File Under: Food Fads - Facts and Fictions

Things like "Paleo Cinnamon Buns" confuse me. I know from seeing enough mentions around my internet lurking points that the primal/paleo diets generally exclude (in varying degrees) most dairy, legumes, sometimes eggs, certain seeds - including coffee and cocoa and spices derived from seeds, salt, potatoes, processed oils, limit rice, and forbid a host of other grains (starting with wheat as the primary, then oats, barley, and often malt - so no beer, sorry kiddos!). I understand that many of these restrictions are based on diets originally tailored for auto-immune deficiencies, but those conditions require special diets.

What I don't understand is the insistence on "faking" junk and comfort foods in restrictive fad diets that aren't for medical purposes. Auto-immune diseases aren't any fun. Eating better, and thinking about how what you eat impacts how you feel, that makes sense. So...I dunno...just do that? Eat sensibly. Eat fresher foods. Cut down on processed non-food stuffed full of chemicals. Ween yourself off of the processed sugar and lab-produced-sugar-substitutes.

But seriously.

Paleo. Cinnamon. Buns.

This stems from a diet that bills itself as "the world's healthiest" and claims that it "is based upon eating wholesome, contemporary foods from the food groups that our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have thrived on during the Paleolithic era, or Stone Age."

And then goes on to state "the time period from about 2.6 million years ago to the beginning of the agricultural revolution, about 10,000 years ago. These foods include fresh meats (preferably grass-produced or free-ranging beef, pork, lamb, poultry, and game meat, if you can get it), fish, seafood, fresh fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and healthful oils (olive, coconut, avocado, macadamia, walnut and flaxseed). Dairy products, cereal grains, legumes, refined sugars and processed foods were not part of our ancestral menu. Decades of research by Dr. Loren Cordain and his scientific colleagues demonstrate that hunter-gatherers typically were free from the chronic illnesses and diseases that are epidemic in Western populations"

Which includes, according to the website: cancer...myopia (which is nearsightedness!)...acne...varicose veins...osteoporosis. And more. Which aren't actually listed. 

The idea behind this diet makes some sense in theory, but when it comes to claims that nearsightedness is a dietary-related condition and that Paleolithic people were free from all cancers, you lose me to the conviction that there is pseudo-science and quackery at work, here. Which is something that's been on my mind this year. It just seems to be coming up more and more. Also, book sales. Beware of anything that depends on someone selling you something. They're liable to tell you any damn ridiculous thing for money.

Health fads like specialty diets and certain types of homeopathy remind me so much of snake oil salesmen operating out of the back of a tinker's wagon, with a pitch for every problem: "Step right up, ladies and gents! This tonic cures baldness, remedies a host of bedroom woes, and ladies' manic hysterical fits are no more with just a sip of this miracle potion! What's in it? Don't worry! It's *all natural ingredients*! Just $19.99 for a six ounce bottle! Plus $5.00 separate processing and handling! But wait! There's MORE...!"

Look, I can't tell you what to eat or what diet to follow. I'm the last person you'd want to listen to on that point. Because I happen to like junk food. I'm more than a little tubby. For serious. Here, look at this photo of me about to eat a baby if you need proof:

 

*Kidding! I don't eat babies. Not enough marbling.

So I'm not going to do that. But, I do like to do research, and I also have a thing about facts versus things that have nothing to do with facts. So let's look at some of the key points and claims being made:

First, cancer. I'm about to make a really stupid argument, but just bear with me, here. Modern domestic dogs and cats are technically on a "paelo" type diet if they are being fed good quality, high-protein foods with adequate fiber which are low on fillers. They still get cancer. As the ad campaign says, "Cancer doesn't care." It just doesn't. It's your body's own cells, turning against you. Sometimes, no root cause can be found. It just sort of happens. Sure, certain triggers can increase your statistical likelihood of developing certain cancers. Carcinogens, especially. And heredity is considered a risk-factor, so you can do everything right, and still get diagnosed with it because every woman in your family carries the genetic predisposition for breast cancer.

Even super-fit, health-conscious people get cancer. Case in point: Lance Armstrong, who had testicular cancer. So painting all cancers of all types with a broad brush and saying not eating peanuts will help prevent it, well...c'mon. Super-fit, health-conscious people also sometimes drop dead of massive heart attacks and brain aneurysms in the middle of their endurance marathons.

So, there's point the second. Age-related health deterioration. The paleo-type diets make a glaring omission by not addressing the fact the the average human lifespan has increased significantly, and overall health across a typical lifespan (especially in modern, Westernized societies such as our own) due to improved medical technologies has improved in developed nations. But look at underdeveloped nations for a moment. They generally have more limited access to the processed and factory-manufactured food-stuffs than developed nations, where these types of fad diets are prevalent.

