a cat's recovery

the gf has two cats. when we started dating, over 4 years ago, her cat Smokey was large, inactive, and was unable to navigate the stairs to the 2nd floor.

over time, and with a diet change (removal of grains), Smokey has lost weight, become more active (i've even seen her run at times), and frequently changes floors. it seems her previous life was not without damage, as she takes stairs slowly and clumsily, as if she has joint pain.

to our great surprise, two nights ago, we came home to find her asleep on the bed -- newly found jumping ability! i haven't seen her actually jump yet, but every night now she finds her way up.

delicious tomatoes

this is enough to put me off tomatoes of unknown origin.

The tomato fields of Immokalee are vast and surreal. An unplanted field looks like a lousy beach: the “soil,” which is white sand, contains little in the way of nutrients and won’t hold any water. To grow tomatoes there requires mind-boggling amounts of fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides (on roughly the same acreage of tomatoes, Florida uses about eight times as many chemicals as California). The tomatoes are, in effect, grown hydroponically, and the sand seems useful mostly as a medium for holding stakes in place.

Most of the big purchasers, like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, want firm, “slicing” tomatoes, because their destination is a burger or a sandwich, so the tomatoes are picked at what is called “mature green,” which isn’t mature at all but bordering on it. Tomatoes with any color other than green are too ripe to ship, and left to rot; I’ve posted a couple of pictures I took of those on my blog. The green tomatoes are gassed — “de-greened” is the chosen euphemism — to “ripen” them; the plants themselves are often killed with an herbicide to hasten their demise and get ready for the next crop.

the article concentrates on worker conditions at such farms, which just adds to the unpleasantness. but strictly from a food standpoint: yuck.

in other news, let's synthesize meat from human shit.

i'm kind of hoping to live out my life being able to eat actual food, all while knowing there are too many people on this planet to be able to do the same. my fear is that will cease to be an option in my lifetime.

AIM HIGH media takeaway: don't take niacin

in the news this week: niacin study stopped early after lack of benefit found, and perhaps even negative benefit found.

e.g. this MSNBC headline states, "Niacin doesn't stop heart attacks, major study finds"

i read the press release. The second sentence of the press release is:

The trial found that adding high dose, extended-release niacin to statin treatment in people with heart and vascular disease, did not reduce the risk of cardiovascular events, including heart attacks and stroke.

we know straightaway that the combination of niacin with a statin (or two, depending on the subject) did not reduce cardiovascular events. the MSNBC article did state this in the body, so bad on them for sloppy headline writing.

further down in the press release:

The DSMB also noted a small and unexplained increase in ischemic stroke rates in the high dose, extended-release niacin group. This contributed to the NHLBI acting director’s decision to stop the trial before its planned conclusion. During the 32-month follow-up period, there were 28 strokes (1.6 percent) reported during the trial among participants taking high dose, extended-release niacin versus 12 strokes (0.7 percent) reported in the control group. Nine of the 28 strokes in the niacin group occurred in participants who had discontinued the drug at least two months and up to four years before their stroke.

Interesting. Twenty-eight strokes are being correlated with niacin intake, though they might consider counting only 19. I have to wonder if 12 vs 19 is statistically significant.

There were a couple pieces of information missing from the press release. I would like to know how many strokes there were in the control group, to compare against the 12, 19, or 28. I would also like to know the numbers for the other cardiovascular events. They were mentioned, but never enumerated, and MSNBC's headline writer either knows something not in the press release, or took some liberties.

I also noted this bit:

The niacin tested in the study is a proprietary formulation used in doses of 500-2,000 milligrams (mg), manufactured by Abbott Laboratories and approved and regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

I thought Niaspan was simply niacin. perhaps "proprietary formulation" means nothing more than a manufacturing process -- and a way to patent an easily available vitamin -- but if it's anything other than straight niacin, i think that's relevant.

finally, this made me laugh:

Eligible participants were randomly assigned to either high dose, extended-release niacin (Niaspan) in gradually increasing doses up to 2,000 mg per day (1,718 people) or a placebo treatment (1,696 people).

I wonder if the placebo also caused a flushing effect. otherwise, that's not terribly blind.

100% compliance

my casual observation is that, in the mens' room, 40-60% of guys wash their hands after urinating.

i started at a new client 3 weeks ago, a downtown bank, and am shocked to note a full 100% handwashing compliance. further, there are a lot of guys doing a pretty thorough job of it.

somehow, it's strange: maybe Big Brother-like, maybe Stepford Wives-like. a religious handwasher, i now feel as though i'm slacking, by not using enough soap, or water hot enough, or not being thorough enough.

am i seeing the result of a very successful company-led handwashing campaign? i've even entertained the idea that there are cameras in there, and either 1) everyone knows it, or 2) the company hires only those who were observed to wash their hands while their for interviewing (and bad luck to those who didn't need to go!).

what kind of madness is this?

