Vegetables: Painless Ways to Eat More of 'Em

Image: drewprops

Do we need to review the fact that vegetables are good for us? I think not. The only people who might argue that we should cut down on vegetables are the Meatatarians and the Breatharians. And do we really care what they think?

The problem is, while there are some people who love vegetables, most of us have more ambivalent feelings. We don't tend to crave them the same way we do cookies. And there may even be some vegetables we loathe so much that if we accidentally eat them, we might spit them out into our napkins when no one is looking. (Hello, celery? I'm talking to you).

On the other hand, there are times, depending on the vegetable and the preparation, when we don't even notice we're eating vegetables. Or, even better--sometimes they actually taste pretty darn good!

But for many of us, the number of servings of vegetables we should be eating a day adds up to way more vegetables than we can pretend to enjoy. Those darn nutritionists keep upping the recommended amount--I've actually seen experts who say nine to eleven servings a day. And holy crap, eleven is a big number when it comes to vegetables!

So for those of us who struggle a bit, here are some reminders about how to get more vegetables in without undue suffering.

Cartoon: NatalieDee.com

1. Seek Out Variety. This is harder than it sounds, because there's something a little bit suspicious about unfamiliar vegetables, isn't there? If it was really tasty and good for us, why didn't we grow up eating it?

Well, the good news is even as a grown up, you can learn to like new ones if you try them a few times. And having a bigger variety cuts down on the "chore" aspect of making sure you get enough.

For example, I didn't grow up with kale, and on first try, I frankly thought it was kind of bitter and yucky. But after a few tries, I actually kind of like it! As it happens, this Blogher post by Kayln has a whole boatload of things you can do with kale.

Don't think you're a broccoli fan? Well over at Kayln's own blog, Kayln's Kitchen, she's got a great sounding recipe for sauteed broccoli with garlic, pine nuts and paremesan. Or, try a new preparation of asparagus--an asparagus medley with cashews, courtesy of Lesbian in the Kitchen. (And thanks, Elisa and Everyday Goddess for the tips!)

2. Take Short Cuts. If you can afford to spend a bit more money, there are a lot more convenient options for fresh produce than there used to be. Remember when you couldn't enjoy fresh spinach without spending forever washing the dang grit out of it? Of course if you've got the time, it still makes sense to buy vegetables in their freshest, most natural state. But if you're trying to encourage more healthy side dishes and snacks, and you're pushed for time, take advantage of all those pre-washed, pre-cut or frozen options that you grab when you just can't face all that scrubbing and chopping.

3. Roast Those Veggies. This trick brings brings out the sweeter flavors, and can turn make otherwise "difficult" vegetables like cauliflower or brussel sprouts into something that actually tastes pretty wonderful. There's a recipe for mixed vegetables over at Make-Ahead Meals for Busy Moms. (And I'm no expert, but I just had roasted cauliflower last night--tossed in a generous slathering of olive oil and garlic, and baked at 400 degrees for about a half hour. Weirdly enough? I loved it!)

4. Don't Fear the Fat. Sure, it's not a great idea to totally drown every vegetable in butter, cream, mayonnaise, or bacon grease. But cooking with a a healthy fat like olive oil can makes a huge difference in flavor. Plus, many of the nutrients in vegetables need some fat to be best absorbed, so you're actually doing yourself a nutritional favor. And heck, if a little bit of butter can turn an otherwise bleak vegetable into something tasty and comforting? Well, I say that's butter well-spent.

Like cheese with your veggies? Check out Melting Mama's cauliflower Mac and Cheese recipe. Haven't tried it yet but it sounds great!

5. Blend Them Beyond Recognition. Regular Cranky Fitness readers know I'm a big fan of the Green Smoothie. Tossing some fresh veggies in a morning smoothie along with fruit and whatever smoothie base you like (milk, yogurt, kefir, fruit juice, protein concoctions, almond milk, etc) is a great sneaky way to get a vegetable in at breakfast. Spinach works especially well, but I've also snuck in bok choy, cauliflower, and asparagus. The trick is not to get too aggressive with the veggies at first, and keep the flavor very much in the background until you get used to it.

6. Dip Them. Use fresh veggies as a conveyance for your favorite healthy dip, like hummus, guacamole, bean dip, or, if you've got some calories to spare, peanut butter!

7. Hide Them. If you've got a favorite guilty convenience food or takeout option, sometimes you can at least redeem the meal somewhat by slipping a lot more veggies into the sauce. I find that while I love Indian food, the ratio of vegetables to sauce at most places is always way too skimpy--so I nuke whatever I've got around and toss it in there--makes for more leftovers too.

And if you're making soups or stews, you may notice that cooking things for a hell of a long time gives you the ability to cram more veggies in there--because some of them sort of dissolve and become part of the broth. (And you can use a blender to encourage this. Especially if you have picky kids at home, because "invisible" vegetables cause much less whining than visible ones.)

8. Take advantage of Farmer's Markets or Grow your Own: Fresh vegetables are sweeter and tastier than those that have been shipped from halfway 'round the world. So if you live somewhere where it's feasible, go for the freshest stuff you can find.

9. Salads Don't Have to be Boring: It's so easy to get into a fixed routine with salads, and before long you may feel like you never want to eat another one again. But it's amazing how changing up your dressing or adding a couple of new ingredients can make a salad something to look forward to again. Try goat cheese, pine nuts, fruit, avocado slices, or other healthy but tasty toppings. A few extra calories may be worth it to make the salad seem like something to look forward to rather to endure like a 20 year prison sentence.

So do you get enough veggies? And does anyone have other ideas as to how to get more vegetables into our diets?

[Note: This post is also scheduled to appear at the Blogher 10X club, where, if you're brave enough, you can join us for healthy challenges in the 10X forum].

Secrets of Preventing Cancer and Building Your Bones

Does the title of this post lead you to think that there's one simple thing you can do to prevent cancer and keep your bones strong as you grow old?

Sorry about that. It's actually two different "secrets"--the reason they're crammed together in one post is that I was reading the New York Times health section, and these two articles about preventing cancer and building healthy bones both caught my attention.

Note: whenever I discuss health articles from the New York Times, sensitive readers should be warned--there will likely be cursing involved.

@#%$&!!

Because while the New York Times is a great source for news, I hate their health section. They're the ones, remember, who said exercise won't keep you healthy. And their writers seem to revel in casting doubt on my long-held beliefs about the rewards of proper nutrition and plenty of exercise.

If the New York Times were my only news source, I'd be on a cupcake, cheeseburger, and champagne diet by now, and the only exercise I'd get would be scratching my head over their crossword puzzles. Sometimes the studies they cite are convincing; other times they seem to ignore tons of contrary research in order to take a controversial stand and get people riled up. Either way, I find it annoying to have to rethink things all the time. I have a tiny brain and it gets tired easily.

So wanna know what surprises they had in store about preventing cancer and building bones?