On the other hand, they often have less access to high-quality health care, including basic preventative medicine. Their lives can tend to be more stressful due to extreme socioeconomic problems that don't exist for the vast majority of Americans - lack of access to reliable nutrition, limited access to potable water, disease, famine, violence. Are those individuals - eating more locally, eating fresher foods when they can get them, but lacking in some other basic needs - generally more "healthy" than their counterparts? Thinner, maybe, but that's not what we're talking about here. Thin does not always correlate to good health.

Now, another issue I have is that Paleolithic humans, as far as I know, did not have the technology available to press nuts and things to extract oils. If they used anything for cooking, it would've been animal fats, most likely. They also would have cooked their meats over pit-fires, which brings us back to carcinogens and cancer. According to certain studies, introducing red meats to open flame-cooking increases the presence of of carcinogens, which is a known cancer-causing agent. Plus, the fatty-meat heavy diet is not necessarily heart healthy. But, animal proteins were instrumental in the brain development of our hominid ancestors. There's always an upside, right?

Another thing - carbs count! Your body converts carbohydrates to energy, so cutting them drastically can cause problems. Instead, consider healthier options than shit-tons of pasta, and go ahead and eat some fruit. Just not processed fruit juices (or even worse, fruit juice blends!). This diet is lacking in sources of calcium and vitamin D, so supplements might be necessary there.

You could just eat a balanced, diverse diet consisting of as many varieties of fresh foods possible while limiting sugars, fats and salt. And drink plenty of water and exercise daily. Boom. Where's my book deal?

Now, can anyone honestly tell me - other than being a starchy carb and deep fried they are without question one of the worst things you can eat - what the hell is wrong with potatoes? The Inca built a whole civilization around cultivating them, and by all accounts they were pretty healthy people in their day. Or maybe it was all the human sacrifices to their insatiable gods that kept them hale and hearty.

What it all boils down to, I think, for me more than anything is that the whole idea of trendy diets is such a ridiculous concept. That people have to be sold on the idea of eating better, that they need to buy a product to learn how to eat sensibly. And to turn off the talking box, go outside and move their bodies sometimes.

Which I'm about to go do...

Alive and Kicking (A Story In Two Parts)

 Part 1

Gina's first memory of her life after her death was of being very, very cold. Of course, she didn't know she was dead. Or, really, alive after being dead. Actually, she was dead in more of a metaphysical sense. It's all semantics. Gina's second memory was the sound of Barry Manilow singing about writing the songs that make the whole world sing. That's how she knew she was really dead. Hell is Barry Manilow.

Gina's head throbbed. She figured that was par for the course, if she'd been dead. But it didn't explain the cold. Hell, if that's where she was, should be hot. She realized she was laying flat on her back. She decided to open her eyes and have a look around. This was a mistake, since she quickly realized she wasn't in Hell. Not exactly. She was in a dimly lit room, on a metal table. So. Serial killer. Not an improvement, she thought.

Risking another glance around she saw that she was alone, so she decided to test her hands and feet. She found them unbound but very cold, and a little bit numb. Barry Manilow had transitioned to Neil Diamond. Also not an improvement.

Gina was still wearing her shoes. This was good. Her shirt had been unbuttoned, so she sat up and fixed that, doing a cursory examination of her limbs for signs of...she wasn't sure what, but she figured she'd know it if she saw it. Her chest hurt a little, almost like she'd been punched in the solar plexus, her throat was sore and her head was pounding, but other than being chilled to the bone, she was in one piece.

She heard a noise, past a door on the other side of the room. A voice. It was muffled, so she couldn't figure out what was being said. Probably a good time to leave. A little bit up on the wall over her head was a half-open window just big enough she figured she could squeeze through, the chilly autumn air making her shiver even more. The voice behind her had gotten a little louder, receding again once she'd climbed outside, scrabbling to pull herself outside.

She took off at a run, panic and adrenaline making her move. Her feet thudding loudly on the pavement of a long driveway, Gina turned and found herself looking back at the sprawling Victorian house that was Gallagher and Son's Funeral Services, looming in the darkness. Lights glowed n the basement windows.

She wondered what time it was. It had been early when she get to Kyle's house that night, and she'd lost track of time during the party. People showed up and people left. The music was loud. She remembers the last beer, pushed on her by Kyle's friend Tommy, and that was it. Then this.

