Healthy Eating and Living

[jfarnsworth]

I'm not trying to be stupid or silly or anything, I just have some real questions.
One: Where is the gym? Do you have to drive back and forth from home and work?

It's upstairs at where I work.

Two: When do you shower?

:boing2: In all seriousness (if that's a real word) I very rarely ever break a sweat so I shower at night at home. Even during some of the hardest weight lifting work outs I have :idunno: I barely sweat - honest.

Three: What time do you go to sleep?

Between 8:30 - 9. When I hit the pillow I'm done in less than a minute. Monday nights at the kenpo studio are a killer.

%-}

 

[Black Bear]

Coke for breakfast? LMAO. You gotta be kidding me.

One should learn about "living healthy" with the same dedication one pursues MA. Instead of listening about bits and pieces from Joe, Moe and Curly over the net, it would be more productive to get a nutrition textbook and starts with the fundamental.

I don't know this Kenneth Ku guy, but I like him already. He has caught the CORRECT.

Pop is one of the greatest health risks facing Americans today. Empty calories for one thing, and the phosphates which leach calcium from your bones. I have heard that in the American South, grocery stores use generic pop as loss leaders, and people drink it all day. If this is true, it is more horrific than most scenarios that public health researchers could dream up.

A good standard undergrad nutrition textbook based on sound research, with APA citations from scholarly journals, is a fantastic basis for starting to understand nutrition. They are not "flavours of the month"; they are not toilet paper.

It will not tell you everything you need to know, or even what to do, but at least you will start to understand the compositions of foods, what the substances do, etc. Calories, ifferent kinds of fatty acids, water vs. fat-soluble vitamins, glycemic index, types of fibre... it's not rocket science but if you don't ever learn it... well, you just won't know it. If certain people would take the time to educate themselves on the basics from that, then some of the stupid things that are said on this thread would not have been said. And perhaps we could maybe even have a somewhat intelligent conversation. Imagine that.

 

[Black Bear]

someguy, to my knowledge no one here is an "Atkinson" guy or an Atkins guy for that matter.

 

[Black Bear]

Breakfast is a good thing. Any intro-level NUFS textbook will very plainly explain that whatever you eat in the morning, you have all day to catabolize. To eat more of your calories earlier in the day is a wise thing to do. Hence the saying, "breakfast like a king, dine like a pauper."

 

[someguy]

Oops well you know what I mean though. I'm supprised that no one here is on the Atkin's diet.

 

[Black Bear]

Sorry, I meant that no one who was in the conversation... shall we say, "admitted to" being on Atkins.

 

[someguy]

Breakfast is a good thing. Any intro-level NUFS textbook will very plainly explain that whatever you eat in the morning, you have all day to catabolize. To eat more of your calories earlier in the day is a wise thing to do. Hence the saying, "breakfast like a king, dine like a pauper."

I probably should do that. If only mornings were not...

 

[Black Bear]

I have a hard time getting up a good appetite in the morning and eating lots. I usually try for a bagel with peanut butter, 250 mL flavoured yogourt, an "omega" egg, and a banana. What I drink varies.

Not very Atkinsy.

 

[OUMoose]

What is an "Omega" egg?? :idunno:

 

[Black Bear]

One of the coolest food innovations of our time:

http://collections.ic.gc.ca/Abinvents/inventors/jeongsim_biography.htm
http://www.gov.on.ca/omafra/english/livestock/poultry/facts/incr_egg.htm
http://www.blonnet.com/businessline/2000/09/18/stories/071831b1.htm
http://www.ualberta.ca/~jssim/profile.html

All natural, no transgenic technology involved. Dr. Sim also developed high-protein food bars for UNICEF relief work. He is a brilliant food scientist, great humanitarian, and committed Christian. And lucky for me, he was also my intro Nutrition and Food Science instructor.

 

[jfarnsworth]

As a nobody asking a question; is your omega egg the same as our organic egg? :idunno:

 

[OULobo]

So they alter the nutrition in the egg by regulating the breed of the chicken and the diet of the chicken?

 

[Black Bear]

OULobo is correct.

jfarnsworth, well, I have no idea about what your organic egg involves, but, um... no. It's a proprietary technology. I know flax seed goes into the feed, but I don't know the exact formula.

There are other omega-3 eggs on the market. But if you look at the composition of the yolk, none (that I've seen) has quite as good of fatty acid ratios as Dr. Sim's. Still, I sometimes buy 'em if the market's out of Dr. Sim's. Egg protein is very complete, very digestible, and very cheap.

If you eat regular eggs all that much, discard at least part of the yolk. The cholesterol in them is killer.

 

[Black Bear]

Someone said something about "North Americans" being overweight. Now I do realize that the trend is for obesity to be more of a problem in Canada than before. However, I did notice that the further south you go, the fatter are the people you see on the street. I even go down to Calgary, and notice that folks are just a little plumper. Down in Lethbridge, the average fattitude is higher yet. And I cross the border, well I see an increase in the fat gradient.

I haven't travelled around a lot, but you know the stats on obesity in the southern states...

Does anyone know why this is? I mean, they used to say that people in northern climes are more robust, and folks near the equator are more gracile, because it's a body temperature management issue. This seems true in Eurasia, but the reverse is true in North America!

Here's what I think:
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY OF BODY MORPHOLOGY CLINES
In places other than NA, body types are adapted mainly to one selection pressure: body temperature management. Gracile people have more body surface per mass, and so they stay cooler easier. (Think of early dinosaurs like the dimetrodon. They had big "sails" of vascularized tissue, with lots of surface and little mass, to cool themselves. Likewise, a thinner person has more exposed body surface per mass.) The reverse is true for husky folks in the north: they conserve heat better.