FDA disclaimer?

i found this photo courtesy of Mark's Daily Apple. it's quite a claim, obviously, but aren't such claims meant to be accompanied by the standard "not verified by the FDA" language?

most likely this manufacturer is in violation. or are these claims blessed by the FDA?

update: I quickly found this page on the FDA site. Seems these claims are definitely not blessed by the FDA.

Carbohydrates raise your blood sugar the most. Cut back on these. For example bread, cereal, rice, and pasta.

costco, item of interest #2

must fruit continually get larger? this does not look appetizing to me, it just makes me feel that the growers 1) concentrate on embiggening fruit without regard to taste or health, and 2) believe size is all that matters to consumers.

i like to think that a piece of a particular kind of fruit has a fixed amount of flavor, and that flavor is distributed throughout the fruit. strawberries larger than golfballs is where i obtained this theory (oh Driscoll, i shall never buy produce from you again).

when will the madness end? and where can i find a watermelon the size of volkswagen?

that was rhetorical. the answer is, of course, Costco.

25th percentile

for the 2nd time, i had my doctor order an NMR lipo profile to ensure that my small LDL particles were indeed increasing in size (they are).

the results of the 2nd test, which i received today (and from a different lab than the first), had a summary measure of all the other numbers they measured. this overall rating put me in the 25th percentile on the scale of "insulin sensitive" to "insulin resistant" (where i was closer to sensitive).

i don't know if it's age-adjusted, but regardless, i'm pleased with the position. i'll chalk it up to eating more fat and less sugar, wheat and other grains.

i feel comfortable not getting my cholesterol measured for a long while.

Army of Carters

my first exposure to Nell Carter was in 1979, when I saw her in Milos Forman's Hair. i then remember her becoming a household name a few years later, in Gimme A Break. while certainly not the first overweight/obese TV performer, i do recall her weight being a frequent topic, and kind of a big deal.

i'm looking at NHANES weight statistics, that i found here.

now, i don't know Ms. Carter's weight in the early 80's, but after some googling I found reference to her admitting her doctors labeling her obese. at 4'11", which at 150 lbs. would put her BMI just north of 25.

at 200 lbs, she would have a BMI > 40, technically "extreme obesity".

back to the NHANES data (page 5, table 2)...

from the 1976-80 data, to the 2007-2008 data, the increase of extreme obesity is alarming, from 1.4% to 6% of the sampled population. percentage of overweight barely increased, from 32.1% to 33.6%. But look at obesity, more than doubling from 15% to 34.3%.

Sure, my memories of Ms. Carter were that of a large woman, and photos from the era confirm that. But looking around me now, she's actually somewhat modest in comparison to people i see on a daily basis.

i see nothing coming from federal agencies anytime soon that will address this. it's still a litany of eat-less/exercise-more, eat low-fat and prefer soy products and corn oil to meat and butter.

oh, and the giant sugar-filled coffee treats are huge in Chicago. it's almost a rule: the larger the container, the larger the person drinking it.

i'm way low on my protein intake

i was having a lunch with a co-worker yesterday, discussing nutrition. he asserted that most people actually eat less protein than they need. naturally, i asked how much protein i should be eating.

"you should be eating half your body weight."

"really? over what time period?"

he seemed thrown by this question, as the answer was obvious: "every day."

i agreed that, by that measure, i am certainly low on my protein intake. i suggested that may be a bit high, but he insisted this was the case.

i finally brought out some real numbers: "so you're saying that every day i should be eating some 85 pounds of protein."

"what? no! 85 grams".

oh, my mistake.

eggs

some years ago, when i would occasionally buy a dozen eggs from the grocery store, i was completely lost when trying to figure out the difference between eggs labeled "cage free", "free range", "organic" and "omega-3".

i was also unsure how i was supposed to decide among all the providers.

with the recent salmonella outbreak, traced to two large producers in Iowa, i'm seeing that it doesn't really matter whose branding you like best.

Wednesday's recall covers eggs branded as Albertsons, Farm Fresh, James Farms, Glenview, Mountain Dairy, Ralph's, Boomsma, Lund, Kemps and Pacific Coast [...] The earlier recall covered the Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph's, Boomsma, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Farm Fresh, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms and Kemps brands

wow, that's a lot of brands from two producers. i wonder if there are additional brands that haven't (yet) been recalled.

the gf and i lucky to have quality egg producers available to us every Saturday. i don't know what i'd be doing otherwise.

if you're not exercising, you're not doing Atkins

that's paraphrased from the man himself, and it's reason #1 that what i'm doing isn't Atkins.

