Journalists tackle nutrition

Our approach to nutrition is wrong.

Michael Pollan brilliantly exposes how "nutritionism" is a messed up ideology which rests upon four inherently wrong premises:
- What's important in food is the nutrients.
- We rely on a "food priesthood" (doctors and scientists) to determine how we eat.
- There are good nutrients and bad nutrients.
- Food's purpose is health only.

"Eat food (real food), not too much, mostly vegetables."

Thank you so much Alex for sharing this! ;)

In the second talk, he casts light on common misconceptions we have about our self-perception in the evolutionary perspective when it comes to feeding ourselves.

Mark Bittman colorfully explains how our consumption of meat and its industry spiraled dangerously out of control.

Michael Pollan @google


Michael Pollan @TED


Mark Bittman @TED

Foie Gras Anyone?

Voyage au pays du foie gras


Everyone eat just a little less of it please!


Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.
Albert Einstein

Walden

Although I believe a man's Weltanschauung is in some ways a "dynamic sum" of what he has read, some books obviously tip the scale and create the profoundest effects.

Maybe it's the timing - the season, the recent disappointments, the new unformed hopes, the life changes, the people recently met. Sometimes you read a book, watch a movie - and BAM! the missing puzzle piece makes you realize there was a puzzle being solved in the first place and completes it in a flash - or better, starts a new one.

Walden had this effect on me. It certainly was the timing, the unexpected coincidences, the life changes and the unformed hopes.

Instead of writing an essay about the book or summarizing Thoreau's ideas, here are some selected favorite extracts:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

But lo! men have become the tools of their tools. The man who independently plucked the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a housekeeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agriculture. We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man's struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot.



I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out of proportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.

We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were. We are a race of tit-men, and soar but little higher in our intellectual flights than the columns of the daily paper. It is not all books that are as dull as their readers.

By avarice and selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber

Grow wild according to thy nature, like these sedges and brakes, which will never become English bay. Let the thunder rumble; what if it threaten ruin to farmers' crops? That is not its errand to thee. Take shelter under the cloud, while they flee to carts and sheds. Let not to get a living be thy trade, but thy sport. Enjoy the land, but own it not. Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling, and spending their lives like serfs.

Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.



I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

It is life near the bone where it is sweetest.

Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction— a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should be as another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry -- determined to make a day of it.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

No More Junk!

In lieu of a post I thought I would link to this NYTimes.com article by Ralph Blumenthal. Coincidentally the auhtour's surname means "flower valley".

Beauty

I think you've all noticed that I have a bit of a soft spot for pretty girls... Only god knows how many actresses I've crushed on (I don't mean famous ones, I mean ones I've actually met in person). Wouldn't life be easier if we could just appreciation women for their personalities alone? I know it would rid me of about 60% of my ridiculously high standards - though it would not solve the problem (80% for most men) .

So what do you think the evolutionary purpose of physical attraction is?

We all know about the evolutionary attraction to physical attributes. Breasts, will feed the young; a high waste to hip ratio will make birth easier; good skin is synonymous with health; etc, etc. It improves our chances of procreation. But what about beauty? A perfectly shaped face. A slender figure? Most of these standards are at least partially created by our modern society. Merely flying to another continent, we see other cultures worshiping roundness and a different face and what do we do? We stimulate bulimia and anorexia. And the worst part of it is... I love slender (I'm part of the problem). This is not only irrational, but also unhealthy from a descendance point of view.

My question is: What possible genetical improvements would our descendants benefit from if we procreated with a beautiful woman? What is the evolutionary purpose of attraction to beauty if beauty is primarily cultural?

Buoyancy

The tide's steady ebb and flow - the echo of the undertow.
The water with patient potency claims more.
Takes in then lets go.
-Substance

Inhalation and exhalation.

You are inflating a balloon with the rhythm of a powerful breath. If you do not pinch, some air will be returned from the balloon after the exhale. By not pinching, yet breathing repetitively, the balloon will get fuller with air at each exhale and deflate a little bit at each nose inhale until it is acceptably inflated.

Two steps forward, one step back, just like the waves on the beach front.

Moving forward by oscillation. The mechanism forces you to lose a little bit to gain more.

Can you see this clearly?

This is how I would define equanimity. Evenness of mind is the capacity to have the intuition that the impulse to react quickly - from tension - does not result in sound decisions. Equanimity is slowing down to synchronization with the beat given by the drummer we can call Nature.

Our taste buds may have evolved to love sweet and salty tastes, but greedily giving into the impulse is not a good long-term strategy.

If you stop eating before feeling full, you will have more energy.

Bodybuilders have much to gain by alternating between workout sessions and rest. Bodies need sleep to become stronger, to learn, to memorize, to repair, to digest. All the things we wish we could be doing awake and with our conscious minds operating.

To keep pace with the drummer we must first learn to listen. Mindfulness.

Nature's tool: surrender and gentleness.

Surrender your conscious mind "into the arms of Morpheus"or meditation and feel refreshed. The farmer must learn to work with the seasons, he cannot step outside the drummer's pace.

