tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17698201501901973352024-03-05T11:28:00.299-05:00The Streamlined Ska LibrarianLong time librarian, changing my body one decimal point at a timeDan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.comBlogger106125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-52572031155620026782015-04-10T13:59:00.002-04:002015-04-10T21:28:21.149-04:00If I Put "Babe" in My Name....<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Would that get me better hits on this site?</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Maybe I should just blog more! </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Welcome back! It's been quite a few months. There's been some major PT for my leg which means less streamline lifestyle for now. But I'm trying to focus on the positive. I'm learning Danish. And I can only imagine it will be very helpful when I tell Danish librarians, <span class="" id="result_box" lang="da"><span class="hps alt-edited">"I er</span> <span class="hps">ikke</span> <span class="hps">mine</span> <span class="hps">rigtige forældre</span>! <span class="hps">Hvorfor</span> <span class="hps">er min</span> <span class="hps">haj</span> <span class="hps">i</span> <span class="hps alt-edited">ændernes</span> <span class="hps alt-edited">svømmebassin</span><span class="">?</span><span class="hps atn">" (Yes, those are sentences from my lessons.)</span></span></span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is a short entry, but I thought I'd chime in because we're finally seeing some true social media backlash on a lot of the crap I've written about in the past. And now it's centered squarely on the <a href="http://foodbabe.com/" target="_blank">Food Babe</a>. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Aside from the <a href="http://gawker.com/the-food-babe-blogger-is-full-of-shit-1694902226." target="_blank">latest piece</a> which was shared worldwide, it's not like people haven't already been criticizing her <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/12/04/364745790/food-babe-or-fear-babe-as-activist-s-profile-grows-so-do-her-critics" target="_blank">in the media</a> and on <a href="http://kfolta.blogspot.com/2014/10/food-babe-visits-my-university.html" target="_blank">campuses</a>. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And it's been fun to see. In fact, go check out <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/foodbabefacts?f=realtime&src=hash" target="_blank">#foodbabefacts</a> on twitter. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Insist on 100% organic, unrefined glucose in your IV drip or refuse medical treatment. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FoodBabeFacts?src=hash">#FoodBabeFacts</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">— Mike Chudzinski (@MGmikcs) <a href="https://twitter.com/MGmikcs/status/586522488785502208">April 10, 2015</a></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Oxygen causes radical formation and these are known to be associated with eventual death from something. Ban this toxic gas. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FoodBabeFacts?src=hash">#FoodBabeFacts</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">— Mark (@NE14NaCl_aq) <a href="https://twitter.com/NE14NaCl_aq/status/586510712035549184">April 10, 2015</a></span></blockquote>
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm not saying you can't be skeptical about what might be in food, but please...I say this as a librarian....DO SOME PROPER RESEARCH!!!!!!!!!!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm flabbergasted that we allow such inanity in our discourse about health and wellness. You know, Food Babe, there's been quite a lot of research out there on health literacy. It's been a concern <a href="http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/3/259.short#cited-by" target="_blank">for decades</a>. It's not about scaring folks into believing we're all being poisoned. It's about learning to handle information to turn it into proper knowledge. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I would suggest you might visit your local library soon. You might actually learn something. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Share information, everyone. Just do it wisely. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The Streamlined Ska Librarian Babe. (Now I just need my own army...)<br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Food Babe Visits My University | Illumination.” Accessed April 10, 2015. http://kfolta.blogspot.com/2014/10/food-babe-visits-my-university.html.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Is The Food Babe A Fearmonger? Scientists Are Speaking Out : The Salt : NPR.” Accessed April 10, 2015. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/12/04/364745790/food-babe-or-fear-babe-as-activist-s-profile-grows-so-do-her-critics.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“The ‘Food Babe’ Blogger Is Full of Shit.” Accessed April 10, 2015. http://gawker.com/the-food-babe-blogger-is-full-of-shit-1694902226.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Nutbeam, Don. Health literacy as a public health goal: a challenge for contemporary health education and communication strategies into the 21st century </span> <cite><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><abbr class="site-title" title="Health Promotion International">Health Promot. Int.</abbr> <span class="cit-print-date"><span class="cit-sep cit-sep-before-article-print-date">(</span>2000<span class="cit-sep cit-sep-after-article-print-date">)</span> </span><span class="cit-vol">15 </span><span class="cit-issue"><span class="cit-sep cit-sep-before-article-issue">(</span>3<span class="cit-sep cit-sep-after-article-issue">):</span> </span><span class="cit-pages"><span class="cit-first-page">259</span><span class="cit-sep">-</span><span class="cit-last-page">267</span> </span></span><span class="cit-doi"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="cit-sep cit-sep-before-article-doi"> doi:</span>10.1093/heapro/15.3.259</span> </span></cite></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span> Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-26376745592142876592015-02-01T14:23:00.002-05:002015-02-01T15:24:18.883-05:00The high cost of "Marge" clothing<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Cold temperatures, polar vortexes, snowpocalypses that didn't happen (at least not in NYC)...all these factors lead it to being FRIGGIN' COLD!! </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDuTuTyPa0ZheU24zYB3ayeJnuYZ4sXqwGC5ivXxS1J5S5oWd8GnSImvrt6B5wYkwAbPFboeYcgdmY_j5qtqPUVyIzJPtGXSRWQp20DNDMytH6Ox9PkdlPnKJ5gZ9XNYXZcjtFl1Oqo8M/s1600/quant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDuTuTyPa0ZheU24zYB3ayeJnuYZ4sXqwGC5ivXxS1J5S5oWd8GnSImvrt6B5wYkwAbPFboeYcgdmY_j5qtqPUVyIzJPtGXSRWQp20DNDMytH6Ox9PkdlPnKJ5gZ9XNYXZcjtFl1Oqo8M/s1600/quant.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Yeah, I probably could have used a scarf, too.</i> <a href="http://fashions-sketches.blogspot.com/2012/05/photo-mary-quant-autumn-fashion-show.html" target="_blank">via</a></span> </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">That also means, I'm exercising outside less (I do have that thing about not running in single digit temps), and I'm craving more "sold, warm" food. But my usual regimen should keep me all tip-top, right? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">At least <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/jphysiol.2010.196493/abstract;jsessionid=843F3B40D5F96232DD85D2FCFB695EE0.f01t01" target="_blank">according to this study</a>, folks who exercise first in the morning even when upping their calories tend not to gain weight (they don't lose it either, but they don't gain it). And that's me right there. Every weekday up at 5 AM to hit the gym with nothing but a cup of coffee and an allergy pill to fortify my progress. (Gyms have a lot of mold issues, just sayin').</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Except I have gotten bulkier. Yes, I'm still happy to be bursting out all muscly all over the body. But I don't know if I'm Streamlined so much anymore as "Pumped Ska Librarian", which doesn't sound nearly so alliterative. As one of my old acquaintances who I occasionally see at the gym said recently, "I've seen Fat Dan and Skinny Dan, but I wasn't expecting to see Big Muscle Dan!" </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm not gonna lie: I did strut a bit more during my workout after that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But this also means I have to start looking at larger clothes sizes again, after so happily squeezing into skinny clothes. But even with the gain, I don't fit into my Retro Ska Librarian clothes, and that's sort of a relief. They're still far too baggy in XL and above.