(i should be doing some weight training, i admit, but after a 9-10 hour workday, where dinner ends up being somewhere between 9-10pm, i'm not particularly keen to spend an extra hour in the office building)

i haven't read the Atkins books, but from their site, i also find these differences:

1. Atkins de-emphasizes saturated fat, whereas i'm not phobic of it
2. Atkins emphasizes lean meats, whereas i'm perfectly happy with fatty meats, and not trimming the fat
3. Atkins recommends soy at the same level as the lean meats, whereas i will only very occasionally have tofu, and that's a small amount in miso soup
4. Atkins allows vegetable oils for cooking, whereas i prefer butter and lard
5. Atkins seems to have little aversion to fruit, whereas i'll eat seasonal fruit in small amounts
6. Atkins allows some grains, whereas i'll have some only when 1) on vacation, or 2) i'm cheating
7. Atkins recommends at most 40% of calories from fat, whereas i'm trying to find ways to eat more fat and less protein
8. Atkins, through their food products, seems to have no aversion whatsoever to engineered foods, whereas i'm eating more and more food bought directly from farmers
9. Atkins does not emphasize the sourcing of the food, whereas i seek out products of grass-fed ruminates, line-caught fish and foraging chickens
10. Atkins recommends low-fat dairy, whereas lately it's been my main method of increasing my percentage of calories from fat
11. Atkins emphasizes fiber, even from sources as soybeans and grains, whereas my body seems perfectly content with what i get from normal servings of vegetables
12. Atkins emphasizes Courtney Thorne-Smith, whereas i've never even met the woman

so, enough significant differences where i should retract my previous statement where i'd simply say "Atkins" to describe the diet. there are still parts of me that want to say that, in full knowledge of the widespread negative opinions and the earful i'll receive about how it's bad for you. otoh, there are parts of the Atkins diet with which i disagree.

perhaps i should simply respond with, "magic."

the city of giant shoulders

Chicagoans are large. and getting larger.

since i've gotten down to BMI-category "normal", i've really started looking around me. what i'm seeing, in nearly everyone in this area, are guts, double-chins, bulbous butts, puffy faces, and arms and legs that look like encased meats.

and really massive people, as well. in excess of 300, 400 pounds. several examples there, just in the past 3 days. i'm amazed to see people so heavy, they look like they've been poured into the driver's seat of their oversized SUV. how large do you have to be to dwarf a large SUV?

at the supermarket, i see baskets carts with sugar. much of it is perceived as healthy, as some carts are overflowing with fruit. or fruit accompanied by bread, skim milk (or soy), rice cakes, frozen Weight Watcher dinners, and a regiment of 2-liter diet soda bottles, all lined up and ready to go.

today i saw this:

The number of obese people in the United States has increased by 2.4 million since 2007, according to a CDC special report released Tuesday.

The report also says that 9 states – up from 3 in 2007 – now report obesity levels at 30 percent or higher (in 2000, no states were in that category). Not a single state has reached the 15 percent goal set in the CDC's "Healthy People 2010" initiative.

yikes. i bet Illinois is one of those 9 states with > 30% obesity. that's staggering, especially if that figure doesn't include the "overweight" category (i'm guessing they're using BMI definitions, but the article doesn't say).

i want to walk up to some people, the ones i see doing useless cardio and packing their carts full of even more sugar, grab them by the shoulders and say, "you're doing it wrong!"

but i know it's hopeless. i've come to discover that diet/nutrition is even more divisive than politics. caloric deprivation as a weight-loss strategy is so ingrained in our minds, people can't even imagine that there are alternatives. it's such an alien concept, most can't even begin to question it.

i've discovered that the words "low carb" will elicit an immediate shutdown in others. "Atkins" is spit through clenched teeth like it's an expletive. i try to not lecture, or be That Guy On The New Diet Who Can Talk Of Nothing Else But The Diet, but people do ask about the weight loss, and i try to sum it up succinctly.

"it's Paleo."

"it's a high-fat, low-sugar diet."

"we avoid sugar and grains, and eat grass-fed meat, veggies, and butter."

"just go to Mark's Daily Apple."

"it emphasizes local foods from farmers, and avoids most anything packaged."

Anything like that eventually leads to, "oh it's low carb", or "you're doing Atkins." I think from now on I might just say, "Atkins," knowing that it's not really that and that the conversation will end. But maybe it will change a few minds. or at least let me get on with my day.