Preventing Cancer: Forget Healthy Living

Yep--they say that eating less fat and lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grain fiber, losing weight, and getting lots of exercise won't really do much to prevent cancer. In terms of healthy living, the only lifestyle choice things they had good things to say about were quitting smoking and, if you're a woman, steering clear of estrogen after menopause. (Well, I imagine if you're a guy you should steer clear of it too).

The fruits and vegetable thing took me by surprise, and elicited the most cursing. I'm certain I've read a number of studies saying that whole grain fiber and fruits and vegetables help prevent cancer. The fiber clears out your digestive system, and the produce is full of all those nifty little antioxidants that will clean up evil free radicals that contribute to cancer. Right?

Well, turns out it's not just the New York Times--everyone seems to be backing down on the diet and cancer connection. As to the ability of antioxidants in fruit and vegetables to prevent cancer--the clinical results now look "inconclusive," according to The National Cancer Institute. Likewise, the Harvard School of Public Health says you should eat your fruits and veggies, but mainly because they're good for heart disease, blood pressure, vision, and gastrointestinal problems like constipation or irritable bowel. As to cancer, "data from cohort studies have not consistently shown that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables prevents cancer in general."

Well, phooey.

What can prevent certain kinds of cancer? Medicines!

According to the article, a generic drug, finasteride, costing about $2 a day, could prevent as many as 50,000 cases of prostate cancer a year. A related drug, dutasteride, (about $3.50 a day), has the same effect.

Likewise, according to the Times, studies have found that taking tamoxifen or raloxifene could cut breast cancer by 50% among high-risk women. Most side effects of the drugs, like hot flashes, were temporary. There was a very slightly increased risk of blood clots and uterine cancer with tamoxifen, but with raloxifene there was no excess uterine cancer, and the clotting risk was 30 percent less than tamoxifen.

Even better, women did not have to take the drug for a lifetime — just five years. And they said the cost for tamoxifen runs about 30 cents a day; raloxifene is $3.30 a day.

So why would doctors and high-risk patients not be jumping all over this to try to prevent cancer? Well, the Times interviewed Dr. Therese B. Bevers, a medical director at a Cancer Prevention Center. She believes that doctors don't want to take the first step — calculating a woman’s lifetime risk of getting breast cancer. Why not? Because that might lead to the next step: "spending an hour or so discussing cancer risk and drug risks and benefits."

An hour or so? Really? When was the last time your doctor spent an hour or so explaining anything? I can't believe doctors can't figure out how to give a brief overview of options in a much shorter time than that. And if it would prevent so many more cases of breast cancer, wouldn't the time be worth it?

Apparently the drugs are a good idea if your lifetime odds exceed 20 percent. (They use the example of a 55-year-old woman who began menstruating early had her first child late, and whose mother and sister got breast cancer. There's an assessment tool here, though they warn you it's designed for medical professionals.)

Equally puzzling, though, is the reaction of high risk patients when doctors do discuss the drug option. According to Bevers, about half the time they turn them down. “The Number one reason I hear is, ‘Oh, I just don’t like to take medications."

Personally, if my risk of breast cancer were calculated to be significantly higher than nomal? I think I'd give the medication a shot.

But no matter what the New York Times says, I'm not entirely giving up on the idea that my bok choy and blueberries and cardio are gonna help me out too.

How to Prevent Bone Loss? Jump!

So the article on exercise and bone loss starts with a disconcerting statistic: a year after fracturing a hip, about one in five people over age 65 will die.

Yikes! I guess I'd really rather not fracture my hip when I'm older.

There is more depressing news, too: a lot of the exercise people used to think would help isn't doing much to build bone density. You need “large forces released in a relatively big burst.” Apparently weight lifting isn’t explosive enough for most people, nor is swimming or cycling. Running can be, although it doesn't work for everyone. Brisk walking helped bone density in older women, but "it must be truly brisk."

What works, they suggest, is jumping--if your bones are strong enough to begin with. “You probably don’t need to do a lot either.” But this recommendation came from... you guessed it. A study of mice.

Photo:armadillo444

Oh wait, not that kind of mice...

It seems that in a Japanese study, mice jumped 40 times a week for 24 weeks and built up bone density, and maintained it by jumping 20 or 30 times a week. (I did not allow myself to discover how they got the mice to jump...I hate animal research and think we should do a lot less of it.)

Anyway, six jumps a day, then down to three or four. Sure, I could add that to my exercise to-do list. And maybe I will someday, if I became convinced that I'm one of those people for whom running doesn't work, and I decide I really need to start jumping too to build my bones.

But just because it worked for mice? At this point, I'm not exactly jumping to any conclusions about humans.

So would you take prescription drugs to prevent breast or prostate cancer if you were high risk? Would you jump up and down like a Japanese mouse to build your bone density?

Organic food: just as nutritious with pesticides?

Studies suggest... you should avoid grapefruit.

Sometimes I wonder about people.



Journalists, for example.

Researchers published a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which found that "found no differences in most nutrients in organically or conventionally grown crops, including in vitamin C, calcium, and iron. The same was true for studies looking at meat, dairy and eggs."


The BBC ran an article about this report. It was titled "Organic Has No Health Benefits."

Excuse me? WTF?


In what universe is food that has been grown with pesticides considered the same as food that's grown without pesticides?

Look, journalists. "Organic" fruit and vegetables are grown with a minimal amount of pesticides. Pesticides are bad.

Pesticides can be endocrine disruptors. These are linked to reproductive cancers.

The New York Times ran an article on a common weed killer, atrazine. "Recent studies suggest that, even at concentrations meeting current federal standards, the chemical may be associated with birth defects, low birth weights and menstrual problems." [The link may require you to login. But it's free, and they don't send you spam -- at least, they don't send it to me. Maybe they just like me.]

So how can these journalists say organic food doesn't have any benefit?

I figure this calls for a graph.

Yes, I am taking the argument to an extreme by suggestion people who ingest potassium cyanide might just possibly not be doing a healthy thing. But it's no more absurd than judging organic food by the extremely narrow criterion of whether its nutritional value is vastly higher than regularly grown foods -- and completely ignoring the wee bit about pesticides being Not Nice.


I'd started this post awhile ago, then set it aside so it could 'mature.' (Unlike moi, who just gets older.) Thanks to reader versweet for reminding Crabby and me of how absurd these news articles can be!


Am I being too cranky here? Should I just shrug and go back to worrying about Global Warming or Scrabble or something like that?

Farmer's Markets: The Untold Story

Farmer's Markets: impractical exercise in idealism or a Newer Better Way?

Ever wonder? We did. (Okay, okay, I did.) So... our hard-hitting reporter (me) went undercover to get the REAL story, an exposé of the soft flabby underbelly of the world of Farmer's Markets.

This is what I expect to find in a Farmer's Market

Not this:

Myth #1: Farmer's Markets are a place where local farmers can bring local fruits and vegetables to local people. That way, people can bypass big chain grocery stores that have been known to haul food from hundred or thousands of miles away.

Well, they probably have local pies... maybe even fruit pies

Truth #1:

It's local, but sometimes it's animal or mineral rather than vegetable.