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">That's the one thing that's making me realize I really have just changed my body, even if I am heavier than when I started this blog. Retro I was XL+. Streamlined I was swimming in mediums (I'm far too tall for small sizes). Now I'm in that horrible limbo between medium and large, where nothing quite fits well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I am....a "Marge." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And I'm not the only one who is in this realm. A <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=shirt+size+between+medium+ansd+large&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=size+between+medium+and+large" target="_blank">quick search</a> shows me it's all too common to be between medium and large.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So I'm less upset that I don't fit into "regular" sizes, as it seems no one does. I'm more upset I have to spend more money on a lot of basic work and casual clothes. An entire wardrobe just because I'm taking care of myself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's bad enough we get thrown into fashion fail just for being ourselves. After all, I still need all my tall/long size jackets and shirts taken in on the sleeves because my torso is longer than "average" and my arms are not. But now I need to go bigger in the chest and shoulders anyway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And now I need to make sure I don't do something bad and increase my waist size again. It will just lead to financial heartbreak. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgylhZYxQZ7j9yMu0W-9KGJKwP5DJphw_oJsS6Ao2KTqGSK9f6Z3yCDz6LhWUAsIZ5Nu2PNjqqUod_LNOwkU2sTzOxi0bBvsJquJfSH8cylX5bPsxAl2utjEuAz911mzk6fOsnXxMik5sE/s1600/piggybank-morguefile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgylhZYxQZ7j9yMu0W-9KGJKwP5DJphw_oJsS6Ao2KTqGSK9f6Z3yCDz6LhWUAsIZ5Nu2PNjqqUod_LNOwkU2sTzOxi0bBvsJquJfSH8cylX5bPsxAl2utjEuAz911mzk6fOsnXxMik5sE/s1600/piggybank-morguefile.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Damn you, heaving obliques!</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">To prevent yet more wardrobe issues, I do have to be careful of food intake. Thankfully I can still be creative and try not to succumb to too many cravings this time of year. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgitumDgA5wlpiVFCbJkTXtp2BFJJRvaV2akqQUINJpvjVRuC1U3EldL6dV09uXL_X7BzBC9Gsx5w7vm8fm8VUZVwbo-Rn_bDofqLru1feV3oWxcwGB7hThzxB23eXfirP_VooQAUErzJ0/s1600/pico.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgitumDgA5wlpiVFCbJkTXtp2BFJJRvaV2akqQUINJpvjVRuC1U3EldL6dV09uXL_X7BzBC9Gsx5w7vm8fm8VUZVwbo-Rn_bDofqLru1feV3oWxcwGB7hThzxB23eXfirP_VooQAUErzJ0/s1600/pico.jpg" height="320" width="261" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Turkey "pico de gallo" with roast veggies.</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And I guess I should be lucky that most of the decent cheap takeout places in my neighborhood are disappearing. So not so much chance of defaulting to Chinese food and pizza. Because, as it turns out, <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2015/01/13/peds.2014-1844" target="_blank">we're killing our kids</a> with pizza. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(I think that speaks for the amount of crappy pizza there is out there, as opposed to feeding it to kids.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It took quite some journey to be "marge." I ain't gonna spoil it with Domino's!*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>*That was a joke. As a native Staten Islander who grew up with some of the top rated pizza joints of all time, I would sooner eat my too small gym shirts than order from Domino's.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Powell, Lisa M., Binh T. Nguyen, and William H. Dietz. “Energy and Nutrient Intake From Pizza in the United States.” <i>Pediatrics</i>, January 19, 2015, peds.2014–1844. doi:10.1542/peds.2014-1844.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Van Proeyen, Karen, Karolina Szlufcik, Henri Nielens, Koen Pelgrim, Louise Deldicque, Matthijs Hesselink, Paul P. Van Veldhoven, and Peter Hespel. “Training in the Fasted State Improves Glucose Tolerance during Fat-Rich Diet.” <i>The Journal of Physiology</i> 588, no. Pt 21 (November 1, 2010): 4289–4302. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.2010.196493.</span></div>
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Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-79221037099939792952015-01-02T15:57:00.003-05:002015-01-02T15:57:50.882-05:00It's ok to not be cool...and not in a cool ironic way, either.<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Welcome to my first blog post of 2015! If we look back on 2014, it shows a marked decrease in my blogging activity. There were 30 posts in 2014. I posted 73 times in 2013. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Am I no longer so heartened to share my journey? Dare I join <a href="https://www.foodbloggerpro.com/" target="_blank">Food Blogger Pro</a> to best utilize those same old dandy infographics and shaded set ups to make my savory paleo gluten-free hand farmed vodka infused cupcakes shine like so many popular bloggers?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">No. Please no. If that happens, then I should just stop for real.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Truth be told, it's just been a very busy year. Perhaps busier than 2013, or perhaps the blog became a somewhat lesser priority. But in 2014, I spent time on a Food Chemistry MOOC from <a href="http://www.mcgill.ca/oss/" target="_blank">McGill</a>, which was awesome but indeed time consuming. I've also been settling into cohabitation, including acclimating the "step-pets":</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>It's a mutual admiration society!</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And I've also just had a lot of work related projects which bled into my usual downtime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Oh yeah, there was also that pesky re-occurring <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2014/08/whats-nextlumbago.html" target="_blank">gout</a>, where even sitting and typing on a keyboard can lead to pain. Not to mention that <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2014/11/get-mammogram-man.html" target="_blank">cancer scare</a>. That was a time suck, for sure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, yes, a busy 2014, with less time for blogging. I can only hope that we beat the statistical odds and make sure 2015 doesn't see only 15 entries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Of course, in 2015, I'm starting yet another MOOC, this time an awesome nutritional biology course via <a href="http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/wageningen-university.htm" target="_blank">Wageningen University</a> in my beloved Holland. And my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/danschwartzfitnessonline" target="_blank">training regimen</a> will continue to cause soreness for yet a firmer Streamlined body. And I'm so immersed in Karl Ove Knausgaard's <i>My Struggle</i>, that I tend to want to just keep reading all those volumes with no interruption around me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But that does bring up one thing that seems to have disappeared from my schedule. I'm going to confess something that shouldn't be so much of a surprise: I've been in book clubs. I was in one for 17 years (which must be some sort of record among transient NYers) and another for about 3, although that one does seem to have petered out, too. It's a shame that's happened, but then again...more free time!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In both book clubs I seem to have had the dubious honor of being the only member <i>who actually read the entire book</i> each month. Call it Librarian OCD, but I always felt it was important to be able to discuss each book as a work, not just something I skimmed through. Often that led to me having to actually give more a summary book report to other members (the time I acted out all the characters in<i> Martin Chuzzlewit </i>was quite a favorite), but more often than not it made me realize I didn't like a lot of the books we were reading.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One such miss for me was The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester. It surprised me that I didn't like it. Here was a novel about food! From a former food critic! With great reviews from people I admired! But I didn't like it. It happens. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But that's not I've dismissed Lanchester's work entirely. In fact he recently <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/03/shut-eat" target="_blank">wrote a piece</a> in the New Yorker where he takes on the foodie community from a more serious critical standpoint. And so much of resonated with me, I was all set to drop everything to blog about it...which of course, didn't happen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I suggest reading the entire piece, but here's one paragraph:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>"Most of the energy that we put into our thinking about food, I realized,
