Tag: grains

Ours is But To Do Or Die

“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.

Continue reading Ours is But To Do Or Die

Fallout II

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.

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Fallout

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

–Laurence J. Peter

You knew it would happen. Thanksgiving is over, and now we must be subjected to a slew of articles about how to lose that holiday pound. Some of this advice is even packaged in implications designed to make you feel guilty: if you/us big fat Americans didn’t eat all this meat and all this fat at the holidays and get all fat and lazy and gorge yourselves/ourselves on fat and meat the whole world would be a better place.

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Germany

Andere Länder, andere Sitten.

–German Proverb

So today I was in Germany for a while. I had a ten hour layover in Frankfurt and I took off into the city on the regional trains to spend three hours hiking about Worms. Running about it, actually.

If it’s getting hard to keep track of where I am, I’m sorry. A friend gave me this trip as a gift, to go see family posted abroad for work. I haven’t seen them in years, so that’s the background to this little story.

I got off the plane after a miserable flight (note: Lufthansa seems to have the smallest seats of any airline ever, and that is saying a lot. I’ve flown all over Asia 145 pounds heavier than I am now and I was never so cramped as I was on this trup.) I wanted some food when I got off, and the first thing I found was a little restaurant in the airport advertising breakfast. More than half the breakfast choices were very heavy in fat and protein with only some token carbohydrates to go with them.

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Everybody’s Different

Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the difference between one young woman and another.

–George Bernard Shaw

This is another common reaction I get when people ask me what I’m doing that is so obviously making me healthier: That’s wonderful that you found something that works for you.

They then go on to explain why obviously it wouldn’t work for them, because they are completely different.

Now when someone says this to me and they are in robust good health themselves, I have nothing to say. But I don’t meet too many of those. What I normally meet are people who are not healthy at all. But they’re pretty sure that even though they don’t feel well, and even though they have a lot of health problems, that however they’re now eating is the best way to eat. Many seem to attribute certain things to old age, even though they aren’t actually all that old.

I know about this. I used to do it too.
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Paradoxing

Vegetables are interesting, but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.

–Fran Lebowitz

I spent some time this week with The Vegetarian. I just met her, but I think she’s due her own capitalized title. A lovely person and not at all evangelistic about her food choices. Credit where credit is due, after all. She doesn’t do it because of any religious or ethical scruples, but because she believes it to be the best way to avoid cancer. But when you’re eating butter, oil, and steaks, and she’s eating chips and salads, one of you is bound to notice something. We didn’t argue or even really discuss, but we did briefly explain our opposing views.

She got where she is by reading, if I recall the title correctly, The Food Revolution. In another post we’ll take a look at that book, but for now let’s go paradoxing, shall we? It’s a little like parasailing, only not at all.

I would like to promise it’ll be fun, but as I’m now in a plane at 38,000 feet crossing the entire United States–and we are currently over North Dakota–I’m afraid we’re shockingly short on fun. And room. And food. Thank goodness I don’t need to eat every two hours, because I don’t have $17 to shell out for a tiny box of “food.”

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Bad News With Benefits

Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.

–Lao Tzu

Have you been waiting for the other shoe to drop? Well don’t worry: it won’t. This bad news is some of the easiest bad news you’ll ever get.

Eating this way–avoiding grains, sugars, vegetables oils, and excessive amounts of fruit, while embracing real animal fat, meat, and other fresh, real foods–has been one of the easiest things I’ve ever done.

It was certainly easier than spending half my life kneading my “healthy” whole wheat bread dough.

Continue reading Bad News With Benefits