In other words, you might have to look hard before you can find a vegetable stand at a Farmer's Market. Our reporter reports that the local market near her house features 3 or 4 food stalls for every 1 vegetable stand. Also, there were stalls selling insurance policies, crafts, and assorted weird stuff. (Yes, I realize the insurance policies and crafts were probably local. I don't care. It's just not the same.)

I have seen the light... Beer has hops... hops come from farms... maybe this is okay...

Myth #2: Farmer's Markets are organic

Truth #2: Really? Where's that written down anywhere? It's local and it's fresh, but that doesn't mean Farmer Phil didn't spray pesticides on his stuff. If it ain't specified, don't assume. It's local, which means it's so fresh you might want to slap it, but that doesn't automatically mean organic. You're going to find a wider selection of organic produce than at the store, but not all of it is.

Organic BBQ?

Myth #3: Farmer's Markets are more expensive than the grocery store.

Truth #3: Well, okay, so this one isn't necessarily a myth, or rather it's only a partial myth. In other words, It Depends.

I couldn't find white-coated research studies that dealt with the subject in an ept manner. According to one survey, people bought from farmer's market or roadside stand because 'freshness' was important. That seems so obvious that I wonder why they would ask the question.

On the other hand, when science lets you down, there's always Blogland. The blogger Mama Goes Green led me to the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance blog, who conducted their own research and collected data from a class statistics project that showed buying locally actually was cheaper on the whole:

Average savings at market: $.62

Average miles saved by buying local: over 900

Granted with a name like Farmers Market Alliance there just might possibly be a wee bit of bias there, but they obligingly show the data that led to the conclusions.

I think it's really cool to buy local, whether we're talking vegetables or crafts and BBQ. I wouldn't have a problem with people coming to a street near me to sell these things. It just bothers me that it's called a "Farmer's Market" when it's really a no-calories-barred street fair.



Am I being too fussy? Are your local Farmer's Market events full of stuff fresh off the farm?

You Say Potato, I Say The Hell With It

Yes, this is sort of an anti-potato post. I hope hordes of angry spud-lovers don't declare war on the blog, linking to this post and sending thousands and thousands of new visitors to Cranky Fitness to write outraged comments and marvel at how stupid and hateful that Crabby McSlacker is. That would be just awful, like being thrown into a briar patch! Please, please don't throw Crabby into the briar patch.***

Actually, as it happens, I like potatoes. They’re great roasted, baked, french-fried, mashed, hash-browned, scalloped, and even totted.

But does anyone else think it’s pathetic that according the Potato Pimps Idaho Potato Commission, a survey shows potatoes are America’s favorite vegetable?

I'm sorry, but that's just stupid. Potatoes aren’t vegetables.

Okay, technically, in a botanical sense, I suppose they are. But then according to the botanists, tomatoes are fruits, and peanuts are beans. You can’t trust those crazy botanists.

When your mom or your doctor or the nutrition expert on your local news commands you to eat more fruits and vegetables (and the recommendations vary from 5 to 13 freakin' servings a day), it is my contention that they do not mean French fries.

Yet many Americans eat so few green things that they are trying to count those Tots and Fries and scoops of mashed potatoes as a serving of vegetables.

This is so wrong!

I took a random internet survey of nutrition experts (i.e., I googled) and asked the question: do potatoes count as vegetables for nutritional purposes? Occasionally I’d get a “qualified yes” but far more often it was no and no and no.

But I don’t even care what the experts say. As far as I’m concerned a “real” vegetable is low in calories and packed with tons of magical micronutrients. Real vegetables are things like broccoli, spinach or carrots. They may not taste as good as a potato, but they’re always getting in the news for preventing cancer or improving insulin resistance or shedding belly fat or giving you x-ray vision. (I may need to double-check that last one). I feel very smug after eating a “real” vegetable.

A potato, on the other hand, is what my mom used to call a “starch.” It’s cheap, filling, and takes up a lot of room on a plate. Starches were very handy back in the old days when we were all toiling in the fields and scrubbing the floors 16 hours a day and needed a cheap source of extra calories. But now? Extra calories are not exactly hard to come by.

And sure, a plain baked potato is a lot better for you than a plate of hot buttered biscuits. A potato has some healthy stuff in it, like potassium, iron, folic acid, vitamin C and fiber. If you eat it plain and skip the butter and sour cream (do you?), and make your sure you eat all the skin, a potato is even good for you. It’s just good for you like a healthy starch, not great for you like a real vegetable.

But since potatoes are so lovable, tasty, easy, and cheap, it’s nice to be able to make room for them on our plates. So here are 4 potato compromise options, when you’re looking to get a little more “real” vegetable credit from the spud side of the plate.

1. The cauliflower fake-out. Slip some cauliflower into your mashed potatoes. But not if you absolutely hate cauliflower, because then the switcheroo will just ruin your lovely potatoes and put you in a foul mood. But if you don’t totally detest cauliflower, throw some in the pot when you’re boiling your spuds and mash ‘em right in there. The flavors blend nicely and cauliflower is an awesome anti-cancer cruciferous vegetable.

2. The sweet potato swap. I always think it’s weird that even though sweet potatoes are sweet, they’re way more nutritious than regular ones. Usually the sweet version of foods is the low road, but in this case it’s the high road! Slice 'em into fries, coat with a bit of olive oil, and bake 'em into fries. They're nutritious so you don't have to feel guilty.

3. The purple potato ploy. These can be hard to find, but if your supermarket carries purple or blue potatoes, give ‘em a try. If you can get past the color, they taste pretty much like regular potatoes, only they have anthocyanins—the virtuous antioxidants that are in other blue or purple foods like blueberries and grapes.

4. The broccoli and cheese manuever. Add broccoli and cheese to your baked potato. Since I see this combo all the time at mall food courts (of all places) I’m thinking a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise eat broccoli don’t mind it so much when it’s mixed with potato and cheddar and butter. Actually, you could probably serve most people ball point pens with potato and cheese and butter and they'd eat them happily. But broccoli is way more nutritious.


So, are you folks big potato fans or eat them rarely? Any other good ideas on how to pump up their nutritional profile?


***And hey, fellow boomers, some advice please: Are we even allowed to mention briar patches anymore? Do young folks know what we're talking about or is the whole folktale out of bounds now because of the stupid racists?

Revenge of the Green Smoothie

Photo: Wootang01

Warning: this post contains mostly smoothie-related whining. However, if you hang in there, there is a bit of Actual Health Research at the end.

So I've written before about one of my favorite healthy beverages, the smoothie. And the way I used to make them, they were so pretty! They were either a mellow orangey-yellow (mango or peach); or a perky pink (strawberry or raspberry); or quite frequently, a jaunty purple (blueberry).

Then, like the rest of the health blog world, I discovered the Green Smoothie.