Gina frowned. A funeral home. It made no sense. Except that it did, because she'd been dead. But she wasn't. Whatever, Gina decided, because she was suddenly more hungry than she could ever remember being, and definitely in need of an aspirin and a shower. If she was dead, nothing much mattered, but if she wasn't...maybe nothing mattered, then, either, except being alive.

It took twenty minutes to walk to the other side of town, although it felt like an eternity to Gina. She was cold and her shoes and jeans were damp from walking in the dewey grass when she took a shortcut through the park. The stars were fading in the sky by the time she got to the only diner in town that was open that early in the morning.

Listening to the sound of her stomach growl from the bacon smells wafting from the diner's vents, she used the payphone outside to make a call. Gina was the only person she knew who didn't have a cell phone. It could be really inconvenient sometimes.

Angie Tucci answered on the first ring with a sleepy hello. 

"Ange." Gina wasn't sure what to say, now that she'd called. "Hey, you know I'm dead?"

There was a pause before Angie replied. In the background Gina could hear the groan of springs as her best friend since third grade rolled over in bed. "No shit. Well, that explains the cops and your mom calling my house crying and shit. I mean, they're making funeral plans. My mom's gonna make me wear a dress."

Angie Tucci was morally opposed to dresses. Gina smiled, in spite of her crappy mood and her headache. "I'm sorry I'm gonna miss that. What the hell happened to me? Did they tell you?"

Angie exhaled, loudly. "You OD'd. Like, accidentally."

"No." Gina shook her head at the phone receiver. "I was drinking beer. I didn't take anything."

"Well, I hate to break it to ya," Angie yawned loudly into Gina's ear over the phone "But you did. I was there. You died. The paramedics said you were dead. No pulse or anything. They used those fibrillating things, even. Everybody freaked the hell out. Kyle's parents are beyond pissed. Kyle thinks you're going to haunt his house. He wants a...it's that thing where they contact ghosts?"

"Séance. Look, I need you to do something for me..."

It took several minutes for Gina to explain what she needed. By the time the sun was fully up, she had a plan, and she had an accomplice.

The Replicant's Dilemma

Because I've hit the proverbial wall on...well, basically everything, but I need to post something to make myself feel better about the writing I haven't really been doing, here's an essay that I pulled together last year for a planned recurring column geared toward readers on a start-up networking site - it's a project that never really panned out.

The follow up to this was supposed to be a review of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, where I was going to talk about how the novel was supposedly Mick Jagger's inspiration for the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil", and all of the references to other literary influences and historical figures. (The scene that leads up to the Devil's midnight ball includes  a vague reference to the long-rumored relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and her Master of the Horse, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, whose sickly wife died under questionable circumstances and a cloud of court intrigue...)

I wish I had the opportunity to write pieces like this often. Books are so much more than what they appear to be on the surface, I love exploring them in depth in this way. I've actually composed essays while reading something especially interesting or thought-provoking. I should probably take time to write those down from time to time.

******** 

San Francisco Bounty Hunter Rick Deckard is having a bad day. His chronically depressed wife is in no mood to have her emotions boosted, his neighbor’s horse is pregnant while Deckard has to make due with his own inadequate and wholly artificial sheep, and there are illegal androids loose in the city. In the future of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? a world war to finally end them all has left much of Earth a blasted wasteland clouded by fallout, which has led to mass extinctions. Real animals have become a rare commodity, and most of humanity has fled, migrating off world to colonize Mars.

For those who don’t qualify to emigrate it is a daily struggle against the inevitable consequences of exposure to radiation, and government mandated animal ownership being out of the reach of average citizens, people often have to rely on fabricated pets to maintain their social status. Sophisticated androids, used as laborers in the colonial settlements and almost indistinguishable from their human counterparts, are not allowed on Earth. When any are detected, as they hide among the remaining humans and try to pass as human themselves, simple tests of physical responses to a series of questions gauging empathy are employed by professional bounty hunters like Deckard who are tasked with dispatching them. Of course, they also risk being dispatched by the desperate androids they hunt.

Over the course of the story Rick Deckard’s own humanity and his fundamental faith in the nature of his existence is tested. Deckard is a morally ambiguous, conflicted protagonist. He is not always sure he really is one of the “good guys” and begins to question his job and his basic understanding of the reality he lives in. Philip K. Dick explores the question of what it really means to be human in this novel, which was the fundamental inspiration for plot of the motion picture Blade Runner.

