Pandemic pandemonium. That's what it's called when you read about pandemics during a pandemic.
It's also called "ill-advised," but hey, at least it waPandemic pandemonium. That's what it's called when you read about pandemics during a pandemic.
It's also called "ill-advised," but hey, at least it wasn't as bad as Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which was about as dark and depressing as post-apocalypse gets.
Emily St. John Mandel's rendition, on the other hand, is The Road Lite. There's less on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense, less fear and loathing, less despair over the condition of the damned human race. Here at least they still play symphony music and perform Shakespeare (himself a Plague Author) for survivors humming "The Way We Were."
The book starts with the death of an actor performing King Lear just days before the incurable FLU goes wild and then jumps 20 years into the future to the traveling Symphony survivors. At first I was confused as to why the author kept jumping back to the less-interesting Lear actor narrative, but it all came together in the end. Trust in the architect when reading plots and subplots! I reminded myself.
So I trusted, and it paid off, and it had its exciting moments, too, with some characters I cared about, and some plot developments I found a tad predictable, but overall, it was a page turner with some heft, so I'm glad I went at it, despite these unpleasant and unpredictable (and toilet-paperless) times....more
A nice survey of the State of Food in the world. Most of the news is bad, of course, and always will be with Big Food (read: corporations) in charge. A nice survey of the State of Food in the world. Most of the news is bad, of course, and always will be with Big Food (read: corporations) in charge. Monoculture has crept in, erasing many of the lines separating various food cultures, and monoculture is laced with sugar and processed oils and flashy marketing and cheap, genetically-modified wheat and soy and so forth.
Bottom line: In some ways we have way, way more choices than our grandparents did, food-wise, but in other ways they ate healthier than we do because they didn't have to deal with pesticides, food additives, reindeer games of science and genes, and produce that is puffed up to last as long as possible due to its distant travels.
Socio-economics play into the scene, too, of course. It's not by accident that the healthiest foods (e.g. fresh produce) cost more than highly-processed foods. If you're worried about stretching your dollar, you're likely obese. What makes sense economically makes no sense medically.
Just about everything you can think of is in here: meals in boxes, the snack bar craze, powdered protein smoothies, marketing to children (with dire results), diseases, detox crazes, diets, food fads, food corruption (where what you think is in the bottle is not in the bottle), the effects of plastic packaging, governmental oversight (Chile wins!) and lack thereof (hello, USA!).
Overall, filling and satisfying, though you may wish that some of the many categories went into greater depth, depending on your particular interests....more
It's not just what you eat, it's what you DON'T eat. Gundry, a heart surgeon slash nutritionist slash researcher with a lot of experience in autoimmun
It's not just what you eat, it's what you DON'T eat. Gundry, a heart surgeon slash nutritionist slash researcher with a lot of experience in autoimmune disorders, arthritis cases, heart issues, stomach issues, and neurological problems, brings his practice and his patients and his research to fruition in this well-written, easy-to-understand text.
In a nutshell, the focus is on lectins, found in plants that don't like to be eaten (not only by little insects but by big ones like you and me). Chief among them are the nightshades and New World veggies (really fruits) like cucumbers, squash, zucchini, tomatoes, etc. Think seeds.
In his view, fruit are a no-no, too. Fructose = sugar = candy. And if you're eating chicken or beef or free-range eggs but are avoiding GMO corn and soy, don't kid yourself. You are what the animal you eat, eats. Period.
Helpful advice not only on food but supplements. A specific 3-day cleanse start followed by Phase 2 and 3 plans. Definitions are provided on things like "free-range" which simply means a door must be open 5 minutes a day. (How many chickens go out of that huge barn.) Like the word "natural," it's meaningless.
Informative and humorous. Doc Gundry seems like the kind of guy you might have a beer with -- only you're only allowed red wine, and that in a very small dose.
All that said, before you buy it, you owe yourself a look at Dr. Gerger's rejoinder (basically calling the book so much horseshoe). See Jamal's link in the comments. ...more
What's a "Blue Zone"? It's Dan Buettner's name for areas in the world where people live a long time: Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; What's a "Blue Zone"? It's Dan Buettner's name for areas in the world where people live a long time: Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Loma Linda, CA; and Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. Dan and his team of experts determined that diet and certain activities make these people live longer. There are many similarities and some differences.