Oh joy! Full vegetable credit in a fruity, tasty drink! And it was still very pretty. My favorite recipe: a couple of cups of raw spinach, a cup of nonfat milk, a little yogurt, some sweetener, some frozen banana, the juice of a lime (which tastes "green" but in a good way), and voila! Tasty, lovely to look at, and it has a vegetable in it, hooray! I quickly became addicted.

But then one day I peeked into my freezer and saw the lonely bags of forgotten blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries staring up at me. They looked so sad and abandoned!

Oh dear.

I think of myself as someone who eats a lot of berries, blueberries in particular. They're so damn healthy, right? But I realized that it had been ages since I'd gotten around to having blueberries. I was no longer an actual healthy blueberry eater, just a blueberry poseur. How could I write blog posts exhorting others to eat blueberries to fight cancer and improve memory and fight belly fat, but not bother to do it very often myself?

Intending to remedy this terrible lapse, I threw some blueberries in my next smoothie, along with all the other ingredients. And sure enough, it tasted great!

The problem: it looked like some sort of toxic industrial sludge. Certainly not like a fruity beverage someone would drink on purpose. The hideous brownish gray color just screamed: "Don't drink this, it's gonna make you barf!"

Whoops. I'd forgotten those kindergarten lessons about primary colors: mix them all together and you get a big mess. It slipped my mind that Green=Blue + Yellow, and that Purple (the actual color of blueberries, despite the name) contains Red as well as Blue. Thus if you mix Purple and Green, you are combining Blue + Red + Yellow and that equals: Yecchhh.

So here's the dilemma: I now feel like it's a "waste" of a smoothie if I don't get vegetable credit, since I can so easily add spinach and not really taste it. But if I want to return to blueberries, strawberries, or raspberries, I'm gonna have to learn to like a grayish brown beverage that scares the bejeesus out of me in the morning. What to do?

And yes, I fully understand that this is a ridiculous problem, especially in a world where people are starving and dying of awful diseases etc. I swear I will not be trying to set up a Save the Pretty Smoothie Foundation to fund research into this distressing aesthetic problem and asking you to contribute. But I did wonder, since the Green Smoothie movement seems to be sweeping the health blog world, what other folks are doing about red and purple produce problem. Is there some secret that allows Green and Purple to live together in harmony in a smoothie glass? Or is always gonna get ugly when they show up in a blender together?

"My antioxidants are way better than yours!"
"Says who? You suck!"
Pascal Vuylsteker

In Other Beverage News Oh, and I did promise some health research, didn't I? And it's even kind of related, at least if you are like me and use milk in your smoothies.

(Although I realize most people don't use milk in green smoothies, at least if you google "green smoothie recipes." Perhaps because raw food vegans are the source of a lot of collections of green smoothie recipes?)

Anyway, so a study just came out linking milk-drinking and longevity. And the summary is short on details, but it doesn't look as though they were looking at nonfat or lowfat milk in particular. Which seems kinda weird, given all the stuff we hear about saturated fats. (I go for nonfat myself). The only risk milk seemed to increase was prostate cancer, while it lowered the risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

And then that milk study led me to another one listed nearby from a couple years ago that said drinking milk helps you gain muscle and lose fat. Which sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

I know lots of folks steer clear of milk because of digestive issues or because of a vegan diet or whatever. But being lazy, I find milk to be a quick easy source of calcium and protein, and I drink a lot of it. So I have to confess I didn't have a lot of incentive to go chase down the particulars of the research and argue with them. But other actual scientists with access to the full study might have more helpful things to say about it.

So does anyone else struggle with foods that are good for you but look funny? Or have any magic solutions to my Green + Red = Brown problem?

Eat to Live: an apologetic book review

At Cranky Fitness, we don't usually review books, because it's hard to be both polite and cranky. In this case, I thought it was necessary.

I first read about Dr. Fuhrman last year on Diet Blog. And -- I'm sorry if this sounds mean -- I wasn't quite sure if he was legit. Even allowing for the fact that a blog post doesn't allow room for a well-thrashed-out thesis, his talk of Toxic Hunger sounded very similar to catch phrases like Toxic Fat, which have a "marketing to scare people so they'll pay money" sort of feel about it. So I was prejudiced.

And it does seem counter-intuitive that hunger doesn't originate in the stomach but rather in the throat. I haven't experienced that myself -- but you know what? That really isn't relevant to the main point of this book Eat to Live so I'm going to skip over it.

I was impressed with this book. For one thing, it is very, very well researched. Some chapters, it seems like every other sentence has a footnote referring to a peer-reviewed research study that was published in a well-respected journal.

I’ve read diet books where all the references cited lead to other books written by the same author. Fuhrman’s references lead to studies reported in journals that even I have heard of. That’s impressive. One study, or two or three, I could refute/ignore/disagree with out of laziness or feeling contrary. When I find study after study after study all backing up what he’s selling, then it’s a lot harder to disagree with him.

On the other hand, this guy's never going to become a millionaire selling this book.

How not to get rich writing a diet book:

- He doesn’t use the book to promote a lot of His Own Special Brand^TM supplements. He promotes eating fruit and vegetables. Unless he’s got a whole lot of stock in Safeway, he’s never going to make a million $ with this approach.

- He’s more concerned with health than with weight loss. (Yeah, like people are going to go for that. What was he thinking?)

- He’s not taking a few facts and stringing them together into a clever theory embellished with a lot of long, pseudo-scientific jargon. (How can you impress people if you don’t use jargon?)

I have to admit to a certain prejudice against Doctors Who Are Selling Something. This always causes me to go into auto-cynic mode, which is probably not fair since some of these doctors are well-intentioned, and doctors have as much right to make a living as anyone else. The thing is, I want them to sell knowledge rather than Success Pills for three easy payments of $45.99. What Dr. Fuhrman does is encourage you to eat foods that you can grow yourself, or at least can go down the road and buy at the grocery store. His website offers the chance to buy additional stuff, but that's not mentioned in the book.

I think I liked what he wrote because it agreed so much with what I've deduced from what I've read over several years. I don't see why he would limit the daily intake of flax seed to only one teaspoon, but aside from that I kinda like what he's saying.

The bad news

This guy's diet is strict. And permanent. The only way to make it following this lifelong diet is to learn to like vegetables. I'm actually getting there. Me, the confirmed carnivore, who can -- and has-- gone days eating only food that came from the meat and bakery departments, now spends most of my time in the produce section. I'm still not going to say I love vegetables, but I do love not feeling stuffed with saturated fat and greasy food.

How strict is strict?

This diet is more strict that Dean Ornish's diet plan, and he's always been my end-point for Strict.


The basic tenets of the diet

- 1 pound raw veggies & fruit (on my scale, that's 1 apple, 1 cucumber, and 1 cup green leafies)

- 1 pound cooked veggies

- limited quantities of grains and starchy veggies

- sayonara to meat,¹ processed foods,² caffeine,³ alcohol<sup>4

1</sup>That sound you just heard was several people leaving this blog and going to Mark's Daily Apple to complain. Hey, go with what works for you. I'm just telling you what Fuhrman says. Actually, he’s not far from the Primal approach. He figures it’s better to be a semi-vegetarian, i.e. it’s okay to eat some meat if you’re going to eat a whole lot of vegetables as well. (I think he would prefer you not eat meat, but he says it’s vastly better than being a vegetarian who goes around gorging on breads and pastries.)


