Food

When I grew up in the 70's it was normal to be of a normal weight. Today, many in US will not know what it's like for the majority to be of a normal BMI. Today, in regards to BMI, it's normal to be abnormal. It's the normal that stick out.

From the later 80's to early 90's there became a massive change in America. Weight gain happened on an unprecedented scale never seen before in human history. The person who first realized this, at first didn't believe her numbers. But looking every which way, she realized she was right. Her name is Katherine Flegal and she was a research scientist for the CDC.

Have you ever seen the BMI charts where the nation's BMI per state is calculated? It's quite dramatic and where the state with the lowest obesity today would have been the state with the highest obesity back in the 90's. The change in the last 20-30 years is unprecedented in the evolution of mankind.

Dr Kessler, former head of the FDA, wrote a book called "The End of Overeating". He talks "off the record" with a food industry leader. The exec tells how food is created to make what is called "Bliss point". Where salt, sugar and fat are mixed together so that food becomes hyperpalatable.

Food becomes hyperpalatable through two ways, loading and layering. An example of loading is tortillas fried in oil. An example of layering are potato skins (first fried (that's loading)) and then adding the bacon, cheese and sour cream.

So foods like spinach dip might sound healthy, but far from it. The spinach is merely coloring to all the added fat. Salads sound so nutritious, but when the fried chicken, cheese and ranch dressing is added (layered), it hardly can qualify as an healthy food.

When eating at restaurants, one is going to battle with one's health against the greatest minds in food science. Drugs, cigarettes we can do without. Food we need. But the food we've learned to eat reaches our bliss point and is so hyperpalatable that we constantly overeat.

I have a friend that everytime she eats she makes a comment about the food. It's sad because while she does the battle constantly in her mind, she realizes she will never win. One can't eat the way America eats and have any chance of being an ideal weight.

The foods we're meant to eat are whole and from the earth. They don't taste nearly as good as the food we're accustomed to. To eat these foods is difficult. But to wean oneself from these hyper foods is the only way to find long term health and happiness.

The Buffer Zone

In life there are three zones. The top zone is the "life is good" (LIG) zone, the middle is called the "buffer" zone and the bottom is called "YOURFUCKED" zone. (YOURFUCKED is an acronym for: you only understand real freedom until clearly kill every dream.)

The LIG zone is the ideal zone. Life is good. No house, car payments and 10⁶ in savings. Whenever something happens, and there are always unexpected happenings, it becomes no problem. Dip into the buffer zone, recover, and back to the LIG zone.

The buffer zone is also a good place to be. One can deal with life's vicissitudes and with patience find themself in the LIG zone. Bumps in ther road are just that, bumps in the road. The buffer zone allows one a certain amount of freedom and peace.

The YOURFUCKED zone is the lease desired zone. Take away the other two zones and this zone is what remains. When one is in the YOURFUCKED zone, forget about the LIG zone. Strive for the buffer zone. I used to say that 10³ ($1,000) would be a good place to start for a buffer zone, but lately I realize even that is too optimistic. For many 10²  would be a great goal to strive for.

Sure, it's easy to have $100. But to have a $100 always at the ready is something quite different. The $100 should be touched only in the most dire of straights. If any of the last $100 gets used, it gets repleneshed ASAP. Even go without food for a few days if necessary. Dumpster diving is the order of the day until that $100 is refunded.

Imagine what 10³ would do for many if learned how to deal with 10². The power and freedom would be incredible. I dare say it would be much more important than growing from 10⁶ to 10⁷. How powerful is that?

So if in the YOURFUCKED zone, work hard to find the buffer zone. And grow that buffer zone. Remember, from simply going from the bottom zone to the middle zone is much more drastic than Warren Buffett making $10B in one day.

What Everyone and Everything Seeks

I believe it's true what Ayn Rand teaches (or at least what I think she teaches). And that is that man seeks above all else his own self interest.

I was driving around Long Beach, CA the other day and I realized that everyone, and I mean everyone, pursues happiness as their ultimate goal. Whatever is done, it's done for the sole purpose of individual happiness. Every single thing. From the tiniest breath, to even enduring extreme pain, it's ultimately for our own happiness.

I'll take it even further and say altruism is ultimately selfish. I'll let the reader think about this.

Even alcohol, cigarettes and drug abuse. It's all about happiness.

It's the mature person though that can look long term and deny short term pleasure. By denying short term pleasure, even enduring short term pain, in the long run will reap daily dividends.

In fact, if someone was to learn what makes them happy, what truly makes them happy, could save enough and never have to work again the rest of their life by the age of 30. Once "enough" can be well defined, "enough" is not nearly as much as we currently think it is.

What can be more important than the breath we just breathed or the beautiful sunshine?

There's so much to be thankful for. I'm thankful for my material things, but I'm thankful for so much beyond that. Gratitude should be a natural outcropping of this great life we have the pleasure to live.

Food Thoughts

Been thinking about food things and thought I'd create a new post.

Isn't it weird (being a so called vegan) when I eat fruit/veggies I get comments that I'm too skinny and my diet isn't healthy.

But eating fried chicken, french fries, cokes, you get the idea--no one says a fuckin thing. It's only when I don't eat what's the status quo that all of sudden people are concerned for my health. But if I kept chowing down the hamburgers/hot dogs and chips, I wouldn't hear a word.

