Buddhist Marketer

Want To Eat Healthier In 2010?

One of my key goals this month is to cook nutritious meals.  In my hunt for a “Cooking Fundamentals” class (recommendations welcome … I don’t think a few semesters of Home Economics with Melba Holmgren counts … as good as she was …), I came across a talk by the author of a kick-arse book that dramatically altered the way I look at what I’m noshing on.

People who eat the most animal-based foods get the most chronic disease.  People who eat the most whole plant-based foods are the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.

That’s Dr. T. Colin Campbell, nutrition guru behind the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted.  Surprised you haven’t heard about it?  Well, that’s because agribusiness doesn’t want you to eat more healthfully.  What’s in your best interest is not in the best interest of Big Farm.

His talk is February 17th, 6:45p - 9:30p.  You can click here to learn more about his live talk “Change Your Diet: Save Your Life”, or click here to investigate his book The China Study.

[Here's a link to a video that I can't figure out how to embed: vid of Dr. Yum]

Eat me!

I just custom-made my very own nutrition bar, “The Flexitarienne”, at YouBars.com.  They’ve got an easy interface that guides you through all the variables and keeps track of nutrition info for you if you care about that sort of thing.

If you want to give it a whirl, you can get 10% off using code “xoxoanp”.

Let me know how yours work out.  Haven’t actually eaten one yet so cannot attest to the tastiness, but I definitely plan on stuffing my creation into some stockings this holiday season (hi family!).

Marketing info:

• I saw a flyer on Facebook
• As I am a fan of bars and nutrition, I clicked
• I liked, I bookmarked and filed under “wishlist”
• My daily linkroll posted to my old blog
• Apparently the YouBars’ founder saw a trackback ping and commented on my old blog
• This motivated me to take action now rather than in some theoretical future
• Since the userflow was not heinous I’m sharing with you

I’m of two stomachs on the matter

In the past few months I’ve made a gentle transition away from my Big Mac-devouring ways and into something that looks a mite like ersatz veganism - meets - Manhattan-dwelling cavewoman.  For example, now I order veggie burgers from Burger King.

It breaks down like this:

1. I try to eat vegan as much as possible
2. I start out the day by nursing 32 ounces of a freshly-blended fruit+ smoothie with a scoop of Vega (the plus allows for the occasional freshly-plucked mint leaf, handful of raw almonds or cashews, chunk of avocado, and upcoming 1/4 c of spinach; my base is generally sun tea or any of the non-milk milks (rice, almond, or soy))
3. I continue to graze on a blend of raw nuts & dried fruits throughout the day
4. I’ll eat a healthy din of vegetables, rice, etc.
5. I only eat meat for a few days every month.  If you are squeamish then do not read the following phrase:  “When she bleeds, she feeds.”

My thinking, greatly encouraged by a nutrition enthusiast’s exhortations of The China Study (short math:  if more than 5% of your caloric intake comes from meat, your health is negatively impacted), is that woman in the wild eats in a manner consistent with our bodies’ optimal functioning, and this is inconsistent with modern food production.  So, I try to frame my approach to food with one question as the guiding principle:  How would my cavesister eat?

Well, my cavesister would eat a lot of fresh stuff, generally gravitating towards the goods that were about to turn (read: the really ripe picks), and have easier access to nuts than, say, a slab of red meat. However, once there was a kill, she’d probably wild out for a few days, and then simmer down over the next few weeks until the next beefalo waddled into town.

So this was how I was viewing the world when I met The Institute for Hermetic Philosophy’s David Richeson.  (Stay with me, folks, especially you with the fried chicken drumstick in your hand.)  David and I spoke at length about the additional (or perhaps related) benefit of returning your blood to an alkaline state.

Short:

• Lotsa meat makes your blood acidic
• Spinach and its peeps makes your blood alkaline
• Your body is happy when your blood is alkaline

As I researched the matter, imagine my delight when an article on basic eating underscored the general awesomeness of my eat-like-a-cavegrrl framework:

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors consumed a diet very different from what’s typical today. The diet was based on minimally processed plant and animal foods. But with the advent of agriculture, the standard Western diet changed greatly.

