured out where I land on this issue: in general, dairy is perfectly fine in moderate amounts if you personally tolerate it and don’t show an insulin addictive response to it. (If you’re just reading this or aren’t sure what I mean I’ll give you a hint: if you ate half the block of cheddar at one sitting without even realizing what you were doing, you probably have a disproportionately high insulin response to this low-sugar food. Sorry.)
Continue reading Final Dairy Clarity
Eat butter first, and eat it last, and live till a hundred years be past.
–Old Dutch proverb
What to do about dairy? Some people love it, some people hate it, everyone wants it on pizza. Vegans won’t touch it while Paleos claim it’s too new a food to safely eat. Some are sure it makes them gain weight or at least feel temporarily bloated, yet many Europeans consume it like candy and seem to enjoy both good health and healthy body weights regardless. Some people groups, such as the Chinese or Vietnamese, have rampant lactose intolerance; yet some societies–like the Mongols, Tibetans, and Masaai–have or do subsist largely on dairy and are strong and healthy. Some scientists claim that it will give you cancer and cause gut leakage problems, while others swear that it’s the best and healthiest way to get your Vit D and calcium, and may even protect your from cancer. One study tells you it will spike your insulin and derange your metabolism; another will tell you that it protects from diabetes.
Continue reading Dairy, Dairy, Quite Contrary
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
–Unknown
After the catastrophe that was yesterday’s loss of all my writing (catastrophe to me; relief to some.) I am going to try again on the subject of idiocy that gets thrown about over the holidays.
You can’t keep trouble from coming, but you don’t have to give it a chair to sit on.
–New England Proverb
When I was visiting Brother #3 in this summer he asked me:
Is there anything your magic diet doesn’t help with?
We both laughed–it was meant in jest, and he himself had seen some real benefits from changing up his way of eating. But what I said and thought at the time is: No. It does help just about everything.
Even though you weren’t there at the time, I’d like to clarify that statement for you. By it, I do not mean that I think eschewing grains, sugars, and Frankenfats and eating lots of saturated fat and meat is a miracle cure of any ailment. There are three things I do mean:
Ask Me How It Happened 