And we take it for granted that eating fried chicken and french fries, food that is dropped in 100% vegetable oil is healthy. To tell someone that oil, the most concentrated/processed food on the planet that it's not healthy, and they wonder what the hell I'm talking about. Don't I know that oil is healthy for the heart? What's wrong with me?

Potatoes, not allowed now on the WIC (Women, Infant, Child) program, but butter, oil, meat and dairy certainly is. Why is the potato so bad for your health it's banned? Oh, those evil carbs. Yes, the white potato is only 1% fat, has all the protein, vitamins and minerals in that one food alone.

As Gary Taubes says in one of his books, it's better to eat lard than eat broccoli. Oh yes, a meat centered diet is healthy and those evil carbs we must outlaw and stay away from. Just look at indigenous populations around the world that before industrialization suffered no obesity. The reason, they only ate bacon, steaks, soda and milk. Or possibly foods like beans, rice, potatoes.

The science is too in favor for the truth to be muffled too much longer. Instead of being labeded a freak by eating a whole foods plant based diet, in the future it might be looked on as strange eating the carcass of a cow that's been soaked in oil and butter.

LA Zoo--Zeitgeist Betwixt Animals and Man

Went to the LA Zoo yesterday.

As a kid I mused, "how do they know what to feed these animals". Turns out it's pretty simple--grass, veggies and fruits. The Cambodian elephant eats 300lbs of grass per day. Man, that sure makes for a lot of shit.

Watching four of the biggest animals-elephant, giraffe, hippo and gorilla-they all ate a vegetarian diet. Yet as a vegan I'm always asked, "But where do you get your protein?". A protein deficiency is called Kwashiorkor, and as far as I know, besides parents who severely abuse their children, there hasn't been a case in America, since I don't know how long. But I bet it's been a long time.

It's comforting to see the animals are fed a whole food plant based (WFPB) diet. They had a few monkeys quarantined because they had diabetes. My guess is the kids fed them their ice creams. Just kidding, but monkeys get diabetes just like we do.

Two things disheartened me during my visit. It just felt wrong being a voyeur looking in on them and that these animals are captive for our viewing pleasure.

The other thing that bothered me was noticing that we feed the animals better than we feed our own children. If the animals ate was was offered to the children, there'd be a hell of a lot more cases of diabetes.

But we're setting up our children for diabetes, because there's no doubt, what these kids are eating is incubating and eventually will manifest itself in diseases that western man gets. What we do see though now is manifested in their obesity. See a kid obese? No need to do further  tests. An obese child will have health problems.

The offerings at the park were churros, ice cream, cokes, candy, popcorn--you get the idea. Why not have at least one eatery that offered WFPB food? Fact is, it'd go out of business. Let's be honest.

So when a child does decide to eat a WFPB diet, he's SOL, because the average restaurant defaults to a highly refined/deep fried/meat/dairy menu.

When potatoes are not allowed on the WIC program, but if schools do not offer cow's milk they lose government funding, you know we have a problem with children's nutrition.

The animals might not know they're eating a WFPB diet, but that's their reality. If someone asked me what I ate and I told them a whole foods plant based diet, they'd ask--"What's that?".

Food, What Should Be The Real Name

So it's Superbowl Sunday and we have a small gathering at our house.

Friends know my food sensiblilities and make things I might like. Pea soup for example. Gets me thinking about how we name foods. Pea soup sure sounds healthy. Peas, carrots, onions. Reality is, pea soup nowadays is very, very high in salt, high in saturated fat with ham, sausage etc.

A better name might be salt soup. Or saturated fatty meat soup. Or why not get to the bottom of it and call it high blood pressure soup, or atherosclerotic soup. Or this shit leads to early death soup.

Thinking about it, instead of Apple Pie, with all it's sugar and refined flour, we could rename it Diabetes Pie.

I like how we have these names for foods that conjure up family, togetherness, and wholesomeness, but really is nothing more than an appetizing word to get you to eat shit. That's really the fucken truth. Let's get fucken real and be honest about it.

A Time to keep my mouth shut, A Time to....

Customer's always right, right?

You know and I know it's just not true.

So today I'm at the $.99 store. I'm at the cash register and the cashier is dealing with a customer that is ahead of me. The customer is a lady who is being mean to the cashier. She just keeps giving her grief and won't let up.

After cashier is done with that customer, she's ready to move on to the next. There are 2 bananas lying on the belt in front of customer's other items. Cashier asks if the bananas are hers. No they belong to previous delightful customer. Cashier will give previous customer the 2 bananas, but she will have to pay for them. Customer gives cashier grief saying she's already paid for them. Cashier looks for receipt to see if that is true which both she and customer know it's not. Customer says "I'll pay for them again". She is charged $.25 for 2 bananas and then scowls at cashier for not saying "thank you".

Really, I wanted to stay out of it, but I couldn't. I told the lady that she's a bitch. A few other words were exchanged, but truly, she was the ugliest and rudest person I've come across in a long time.

Then after she left and cashier is dealing with me, we make small talk and she then apoligizes for the other customer. I told her "please, don't apoligize for her". So now it's her fault that the customer treated her like shit and she has to apoligize to me. The wackiness just keeps building.

She finishes with my order, I'm set to leave but what happens? She finds it necessary to apoligize one more time.

She was a nice girl, but I wanted to wack her upside the head too.