The novel includes a lot of the themes that Philip K. Dick incorporated in many of his works, such as a distrust of authority and the idea that not everything is always what it seems to be on the surface. This is a true dystopian sci-fi story – everything is pervaded by a sense of abandonment and decay, and there is an undercurrent of paranoia that builds as the plot progresses. The difference between the novel and Blade Runner can really be felt in that element: the film is noir in every sense, while the novel feels much more desolate and subdued.

This stark tone is one of Dick’s hallmarks, and as one of the founding fathers of modern science fiction his writing has had a major impact on the genre. Even if you’ve never read a single thing he authored, or you don’t really consider yourself much of a fan of science fiction in general, you may be more familiar with Philip K. Dick than you think. His influence permeates modern filmmaking and pop-culture through films such as Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, and, of course, Blade Runner. Writer John Scalzi cheekily references Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in his own novel, The Android’s Dream, and Dick’s work is often credited with being a major influence in the rise of cyberpunk.

"In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real." ~ Philip K. Dick

If you read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, you may also like:

·         Gun, With Occassional Music, Jonathan Lethem’s slightly manic sci-fi pulp fiction homage to the hardboiled detective novel, features hyper-intelligent babies and talking animals with a penchant for random violence. 

·         The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi is a slight departure from his previous books which were geared toward a younger audience, but this richly detailed novel set in a future world of rising sea levels and dwindling food resources is as engaging as it is often challenging. 

Let's Make ART!

Yesterday, while struggling through the roughest first draft of a story I was trying to write and getting discouraged, I started thinking about Neil Gaiman's Calendar of Tales project for Blackberry's Keep Moving campaign. He is a very busy writer with a lot on his plate, but he carved out the time to write twelve lovely stories in a very short time frame, all influenced by fan ideas based on prompts he provided for each month. They are twelve very good stories. You're looking at your screen right now with this face that says "Duh. It's Neil Gaiman. OF COURSE they're good." Of course! He makes storytelling look like some kind of secret magic. But I thought about how amazing it was, to take all of those random concepts from his fans, to find little gems to inspire such fantastic ideas...and then to turn around and quickly create stories that are compelling, thought-provoking, and fun. I realized, that's a challenge, right there. To write twelve stories. Maybe not all at one time. And maybe not Neil-Gaiman-level good stories. But I could probably write one decent - or at least fair to middling - story each month of the year.*

I took to Twitter and said I was making that commitment. One year. One story each month. And the unexpected happened: Neil Gaiman Retweeted me. The squeeing noises could probably be heard from space.

And then! My Tweet got Retweeted a bunch of times.

 

I got supportive comments full of encouragement and some people saying they thought it was a great idea, and others wanting to do it, too. I thought it would be helpful to set some guidelines for myself, and to share them here, if others want to do some writing along with me.

1) I'm going to use the crowdsourcing element of the Calendar of Tales project as a model, mostly because I want to see what my friends and connections come up with for prompts and themes. (The exceptions being January/February and March. I've set those as New Beginnings From Old Endings and Time, respectively.)

2) There will be no set limit as far as word count. The only limitation will be time - the stories need to be drafted and then fully edited before the last day of the calendar month. I do expect the stories I'm writing to be fairly short, because I have the most practice writing flash fiction.

3) Genre is wide open. I tend to lean heavily toward science fiction (which is my comfort zone), but I'd like to attempt some genres I haven't really written before just to see if I can.

4) I'll be sharing some of my progress as I go - here, on Twitter definitely, and maybe Facebook. That includes some of the stories that result, although I will likely not post all of them to the blog.

I'm probably going to need some nudges to keep me going sometimes, and with a class coming up and other projects in preliminary planning stages (:coughcough: ginormousmermaidmural :coughcough:), I might need to be talked down off of a ledge or two if things get stressful. 

Finally, I need to give a big THANK YOU to Neil Gaiman, for being so amazingly engaged with and gracious to his fans, and to everyone for the stars, the RTs, and the positive feedback. I hope some of you will consider joining in on this, or doing something similar, so that we can motivate and support each other in the making of some great art! 

*Technically, since January has already passed, it will be eleven stories unless I get industrious. Or I write one for next January.

You Learn. (Or You Don't. It's Your Life...I Can't Tell You What To Do.)

I started this post early on Tuesday, in a completely different frame of mind than I happen to be in now. For starters, I've had a couple of drinks. For enders, I realized - in thinking about how to finish this one off instead of leaving it in draft limbo like so many of my other posts - that this post is not intended for anyone who I know regularly reads what I write. Honestly, at midnight on a Tuesday after a couple of Margarita-flavored near-beers, I couldn't really tell you WHO the intended audience is. This may not even be a very coherent essay, for all I know.