isn’t about food; it’s about anxiety. Food makes us anxious. The
infinite range of choices and possible self-expressions means that there
are so many ways to go wrong. You can make people ill, and you can make
yourself look absurd. People feel judged by their food choices, and
they are right to feel that, because they are."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And I think that did hit me somewhat hard. Perhaps it's our ability to be able to share so much with each other nowadays, but I do see that everything about food has gotten a lot more judgy in the past few years. I'm as guilty of it, too...after all I just snarkily mentioned paleo cupcakes, but I also have been trying to be a little more empathetic about this.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I've always said from the beginning that my sharing my story, workouts, recipes and such were about MY journey and that it most likely will not be YOUR journey. But I also see people still trying to defend their choices or beliefs to me when they don't jibe with mine. To people I know: I love you, but we're not supposed to be one upping each other here. To folks who've met me through this blog...welcome! But the message is the same.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Lanchester's article brought up another piece in my mind which always answers my own feelings as to why cooking shows nowadays don't really appeal to me as much as they did. I always said, the best thing about Julia Child was that you saw how to do all aspects of cooking, including the messy, gross things. Julia told me how to debone an entire chicken, gut and filet fish and create caramel nests out of molten, skin graft inducing sugar. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/8/15/6005805/remembering-how-julia-child-wasnt-afraid-to-mess-up-in-the-kitchen" target="_blank">a recent piece</a> also brought home what really stuck with me: She messed up a lot in the kitchen...and it didn't matter.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And that's what I regret about this social media of food nowadays. Instead of just showing how cooking never matches instagram perfection as a way to show "fails", show that it doesn't matter if it's not perfect. If it tastes good and everyone eats, that's cool enough for me. It certainly was cool enough for Julia Child!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And that's what 2015 is probably gonna mean to me: I'm not changing too much, but let's hope we can all be less judgy of one another. Which sounds pretty dull and not too cool at all. But then again, I only found out I was cool in my youth after it happened. Isn't it always that way?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Happy 2015!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
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<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Julia Child Wasn’t Perfect in the Kitchen, and That Was Perfect.” <i>Vox</i>. Accessed December 28, 2014. http://www.vox.com/2014/8/15/6005805/remembering-how-julia-child-wasnt-afraid-to-mess-up-in-the-kitchen.</span><br />
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<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Lanchester, John. “A Foodie Repents.” <i>The New Yorker</i>, October 27, 2014. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/03/shut-eat.</span></div>
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Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-18479286756140145922014-11-21T22:38:00.001-05:002014-11-22T12:43:47.813-05:00Get a mammogram, man!<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In my previous post I talked about my recent annual check-up and all that changes when one starts rounding 50. I purposely left out one thing as I wanted to wait until some more information came my way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There's a lump in my chest.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One of the benefits of Streamlined Ska Librarian lifestyle is that I'm seeing a new body unfold and appear after years of flab. But a decrease of flab also means I'm seeing things that may have long been hidden.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A few months ago I noticed a bump on my smaller, firmer chest (from man boobs to DAN boobs, I always say!). At first I assumed it might be a contusion of some sort. I'm sort of clumsy and sometimes the barbell or cable may hit me as I'm weight training. But then it never went away. Months later there's still a lump.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQxClV3UvvZiHiSVONo9wqIA_Fzz9FIU83SavVL_9V4JizpbkUl4__ucDs9SCixwbdt0SwFMeBdb_oD2Y_PGQDa4uEp-d7wLhvIlG9QxXJLnUztWhig6LiACXdqVa2iWIPcuvcyVphRw/s1600/tumor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSQxClV3UvvZiHiSVONo9wqIA_Fzz9FIU83SavVL_9V4JizpbkUl4__ucDs9SCixwbdt0SwFMeBdb_oD2Y_PGQDa4uEp-d7wLhvIlG9QxXJLnUztWhig6LiACXdqVa2iWIPcuvcyVphRw/s1600/tumor.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Just next to that little inked petal....</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, during my annual checkup, I point this out to my doctor. He pokes around, confirms my family cancer history (both sides, lots of breast cancer) and hands me a referral for a mammogram and ultrasound. "Make an appointment as soon as possible," he said (which was not what he said about getting a colonoscopy, so I noticed.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Fun Fact #1: While breast cancer in women is over 100x more common than in men, there are still about 2,400 new cases in men each year. (via the <a href="http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/malebreast/HealthProfessional/page1" target="_blank">National Cancer Institute</a>)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yet another 1% of which one hopes to not be a part ...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's shocking news to think you might have cancer. What would happen next? Would this blog be taken over by a whole new journey of my body? I had one week between the check-up and the mammogram and I did the wrong thing. I made the rookie mistake:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I looked up stuff about the disease on the internet. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And I'm a librarian! I should know better!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So this entire week, I read forums and research on treatment, side effects, mortality rates. It was not time well spent. All I could think about was that surgery and hormone therapy would make me lose my nipple and my libido, both of which I was very fond. Not to mention chemo, lymphedema, mestastasis, watching what friends and family went through...Basically I went down the hole I would have smacked someone else for doing. I was a wreck. And I began to think the worst.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And after a fitful and scary week, it was time for the exams.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Fun fact #2: Mammograms for men are ONLY covered by insurance if it's for diagnostic purposes (i.e. if you're symptomatic) and not just for check-ups. (via your insurance company of choice).</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It is very odd going into a women's health area of a radiology center and being one of the only men. It turns out the other guys were there for other radiology issues, so I already felt very awkward. For the most part, the staff was great, although the forms to fill out were pretty much gender-specific and not really answerable. (Questions about pregnancy, lactation, the perky breast drawings to show where you had issues). At least it wasn't all pink!