Similarities: They eat a lot of homegrown fruits and vegetables. "Organic" isn't some overpriced produce in the grocery stores, it's just the way food is grown and has been grown forever. This was once true in the United States of Big Ag (Chemicals R Us), too. Once. Anyway, they also tend to eat a lot of beans (legumes) and nuts/seeds. What they don't eat much of is meat. Maybe once a week or for celebrations. Eggs are used sparingly, too, as is dairy (the exception being goat and sheep milk/cheese, both more easily digested). Fish? In some cases, yes. In others, no. None of these groups have much use for sugar and salt. They eat whole foods. Bread? OK if whole grain, ixnay on white, sourdough OK, too.
Differences: Many consume lots of coffee, but the Seventh Day Adventists of Loma Linda, CA, shun it. Many consume one or two glasses of red wine with dinner, but again, the Adventists don't drink alcohol. As stated, some do more fish than others. Some (Costa Ricans) more corn and squash than others.
Habits: These people see food as a gift, a blessing. They sit down together -- no electronics ever -- they give thanks, they eat slowly, they enjoy each other's presence and company. They talk, by God! None of them go to gyms or go on diets, but all of them get plenty of exercise from everyday activities, which burn more calories in the long run: herding, gardening, fishing, walking places instead of driving places. Fasts also play a role, whether religiously-based or not. It might be weekly for a day or during special times of the calendar. Not eating some times is a healthy thing.
Many of these cultures eat bigger meals earlier, smaller later. Some eat two meals a day instead of three. In the Adventists' case, a lot of water is consumed (7 glasses a day). All groups get 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night. (Go ahead. Match it. I dare ya.)
So that's Part One of the book. Little magazine-article-like vignettes of the Zones. Part Two talks about trying to "make" blue zones, as is done in a small area of Finland, a town in Minnesota, three beach towns in California, and even a town in the Pig State, Iowa.
Part Three is about food rituals, menus, and everyday living. It's a blueprint for blue zones, a grass roots type playbook. Finally, at the end, we get 77 recipes, each inspired by the five original blue zone areas.
Yes, pretty legit stuff, though it's not exactly a gripping read and the science is off and on. For instance, Buettner still seems to believe the eggs/cholesterol myth, even though most modern studies have dispelled it. Eggs are not scary. He'll dis cow milk by saying it's "a relative newcomer, introduced about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago." Two pages later he celebrates beans, "the consummate superfood," by saying "Humans have eaten beans for at least 8,000 years" (the point being, A LONG TIME, even though the same point meant ONLY RECENTLY in the case of milk). All together now: Huh?
There are lots of little things like that. You'll see a YES for sweet potatoes but a NO for yams. Then, later in the book, in his list of Blue Zone foods, what does he list? You guessed it: Yams. Aye, Dios...
Also, there's more to this than diet and culture. Many of these places are enclaves outside of the super fast lifestyle we live. Little in the way of electronics, technology, cellphones, microwave whatevers zapping bodies 24/7. In short, life before science began simultaneously saving and killing us. Life that's simple enough to make people say, "Stress? What's that?"
But Dan just wants to talk about food and walking, so let's all agree that good food choices, good living habits, good fellowship (rugged individualism, an American staple = bad), and good walking places close enough to walk to will indeed advance our fragile little lives...
Great library loan book. Read, adopt with a friend. And family. Or church group near you....more
We live in a new age of weird diseases and symptoms -- many traveling under the "auto-immune" banner. People by the droves go to their primary care doWe live in a new age of weird diseases and symptoms -- many traveling under the "auto-immune" banner. People by the droves go to their primary care doctors and complain of stomach and digestive ailments (bloating, food allergies, abdominal pain), light-headedness, fatigue, skin rashes, eczema, rosacea, and worse. Their doctors, in turn, follow the protocols of their training and order up standard tests in search of something physical. The tests come back negative. Now doc is beginning to wonder if he has a hypochondriac on his hands, and the patients either persist or resign themselves to pain and misery, becoming depressed as symptoms continue to plague them. Sometimes more tests are ordered, but seldom is a solution found. It's a bad scene all around. Welcome to the world of microbes, the artful dodgers (at least when it comes to standard medical tests).
If you fit the description above, you should be reading Dr. Chutkan's latest book. She talks about "dysbiosis," a widely prevalent but seldom diagnosed condition where the microbial community in your body is way out of whack -- low on good bacteria and high on pathogens (bad bacteria) due to a host of modern-day causes: the accumulated ravages of antibiotic treatments, alcohol consumption, stress, diet (specifically lack of enough fiber, vegetables, fruits, fermented foods and too much sugar, carbs, processed "food," genetically-modified food), antacid use, NSAID use, birth-control pill regimes, chemotherapy, and artificial sweeteners.