Maturity is first the shedding of what you are not, and then the balancing of what you are in relation to the human being you love, and allowing the selves of that person which are not related to you to exist independently, outside of the relationship.
- Anaïs Nin

I've carried a copy of the poem at the end of this post, which is titled After a While and was written in 1971 by Veronica Shoffstall, around with me for many years. For a long time, I incorporated it into a sort of personal manifesto (not always a well applied personal philosophy, but so few manifestos are). A recent piece on Brain Pickings on the anniversary of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, which in many ways was a catalyst for modern feminism, brought it to mind.

I'm not much of a Capital F kind of Feminist, as most self-avowed Feminists would probably be quick to point out. Instead, I ascribe to the same philosophy as contemporary folk-singer Ani DiFranco, who says, "My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do."

That being said, After a While is a treatise on the importance of being your own person. That couple-hood is no guarantee of happiness or personal validation, or even of love. No one is promised romantic love. Not ever. And the idea that a woman is not complete without a partner, that gifts are a quantifiable display of love, and that all relationships are based on what each participant can get from the other...well, I reject these ideas totally.

Look. I don't have a perfect relationship, not on any level. None of my friendships or my marriage or my working relationships is without some flaw, some deeply ingrained fault. But to me, that lack of perfection is what often endears the relationship to me. The best relationships are those built on mutual love and respect, without expectation, the ones that grow stronger over time and as the individuals begin to let their guard down.

I have been lucky to have some deep and lasting friendships in my life based on simply the joy of the other person's company. Things in common. Shared experiences. But relationships do take work. It is not and should not be effortless. You have to put in some kind of work to get a return, on anything worthwhile in this life. Anything that came to you too easily can go from you equally easily, you see? Anyone who tells you love is easy has probably never experienced it very deeply.

Let's look at the concept of perfection for a second. What the hell is that? Is it attainable? No. Is it sustainable? Not at all. Should you want to attain it? Why? How boring! Perfection is a state of achieved ideals. Ideals! Not actual messy reality, but the idea of something beyond the reach of the real. Once you've reached the pinnacle of something, achieved that thing you've allowed yourself to be convinced is the defining moment of your whole entire existence, you know what comes next? The downward spiral of disappointment and resentment, because nothing compares to the bland stasis state of so-called perfection that you have held up as the standard by which to judge every aspect of yourself.

And if you ever, somehow, by some miracle or force of will, get to that "perfect" moment...Congratulations! You've met a goal, reached some kind of arbitrary milestone. You've gotten everything you ever could have wanted - your heart's desire. Now what? No. Seriously...what now? See? It's the peak before the crash. Not only is the concept of perfect happiness by its very nature unrealistic and unattainable, it's also a trap that we set for ourselves. "If only this and that happened, then I'd be happy."

Bullshit. Because that doesn't work. It never happens like that. You just move the marker to the next thing that you are sure will make you "happy" and life will be "perfect." And if you're the kind of person who can't easily find contentment, you continue to make a witch's house of your misery, trapping any little happiness you find there and feeding it to the flames of your unreasonable expectations.

Listen. Real life is not some stale, regurgitated fairy story that's been sanitized for mass consumption and ease of retelling. You should not be holding yourself up to the dubious yardstick of Happily Ever Afters (which I highly doubt were ever that happy in the ever after). If you want a prince, why not rescue him from the dragon? Slay a few wolves and don't wait for the woodsman. Be the heroine.

You are not your body. You are not the labels on your clothes. Why define yourself by these temporary and shallow measures of status? Life is not a contest or competition, or a game. Because if you think it's a game you can win with the accumulation of wealth and stuff and an emptiness of self, you are a walking exercise in missing the point. If life is a game, it's one we all will ultimately lose.

Learn the empowerment of being able to pay your own way. Learn to be an individual first and foremost. Learn to move past the past: your history is only a story. It does not define you in the here and now. The past is like the Goblin King: It has no power over you. Don't wait until the end scene to finally figure that one out.



Sweetheart, you're going to get older. What have you got to give to the world, when the inevitable happens and you start to join the ranks of the invisible? What defines you, then?

Climb your happy ass down from that crumbling ivory tower you built for yourself, Princess, and start living a self-determined life of "I want you, but I don't need you."

After a While

After a while you learn
the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul
and you learn
that love doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes ahead
with the grace of woman,
not the grief of a child

and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of falling down
in mid-flight.

After a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and decorate your own soul
instead of waiting for someone
to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure
you really are strong
you really do have worth
and you learn
and you learn
with every goodbye, you learn...