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The mammogram tech was wonderful. She walked me through everything, told me what she was doing, prodded and maneuvered me, felt the lump and marked it to make sure it was scanned, compared it to my other Dan-boob, and had a generally good attitude for someone who does a procedure associated with a nasty health issue. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Fun fact #3: Mammograms hurt!!! (via my man boobs)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Perhaps having more material to slap onto those plates would be easier, but my Streamlined pecs got squeezed and pressed so freaking hard. I have even more respect for women for doing this. All we men have to deal with is a finger up our butt to feel our prostate for less than a minute. Can you imagine if our little fellas got this treatment?</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4COt1fGhsV0MyW_I8bl1VEqySo9TnCkhKeuULcWiMHPA30mqJrFC82NPpJFlHAsSEPMREyufVy4XAZvNkrV-H8Ly6-d1LEpwR1oI01dAK2JF41L_Cuy09-6klQcZCqGUJ1heTpQu8nFI/s1600/mammo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4COt1fGhsV0MyW_I8bl1VEqySo9TnCkhKeuULcWiMHPA30mqJrFC82NPpJFlHAsSEPMREyufVy4XAZvNkrV-H8Ly6-d1LEpwR1oI01dAK2JF41L_Cuy09-6klQcZCqGUJ1heTpQu8nFI/s1600/mammo.jpg" height="320" width="204" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'd give credit but it's been Pinterested so many times without a citation. Shame!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Anyway, that took about 30 minutes and then I returned to the waiting room half dressed for my sonogram.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Over 30 minutes later, the ultrasound tech called me in. She asked where my lump was. I showed her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">She looked at me derisively. "I don't feel anything," she snorted.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Well, my doctor did or else I wouldn't be here," I responded.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">She pressed around some more."Show me."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Here."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Is that it?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Yes."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">*snort* "That's all?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">All good feelings I had went out the window. THIS is how you treat someone coming in for a possibly scary diagnosis? Aren't most lesions and tumors only 2-3 cm.? Could you show SOME compassion?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">She began the scan. "That looks like a lipoma. Lipo means FAT!" she said as she looked at my stomach.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Well, better safe than sorry. I've had a giant cell tumor before, so even benign items need to be looked at." (And why am I defending the need to be here?)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Stay here. Don't get dressed."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A few minutes later, she came back. "I'm giving it to the radiologist. I think you're fine. You can go."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Fun Fact #4: I looked up some reviews of this diagnostic center. All good except for the waiting and this one tech. I can only imagine what those pregnant women coming in for ultrasounds had to endure. ("THAT'S your baby? *snort*") (via <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/diagnostic-radiology-assocs-new-york" target="_blank">Yelp</a>)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But after all that, the radiologist confirmed with my primary doctor that it was indeed only a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipoma" target="_blank">lipoma</a>: a benign tumor of adipose tissue. My doctor wants to monitor it to see if excision will be necessary at a later date, or if there's any change to it's composition. But as of now, no surgery, no nipple or tattoo loss, nothing but relief!! And no major changes to our regularly scheduled blog theme!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But perhaps there's also a new found sense of awareness for my own chest. Breast cancer can hit men and those of us who come from breast cancer stricken families should check ourselves on a regular basis.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If nothing else comes from this, I make it my pledge to talk about this issue. Get checked. Do it. Do it now. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">CHECK YOUR MAN BOOBS REGULARLY. DON'T BE IN THE 1%. </span></b><br />
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<br />Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-40226088061160744362014-11-16T17:12:00.001-05:002014-11-16T17:14:00.157-05:00Cheesy Diets and Sweet "Life" Choices<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My annual physical used to be a non-event; check the BP and cholesterol, be appraised of how healthy I am now, talk about what may lie ahead...nothing special. But as I get older, it seems my body has begun to develop other issues...those along the "oh, you're just getting older" meme.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But these changes may have led to one mystery, that of my new gouty condition. My uric acid levels are way up (gout cause!), but it seems my Vitamin D levels are now really low, as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My doctor was not happy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hashing this out with my doctor, we realized that I have been getting mega dairy cravings for the past few months, something I never really had before. I mean, I am a fan of a piece of cheese & some fruit for dessert, but looking back on recent times, I've been scarfing large amounts of cheese, keffir, skyr, sour cream, Mexican crema, ice cream, puddings...you get the idea.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And it turns out that excessive dairy products can increase the uric acid in your system which can lead to gout episodes. Which means my lack of Vitamin D meant more intake of Vitamin D rich foods which led to an increase in gout prone blood.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So have we found the culprit?</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv1U46IYDpi1MCmUqgthKsz4Qrf3FJJ2QRT-sj0DOWHnNMxvJCg1XASfSHV7CzH6CUuyUhSI0Hpd4BKgXOgX_Q36HMOAiPR9t-lo5Y1hke-A133LQdlpoXmI8bYc260gmOMkavEUuV7Fs/s1600/milkcheese.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv1U46IYDpi1MCmUqgthKsz4Qrf3FJJ2QRT-sj0DOWHnNMxvJCg1XASfSHV7CzH6CUuyUhSI0Hpd4BKgXOgX_Q36HMOAiPR9t-lo5Y1hke-A133LQdlpoXmI8bYc260gmOMkavEUuV7Fs/s1600/milkcheese.jpg" height="274" width="400" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">© <a href="http://evandorkin.livejournal.com/" target="_blank">Evan Dorkin</a></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's a good possibility, although there has been <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-5381-6_11" target="_blank">some research</a> that a uric acid increase in and of itself may be responsible for Vitamin D deficiency among gout sufferers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Which means my new found dairy addiction is purely based on my own shortcomings. Or getting unhealthy uric acid levels THEN led to dairy cravings, which is sad. Or maybe gout was just a bad timing sort of thing as I get older. (Age is also a common factor for Vitamin D decrease in the body, too).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So now I'm on Vitamin D supplements AND uric acid reducing drugs. Probably on both until...well, until forever. This sort of lifestyle change will get me so ready for my 50th year in 2015 (helped along by the referral the doctor gave me for my first colonoscopy. Yay!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But I also look at this as another way of seeing that even "healthier" foods do not necessarily mean health. Perhaps eating goat brie and yogurt is better than boxes of fudge, but it still comes down to portion control and sensible ways of eating. Thanks god I stayed away from the "fat free" cheeses, with all the added sugars and fillers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Which brings me to my next rant. Chronic gout has meant my running activities have been way curtailed. This weekend, I finally managed to go out for a chilly 5K run, which felt great. But I came across a billboard for a product I hadn't heard of before this week: Coke Life.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5BRV1Uf9TXJCYjQYD4pBKUZ6LKQ6OrSKdW8784cKQudYxTOm5H9Tz1vq1M_6iXLK-Cabyo6clfLP6QmNBVeV7aFMX5YBib8CldLuDS94oEMDg-do0A5yXKfzXEYwM1mw5rO3L12DrxaU/s1600/cocacola.