• Grains were introduced into the diet after the appearance of stone tools. Refined grains were available after the invention of automated rolling and sifting devices.
• Milk, cheese and other milk products were introduced with the domestication of livestock.
• Salt consumption rose when technology to mine, process, and transport it became available.
• Meat consumption increased with animal husbandry. It further increased with the advent of technology that enabled grains to be efficiently fed to cattle, which allowed cattle to be fattened quickly.
• Sugar consumption has risen since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Oh, yes! I grunted, scratching my girl-parts while eyeing the nits in your hair.

At this point, for better or for worse, the nutrition enthusiast felt comfortable revealing an additional interest in restricting caloric intake for longevity purposes. (It seems we all want more life, f—–.)  To be honest, the veggie thing has made me feel so much more energetic, light, and fresh that I probably could’ve been told by The Nutritionist that eating hair-nits gives you firmer thighs and considered it gospel.

That said, my friend Houser and I did try a liquid diet back at the Academy, and I rather enjoyed my 90 day trial run of Mormonism (ca. last century) and its attendant monthly fasts, so I was intrigued.  Anyway, what better way to recreate the dietary analogue of crouching behind a basement mattress than denying yourself the full bounty of American excess?

And so this past week, I happened to be swinging through a local organic shopPE and noted a brochure for various week-long sorta-fasting (slowing?  middle-distancing?) regimens.  I sent it to The Nutritionist for review and got a thumbs down.  The real benefits, it seems, come from a true emptying, an upside-down colonic if you will, where the only thing you jam into your mouth is water.

Okay okay okay.

This is where Anittah has to regroup.

• Anittah used to hover above the plates of her elementary school classmates and work through their untouched macaroni and cheese entrees while they all streamed out to recess on the playground.  (Lightbulb:  the social isolation was not correlated with race at all!  Holy!)
• Anittah used to fill two trays after crew practice in college, each day, every day.
• Anittah has been known to pluck slices of pizza from boxes that are in the trash, just so long as said trash can is indoors, and no other items seem to be compromising said pizza slice.
• Anittah used to sniff, “I love animals.  They taste delicious.” and hail the yumminess of 2% milk-milk whilst rolling her eyes at the meh-inducing “eating meat is cruel” crowd.

How on earth could I possibly work fasting into my regimen?!? Especially with all this other junk on my to-do list?

Enter Four Hour Workweek boy.

Now, as Yale ‘99 Class Secretary, I’m actually not allowed to read anything created by any Princeton alum, as Princeton doesn’t matter.  So you can see how important perfecting my alimentary algorithm really is for me to take such a risk.

As Ferris summarized:

An enterprising scientist decided to try a little twist on the caloric restriction experiment. He divided the genetically-similar animals into two groups, fed one group all it wanted and measured the intake, then fed the other group all it wanted - except every other day instead of daily. When the intake of the group fed every other day was measured, it turned out that that group - the intermittently fasted group - ate just about double on the eat days, so that overall both groups consumed the same amount of food. Animals in the one group at X amount of food per day while the animals in the other group ate 2X amount of food every other day. So both groups ate the same number of calories but the commonality ended there.

The intermittently fasted group of animals despite consuming the same number of calories as the ad libitum fed group enjoyed all the health and longevity benefits of calorically restricted animals. In essence, they got their cake and ate it, too.

Right, so, sometimes I make a joke about being Asian on odd days and white on even days.  Ha ha.  But now I really can eat 4,000 calories in one twenty-four hour period (my white days), and 0 for the next (my China Study days), and reap the benefits of a longer life without all the curmudgeonly, irritable, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I WANT SOME KFC WHY DO MY NEIGHBORS HAVE TO MAKE FRIED CHICKEN EVERY FRIDAY costs.

And this is in line with cave-grrl-ism as food was not readily available at all times:

• No fridges!
• No modern foodstuff distribution networks!
• No aggressive wielders of Chinese restaurant menus pacing the halls of apartment buildings!

So, in sum, this notion of intermittent as opposed to days-at-a-stretch fasting is awesome, and I may even try this, but definitely not until after Labor Day weekend, since I’m heading to Nashville for festivities that include a southern barbecue.

Now, if I could just figure out a way to ensure the arrival of Aunt Flo by 11 a.m. Sunday.