To achieve harmony with ourselves, others and the world, we must listen and adjust our pace to the music of nature.

You're breaking my balls, humanity

I found these two little videos very interesting, so I thought I would share them with you.

Jay Leno, in my opinion, is one of the very few personalities that is both intelligent and capable of being on American television (I respect John Stuart too, but he's just too political for me). Oh, and Leno has a cool garage too - hehe.

Anyway, the first video brings up an interesting point - the death of the electric car. Much like the diesel engine that is more fuel efficient, reliable, and clean than our everyday unleaded fuel engines, the electric engine never reached the masses. Why? Because it was too feminine (says Leno). The diesel engine reached the masses but did not have the success of the other. Why? Perhaps it was too loud. Either way, from a technological stand point, it should have succeeded. This brings me to my first point. It is probable that many inventions and scientific discoveries are in our possession and are not being used purely for marketing reasons.

Today, the fuel companies and the US are investing more money into ethanol than any other alternative fuel source. Why? Because it would allow the fuel companies to keep their infrastructure of fuel dispensation and it would allow America to produce its own fuel and thusly their (both, the US, and the corporations') grip on the world. This is a bit of an issue. I believe that the future lies in electric vehicles (granted, it would be a much more drastic change in our infrastructure). Hydrogen cars (fuel cell cars) or battery-powered electric cars both create zero emissions and run on renewable resources. And, most importantly would push the world to invest more money into fusion (because of the rising need in electricity). Also, electric vehicles, especially the battery powered cars, require virtually no up-keep and could potentially be refueled at home (for hydrogen, we'll have to wait).

Long story short - economics get in the way of a speedy technological evolution.

This leads me the main point.

I have always advocated that free market economics paired with improved communications (globalization) was the fastest and most efficient way to evolve socially. Although, this theory is currently leading us in the right direction (the green movement), we may not be moving fast enough. What that theory does not account for, is the speed at which social awareness advances and the sample size - it has a statistical base after all. So far, it seems that, as masses, we have been thinking in unity and our social herd-psychology pushes us to react adequately - however, I don't think that this is necessarily enough since in the end, those who make decision and control the masses aren't a large enough sample to create a "free market psychological approximation".

Explanation: By "free market psychological approximation", I mean that our human psyche can be approximated and trends can be clearly seen in the evolution of the markets. What this entails is that whenever there is a world issue large enough to affect the bulk of the population, humans will adapt in a way so as to fix the problem - a sort of bee-hive approximation. As a crude example, we can take ecology; sixty years ago, when pollution was unseen, it was also unheard of; today, when we can see a disgusting cloud of grayish brown enveloping the Greater Los Angeles area and taste chemicals in spring water, we can't help but be brought aware of an issue and our instincts tell us all (as a mass - and for the most part) to make a change. And so, we begin to change, and this can be observed in our world economical trends (growing ecological markets, Whole Foods, etc... ).

Omission - A Cry for Action

Is withholding the truth as bad as lying?

In my first post, I presented two classic social biases: the outgroup homogeneity bias and the trait ascription bias.

If humans could gain much by becoming aware of their cognitive mechanisms, certain behavioral patterns should be brought to awareness at all costs to avoid repeating mistakes from the past. Errare humanum est, sed perservare diabolicum.

We have all heard about the sometimes irrational tendency to protect the status quo; I would like to cast light on a variant: the omission bias.

"We tend to judge harmful actions as worse than harmful inactions (omissions)."

Many people believe that withholding the truth is better than lying although the outcome is the same.

This is an experiment led by Spraca, Minsk and Baron:

A story is read by a group of subjects.
"John, a tennis player, is about to play against a tough opponent in a decisive tournament match. He knows that the opponent is lactose intolerant."
The subjects are then presented with two conditions:

1. John recommends food he knows contains dairy.
2. The opponent orders the food and John does not warn him about the danger despite knowing about it.

As the omission bias predicts, a majority of people found recommending the food more immoral than not informing the opponent.

Most of us have disdain for those who collaborate with repressive police states or accuse innocents. Are we really much better when we witness it and do not react? By knowing something terrible is going to happen and then letting it happen, we are criminals.

You might not like the direction I'm heading in with this post. Although this might be outside the scope of the omission bias, mere knowledge makes us all responsible. We know about future catastrophes to come, injustices happening today, and we let everything happen. I myself so far have not had enough intelligence, maturity, courage and perspective to shake myself into action. I will fall sleep soundly and it should provoke disgust. Guilt, whining and transferring blame is worthless, we are all responsible, and if we want things to change we must act. The simple principle "do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have not done to thyself" is an example of a great place to start.

Peak Moment TV

When it comes to staying informed, Internet is a double-edged sword. A leviathan volume of unfiltered information entails advantages and drawbacks we all experience as users.

A universal nexus of sources and knowledge with potential feedback and contributions from hundreds of millions. At the same time, a hornet's nest for rumors, disinformation, skewed data and amateur journalism.