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5BRV1Uf9TXJCYjQYD4pBKUZ6LKQ6OrSKdW8784cKQudYxTOm5H9Tz1vq1M_6iXLK-Cabyo6clfLP6QmNBVeV7aFMX5YBib8CldLuDS94oEMDg-do0A5yXKfzXEYwM1mw5rO3L12DrxaU/s1600/cocacola.jpg" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.coca-colacompany.com/coca-cola-unbottled/coca-cola-life-to-make-us-debut" target="_blank">via</a> </span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I guess it's been on the shelves for a bit, but I don't tend to wander the soda aisles as of late. What gets me is that they're marketing this as a healthy drink and putting "cane sugar" in the same phrase as stevia, showing them both as natural, healthy ingredients.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">OK, they both come from plants but "cane sugar" is SUGAR! YOU'RE DRINKING SUGAR! It is a processed product that isn't good for you in excessive amount! Is it healthier than high fructose corn syrup (which, technically, also comes from "natural ingredients")? Perhaps, but you're still drinking sugar water. You might as well just drink Coke non-Life (I won't even touch that one.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Why do we continue to fall for this crap and why do they still try to push this on us like this? And in what world is sugar a "green" choice? If my toe wasn't all gouty, I'd get up and write an old man letter of complaint to the company.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But for now I'm just gonna cut back on the dairy. Because it's bad enough being grumpy from idiotic health marketing. Not being able to exercise or walk as I get older isn't gonna diffuse that grumpiness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Who wants to buy some cheese?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
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<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Takahashi, Sumio, Tetsuya Yamamoto, Yuji Moriwaki, Zenta Tsutsumi, Jun-ichi Yamakita, and Kazuya Higashino. “Decreased Serum Concentrations of 1,25(OH)2-Vitamin D3 in Patients with Gout.” In <i>Purine and Pyrimidine Metabolism in Man IX</i>, edited by Andrea Griesmacher, Mathias M. Müller, and Peter Chiba, 57–60. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 431. Springer US, 1998. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-5381-6_11.</span></div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=urn%3Aisbn%3A978-1-4613-7456-5%2C%20978-1-4615-5381-6&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Decreased%20Serum%20Concentrations%20of%201%2C25(OH)2-Vitamin%20D3%20in%20Patients%20with%20Gout&rft.publisher=Springer%20US&rft.series=Advances%20in%20Experimental%20Medicine%20and%20Biology&rft.aufirst=Sumio&rft.aulast=Takahashi&rft.au=Sumio%20Takahashi&rft.au=Tetsuya%20Yamamoto&rft.au=Yuji%20Moriwaki&rft.au=Zenta%20Tsutsumi&rft.au=Jun-ichi%20Yamakita&rft.au=Kazuya%20Higashino&rft.au=Andrea%20Griesmacher&rft.au=Mathias%20M.%20M%C3%BCller&rft.au=Peter%20Chiba&rft.date=1998-01-01&rft.pages=57-60&rft.spage=57&rft.epage=60&rft.isbn=978-1-4613-7456-5%2C%20978-1-4615-5381-6&rft.language=en"></span>
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Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-18981898726669096812014-11-11T21:49:00.000-05:002014-11-11T21:49:02.192-05:00Full on workouts lead to half assed research<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hmm, so in my last post, I did say I was not concentrating on the usual healthy paths to nutrition and "wonderful rainbows of advice" type of articles that have been the inspiration for much of this site.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Which means I've been reading less things that make me sputter so much that I have to blog.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I have thought about yet another blog makeover (this is,after all, the 3rd incarnation of this). Perhaps one that is more library-centric, but then again, this journey of Streamlined Ska Librarian is still a work in progress and therefore I guess I do have more to say, I just don't get pissed off as I usually do from research trolling....I mean trawling.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But much of my Streamlined concentration of late has been on the return to hardcore gym time:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>To be fair, the music in the gym was much better back then...</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And with the return to this much gym time is the return of annoyances at the gym. I had hoped to find some actual research and analysis of gym attitudes or issues of gym attendees. And while there's no shortage of general blogs and entertainment websites on gym personalities, it was a wash in finding something along the lines of a systematic literature review or meta-analysis. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I did find other interesting tidbits, such as <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2159676X.2013.766814#.VGAbnslHjEZ" target="_blank">a study</a> on crisis or trauma as a motivation for regular gym use, and <a href="http://hpq.sagepub.com/content/18/1/110.short" target="_blank">another one</a> that (not surprisingly) shows that exercise improves body image, as opposed to actual body shape.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I guess I should take a cue from that positive reinforcement and not try to dwell, even in a scholarly way, on folks who might annoy me when I'm trying to get my work done. And it does sheepishly remind me that my looking for such research is exactly the sort of project plan I try to dissuade younger librarians from doing; Don't start a research project just to show something sucks. Try to formulate a more objective topic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">After all, we can all get along at the gym, if we just try...and perhaps wear mules and garnet earrings while doing it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Appleton, Katherine M. “6 X 40 Mins Exercise Improves Body Image, Even Though Body Weight and Shape Do Not Change.” <i>Journal of Health Psychology</i> 18, no. 1 (January 1, 2013): 110–20. doi:10.1177/1359105311434756.</span></div>
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<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Stewart, Bob, and Aaron C.T. Smith. “The Significance of Critical Incidents in Explaining Gym Use amongst Adult Populations.” <i>Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health</i> 6, no. 1 (February 12, 2013): 45–61. doi:10.1080/2159676X.2013.766814.</span></div>
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Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-21733437737754705322014-10-23T17:48:00.002-04:002014-10-23T17:48:50.465-04:00A return to paid ass-whoopin'<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So where have I been? Not really anywhere, but usually too pooped to actually get to bloggin'. And why is that? I've gone back to my trainer...or let me put that in a more dramatic way...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My trainer has come back to me!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's an online version of what we've been doing previously, which is obviously helped by our past in-person experience. I know that I was sort of falling by the wayside on my workouts. Not that I didn't work up a sweat, but more that it was getting boring and I was losing focus. I needed to try something new or at least mix up the old. And while I could and did peruse various training sites, videos and magazines (thanks, Jack Lalanne!), I needed someone who knew my mindset; how I worked, what would push me farther and, of course, what injuries were already in/on/around my body.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And in just a little over a month, I have noticed the difference. There's definitely more of a solidness to me and the muscles are bigger. I haven't actually felt like I was really getting something out of weight training for some time. I was enjoying it, but I can't say I saw many changes as of late. But now the difference is noticeable, which sometimes makes me wonder just how hard we really think we work it when there's not someone watching over us.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And it is noticeable in that, even though I've been getting up at 5 AM to work out for a few years now, it's been a while since I've felt the absolute need to crash by 10 PM. I guess I am expending more energy.I am whooped.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As silly as it sounds, I take things much more seriously and honestly when I have to record my progress and report it to my trainer. I could easily fudge the numbers of weight and reps and duration when I use my trainer's app, but I don't. Maybe all this time I just needed approval? Hmmm...telling, but probably true.