As patients feel sicker, doctors unknowingly feed the flames by prescribing more pain medication, antibiotics, etc., to try to alleviate symptoms and show their patients that they are "doing something." Vicious, meet circle. The misery continues.
Well, if all politics are local, all health is in the gut. That's right. We are the microbial profile we feed on a daily basis. And while "feed" mostly means the mouth, it also includes the skin. Dr. Chutkan sees it as a twin mission: living dirty and eating clean. That means we do ourselves no favors by constantly cleaning our hands with hand sanitizers, applying skin products and soaps with anti-bacterial elements and good-bacteria killing chemicals (go ahead, read the ingredients, see if you have the slightest idea about what you are slathering to your skin and scalp on a daily basis... didn't think so).
The best part: Chutkan offers practical tips on turning it around -- what you should eat and what you should not eat. Watch out for corn, soy products, and sugar especially. They kill the Good Army and arm the Terrorist in your gut flora. They are almost all GMO-made monstrosities by now, thanks to companies like Monsanto, which have their profits (and yes, Big Pharma's, too, because sick people drive profits) to watch after. Certain bacteria (bad) thrive on sugar and artificial sweeteners and will hijack your body's eating preferences. What we call a "sweet tooth" is actually a type of bad bacteria clamoring from your gut for more of what they need to survive (that it makes you sick means little to them, they are out for themselves and haven't a clue that they will die with you).
Chutkan also offers some basic day-to-day living advice, too. A little dirt is a good thing, as is being outside (or opening windows and letting the outside in). Remember when you were a kid? Always outside, barefoot and dirty, exercising through play and interaction with others? Compare to the present, where we spend so much time in our antiseptic, air-conditioned houses, take showers every day, shellack our skin with mysterious products, clean our homes with even more mysterious, bacteria-killing products. Recipe, meet disaster. Patient, meet doctor (yet again): "Doc, I feel miserable and I don't know why." Doc and Conventional Medicine don't know why, either.
As to the book itself, yes, it is somewhat repetitive at times and not a narrative wonder or anything, but I 4-star it for its contents and importance. Chutkan even devotes a chapter to the hardcore cases. Here she discusses fecal transplants, the latest frontier for people who cannot turn around their severe conditions through diet and lifestyle changes alone. Feces from healthy patients with the correct microbial profiles are transplanted into the intestines of the sick patient with miraculous results (just look the other way and get over your aversion, I guess). It's been a life-changer for people with relentless conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, pouchitis, infectious diarrhea, etc. Animals don't eat other animals' feces for nothing. Nature is often instructive (and gross). It's squeamish patients who often choose not to heed such lessons.
Finally, and not least importantly, the book ends with 95 pages of "microbiome solution" recipes, mostly for dishes that will feed the good and suppress the bad bacteria that live within you.
Yep. Brave New World (which looks suspiciously like our grandparents' Brave OLD World, before the corporations and chemicals started to hijack our willingly sheep-like lives). Advice: Buy or check out of the library. Then fight back against bad bacteria and bad businesses that will shed no tears over your slow and protracted demise.
This is The Omnivore's Dilemma with a teaspoon of local yokel and a tablespoon of political swagger. Author Joel Salatin is a proud foodie libertarianThis is The Omnivore's Dilemma with a teaspoon of local yokel and a tablespoon of political swagger. Author Joel Salatin is a proud foodie libertarian, and if you sense an oxymoron in that pairing, you'll need to read his no-nonsense book to get the lowdown.
Yep. Joel wants to kick some ass. Mostly big government ass. Strangely enough, he finds himself allied with all the liberal Democrat foodies when it comes down to what we should be eating. It's the government that drives him mad. The "food police," as he calls them, who hide under the auspices of letters like FDA and USDA and FSIS and do their best to put little guys (read: your local farmer) out of business with onerous regulations and expensive licenses that only the big boys (Monsanto, Cargill, Tyson, et al) can afford.
How convenient. The very Big Food players who rotate employees and lawyers with the U.S. government in the name of protecting us. As Joel says repeatedly in this book: "Folks, this ain't normal."
Salatin is not only a farmer, he's a scientist who's done his homework on health, nutrition, and agriculture. As he points out, there are scientists and there are scientists. When the government lays out food rules in favor of Big Food, they always do it "in the name of science," but it's the same science that advocates genetic modification of food, irradiation of food, wholesale use of pesticides, herbicides, and gassing, cloning, additives, mass vaccinations and antibiotics, CAFOs, etc.
Right. Science in Big Food's back pocket. Scientists and lawyers who supposedly know more about food than your local farmer does. "Folks, this ain't normal."