²There go the Jenny Craig & WeightWatchers-meals groups.

³Ah, just lost the Starbucks crowd.

⁴The last Cranky Fitness reader shuts the door behind him as he leaves.

Um... is anyone still reading this? Fuhrman says that after six weeks or so, unless you're really looking to lose a lot of weight, re-introduce more grains and starchy vegetables. Avoid processed foods like the evil pesticide-ridden plague foods that they are.

Fuhrman himself says this diet is not for everyone. People will say "hey, this diet will make me so miserable that it's not worth it." I'm not sure I agree. Yeah, changing your mindset and getting your body used to a more healthy diet is no fun, but once you've made the adjustment it seems to me you'll be having a whole lot more fun in life. The quality of life is better if you eat healthy and work out.

Ever tried going mostly vegetarian? Did it help or hinder your health efforts?

Advice for Graduates, CF style

Photo courtesy Beard Papa

It's that time of year.

People are graduating left and right, and you need to send cards, presents, or -- the favorite thing to give, at least it was in my college days -- lots of advice.


Since we at Cranky Fitness love to give out advice being helpful, I'll pass on to you the very last piece of good advice that I received before I walked down the aisle in that funny black robe. What I was told was this:

Vegetables start to lose their nutrients within 20 minutes of being picked.

(This advice is not as weird as it sounds; the woman behind me in line to graduate was an organic farmer.)

Since I've started picking weeds harvesting useful vegetables in my yard each morning before I head off to work, I've noticed a definite improvement from the point of view of my taste buds. I do not love vegetables -- we're not even "just good friends" -- but even I can taste the difference between leafy greens that I picked an hour ago and leafy greens that I buy in the store, which were picked days ago and driven/flown in from somewhere a long ways away.

They tell me that frozen vegetables are full of fresh vegetable goodness and nutrient-ness, and they may well be right. Froz. veggies are just not as crisp. Maybe they'd qualify for the runner-up position if you can't find a local source of really fresh veggies.

How to find a local vegetable?

Farmers Markets and CSAs

This link helps you to find a local farmers market or CSA (In this case, "local" means somewhere in the continental US/lower Canada, and "somewhere" means not too close to a desert.)

No, CSA is not the name of a government organization concerned with covert or indeed overt operations. In this case, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. Somebody else grows the food and picks it, but instead of driving it to the store so that it can sit on the shelf for a few weeks having Muzak played at it, the food can be delivered straight to your door. (And what you choose to do with your food in the privacy of your own home is really none of my business. Really. I don't want to know.)

Get a window box

Grow vegetables in containers

If all else fails, you can always raid your neighbor's vegetable garden.
Worked for Peter Rabbit.



Fancy and local

Oh all right. If you're too honest for that (or if you read about What Happens to Bad Bunnies), then try an upscale grocery store. They're getting quite proud of carrying local produce. (Unless you live in a desert, in which case you might want to go back to growing stuff indoors near a sunny window. Deserts get loads of sunshine.)

I realize that we can't get fresh veggies year around (unless "we" live in California or somewhere of similar climate). But that's all the more reason to go for the gusto green beans while you can!

If your graduate isn't satisfied with this advice, this would be a good time to tell them about how much harder things were in your day. Uphill through the snow to school... both ways... and having to live in the dark ages before cable TV, back when twitter was something birds did, you young whippersnappers don't know what it was like...

Oh all right. Do you know any good ways to get fresh vegetables without going out and plowing the back 40?

Photo credit: Futurilla

If I can't smoke it, why should I grow it?

The ultimate NIMBY...
Photo credit: aussiegall

I grew up in a neighborhood of immigrants. One year, the guy across the street planted his entire front yard in potatoes. His daughter, not being from the Old Country, was mortified with shame. It was UnAmerican to use a front yard like that. He never saw her point of view but, not wanting to embarrass her, he went back to growing grass like everyone else.

Sometimes convention is habit that's hardened into prejudice, and prejudices cannot be addressed using logic. Surprisingly enough, some vegetables fall into this category. They provoke illogical responses -- especially this one vegetable. I mean, I could say that this vegetable contains the fountain of youth and people would still scoff.

I think the conversation would go something like this:

Me: It's really healthy and full of vitamins .

Friend: Who cares! It's a weed!

Me: It's easy to grow your own -- fresh, local, and organic.

Friend: Who cares! It's a weed!

Me: It can help you lose weight.

Friend: Who cares! It's a --- hmmmn, wait a minute. I don't want to be too narrow minded here. Can you tell me more?

Dandelion leaves fall into the category of healthy green leafy veggies.

What were you saying about it helping weight loss?

They grow, as most people know to their regret, almost any where.

You mentioned weight loss a minute ago?

Not only are they in the top 4 green vegetables in overall nutritional value (USDA Bulletin #8, "Composition of Foods, Haytowitz and Matthews 1984), their diuretic properties work against excess water retention. Most diurectics have the serious drawback of causing you to lose potassium, but dandelions have such a high level of potassium in the leaves that you don't end up with a deficit.

Who cares about all that so long as I'm thin, thin, thin!

All right, you can say it's a weed. But not just a weed. It's a nutritious weed. (Yes, unless you spray it with evil poisons, but those poisons would be bad for you regardless of the food they were sprayed on -- even if you were eating a cupcake.) Dandelions are a "very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol), Vitamin K, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Iron, Potassium and Manganese."

Note: people take dandelion pills or tinctures for medicinal benefits. (For example, it is used as a traditional medicine for liver problems.) Using concentrated amounts of dandelion extract can have a powerful effect on your system, not always a good idea if you're taking other medications as the same time.

That's not what I'm talking about. I am focused here on eating green leafy vegetables. You take anything in concentrated doses and you'll want to be careful. Ingesting dandelion leaves in a salad is much safer. If you're just concerned with eating a vegetable that's good for you, this is it.

A cup of dandelion greens, 25 calories, gets you:
112% of your daily need for vitamin A
30% of vitamin C
585 friggin' % of vitamin K
24 mg Omega-3
144 mg Omega-6

Dandelion are supposed to have medicinal properties as well. The official name of the plant is Taraxacum officinale, which is fancy language for the "Official Remedy for Disorders." Most of its reputation as a tonic is based on traditional European folklore. That doesn't mean the claims are false, but I'm conditioned to want to hear about health from people in white coats.

There isn't as much scientific research out there as I would like re: its tonic properties. I did find a study that claimed dandelions would help with lipid metabolism of diabetics. Mostly what I found was vague but quite positive. "The well-known pharmacological effects, together with the low toxicity, suggested by other authors, make this underutilized plant a good candidate for use as food source."