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But even my new found self-approval and newer pectoral growth haven't changed my weight much. And that's actually fine.I'm actually fitting into some snugger pants again, even though the scale is somewhat increasing. And <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=1904816&utm_source=Silverchair" target="_blank">studies</a> show that waist circumference and abdominal obesity are the big issues to health, not just overall chunkiness and a high BMI. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My BMI is definitely back up into the "above normal" range, even if only for the fact my shoulders and back have gained several inches. And the longer I go at this getting into shape thing, the more I find that BMI chart more annoying and sad.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So I'm saying goodbye to official dieting. I'm finally saying goodbye to some of constant diet perusal time online. Eating healthy is one thing, but trying to make my way through so much morass, both from posters and commenters, is getting harder. Maybe it just brings so many flashbacks of fat-shaming throughout my life, but man, people are nasty! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I don't even have to link to any specific post, because a lovely, recent <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13142-014-0256-1" target="_blank">mixed methods analysis</a> on obesity in social media shows that a majority of postings are derogatory, negative and often misogynistic. Blogs tend to be "more nuanced", although even humorous, supportive comments can get pretty gnarly. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is not to say I still won't be basing future blog posts on research about weight and nutrition, because I do find that research fascinating. But I'm seriously trying to move myself away from reading the nastier self-abuse out there on the topic. It's to easy to fall into that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">People gotta play nice. Or my whooped, newly firm ass will kick yours!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Chou, Wen-ying Sylvia, Abby Prestin, and Stephen Kunath. “Obesity in Social Media: A Mixed Methods Analysis.” <i>Translational Behavioral Medicine</i> 4, no. 3 (September 1, 2014): 314–23. doi:10.1007/s13142-014-0256-1.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Ford ES, Maynard LM, and Li C. “Trends in Mean Waist Circumference and Abdominal Obesity among Us Adults, 1999-2012.” <i>JAMA</i> 312, no. 11 (September 17, 2014): 1151–53. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.8362.</span><br />
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<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.3945%2Fajcn.113.069443&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F24132980&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Relative%20ability%20of%20fat%20and%20sugar%20tastes%20to%20activate%20reward%2C%20gustatory%2C%20and%20somatosensory%20regions&rft.jtitle=The%20American%20Journal%20of%20Clinical%20Nutrition&rft.stitle=Am.%20J.%20Clin.%20Nutr.&rft.volume=98&rft.issue=6&rft.aufirst=Eric&rft.aulast=Stice&rft.au=Eric%20Stice&rft.au=Kyle%20S.%20Burger&rft.au=Sonja%20Yokum&rft.date=2013-12&rft.pages=1377-1384&rft.spage=1377&rft.epage=1384&rft.issn=1938-3207&rft.language=eng"></span>
Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-52240868911586495662014-09-23T15:54:00.002-04:002014-09-23T15:59:54.040-04:00A Streamlined New Years - with pudding<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We are coming upon the High Holy Days....time to begin our self-reflection as we begin a new year:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6SxgV5hI_ifeYB5gIpIcXNmb512wx2bszZG4raa6LfLk-v4WcJUiUKU85U54Y3AgG6DALDE60msnSDRV6z-ywKgX3pMnTg_fNg2i5u1-oVnNgb0EPxBL0zz8V-gri1zQ8wx_rmPmDHp4/s1600/dick-van-dyke-in-synagogue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6SxgV5hI_ifeYB5gIpIcXNmb512wx2bszZG4raa6LfLk-v4WcJUiUKU85U54Y3AgG6DALDE60msnSDRV6z-ywKgX3pMnTg_fNg2i5u1-oVnNgb0EPxBL0zz8V-gri1zQ8wx_rmPmDHp4/s1600/dick-van-dyke-in-synagogue.jpg" height="241" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This time of year can be fraught with an overwhelming sense of guilt, responsibility, and yes, authenticity. Too often I find this time of year to be filled with a lot of judgement of others and not so much about one's self. And to me, that misses the point. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There's certainly <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/" target="_blank">enough research</a> out there to see that traditions change, morph and sometimes fizzle as we move forward. It doesn't mean it's any less authentic, but rather a statement of how we can best fit important messages into our lives. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's like how I feel about fad diets. Why throw out everything you know about eating, when the basics are already there, just maybe ignored? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, whether or not you actually do observe this time of year and whether or not you identify with doing anything for it, I thought I'd once again delve into the traditions and see if I can make of them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">After <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-sweet-streamlined-new-year.html" target="_blank">last year's recipe</a> for honey cookies, I decided to stay far away from traditional honey cake as possible. And for some reason, I've been craving pudding. So I went with it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This time, the recipe is entirely from the Streamlined Ska Librarian's imagination. I've never made pudding, let alone a rather nontraditional flavor like apple-honey, so there were a lot of experiments and tweaks. And even though I wanted that pudding siliness, I decided it needed some crunch in the end, so I quickly sauteed-carmelized some apple slices for the top. You could go the whipped cream or fruit route, or even chocolate chips. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And yes, this recipe contains corn starch,
honey and dairy products (albeit low-fat milk and skyr), but I also use unsweetened applesauce (nothing but apples!) which doesn't need a huge amount of sweetening as a dessert. And anyway, portions
are portions and a sweet Rosh Hashana treat can be just the thing you need
to set you on the path for the rest of the year.</span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>The Streamlined Ska Librarian's Rosh Hashana Apple - Honey Pudding <i>(serves 6)</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 cup cornstarch</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 tsp salt</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 TBS cinnamon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 TBS cardamom</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 tsp ground cloves</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 tsp all spice</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2 TBS ground ginger</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 cup water, buttermilk, yogurt or cream (I use <a href="http://siggisdairy.com/products/detail/filmjolk/plain/22/#sthash.vxLGNCgy.dpbs" target="_blank">Siggi's Filmjölk</a>)</span><br />