....

btw, clothing labeled "medium" isn't what it was 20 years ago, according to me. i think it's bigger now.

i don't know how to walk

image from here.

i suffer from chronic lower-back pain, though weekly massages and adjustments keep that at bay. i also suffer from chronic knee pain, which flares up after i've been doing a lot of walking, like i've been doing over the past month or so.

climbing stairs is the worst, which i can make bearable by applying a slight downward pressure at the top of my kneecap while pushing off.

both my massage therapist and chiropractor are telling me my leg muscles are too tight, and i should be stretching more. that seems to help, marginally. but i'm wondering if i'm causing the issues by wearing shoes with too much padding / arch support, and that i'm just flat out walking incorrectly.

the gf bought a pair of Vibram 5-Fingers today, which is making me jealous as I can't locate any in my size (even Vibram themselves are out). I like the idea of the "shoes", and have been walking barefoot in the house lately. What I've found is that I make a great clomping sound by coming down heel first; barefoot, that feels un-natural and un-coordinated. i then switch to ball-first (or ball-only), and that feels better but seems un-sustainable. in response, i actually googled "how to walk barefoot" and came across the posted image.

i'm hoping to re-learn how to walk, and further hoping that the effort will have a positive effect on my knees, lower-back, hips, etc.

i've spent the last year re-learning how to eat, but i'm afraid the walking may actually pose more of a challenge.

update: this Masai Barefoot Technology looks interesting, as well.

a little sore

not unsurprisingly, my walking tends to decrease during the winter months in Chicago. i really try, year round, to avoid driving/being-in-a-car on weekends, much preferring to run errands by walking, shopping locally, etc.

yesterday i had to be in Uptown and decided to walk. combined with the rest of the walking i did yesterday, i logged about 5 1/2 miles. sadly, much higher than i'd been doing since last fall. and i did the bulk of that on a smallish breakfast of bacon and eggs.

my energy was really good, no fatigue at all. my only complaint, near the end, was the inevitable lower back pains i get when doing that much walking. by this morning, that has pretty much cleared up, and i'm left with some soreness in my thighs and a niggly little pain in my left foot.

but overall i'm really pleased and hope to log many more miles until the next winter.

a little back patting

i'm about one month away from my first year of Eating Better. labels are always a bit tough here, as the Food Plan doesn't really fall neatly into any already-named category, but loosely what started as something like South Beach has become something like Primal.

i can't argue with any of the results, the standouts being weight and some other lab-measured values.

as a side note, Google docs to the rescue when i needed to convert some spreadsheet data into a chart. after struggling for longer than i care to admit with an ancient copy of Excel (nice chart, but it wouldn't let me scale the y-axis) and AppleWorks (nice min/max on the y-axis, but it kept running the dates along that axis), i spent about 5 minutes in google docs uploading the file and generating a satisfactory chart. huzzah.

update: i uploaded a new chart with all my historical weight data, but due to 1) lack of early data points, 2) a consistent weight for two consecutive days counting as one data point, and 3) not finding any way to tell the chart-generator that the x-axis is time and it should examine the dates and draw the chart accordingly, it's still a bit skewed. maybe the 22nd century will have better software...

finally, i left off the first data point (april 8 2009) as it was a whole month until my next data point, and that may 8 one was an actual weigh-in (the april was a guesstimate).

more n-3/n-6 ratio data

i *finally* found that chart i'd recalled seeing but couldn't recall where. it was part of this Whole Health Source post. here's the chart and some accompanying verbiage:

The ideal ratio is probably very roughly 2:1 omega-6:omega-3. Leaf lard is 6.8, beef tallow is 2.4, good quality butter is 1.4, corn oil is 45, cottonseed oil is 260. It's clear that a large qualitative change in our fat consumption occurred over the course of the 20th century.

even more cooking fat data

i created a new table with the data from the last two cooking fat posts, plus, per pyker's suggestion, data indicating the total mg amounts of n3 and n6 fatty acids in a sample (here, 100g). This does reveal more than the simple ratio.

i've added a PUFA% column and color-coded it against the "not to exceed 12%" standard. i've not bothered color-coding the mg/100 g column. i have color-coded the fat names themselves, which at this point is just my personal opinion of the fat, taking into account the other columns.

	n3:n6 ratio	mg n3/100g	mg n6/100g	PUFA tot%
butter	1:6.9* / 1:1.6**	802	1244	4
lard	1:10.2*	1000	10199	10
coconut	n/a	0	1800	3
olive	1:11.7	761	9763	10
flaxseed	1:0.2	53304	12701	73
canola	1:2.2	9138	18645	32
soybean	1:7.5	6789	50422	62
palm	1:45.5	200	9100	10
corn	1:46.1	1161	53510	58
sesame	1:137.7	300	41304	no data
sunflower	1:18.8	192	3606	72
cottonseed	1:258	200	51503	54
grapeseed	1:696	100	69591	no data

* for butter and lard, i suspect these ratios are actually a little more favorable in my household, since we source these from pasture-fed animals.

