Food Matters

You must have all three or society collapses. This continues my recent posts on health matters. I disagree strongly with Bittman's implication that profits are bad. They are not. In fact, people are profits. I know this will annoy people, but so be it. If we as individuals do not produce more than we consume we die. This is not to say that there is not a place for insurance, personal charity, and societal charity. The problem is when special interests can seize control of the government and direct government expenditures to private pockets. During the 19th century it was Big Rail and Big Manufacturing. Today it is Big Ag, Big Pharma, and the Military Industrial Complex President Eisenhower warned us against.

This chart tells you what you need to know about Ag subsidies. But Bittman does point out an important point about our lack of a market system. With the distortions in the food pricing system, nothing is priced correctly. If things are under-priced, too much of them are used. Through agricultural subsidies the price of corn and soy is reduced to below market levels, yet at the same time the price of corn is raised artificially through ethanol subsidies. The energy used to produce the corn and the ethanol is actually less than the energy we get from burning it in our cars. What is the correct price? Just as in real estate I mentioned earlier this week, no one knows.

Bittman is spot on in his prediction that we need to do what our mother told us and eat our vegetables.

I do not agree with much of what is presented, but I still feel that watching it will be beneficial.

Fathead

Several years ago I saw the documentary Super Size Me. The documentary focused on the antics of Morgan Spurlock who decided to eat only food from McDonald's for 30 days. He gained 30 lbs. 

Recently I watched another documentary called Fathead where Tom Naughton decided to imitate his predecessor. The documentary pointed out that Spurlock ate 5000 calories. Anyone who eats 5000 calories will gain weight. Naughton decided that he would eat only fast food for one month. This documentary is his saga. 

While I recommend the documentary, I have two disclaimers. 

The first is that while it is obvious that people choose to eat what they eat, people are strongly influenced by advertising. If people weren't influenced, no one would advertise. Advertising is powerful. It can be defeated by knowledge. Rather than try to fight it, I have suggested watching fewer commercials. Here is an earlier blog post where I talk about advertising and food. 

The second is the documentary’s lack of concern about saturated fat. Getting people wearing white coats talking about how great saturated fat is does not convince me that saturated fat is not a problem. While I agree with Naughton's premise that the food our ancestor's ate is the best food, he does not take into account that modern animal husbandry is designed to produce an unnatural fatty meat. Hunted game has a low saturated fat percentage when compared to our "normal" domestic meat. 

So either eat game, like Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg, or do what I do and watch your saturated fat intake. 

So keep these things in mind as you watch the documentary, Fathead. And as always think critically no matter what you watch. 

The Paleo Fad

I have been rereading Loren Cordain's book, The Paleo Diet. The basic idea is that the best diet is one that our ancestors would have eaten before the invention of agriculture. I call it a fad because that is what it is. That does not mean that such a diet does not have its good points.

The basic idea is the elimination of anything that our ancestors could not have eaten: dairy, grains, legumes, and soy. But yet for some reason most advocates of a As you can see by these two competing food pyramids, there is some difference of opinion among Paleo advocates as to the "perfect" diet. paleo diet will use olive oil, which our ancient ancestors would not use either. I am one to advocate complete and total consistency, except when I don't.

One point I harp on with my Biblical blog posts is that it is often impossible to port over Biblical law to our modern society. We do not live as a subsistence farmer in 1400 BC Israel; we do not live  in a city state in Asia Minor circa 50AD. Yet these are the exact people to whom the Old and New Testament are addressed. In the same way, we cannot port over these very artificial rules in an attempt to find the ideal diet. Domestication of plants and animals has profoundly changed the nutritional components of the food we eat.  This means that we cannot eat the same way our ancestors did—it is not possible.

Instead we need to take the foods we have and try as best we can to mimic the diet of our ancestors. For me this means that I have reduced the grain portion of my diet and replaced that with more vegetables. The fat that I save from my reduced dairy consumption I replace with olive oil and other fats to get the vegetables past my taste buds.

I can only evaluate my success as moderate.

If you have the desire to learn more about Paleo lifestyle, the following lecture by Loren Cordain is a good place to start. Even if you do not share Cordain's view of evolution, it is still worth watching.

Señor Healthcare

If you think I am pessimistic, you should read this article from Forbes:

The Trustees of the Medicare program have released their annual report on the solvency of the program. They calculate that the program is “expected to remain solvent until 2024, the same as last year’s estimate.” But what that headline obfuscates is that Obamacare’s tax increases and spending cuts are counted towards the program’s alleged “deficit-neutrality,” Medicare is to go bankrupt in 2016. And if you listen to Medicare’s own actuary, Richard Foster, the program’s bankruptcy could come even sooner than that. 