All the experts on the web and in upscale recipe books say pick the tender young leaves. However, if you're trying to follow the folklore route and eat this stuff to help your liver, they say you should include some of the older, more bitter-tasting leaves. Southern cuisine pairs dandelion leaves with bacon, Asian cuisine combines it with salty-tasting recipes.

Also, you can use the root to make tea. "The tea made of it is of medicinal importance, has a stomachic, tonic, diuretic, aperient, digestion stimulating, antibilious, blood purifying effect."

Incidentally, another weed that people spend a lot of time and effort trying to get rid of is purslane (Portulaca oleracea). Did you know it is the highest vegetable-based source of omega-3s?

If you want to eat a healthy diet without breaking the bank, maybe it's time to stop thinking of all weeds as an enemy. (Some weeds are definitely still in the enemy category -- I haven't found a single source that claims poison oak has a redeeming quality.)

What, you're still reading this? You haven't given up in disgust and clicked on Bubbleshooter instead? I'm impressed. To most people, the idea of eating weeds that grow in a backyard sounds as absurd as planting potatoes instead of a lawn.

I think it's the same mindset as growing potatoes on the lawn. Eating dandelions might be logical, it might be practical, it might be healthy.

Plus it could help you lose weight! Don't forget the important stuff!

But if you ate it, people would think you weird. Why is this? People don't value something if it's free? You can buy dandelion leaves in upscale trendy grocery stores. Does that make the veggie more appealing?

I think this prejudice falls into the category of "Just Because." Can't see another reason for it. (If you can, please let me know!)


I'm not planning to start a campaign, People for the Eating of Dandelions Dammit (PEDD). I'm just curious -- what's your reason for avoiding them?


Caveats: I haven't been able to verify this, but I've read you should avoid dandelions if you have allergies to latex or daisies. And yes, yes, obviously, avoid it if you're not sure the area has not been sprayed. While supposedly quite helpful for people in the early stages of liver and gall bladder disorders, dandelions are in check-with-the-doc territory if you have gall stones. The bitter elements increase the amount of bile produced.

Mission: Vegetables before Six P.M.

We all know we're supposed to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, right? Depending on where you get your dietary advice from, that can range from 5 servings a day to 9-11 servings a day. (And that doesn't mean strawberry flavored pop-tart filling or french fries, either. That generally means real nutritious fruits and vegetables).

For me, the "fruit" part is easier than the "vegetable" part. Fruit goes great with breakfast and lunch, as a snack, or even with dinner. Fruit is easy.

But vegetables? I do really well at dinner--we pretty much always have a big-ass salad, and there are additional vegetables either in or sitting aside the main course. I seem, however, to struggle with getting vegetables during daylight hours. Not getting vegetables before dinner puts a lot of pressure on dinner! It would be nice to have more of them out of the way before the sun sets.

My problem: I'm not a big fan of salads at lunch. Why not? Hell if I know. I'm just not. And as to raw vegetables like carrots or bell pepper slices or cauliflower florets? I start to tire of them after a few bites, and then start to resent them for not being gone already. Go away, raw vegetables! But they take forever to chew up and swallow and they are, frankly, not very tasty. I rarely subject myself to them anymore. For the most part, I'd much rather grab a piece of fruit than a vegetable.


While I do have a few methods for tricking myself into eating vegetables before dinner, (and have just discovered a new one that I'll share), I could really use some helpful advice!

Lunch Time Vegetables:

Pretty much my only trick here is: Reheat leftovers from last night's dinner. Soups, pasta with vegetables in it, chili, stir fries, takeout Thai or Indian... If there's a tasty sauce of some sort, particularly if it contains oil and garlic, then I'm willing to get vegetables at lunch. Otherwise? Not so much.

Breakfast Vegetables:

A long time ago, when the blog was very very young (it was on Day 2, I believe, and I was still writing in the third person) I wrote a post about a way to sneak in a morning vegetable: I mixed canned pumpkin with yogurt, pumpkin pie spices, and a boatload of my sweetener of choice. (Let's just pretend that sweetener was honey or agave nectar or something natural you'd all approve of, shall we? ) But pumpkin is a very particular flavor, and I only like it every now and then.

And, well, there are scrambled eggs with onion and pepper and tomatoes and maybe spinach in there. But that doesn't happen very often either, because it requires chopping things and washing out a pan and I'm lazy in the mornings.

So what's the newest breakfast vegetable trick I discovered?

Putting spinach in smoothies!

Green Smoothie photo: nic221

Note: And by "discovered" I mean: "read about in many of your blogs and thought no way in hell! Yeccch! You people are nuts! Until then I finally tried it myself and realized you all were actually onto something." That kind of "discovered."

Yep, I put a cup of spinach in the blender with my normal smoothie recipe, and I couldn't even taste the spinach in there! (The spinach was uncooked; I believe this is probably crucial if you want to avoid barfing). Then, feeling even more adventurous the next day, I put an additional cup of raw spinach in. With two cups, I could taste it a little. But it was just a slightly green, grassy taste, not at all disgustingly vile and loathsome as one might assume!

So I confess, it did look weird. Because I used blueberries, the whole thing wasn't green--it was a rather unattractive purplish-gray. But the smugness I felt from drinking spinach in the morning made it totally worth consuming an ugly beverage.

Now I'm curious about other vegetables. Carrots? Bell peppers? Has anyone experimented with what they can get away with in their smoothies? I'm thinking broccoli is kinda unlikely.

But I need more help! Does anyone else struggle with getting enough vegetables in before dinner? Any suggestions that don't involve carrot sticks?

Seeing red: a meaty topic

I don't want to make anybody see red -- I know this is a topic that has some people gnashing their teeth -- but I have two studies that Made Me Think.

This post is in three parts:

The first is a study quoted by my doc-crush, Dr. Mirkin. (Oh, get a hospital room already, Merry! ) The second was a fairly large study that was published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal.

And the third is a rant -- me sounding off proactively at people who might disagree with my conclusions re study #1 and study #2. (Why? Because I have a headache.)

Headaches make me cranky. You got a problem with that?

The reason I think people might not like these studies is that both of them offer different reasons why we shouldn't eat red meat.

Sudden stampede of all the meat-lovers heading for the door...

Okay, Dr. Mirkin's study first.

There's a molecule called Neu5Gc. Professor Ajit Varki, of the University of California, San Diego discovered that this molecule appears in the tissues of every mammal except humans (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 29, 2003).

To quote Dr. Mirkin verbatim:
"Since humans cannot make Neu5Gc, any amount found in human cells come from the mammals that they have eaten. Neu5Gc is found in high levels in tumors, with the highest levels in metastasizing tumors. In our food supply, Dr. Varki found very high levels of Neu5Gc in beef, pork, lamb and goat, and moderately high amounts in milk and cheese. Low levels are found in turkey, duck, chicken and eggs; and negligible amounts occur in plants and seafood."

My summary: red meat = not good for humans.


The second study was a fairly large study -- 4680 adults aged 40-59 -- published by a reputable, peer-reviewed journal. For the researchers to flatly state, at the end of their abstract, that "An unfavorable effect of red meat on blood pressure was observed" -- that's a strong statement. I have to say that I'm impressed by this study.