However, North America is extremely prosperous both economically and in terms of resource base. We manage body temperature through direct manipulation of our environment. Powerful central heating systems and nourishing foods in the north, ubiquitous and overpowering air conditioning, and abundant cooling beverages in the south. Most of us (at least urban folk) spend a lot of our time indoors anyway. So modern technology has effectively wiped out the body temperature variable as a selection pressure. This variable does NOT affect body morphology among humans in North America.

In its absence, a different selection pressure comes to the fore. The centrifugal force of the earth is greatest near the equator, and least near the poles, because the surface of the earth near the equator is farther from the axis of rotation. My theory is that North Americans living nearer the equator are fatter because, being more massive (that is, having a greater gravity coefficient), this makes them less likely to be flung into space by the earth's rotation. Thinner North American humans near the equator are more likely to be flung into space, and less likely to produce offspring. As you go further north within North America, the degree to which this affects population selection decreases.

Though the same phenomenon holds true outside of North America, being flung into space is a relatively rare phenomenon (compared to heat exhaustion and hypothermia), so this global effect is overshadowed by the body temperature management issue. Only in North America can its effect on populations be clearly seen.

I respectfully submit this thesis for MT's consideration. :asian:

 

[jfarnsworth]

jfarnsworth, well, I have no idea about what your organic egg involves, but, um... no.

The organic eggs in which I purchase are from organic fed chickens. No steroids or other extra behind the scenes altering effects for the chickens. At the moment I finished the last dozen off a couple days ago so I threw out the container. If my memory is right the typical egg has a very high 200mg content of cholesterol. In the organic (depending on vendor) they are in the high 100 or very low 200mg of cholesterol. Comparing the side charts item per item they are better for your body than a regular egg. However I like the brown organic eggs from Eby-Brown and they tend to cost #3.59 per dozen. Your typical egg dozen cost about 89cents. With 3 kids in the house and me we tend to go through a lot of eggs. :asian:

 

[Black Bear]

I need to clarify something, because omega-type eggs are often referred to as "low cholesterol" eggs, which is technically incorrect.

The term cholesterol is synonymous with zoosterol, and simply means lipids (fats or oils) which occur naturally in animal matter. Your blood cholesterol is the lipids that naturally occur in your blood. Now, the yolk of an egg is almost entirely fatty matter, so unless the yolk changes significantly in size, the amount of cholesterol is pretty constant.

So it's not how much cholesterol, but what kind. You've heard the expressions "good and bad cholesterol"? The good ones that are plentiful in fish (and omega eggs) and the bad ones that are in most meat fat we eat. What matters to human health is the shape of the fatty-acid part of the molecule. There's omega-3, omega-6, omega 9, I'm sure there are others. Is it a carbon ring or something? I don't remember the details. It was a long time ago. You can post it for OUR benefit when you read that part in the text. But the point is, that's what makes some oils good (fish, canola, olive) and some bad (say, lard and tropical oils). Then there's saturation. Polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and saturated (which are generally solid in form and quite bad, like lard).

The method of getting lots of omega 3 and good stuff in the eggs, naturally, is a fairly new innovation, and protected by patents (though other companies also have methods of doing it, which are also patent-protected I believe). These "designer" "omega-3", or "engineered" eggs are always identified as such. They cost a bit more than other eggs here, I suppose it depends on where you live.

I'm all for buying organic, and buying direct from farmers. It's cheaper, they probably don't sit on the shelf as long, etc. But the composition of the cholesterol would most likely be the same as a conventional supermarket egg. I'm starting to buy my meat from a holistic grower (not considered organic, because they get vaccinations, but close enough for me, since they're free range and free of steroids). They treat the cattle like pets, love 'em, feed 'em good, give em lots of wide open space, then, without warning, they put a bullet in their head when they come of age. Much tastier and more tender because they treated 'em right. I think it's wonderful, that's the way farming should be. Healthier? I don't know. They must be--those artificial hormones, as well as the endogenous stress hormones that the cattle release when they're slaughtered conventionally, are supposedly bad for you.

I read somewhere (non-scholarly source) that brown eggs are no healthier than white eggs, but I can't really back that up, scientifically. Many people prefer them, though.

 

[Black Bear]

Ultimately, the point of good and bad cholesterol is mostly how they increases or decreases HDL (high density lipoprotein--GOOD endogenous human cholesterol) and LDL (low density lipoprotein--BAD endogenous human cholesterol). You've seen the cartoons I'm sure. LDL stick in arterial walls and make you have heart attacks and die. HDL clears 'em out.

Also, please know that I hate you for making me stay up and write all that. Now I sleep, you *******.

 

[jfarnsworth]

Also, please know that I hate you for making me stay up and write all that. Now I sleep, you *******.

Whatever! :jedi1:

I was actually enjoying reading your post for a change on here and the knowledge you have on the subject. Your last statement is just one of the reasons that my friends here on MT rarely see me on here anymore.

I thought this was going to be a good discussion on something that most of us would learn from but..... :idunno:

 

[Black Bear]

Just joshin' ya man. Obviously you didn't put a gun to my head to make me type it in last night.

Geez man, take a joke.

 

[hardheadjarhead]

Whatever! :jedi1:

I was actually enjoying reading your post for a change on here and the knowledge you have on the subject. Your last statement is just one of the reasons that my friends here on MT rarely see me on here anymore.

I thought this was going to be a good discussion on something that most of us would learn from but..... :idunno:

I took it as a joke. You thought he was serious?


Regards,


Steve