What if the Military had disclaimers like Pharma Ads?
February 29th, 2008
Archive
Archive for February, 2008
How Stress Affects Our Bodies
February 29th, 2008
What is Stress?
Stress is the body’s natural response to intense situations that require some action on the part of the individual. Some stress, called eustress, is good. Some say that it can actually improve the immune system. Bad stress, however, weakens the body’s immune system, and intestinal disorders may develop or become more severe. It can manifest as fear, anxiety, anger or depression.
The Overnight “Quick Colon Cleanse”
February 29th, 2008
Overeating is something that many of us are guilty at one time or another. As an example, imagine that you had a steak dinner with a compliment of potatoes, wine, desert and maybe more.
You will pay for that in a few ways. One danger is that it overworks your colon severely. It may make you feel miserable and sluggish the day after. Sometimes the food just sits in your intestinal tract for days, not digesting properly, in part due to the improper mixing of food. As it sits in your intestinal tract, the steak will putrefy, carbohydrates will ferment and the fats will turn rancid before the digestive process even begins.
Other Effects:
Happiness & Stuff
February 29th, 2008
by Su Avasthi
I check out No Impact Man’s blog pretty regularly because I’m totally fascinated by the x-treme green experiment this New York family is brave (or insane) enough to test out.
You may remember the concept: No Impact Man, his Prada-loving wife and their two-year-old daughter decided to spend a year trying to live without generating trash, carbon emissions, toxins, elevators, subway, packaged products, plastics, air conditioning, TV, and (drumroll please) toilets. Or, to use his phrase, to unplug almost entirely from the “consumption matrix.”
One of No Impact Man’s recent posts focused on how he manages feelings of deprivation — which I’d experience after a week without Q-tips, let alone a year without toilet paper.
He responds by explaining that his pared-down lifestyle and recent choices actually make him happier. Seems that it helps fulfill four basic tenets that contribute to happiness: Strong relationships, expressing your core talents, living in accordance with your values, and connecting to a larger cause to provide meaning. “Unplugging from the consumption matrix” — as he put it — fosters each of these tenets in different ways and contributes to a fuller life.
I repeated his phrase, “the consumption matrix,” to a friend while we were in the car, and it sparked a fun conversation about our culture of consumption. It’s easy to recognize how it’s fueled by perpetual exposure to images, information, slick ad campaigns, and guerilla marketing tactics.
As we chatted, I started paying attention to the billboards and signage that are part of any urban freeway landscape. Wherever I looked, I was offered a path to a happier life. All I had to do to achieve it was buy the right stuff, whether that meant cars, sofas, plastic surgery, T-bone steaks, or tortillas.
Even though I try not to subscribe to those ideas, I was surprised to realize that one message — through infinite variations — is constantly seeping through my entire life: Happiness = consumption, while unhappiness = the sense of deprivation that’s due to not consuming it.
No Impact Man’s post reminded me how easy it is to forget that happiness has little to do with consumption or deprivation. And it has much to do with figuring out what we believe in. (For the record, though, I definitely believe that good tortillas contribute to a happier life.)
Green Building: Not Just for Freaks?
February 29th, 2008
by Philip Higgs
During that straw bale building workshop a few weeks back, a guest speaker who also happens to be my architect, Brian Fuentes, talked about trying to work with green methods … He said something like “Building with straw bales isn’t just for the hippies and freaks anymore.”
Which is to say, more and more people are seeing the value and practicality of building with this cheap, plentiful, natural, super-insulating, user-friendly material. A 45,000 square foot public building in Santa Clarita, is one of the first straw-bale buildings to be LEED-certified; Ridge Vineyards, also in California, built their tasting, storage and barreling rooms out of bales; even in Aspen, CO, the locus of conspicuous consumption in the American West, straw bale homes are popping up.
All of which is righteous and radical; green building huzzah! But on the business end of things, where I’m sitting right now, I’m dealing with a couple of pitfalls the green building biz has yet to overcome.