Yeah, that's really interesting news, Merry. Ain't going to stop me from ordering prime rib next time I eat out though. So why should I care?

Humans are omnivores; we can eat all kinds of food stuffs that herbivores can't handle. We can take it.

Yeah, those skinny model types just love to eat 1000 calorie hamburgers...

Photo credit: Kate Raynes-Goldie

The proactive rant

Humans are omnivores, we can take it. Indeed, as you can verify by standing outside any Burger King at lunchtime, humans quite frequently do take it. To go. We eat meat. (I am making the assumption that the hordes of people darkening the doors of BK aren't going there for a salad -- at least, not the majority of them.) Then again, humans can also inhale tobacco smoke. Because we can do something does not seem to me to be a sufficient argument to say that it's an intelligent or healthy choice.

I have a feeling that I'm going to get people mad at me by saying red meat is something to maybe possibly consider avoiding. I don't want to get the Primal people going postal on me -- I really do like the Mark's Daily Apple blog and enjoy reading his blog regularly.

I agree that yes, Grok the caveman probably did hit up the local Mammoth King, i.e. he ate meat when he could catch it. I don't think that means he ate meat every day, or that he ate only meat, or that he skipped the veggies because he'd already had a snack on the way home. If your meat meal is still standing on its legs and doesn't really fancy being eaten, sometimes you're going to go without. Ask any lion pack. (From a safe distance. A hungry lion isn't really going to feel like having a debate.) I'm going to go out on a primeval limb and claim that cavemen ate any food was easiest to catch and in most seasons of the year, in most climates of the globe, that would have been fruit, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds.

Unless you're out on your own trying to reenact Survivor, you've got it fairly easy. You don't have to catch the meat, you don't have to gather the nuts or vegetables. You can walk into a convenient store and pick up a package that's already slaughtered, sliced and diced. Just heat and serve. Try to do all the hunting & gathering, curing & cooking on your own and you might well end up like the guy in the book Into the Wild , who died up in Alaska after trying to live off the land. There's debate over what exactly killed him, but the autopsy results showed a man who was well on his way to starvation anyway.

Mark's Daily Apple does not advocate eating the food without walking the workout, but even so I worry that some people will adopt the caveman diet while keeping the modern, sedentary lifestyle. (The guy behind this blog comes from the perspective of someone who could knock of a few triathalons before breakfast, fer pete's sake.)

Anyway -- the point of my rant? The studies that impressed me so much both suggest that humans should not eat red meat. I do not think these studies contradict the basic message of primitive diets such as advocated by certain cool blogs, because a real primitive lifestyle would involve eating all kinds of protein: fish, fowl, or even duck-billed platypus if that was what was available locally.

I grew up firmly believing that I needed the occasional meat meal to survive, so I understand if people don't want to agree with these studies.

Tell me if you think they're wrong.

Or if you think I'm wrong.

Or if you think posting pictures of Paris Hilton pretending to chow down on a burger is wrong. (Anybody seriously believe she actually ate the burger? Really? Cool! Listen, I've got this prime location swampland in Florida that you're just going to looooove. Let me tell you all about it...)

Red meat? Noooo problem...

People for Ethical Relationships with Vegetables

Holy crap.

The other day, I found myself agreeing with something Bill O'Reilly said.

In case you don't know him, Bill O'Reilly is a guy on American television. Talks a lot, in a loud angry voice. I'm not sure what he actually talks about, because as soon as he starts yelling (i.e. whenever his mouth is open) I switch channels. I think he participates in stirring intellectual debates yells about political subjects.

In case you don't know me, I (Merry) am neither male, loud, nor given to appearing on television.

What brought the two of us into agreement was an ad that PETA had tried to get played during the Super Bowl. (And how weird is it that some people now watch this sports contest solely for the ads?)


The ad features scantily clad models posing suggestively with vegetables and no, I don't mean people in a coma. NSFW, but might be useful at home if you want to turn your own cheeseburger-munching Homer Simpson into a veggie-lovin' Hugh Jackman.

NBC rejected the ad, called "Veggie Love," because it "depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards."

I hope posting this video hasn't caused a horde of Cranky Fitness readers to storm off in a Huffington post. The video strikes me as more silly than salacious, but it's certainly gotten a lot of coverage. (More coverage than those poor models had; really, the thermal-insulation properties of black lace have been seriously overestimated.)

If you'd prefer a PG-version, this is Whoopi Goldberg's safe-for-television re-enactment.

I've decided that I should start a movement, and invite Mr. O'Reilly to join. All I can think of to call it is People for Ethical Relationships with Vegetables. (Yes, I realize the abbreviation of the name might cause some people to look askance, but I figure most of the askance-looking people already stormed off in the previous paragraph.)

What Bill O'Reilly actually said that struck me as profound was the following comment: "I'm not touching that vegetable! I don't know where it's been!"

Whether you fall into the Liberal, Conservative, or Confused category politically, I think you should listen to the man on this one.

If a vegetable is labeled organic, that means (according to the USDA) that it's been grown with the minimal amount of pesticides.

The good news is, not all organic vegetables were created equal. Some vegetables, it doesn't matter so much if they were raised around pesticides, because they don't absorb them (the pesticides) as much and therefore you don't ingest them either.

This chart lists the vegetables that you really want to buy organic and the ones that it's okay to buy from a regular source.

Since organic vegetables = more $$ than your average vegetables, following this chart is a way to save money while staying healthy.

And what you choose to do with those vegetables, in the privacy of your own home, is none of my business. Frankly, I'd rather not know. No, really.

P.S. Here are the commercials that actually made it to the Super Bowl.

P.P.S. I don't suppose you can think up a better name for my new vegetable-respecting movement?

The CF Holiday party: Yule be surprised

Remember last year's Cranky Fitness Christmas party? Crabby rented this snowbound outhouse cabin in the woods. Very scenic, but a bit cramped for space.



This year, I put my foot down and insisted on a proper party. Unfortunately, due to a sad but understandable homonym mixup, the plan for a Yule celebration resulted in ...

a Euell celebration. We had hickory nuts in addition to the more traditional rum balls. Still a good party. And I think I can write this post without being affected at all by all those rum balls and the festive atmosphere. Probably.

(Euell Gibbons was the author of Stalking the Wild Asparagus, a book about harvesting food from nature. Also he did a commercial about Grape Nuts, if your memory goes back that far.)

Tis the season? Bah humbug

In addition to rum balls, 'tis the season to be thinking about stuffing yourself with stuffing and pecan pie and turkey and pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes and mince pie and sundry similar high calories foods (including more pie). Something about this Season of Excessive Calories makes me yearn for plain fresh green vegetable type foods. (And no, that damn green bean casserole does not count! Get it away!)

Eat, Drink, and be Vegan has a pretty tasty recipe for a Greens smoothie. What I especially liked about her recipe was that the green mentioned was kale, which is a winter vegetable. And probably much healthier than this rum ball that I'm about to consume. At this time of year, I need to focus on eating vegetables, just to balance out all the fa-la-la indulgence.