And if you think having a Democrat in the White House whose wife is into health, nutrition, and gardening is of some comfort, think again. Salatin writes: "President Obama named Michael Taylor, the longtime Monsanto attorney who shepherded transgenic modification into the world, as his food czar. Taylor will be officially interpreting what the Food Modernization Act's demand for 'science-based' food requirements means. This phrase, brand-new in history, is used eleven times in the final law. Whose science will it be?"
In a word: Monsanto's. Oh. And President Obama's, whose selection for Sec. of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, is also in bed with Big Food and their bankrolled "scientists."
More vintage Salatin:
"Food safety is completely subjective. I don't think for a minute that most of what's in the supermarket is safe. But it's been deemed safe because it only kills you slowly. While thousands of people die due to unnatural food and nutrient-deprived food, the food police go after a cottage-industry cheesemaker because two people get diarrhea."
The chapters is this book run the gamut, from dissertations on composting toilets to down-and-dirty agronomy lessons to, yes, even Obamacare (stretching it, but it came with his Libertarian rant), so clearly you may enjoy some parts more than others. Still, Salatin's is an interesting voice. And an informative one. And certainly a lively one.
I may not agree with 100% of what Joel Salatin writes, but I agree with the vast majority, right down to the fact that libertarians and foodies make strange bedfellows who might just find good reason (before it's too late) join forces and defeat the well-heeled and entrenched dragons that besiege us from Washington.
If you care about food, you should give it a read....more
Hate “Big Food” and sick of shopping at the Big Y? Dream about being a locavore or an agripreneur (if that’s Greek to you, check out a Foodie dictionaHate “Big Food” and sick of shopping at the Big Y? Dream about being a locavore or an agripreneur (if that’s Greek to you, check out a Foodie dictionary)? Wish you could eat at a restaurant on Main Street, Your S.A., that gets 80% of its ingredients from sources within 15 miles? This book is for you.
It’s the story of one town that’s doing what other towns can only dream of doing. And if Ben Hewitt’s book goes as big as, say, a Michael Pollan release, then Hardwick, Vermont, will not be pleased with the ensuing increase of real estate values caused by well-off yuppies who are ready to forgo Whole Foods in favor of Whole Hog.
One by one, Hewitt introduces the players: a seed seller, soy maker, dairy farmer, cheese artisan, pig slaughterer, head chef, co-op food store manager, etc. You hear their opinions of their jobs and of each other's livelihoods. Tension? Sure. A lot of these youngish agripreneurs are already growing rich (not just vegetables) by selling their products to big city markets and internet shoppers. They should be feeding their own first and foremost, some argue. But then, how can they survive if “their own” alone isn’t enough to support their businesses? Paradoxes in the Green Mountain State. Hewitt's all over it and up to the philosophical musings on the topic.
At times a bit dry with its journalistic feel, The Town that Food Saved should satisfy its base, the growing ranks of foodies. Consider it a blueprint. And, if you’re too impatient to see this happen in your own town, consider it an invitation to Hardwick. Before it gets too expensive to live in, I mean. ...more
Any eaters out there? I thought so. And probably you didn't think you needed to educate yourself about eating since you mastered it way back when you Any eaters out there? I thought so. And probably you didn't think you needed to educate yourself about eating since you mastered it way back when you were a babe. Think again! Michael Pollan's call to the ramparts is must-read material for those wondering what the heck happened to food as our great-grandparents knew it. Yeah, SOME of it (real food, I mean) is still around, but an awful lot of the stuff we buy and ingest, in all innocence, is "food" that has unfortunately earned the quotation marks. Frankenfood, if you will.
The book is divided into three sections: "The Age of Nutritionism" provides all the scientific explanations about how Big Food has sacrificed your health on the altars of mass production, chemicals, and profits; "The Western Diet and the Diseases of Civilization" offers ample reasons as to why the word "die" is in western "diet"; and "Getting Over Nutritionism" sets down a list of simple actions you can take to improve your health and the world's (if not Big Food's and -- its partner in crime -- Big Pharma's). Yes, Virginia, there IS a link between these two. One begets sickness, the other produces drugs to treat those sicknesses (often unsuccessfully).
What kind of advice will you come across? Things like starting a garden, avoiding foods with unpronounceable ingredients (or more than five ingredients), spending more on food (produce is pricey, but health care is pricier -- pay it now or pay it later), and eating less food while drawing the meal out into "an event" like many other cultures do.
The book's value is priceless if you put it to good use by taking action. Try it and see....more
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