I’ve already bitched about how none of the suppliers and subcontractors I need for this project are calling me back. [The guy I have sort-of working for me as my sort-of general contractor (translation: I pay him to tell me what to do next) says big suppliers don’t put a whole lot of care into small projects like mine. Sweet.]
But another issue is that a few key supplies that I need — like my recycled-polystyrene-and-cement foundation blocks — aren’t quite standard building supplies, at least not yet. Which is to say, I can’t just pop down to WhopperMart and pick up what I need; I have to hunt around for a specialized supplier and wait til he calls me back and see if he has my stuff in stock and most likely special order what I need which might have to be custom fabricated specifically for my project and before you know it it’s April 2010.
I may be wrong, or just barking up all the wrong trees, but to me it looks like a lot of these materials and their suppliers are still going through a bit of market Darwinism: There are an awful lot of teeny tiny players with weak supply chains and as-yet-unformed sales teams. No dominant monster (or even ambitious proto-mammal) has emerged as the place to call for your foundation blocks. Or your cork floors.
Case in point: We need to put new floors in one of the rented apartments attached to our house, and we were looking for the greenest alternative. (And no, it ain’t bamboo, people.) So we found a place here in Boulder that sold cork flooring and carpeting made from recycled plastic bottles, called them up and asked if we could come take a look at their stuff. Sure, they said. Only thing is, they have no showroom, so would we mind coming to their apartment to check it out?
Don’t get me wrong. The grassroots groove is right on. I’m glad the movement is starting to really move. I don’t mind coming to your apartment to see your cork floors. I’m willing to take the time to find my foundation blocks. But that’s me. I’m one of the freaks. But if I think it’s a pain in the apple to work all this out, what’s Joe Average gonna think?
Two-Dinner Chili
February 29th, 2008
This chili is easy to assemble and tastes just as good when it’s been refrigerated or frozen. Use your creativity with the recipe — try different kinds of beans, chile powder, beer, ground meat or meat substitute.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced (or use a Microplane grater)
1 15.5 ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 15.5 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes (i.e. Muir Glen Fire Roasted)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
4 tablespoons chile powder, or more to taste
1 chipotle in adobo, minced
6 ounces (1/2 bottle) microbrewed beer (i.e. Rogue Dead Guy Ale), optional
1 12-ounce package meatless crumbles, i.e. MorningStar Meal Starters Grillers Crumbles)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste
In a large, heavy bottomed pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions and saute until golden, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add garlic, saute 1 minute, stirring constantly to keep from burning. Add kidney beans, black beans, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, chile powder, chipotle pepper and beer, if using. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until thickened. Stir in meatless crumbles. Simmer an additional 5 minutes until crumbles are heated through. Add brown sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with grated cheese, low-fat sour cream or yogurt, chopped cilantro, sliced black olives, lime wedges and other condiments.
Serves about 6.
Note: To use ground beef or ground turkey, use about 1 pound and add it after the onion and garlic is sautéed. Brown it in the pan, skimming out any extra grease or liquid with a turkey baster or a spoon, adding the beans, tomatoes and other ingredients.
To freeze: Cool chili until lukewarm (about 100˚F). Transfer to a freezer-safe food storage container. Cover surface of chili with plastic wrap before putting lid on. Place in freezer.
To heat: Thaw overnight. Transfer chili to a saucepot and cook over medium heat until heated through.
Deceptively Sneaky
February 29th, 2008
Deceptively Sneaky
At the risk of sounding like I’m bragging, my 14-month-old Sadie is a very good eater. I’ll never know if this is because of the wholesome, organic homemade baby purees I labored over or, as one of her grandfathers believes, because she comes from a long line of hearty appetites. At any rate, I consider myself pretty lucky that, when faced with a waffle and a bowl of peas, she’ll dive into the veggies with gusto.
But I’m not naïve enough to believe that it’ll always be so easy. I’m sure Sadie will go on hunger strikes and white-food-only phases, and there will be battles over our ban on McDonald’s that we won’t always win. That’s why I’ve already built up a library full of kid-friendly cookbooks, each one promising to help moms create fun meals that are so yummy that their kids won’t even realize they’re healthy.