** the second calc'ed ratio is from the two non-colored columns, which was different enough from the other value for me to include both. the first ratio is from the Corbain data, the second is calc'ed from the data i retrieved from nutritiondata.com. I believe the source of the data is the same (that USDA database), but I reckon we used two different butter entries.

more cooking fat data

i pulled this image from a pdf i found online (linked to from the comments section of this Mark's Daily Apple post on cooking oils).

for better or worse, this datasheet was put together by Monsanto. funnily enough, it's meant to extol the virtues of Canola oil. if we look at this data as suggested by the original commenter, we should avoid the fats where the red and green percentages add up to anything > 12%. So the canola oil is OUT.

good ol' butter, lard, coconut oil and EVOO are IN.

food, inc.

i watched this film today. there's lots to love here: some amazing characters, lovingly shot (even the horrific images), expertly assembled and edited, plus i agree with a lot of the viewpoints of the filmmakers.

but...

there are some missteps. Given the message and those bringing it to us, i guess i shouldn't be surprised the filmmakers' viewpoints are so obvious. i think they overdid it, and an example occurred near the end, in the segment called "the veil." Did they really have to put up the word "evil" first, then re-arrange the letters? So late in the film, i think even the most jaded of viewers will either be disgusted or have convinced themselves the filmmakers are grossly exaggerating. In either case, I don't think it serves any constructive purpose.

my other main complaint was, though they alluded to the health dangers to the public, they never really went after it. The best they did was make the case that, because it's cheaper to eat fast food than buy fresh produce and prepare your own meals, that's unhealthy. But what about establishing a link between consumers' health and the processes used by factory farms, such as GMO, contamination, lack of variety, and nutrient content?

I don't understand the inclusion of the poor Latino family who spends more on diabetes medicine than they do on food, apparently stopping at Burger King twice a day to feed the family. Sad? yes. Sympathetic? certainly. Supporting a point? Not so sure here. This family claims they eat this way because of the low cost of the fast food, but wouldn't it be more compelling to profile a middle-class family that has a choice, and still chooses to eat fast food? I think so.

And again, all that was illustrated here is that cheap fast food is: cheap. Big deal. I say make an effort to tie the factory farming practices to an epidemic of ill health, and you'll make a much bigger, and much more necessary, point.

n-3:n-6 ratios of cooking fats

damn, this info is kind of hard to come by. I had found a chart somewhere online that included pasture butter, lard and others, but for the life of me I can't find it. I did see this page today, which is from Cordain's site. they link back to the USDA site for where they got their data, which is a horribly organized site with a terrible search engine. so i'm grateful for Cordain's summary data, which i've re-represented here for convenience.

if anyone has similar data for butter, lard, bacon fat, red palm oil, or the like, i'd be happy to update the table to include them. until then:

I went to the USDA site and, based on the Cordain methodolgy, calc'ed values for butter, lard, and "Meat drippings (lard, beef tallow, mutton tallow)". These values aren't exactly in line with what I'd seen before, which makes the USDA values a bit suspect. Then again, their butter values are probably for corn-fed cows, not pastured ones, etc etc.

	n-3:n-6 ratio
flaxseed	1:0.2
canola	1:2.2
mustard	1:2.6
Meat drippings (lard, beef tallow, mutton tallow)	1:4.8
walnut	1:5.1
butter	1:6.9
soybean	1:7.5
wheat germ	1:7.9
lard	1:10.2
olive	1:11.7
avocado	1:13.1
rice bran	1:20.9
oat	1:21.8
palm	1:45.5
corn	1:46.1
sesame	1:137.7
cottonseed	1:258
grapeseed	1:696

in the household here, we shoot for cooking fats no worse than 1:4 n-3:n-6 ratio. i've used a fairly obvious green/yellow/red color scheme to indicate what i think of the desirability of the ratios, though that's not to say that we're using canola oil just because it's "in the green." And we do use olive oil, but pretty much for salads exclusively and not for cooking.

Mark's Daily Apple did a piece today on oils, though it didn't include all the info i would have liked. Still, it's a decent reference.

One final note: hazelnut, peanut, safflower, sunflower, almond and coconut oil all rated zero n-3 fatty acids, so i left them off the chart.