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Filmjölk</span></div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Filmjölk</span></div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">siggi's filmjölk</span></div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">siggi's filmjölk</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3 egg yolks</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 qt 2% milk</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3/4 cup + 2 TBS honey</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 cup brown sugar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 TBS vanilla </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 apple</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 TBS butter</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">splash mirin (optional) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">extra cinammon, cardamom, etc. to taste</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1. Combine cornstarch, salt and spices in a bowl </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2. Add liquid until a well mixed slurry is produced. (Add additional water if needed)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3. Beat the three yolks and add to the cornstarch mixture</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">4. In a fairly large saucepan, heat the applesauce, 3/4 cup honey and sugar over medium until combined.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">5. Add the milk to the applesauce mixture. Heat until it just begins to bubble.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">5. Whisking constantly, slowly pour about 3/4 of the milk mixture into the egg-cornstarch slurry. It should be well combined, a bit frothy, but still totally liquid.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">6. Pour this mix back into the saucepan and start whisking at a steady pace. In about 2-3 minutes it should start to thicken. </span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHxdmv2QCnkUwJpRl8cTdAu7aiYU8EJiwzXfolXNK79tMIT8Qq1_lKg0Wi5xOag8r-Pw9sILNu5T12QHCPamlNnyXm547XZfCg-Vq3H7Cw5C8yUcpfKaDHp_14jBwsJvxe-mcladc0R1g/s1600/pudding2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHxdmv2QCnkUwJpRl8cTdAu7aiYU8EJiwzXfolXNK79tMIT8Qq1_lKg0Wi5xOag8r-Pw9sILNu5T12QHCPamlNnyXm547XZfCg-Vq3H7Cw5C8yUcpfKaDHp_14jBwsJvxe-mcladc0R1g/s1600/pudding2.jpg" height="320" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Just like this...</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">7. Add vanilla and taste to see if more spices are needed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">8. Keep whisking for about 5-10 minutes until the pudding is smooth and thick. Do NOT let it boil.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">9. Remove from the heat and let cool completely. Cover with plastic wrap if you're one of those people to hates pudding skin.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(It may take quite some time to cool. Don't put it in the fridge until it's completely cool).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">10. When ready to serve, slice apple and sautee in a pan with butter, remaining honey and mirin. Add spices when cooked.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatsBN-V6ZH61qK1kjEIdrqSgE_JbdqSPS52FaALJkD0X-8rSACfyE8Q8E67XuYJPhEMNWEl4T0uF7q51MJt1rbJG7C_l3o1xXWF9cVnqiTNqUzR1P-Jy0azxAF5q7HNB5mrqhQ14Mukk/s1600/pudding+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Nl9DVUe_kz4CqddvNzk9kTFmRXgkSNwRcSEF2kYKnCqYBbxIVVYZu99pVFr7Bs6HTjnrVl3tAYdQarIcvsGckrvUMwSEVkmf1xUWuuVlya46uag02n5wVF5bAGa0NfEgDkQogKps5UE/s1600/pudding3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7Nl9DVUe_kz4CqddvNzk9kTFmRXgkSNwRcSEF2kYKnCqYBbxIVVYZu99pVFr7Bs6HTjnrVl3tAYdQarIcvsGckrvUMwSEVkmf1xUWuuVlya46uag02n5wVF5bAGa0NfEgDkQogKps5UE/s1600/pudding3.jpg" height="289" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">11. Let cool slightly and place on top of each serving of pudding.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And the result?</span><br />
<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatsBN-V6ZH61qK1kjEIdrqSgE_JbdqSPS52FaALJkD0X-8rSACfyE8Q8E67XuYJPhEMNWEl4T0uF7q51MJt1rbJG7C_l3o1xXWF9cVnqiTNqUzR1P-Jy0azxAF5q7HNB5mrqhQ14Mukk/s1600/pudding+1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatsBN-V6ZH61qK1kjEIdrqSgE_JbdqSPS52FaALJkD0X-8rSACfyE8Q8E67XuYJPhEMNWEl4T0uF7q51MJt1rbJG7C_l3o1xXWF9cVnqiTNqUzR1P-Jy0azxAF5q7HNB5mrqhQ14Mukk/s1600/pudding+1.jpg" height="320" width="317" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Mmm...mmm! Atonement will be a breeze after this!</i></span></td></tr>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">L'Shanah Tovah, y'all!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Liu, Joseph. “A Portrait of Jewish Americans.” <i>Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project</i>, October 1, 2013. http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.type=blogPost&rft.title=A%20Portrait%20of%20Jewish%20Americans&rft.description=American%20Jews%20overwhelmingly%20say%20they%20are%20proud%20to%20be%20Jewish%20and%20have%20a%20strong%20sense%20of%20belonging%20to%20the%20Jewish%20people%2C%20but%20their%20identity%20is%20also%20changing%3A%2022%25%20of%20American%20Jews%20now%20say%20they%20have%20no%20religion.&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pewforum.org%2F2013%2F10%2F01%2Fjewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey%2F&rft.aufirst=Joseph&rft.aulast=Liu&rft.au=Joseph%20Liu&rft.date=2013-10-01"></span></span>
</div>
<br />Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-2116180118832145512014-09-14T19:40:00.004-04:002014-09-16T17:16:52.689-04:00Like broccoli in a brownie<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One of the research links in the <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2014/09/failing-homemakers-or-spice-up-that.html" target="_blank">previous post</a> addressed how one's tastes are more or less set at a young age. Which may account for my less than favorable opinions of peas.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmJyeM_bKtdyFt_UvYeYSTPRItI_-g3yPSCdx_42iL9s92-y1DSPefxlZXEIgCEKtqEMJAqWnBjFNqsBreIA7p2lAuOLdhDuhBpxwv9r9mEYAFK9x02qduvaMlijqjdOc8v_BlJ4AHrhk/s1600/3567green_pea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmJyeM_bKtdyFt_UvYeYSTPRItI_-g3yPSCdx_42iL9s92-y1DSPefxlZXEIgCEKtqEMJAqWnBjFNqsBreIA7p2lAuOLdhDuhBpxwv9r9mEYAFK9x02qduvaMlijqjdOc8v_BlJ4AHrhk/s1600/3567green_pea.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Stupid peas...think they're so special!</i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's funny, because I do love pea soup, I adore sauteed pea greens, and I don't mind throwing a handful of peas into a dish for some crunch or color (such as last week's Ancho Carbonara). But a serving of peas with a meal? Meh. I'd rather not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But I know why this is. Peas were the one ubiquitous vegetable at dinner when I was growing up. We always had other veggies, too, but my dad insisted on peas, almost every night. And unlike much of my parent's other food "experiments" with recipes doomed to scare small children, peas were always served as is: defrosted from a bag and then put on our plates. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This may speak more to the fact that my mom probably didn't care too much about them and my dad only wanted them as is. They weren't presented as tasty. Merely mandatory. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And even though I was a surprisingly picky eater, I did scarf down other vegetables. Brussel sprouts, broccoli, spinach, carrots ... yes, please. But peas...I'd hide them in my napkin.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So it should not be surprising that, as an adult, I rarely if ever have peas in the house, nor do I go out of my way to order them in restaurants. It's not like I hate them. They just don't come up in my list of foods to think about. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sorry, peas. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Around the same time as my napkin hiding escapades, came a product that was supposed to handle such an issue: I Hate Peas.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">These were basically vegetables reconstituted with potatoes (and other ingredients) to make french fries. And they came in other vegetable flavors, too.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht8WDfqTGobx0y5iDMJ8vPk5bXpL_Owfw-W4voMjOptNWDTYFizEIlV88C1Pq2ZBbaFJyT9eno_c4jCXOnzZLf4chsFkZ7mPuqWNZQgUQvjKZq7KpYiQ3VKU7dF7f766HOd6hPr9Ijd6E/s1600/i-hate-peas-fries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht8WDfqTGobx0y5iDMJ8vPk5bXpL_Owfw-W4voMjOptNWDTYFizEIlV88C1Pq2ZBbaFJyT9eno_c4jCXOnzZLf4chsFkZ7mPuqWNZQgUQvjKZq7KpYiQ3VKU7dF7f766HOd6hPr9Ijd6E/s1600/i-hate-peas-fries.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/10-foods-that-flopped-2013-2#5-french-fry-shaped-peas-5" target="_blank">Via</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(I had hoped to find the TV Commercial online, but no dice.) </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Even back then, I thought this was a bad idea. Really? French fries as a substitute for everything? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now I can really see that my parent's feeding habits of us kids helped me be open to trying most everything. That is especially apparent watching some adult friends and acquaintances who avoid certain groups of foods altogether. It's one thing to not like a a particular food's taste or texture (I was married to someone who hated the pulp of tomatoes. I'm currently dating someone who does not like the taste of cucumbers. We manage.) It's entirely something else to meet folks into their 30s and 40s who won't eat any vegetables or fresh fruit because they find them all "icky".