What? Three years? Can this be right? 

Exercise will reduce future medical expenses. I am not ready yet. I think it was in the early 80's that I understood that I would be on my own when I was older—no help from the government. At the time philosophically this made sense to me, and it still does. I have tried to be ready for this, but I have not yet finished my preparations. Are you ready? Do you really expect the government to cut you a check every month until you die? Even a great skeptic like me expected a few years of senior welfare. Instead I think we will have señor welfare where large number of seniors with moderate means go to southern countries and pay cash for their health care—saving about 80% of the cost. For me this would be Russia. 

My wife was recently charged $1000 for antacid at the hospital. This was after the insurance paid their part.

What can't go on, won't go on. Are you ready for the coming crisis? I do not know how or when it will start, but it will come eventually. I have been saying 3 to 7 years if the current trends continue. I have been guardedly pessimistic and hope for a series of mini reforms to keep the wolf from the door. But it looks to me like the wolf is already in the house and in bed pretending to be grandma. 

If you are my age, I am 58, be sure to treat your children with respect—they do have that spare bedroom now that your grandchild has left. That bed might look pretty good in a few years. 

When will it break?

If You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!

Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. WILL ROGERS

There is a certain virtue in patience, but there does come a time to act. If you never change your oil, your car will do fine for a while. But eventually it will stop. If you are anything like me then you have several areas where a little action is in order.

It might be as simple as getting up 15 minutes earlier than your norm, along with going to bed a half hour early, as many of us are not getting enough sleep. I like Jay Leno as much as the next guy, but sleep is better.

What will you do with that 15 minutes? I suggest that instead of hurrying your morning and rushing to Starbucks for a coffee and a pastry on the way to work, or worse a McMuffin, that you make breakfast.

I know you are dying to know what your favorite blogger had for breakfast this morning. I doubt it takes me 5 minutes. I make Senseo coffee, about three cups. I add a little stevia and use a little half and half. The result is a good imitation of a $5 cup of coffee at Starbucks. My coffee does not cost $1. Then I start making the oatmeal. I begin with a scoop of soy powder. (I realize that I just lost a portion of my readers as soy is controversial in some circles, but maybe in another post I will mention the benefits of soy for men with prostate issues.) I add a little stevia, 2 Brazil nuts, and 8 almonds. I then put in 1/4 cup of oatmeal and 1/4 cup of a high fiber cereal called Sensato. I would prefer a product without artificial sweeteners like Sensato has, but right now this works for me. I add one cup of hot water, stir, and let it set for a minute. I then microwave it for 45 seconds. I add the left over half and half (1/2 cup for both) to the oatmeal. Yum.

While it may be, (and is!), somewhat anal to talk about my breakfast, I do so to make two points.

First one can eat oatmeal on a low carb food plan. My breakfast is 23% protein, 22% carbohydrate, and 55% fat, very close to my planned eating of 25, 25, 50 for the day. I know that many of my friends are on various low carb eating plans, (no diets, it has the word die in it) so this idea might help them incorporate more fiber into their diet. This is a big, and valid, criticism of a low carb lifestyle. My breakfast just gave me 9 out of the 22 grams of fiber I am told we need. (I will later eat a Quest bar which will provide most of the rest.)

The second reason is that I am convinced there is great value in thinking about the details of our individual lives. We tend to coast through life, and then wonder where it went. Inertia is the great ally of the system, or as I call it, Babylon. What decisions you make are your decisions, make them. Or as Yogi Berra said, if you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Every day we come to many decision trees. Do not necessarily go along with the crowd—think about your choices and make some changes if you need to. Relatively minor changes add up. Making breakfast for yourself is a lot more important than you think.

Oh, what do I do with that extra ten minutes I gained by getting up a little earlier? Many of my friends have made the commitment to go through the Bible in a year. I have joined them. I have purchased the Bible Experience on CD and listen to it as I eat and drink my coffee. We modern humans have the historically unusual ability to read, or listen, to God's word. If you think the Bible is God's word, are you acting on that belief?

Find out where you need to make changes. Make those changes. Act now. 

Update on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 at 1:56PM by [Positive Dennis]

I wanted to add two points. First my Senseo machine died and I have switched to a different coffee machine, I am not happy. Second I have for the time bine eliminated oatmeal from my diet as I am gluten sensitive.