Freedom of expression has always resulted in island communities of ideologies and views where the citizen can find the medium to confirm his hypotheses. The opposed opinion counterweight only an independently regulated and controlled medium could present, is usually absent. Internet simply accentuates the phenomenon of biased ideological refuge. The individual has to learn to filter and select on his own.

Peak Moment TV is one of these low-budget, niche audience, sources of information. With oil reserves depleting, its main tenant is that there will be an inevitable transition in certain aspects of our lifestyles - or at least our economy - once dependence on oil as our main energy source will no longer be possible.

The producer and host, Janaia Donaldson has conducted a remarkable series of conversations with people finding alternative ways of living and inquiries into their lives and ideas.

The image quality is terrible, the style not dynamic, but many of these talks are gems.

Families deciding to experiment growing almost all the food they will eat during the year.

A couple building a home where no energy is taken off the grid and the fun it involves.

An urban planner giving a touching presentation about how improved city design has made people reach out for each other, interact and build a rooted helpful community.

Permaculture farmers teaching us about the beauty of synergistic interaction between insects, plants, trees, birds, worms, climate and terrain.

A research team that has developed ways of turning our cars into energy stores capable of providing as much energy as we currently use in our lifestyles.

This is just the surface. There are countless examples of people changing their habits to understand what sustainable post-oil living implies and others presenting their ideas about future economical development, urban design, engineering,...

_________

An Experiment in Back Yard Sustainability



City Repair - Permaculture for Urban Spaces

Soul Mate

To create room for others in your life, start by creating room for yourself.

I have never given enough respect to mushy articles and relationship help columns from psychologists in women's magazines. The rare times I did read them was for lack of other reading material available - thanks mom for leaving those magazines in the bathroom - and usually with a sarcastic frame of mind. The same old banalities seemed to emerge: "men have a harder time expressing feelings, give him some time", "try finding activities you both enjoy", etc.

I felt these instant gratification columns or reader's mail expert answers only tried to patch up a failure-bound relationship rather than reveal the true nature of the situation. People entered relationships for reasons that were never going to provide emotional satisfaction in the long run.

Granted, nobody has a right to judge others' motives - after all we're all in the same boat: self-confidence issues, the appeal of social status, beauty, the promise of stability, the cure for loneliness, the biological clock - but giving false hope is unethical.

I cannot stand the hypocrisy of the "experts" when they try catering to fragile people's idealized conception of love by promising that an unrealistic level of happiness is within reach after a couple adjustments.

However, when I serendipitously stumbled upon a mature, intelligent, yet simple article about relationships in a women's magazine (Yoga Journal - well, it's for men too, but not really), I felt that the theme provided potential for deep inquiries around the themes of existentialism and personal maturation.

The article gently explains how the illusion of finding a soul mate is never going to be a prolific approach. The focus should be within first, facing our problems rather than running away from them. If we escape our unhappiness by rushing into the arms of a partner, the unaddressed issues will eventually surface.

"If we can figure out how to solve our own problems and to love ourselves, we’re not so needy. And that’s when we can enjoy a great relationship for what it is, rather than because our partner appears to fill some need we think we have.

[...]

Our culture and traditions school us to believe the opposite: that someday our prince (or princess) will come, that a relationship has the potential to solve problems like loneliness, that the right partner will make us feel whole. Popular romantic movies propagate the myth of another person completing us.

[...]

On the face of it, the idea of being “completed” by another seems deeply romantic. But it’s a fantasy that can weigh down a relationship with impossible expectations. The truth is that while your partner can offer many things, he or she can’t “complete” you. The only person who can give you a sense of security and an unshakable love of you is you. And though you may “know” this with your mind, sometimes feelings of unworthiness, insecurity, and incompleteness are so deeply buried that you aren’t even aware of them or of how they influence your behavior.

[...]

In relationships, these grooves keep you choosing partners for the same, often misguided, reasons. Maybe you look for somebody just like you (a mirror); maybe you choose partners who have some quality you wish you had (someone who is outgoing if you’re shy, or someone with a big, happy family if yours suffered through a messy divorce); or maybe you unconsciously try to recreate or correct the dynamics of your parents’ relationship.

[...]

“The definition of one of these patterns is that you’re not aware of it when you’re in it,” says psychotherapist Mark Epstein, author of Open to Desire: The Truth About What the Buddha Taught. “Usually you don’t recognize it until it’s ruined some part of your life.”

[...]

Forbes says: “If we come into a relationship from a place of lacking contentment, we end up looking for someone to fill us up to make those feelings go away.” It’s important to try to address our missing pieces on our own.

[...]

If we examine our romantic desires and suspect that they take the form of unhealthy longing for completion, we need to create our ideal life so we aren’t looking for someone else to do it for us. Nourishing the unsatisfied parts of ourselves, as Jenni did, is the key to becoming whole."

Link

The article explains how yoga can help in the process of looking within. The idea is not that yoga is a nostrum which will improve your relationships. It is just another tool for doing the soul searching work - remember it is a Yoga magazine.