The two latest additions to my collection are The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals by Missy Chase Lapine, and Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food by Jessica Seinfeld.
The Sneaky Chef’s premise is to “hide the foods kids should eat in the dishes they will eat,” according to the cover copy. She has a number of smart methods on how to do this, some of which are common-sense, like using alternative cooking methods to frying, or making food look appealing and fun. But others are more unconventional and unexpected, like using fruit and vegetable purees that can be blended unobtrusively into a dish, combining refined ingredients like white flour with more wholesome versions, using creamy or fine-particle ingredients that can “disappear” into the finished dish, and using nutritious liquids like juices or broths in place of plain water.
Lapine has certainly done her homework, discussing not only the psychology behind how children perceive foods and mealtime (and how to use this knowledge to your advantage) but also outlining the framework for a healthy diet with regard to nutritious ingredients, avoiding toxins like pesticides and mercury, and focusing on slow-releasing sugars and carbs.
A rainbow of puree recipes are the backbone of the many meal recipes. For instance, Purple Puree, containing spinach and blueberries, appears in Cocoa Chocolate Chip Pancakes, Bonus Burgers and Brainy Brownies. And White Puree, a blend of cauliflower and zucchini, is used in Masterful Mac n Cheese and Triple Stuffed Potatoes. For each vegetable and fruit puree, Lapine outlines the nutritional information and benefits of the ingredients. And she even has “quick fixes” for packaged meals, such as adding pureed tofu or white beans to boxed macaroni and cheese, or mixing wheat germ into tuna salad.
Deceptively Delicious, meanwhile, is glossier, filled with adorable retro illustrations, and certainly has the added cachet of a celebrity author, but has a similar premise (a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Lapine, who is suing the Seinfelds for plagarism.) Seinfeld’s recipes, which she developed with the help of chef Jennifer Iserloh and nutrition expert Joy Bauer, are also based on having an arsenal of single-ingredient fruit and vegetable purees. The book also contains a helpful section of nutrition guidelines for children and a breakdown of the nutritional benefits of various fruits and vegetables.
There are quite a few similar recipes—grilled cheese sandwiches in both contain sweet potato puree, twice-baked potatoes are blended with cauliflower puree, and brownies contain spinach. You can try some of Seinfeld’s recipes (including that of the brownies made with spinach and carrot puree) on her Web site. And no, you really can’t taste the spinach in those brownies.
With all the similarities, you definitely don’t need both of these books, and with all of its extensive nutrition information, not to mention the tips on doctoring up packaged mixes, I suspect I’ll be turning more often to Lapine’s book. But nonetheless, I know that when Sadie hits her picky-eating phase, I’ll be armed and ready.
Cue-ing Up
February 29th, 2008
I’ve written before about my interest in preserving regional culinary traditions. And here in the South, there’s no better tradition than barbecue. Now Atlanta isn’t necessarily known for its ‘cue like, say, Kansas City or North Carolina. But native Atlantans like nothing better than tucking into a mess of meat that’s been cooked all day long in a pit or a smoker.
So in the spirit of our adopted homeland south of the Mason Dixon line, my husband and I decided to try it for ourselves. This early in the year, the produce pickings at the Morningside Farmer’s Market were slim, but the coolers at Riverview Farms’ stand were full of frozen cuts of beef and pork, all organically raised in the North Georgia Mountains. We bought a 2 1/2 pound shoulder roast and headed home to look up some recipes, stopping on the way for some charcoal and hickory chips.
The day of our barbecue was overcast and threatening rain, but we’d already invited all of the non-vegetarians in our family to dinner, so there was no turning back. My husband Chip’s the grillmaster in our family, so he stoked our Weber grill with coals, scattered some soaked hickory chips on top, and rubbed the pork with a spice blend made of sweet paprika, brown sugar, salt, pepper, mustard, garlic powder and ground New Mexican chiles.