Greens are important: internally and externally

A study in England suggests that having access to nature, "green space," had a noticeable effect on health even after other health factors had been taken into account.

"When the records of more than 366,000 people who died between 2001 and 2005 were analysed, it revealed that even tiny green spaces in the areas in which they lived made a big difference to their risk of fatal diseases. "

This makes sense to me. As a species, we've spent thousands if not millions of years living out of doors most of the time. We can't expect to adapt to an all-indoors environment of fluorescent lights, anonymous cubicles, wall-to-wall carpeting and whatnot in just a few generations.

The rum balls start to take effect

Hmmmn... what was I talking about? I can't remember. I bet it was about procrastination. Did you see that an academic published a report that reduced procrastination to a mathematical formula? It took him 10 years to figure the formula out. (10 years? What an amateur. Why, it would've taken me at least 20 years.)

The equation is U=EV/ID.

The 'U' stands for utility, or the desire to complete a given task. It is equal to the product of E, the expectation of success, and V the value of completion, divided by the product of I, the immediacy of the task, and D, the personal sensitivity to delay.

According to the researcher, people who procrastinate (about 20% of the population) are into short-term gain rather than long-term satisfaction.

Seems to me that the percentage is a lot higher than 20%. And that took him 10 years to figure out? Why thank you, I will have another rum ball.

Researchers say we're either Homer or Mr. Spock

Another study that made me wonder if the researchers had been nibbling at the rum balls was one about the two types of travelers. According to a study published by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Technology Strategy Board in the U.K., few people "bother to check train times or consult websites to see if there are problems on the motorways. We often ignore overhead warnings on the roads because we think we know best." The study claims that people can be classified as either a Mr. Spock or a Homer Simpson type.

A Mr. Spock type personality is logical and proactive. He or she will check out websites ahead of time, call 511 for roadside information, ritually slaughter the oracular chicken and examine its entrails for information about the future of the roads over the next few days.

A Homer Simpson type, on the other hand, adopts a more happy-go-lucky approach. "As long as things work out he has many other things on his mind besides 'optimising' his travel."

Can't there be an in-between approach? Am I the only one who consults the websites, slaughters the oracular chicken, then goes off on the road hoping things will work out okay?

Stressed out seaweed affects the weather? What?

I think I might have overdone the rum balls. This study sounds too bizarre. Apparently, stressing out seaweed results in gloomy weather. According to the researchers, this only applies to areas that are near the kelp, i.e. I can't blame Portland's seven days of snow on stressed out kelp beds an hour away on the coast. Pity. I would like to find something or someone to blame the weather on. It's very satisfactory to have someone (else) to blame.

Hmmmn.... is the room supposed to be spinning now? It looks like Crabby has lit up that huge glittering disco ball again. (I thought I got rid of that last year.) I'd better go make sure there's no disco inappropriate music in the CD player.

To sum up: you can blame the bad weather on the kelp, the happy-go-lucky drivers out there on the Simpsons, and any extremely random holiday blogs on rum balls. Hope your holidays are fun!

The Raw (food) Deal

Raw food is all the rage, according to Psychology Today.

(Note the use of the word 'rage' in that statement. Its significance will shortly become apparent.)

I know that this diet has the advantage of having been around for a long time. Since before humans discovered fire, if I'm not mistaken. And it does have the advantage of being the fastest fast food possible. Grab and chew is as good as it gets. But why is it such a big deal now?

I was curious, so I thought I would look into it.

I've been following the standard PGD, or Pretty Good Diet. You know the sort of thing -- making sure I've eating 5 daily servings of fruit and veggies -- well, 3 or 4 servings is still pretty good, and hey I'll eat more fruit on the weekends to make up. It's kind of like the Pretty Good exercise plan. Doesn't really hurt you, though it's not going to help you lose weight or get into good shape.

The trouble I've found with this diet is that it's too easy for it to degrade into the PAD, or Pretty Awful Diet. You find yourself rationalizing all kinds of bad food decisions "just this once." (No, Merry, carrot cake does not count as a daily veg serving.)


So I figured I'd give this raw deal a try. I went cold carrot: eating whole-grain stuff and green leafy things and some fruit thrown in for dessert.

The main problem at work was all the eyebrow-raising that went on. "You're going to eat all that?" was a typical comment. But if you've ever tried it you'll agree that even after eating a whole cup o' green leafy things, you can still be hungry.

Very hungry.
Every day, I dutifully chomped my way through several cups of salad, bell peppers, oatmeal-with-fruit-and-flaxseed, the works. And invariably, by 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I was so hungry I was ready to chew plastic. Felt like a junkie needing a fix. (Um... I'm assuming this is how a junkie would feel. Not talking from experience.) I was irritable enough to kick innocent little kittens. I was angry.

Really angry.

The 'fix' for this problem was a quick piece of chicken. Within 20 minutes I had resumed my placid, agreeable demeanor. Or as close as I get, anyway.

How the heck am I supposed to be good when eating right makes me want to tell the world to go screw itself?


It's been a long time since my ancestors lived in caves and had names like Ungh. My ancestors have been in America long enough for the intestinal flora to adapt to a diet of hamburgers and fries. After pretty faithfully following this raw diet for a month (i.e. 90% of my diet = raw vegetables), my innards let me know how they felt about it.

- I felt much lighter. Apart from some ground up flax seed, I ate almost no fats. (90% of my diet was fat free.) As a result, I never felt weighed down.

- Since I was eating food that my innards weren't prepared for, I was also generating enough gas to make me a subject of interest to Exxon Mobil. (TMI? What TMI? That's just another TLA, isn't it?)

- In the evening, I inevitably had a dinner with some lean beef, chicken or fish. Not a lot, percentage-wise, but a couple ounces. I couldn't go all day and night without 'food.' (Somehow vegetables do not equal food, at least not to my subconscious.)

- I'd never heard that raw vegetables were like Chinese food, but it's true. Even though I ate veggies almost every hour on the hour, I was always hungry 30 minutes later. (I totaled up the number of calories I was consuming on a daily basis, and by late afternoon I usually ended up consuming about 900 calories.)

I don't care what they say about roughage and fiber, you have to eat a lot to equal the amount of calorie-satiation found in one hamburger or one Krispy Kreme. The trouble is that now I can't go back: just the thought of a fast-food burger makes me feel greasy.

I would have thought my body would have become accustomed to this diet after a month, but noooo. I'm screwed either way: good food makes me ravenous and bad food makes me sick.

Has anyone out there, a fellow confirmed carnivore, ever tried going cold carrot? If so, how long did it take? Enquiring minds (and innards) want to know!


Note: These pictures have absolutely nothing to do with raw food. (Oregon aficionados might recognize Cape Perpetua and Cannon Beach.) I wanted to keep alive the spirit of the Cranky Fitness photo competition. (This week: east coast vs. west coast.)