The recipe, incidentally, is one we adapted from Steven Raichlen’s excellent book BBQ USA (Workman Publishing, 2003), and is for a North Carolina-style pulled pork.
An hour or so into cooking, just as Chip was lighting the chimney starter to add another batch of hot coals, it started pouring. Lightning, thunder, the works. And here’s Chip, standing next to our metal grill, under our big old oak tree. But we refused to finish the cooking in the oven — after all, wouldn’t that be cheating?
Donning a raincoat and baseball cap, and scurrying in and out of the house, Chip bravely finished the job. Our roast took about 4 hours and emerged blackened and fragrant with woodsmoke and spices. Since my knife skills are better than Chip’s, I was assigned the task of “pulling” it — literally shredding the meat into tiny pieces. As I pulled away the fat and bone, we were dismayed to see that we were left with a tiny pile of actual meat. Maybe that’s why Raichlen’s original recipe called for a 5- to 7-pound roast.
But what we did end up with was pure heaven. Chip mixed up a barbecue sauce from cider vinegar, ketchup, brown sugar, hot sauce and seasonings, based on Raichlen’s recipe for Lexington Vinegar Sauce. Raichlen writes that when it comes to barbecue sauce in North Carolina, “Folks in the eastern part of the state like a sauce that’s based on vinegar, while in the west they prefer a sauce that’s slightly sweeter and tinted red with ketchup.” The sauce we made fell into the latter category. And, as is done at Lexington Barbecue, the restaurant that inspired the recipes we were using, we mixed up some of the sauce with shredded cabbage to make a slaw, and served our pulled pork in sandwich form, piling cheap white hamburger buns with pork and slaw. The sauce was sour and spicy, the perfect counterpoint for the rich, sweet pork, and the crisp slaw added a nice crunch.
Next time, we’ll definitely make enough for seconds.
Just Do It — And Here’s How
February 29th, 2008
by Su Avasthi
I’m pretty good at inventing reasons to skip my workout.
For example, if the weather is perfect, I can convince myself that a puffy white cloud on the horizon could mean a impending thunderstorm.
Or an evening bike ride—which I’d promised to do after missing a morning trip to the gym—is cancelled if I realize that, say, the season finale of Top Chef is on TV. And, of course, sometimes the dog eats my training plan.
For me, the toughest thing about exercise is staying motivated long enough to see results. (Presumably, if I ever see do see results, that’ll be motivation enough.)
For years, I thought it all came down to will power. I’ve since discovered that staying motivated requires far more strategy than strength. And, luckily, there are lots of strategies out there to defeat my inner couch potato.
Like me, you’ve probably heard a few tricks already. Get an exercise buddy, set goals, and reward yourself, for example.
But what I didn’t know was that setting a general goal isn’t terribly helpful. Instead of deciding “I want to get stronger,” experts say that it’s far better to set a very specific goal, such as, “I want to do three pull-ups by November.”
There’s a great overview on how to set effective exercise goals at About.com’s Sports Medicine site. They’ve detailed the S.M.A.R.T. principle, which includes setting specific, measurable, adjustable, realistic, and time-based goals.
I also found an interesting article at WebM.D. that provides general information on getting into the right mindset for exercise. One helpful tip is to quit falling into an “all-or-nothing” trap. I’m guilty of that, because I tend to push myself too hard, burn out, and then beat myself up when I decide to stay in to watch Top Chef.
They also suggest applying some mind-body tactics from yoga, such respecting your body’s limitations, striving for a non-judgmental attitude, and focusing on breathing.
Personally, I get a major boost from keeping an online journal. I’ve set one up at coolrunning.com, and I feel a weird but tangible satisfaction whenever I enter in a workout. A friend swears by MapMyFitness for walks, runs, bike rides, hikes, and triathalon training. Otherwise, a quick search for online fitness journal turns up hundreds of free fitness tracking sites.
Another thing I like are active message boards and forums on larger fitness sites. They’re loaded with inspiring stories, answers to pretty much any question, and boundless enthusiasm from a bunch of people who actually seem to like working out. Hmm. Obviously, I have much to learn.
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