</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And I believe these were the people who were probably snuck their "healthy" foods into their "regular" meals. And that's not so unique. You can find tons of blogs about it, so much so that other bloggers <a href="http://www.foodretro.com/dear-ninja-vegetable-mom-youre-raising-kids-wrong/" target="_blank">have complained about it</a>. (In-fighting among the foodies!)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Even <a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/94/3/735.short" target="_blank">scientific</a> <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666311004764" target="_blank">studies</a> have shown that both scientists and moms felt that "stealth veggie-ing" was the effective way to introduce healthy energy-dense food to youngsters. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But then we end up with folks who only eat deep fried greens and perpetuate this madness by following Jerry Seinfeld's wife into hiding broccoli in your cupcakes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, much as I don't often say it...thanks, Mom and Dad, for serving me those awful peas every meal, along with the strangely crisp eggplants, the home made sushi and "crepe night." Without all that, we wouldn't have the Streamlined Ska Librarian recipes we see today.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Stupid peas....</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Caton, Samantha J., Sara M. Ahern, and Marion M. Hetherington. “Vegetables by Stealth. An Exploratory Study Investigating the Introduction of Vegetables in the Weaning Period.” <i>Appetite</i>, Feeding infants and young children: guidelines, research and practice, 57, no. 3 (December 2011): 816–25. doi:10.1016/j.appet.2011.05.319.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1016%2Fj.appet.2011.05.319&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Vegetables%20by%20stealth.%20An%20exploratory%20study%20investigating%20the%20introduction%20of%20vegetables%20in%20the%20weaning%20period&rft.jtitle=Appetite&rft.stitle=Appetite&rft.volume=57&rft.issue=3&rft.aufirst=Samantha%20J.&rft.aulast=Caton&rft.au=Samantha%20J.%20Caton&rft.au=Sara%20M.%20Ahern&rft.au=Marion%20M.%20Hetherington&rft.date=2011-12&rft.pages=816-825&rft.spage=816&rft.epage=825&rft.issn=0195-6663"></span></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Dear Ninja Vegetable Mom: You’re Raising Kids Wrong.” Accessed September 14, 2014. http://www.foodretro.com/dear-ninja-vegetable-mom-youre-raising-kids-wrong/.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.type=webpage&rft.title=Dear%20Ninja%20Vegetable%20Mom%3A%20You%E2%80%99re%20Raising%20Kids%20Wrong&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foodretro.com%2Fdear-ninja-vegetable-mom-youre-raising-kids-wrong%2F"></span></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Spill, Maureen K., Leann L. Birch, Liane S. Roe, and Barbara J. Rolls. “Hiding Vegetables to Reduce Energy Density: An Effective Strategy to Increase Children’s Vegetable Intake and Reduce Energy Intake.” <i>The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition</i> 94, no. 3 (September 1, 2011): 735–41. doi:10.3945/ajcn.111.015206.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.3945%2Fajcn.111.015206&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F21775554&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Hiding%20vegetables%20to%20reduce%20energy%20density%3A%20an%20effective%20strategy%20to%20increase%20children's%20vegetable%20intake%20and%20reduce%20energy%20intake&rft.jtitle=The%20American%20Journal%20of%20Clinical%20Nutrition&rft.stitle=Am%20J%20Clin%20Nutr&rft.volume=94&rft.issue=3&rft.aufirst=Maureen%20K.&rft.aulast=Spill&rft.au=Maureen%20K.%20Spill&rft.au=Leann%20L.%20Birch&rft.au=Liane%20S.%20Roe&rft.au=Barbara%20J.%20Rolls&rft.date=2011-09-01&rft.pages=735-741&rft.spage=735&rft.epage=741&rft.issn=0002-9165%2C%201938-3207&rft.language=en"></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-69831884137182863232014-09-11T17:40:00.001-04:002014-09-12T09:17:56.059-04:00Failing homemakers, or Spice up that Carbonara!<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The other day I cooked with goat's milk. It wasn't any definitive recipe or attempt at being more "organic" or "natural" (Goats aren't exactly wandering around downtown Manhattan), but I was in the dairy aisle, it was on sale in half a liter size containers , and I felt like trying it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The results were tasty, although I can't say for sure goat's milk lent that final piece of specialness. And the results certainly weren't any healthier because a goat was involved.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And then there was this bit of experimentation: Ancho Whole Wheat Carbonara</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkJcWp4iOELcopOawLbqjsM-4bE-cZ3Z2JP-rr8xBGG3QcccfbZiGbW4cakORo0hQ_XAPnNXhwAhv2R6Iw9yVAd1WS9jWfB-zbJwwyCl1HK9mO_nkUbB3RHVWKboFchwgB69_iVg33AF0/s1600/ancho.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkJcWp4iOELcopOawLbqjsM-4bE-cZ3Z2JP-rr8xBGG3QcccfbZiGbW4cakORo0hQ_XAPnNXhwAhv2R6Iw9yVAd1WS9jWfB-zbJwwyCl1HK9mO_nkUbB3RHVWKboFchwgB69_iVg33AF0/s1600/ancho.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mmmm...that's a spicy pasta!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Not as light as my fluffy dinner balls, but a pretty amazing piece of work. In fact, here's the recipe:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>The Streamlined Ska Librarian's Ancho Whole Wheat Carbonara </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(Serves 2-4, depending on portion needs)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2-3 dried ancho chiles</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 cup boiling water</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1/2 pound smoked bacon, chopped into pieces (or other smoked not-too-lean meat)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2 Tbsp olive oil</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 cup corn (fresh or frozen)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 cup peas (fresh or frozen)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 cup onion, diced</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3 cloves garlic, diced </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Apple Cider Vinegar</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Chicken Stock</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3 eggs</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 cup half & half (or other fatty dairy milk product)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 cup Asiago cheese, grated </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Salt & pepper to taste (depending on meat choices, you may need extra salt).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1/2 lb whole wheat pasta</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1. Stem and seed chiles, place in bowl and pour boiling water over to cover. Let steep for at least 15 minutes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2. Puree chiles (with water) in processor until smooth</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3. Sautee the bacon pieces until crispy. Drain on paper towel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">4. In same pan, add olive oil, corn, peas, onion and garlic. Sautee until beginning to brown. Deglaze pan with vinegar and stock. Keep flame on low and stir veggies occasionally.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">5. In separate bowl, beat, eggs, half & half, 1/2 cup cheese and chile puree until mixed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">6. Boil pasta until just al dente.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">7. Drain pasta (saving some of the water). Put pasta back in pot. Add veggies, bacon and egg-chile mixture and stir until incorporated. Add a few spoons of pasta water if needed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">8. Top with rest of cheese, pepper and salt, if needed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(and for dessert, there was goat's milk pudding!)</span></i> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's been a while since I've put something like this together on a weeknight. I realize that's one of the possible upsides of my recent cohabitation: I'm willing to cook more elaborately because someone else is doing all the dishes! And this recipe does leave a lot of stuff to be washed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It is definitely the drudgery of domesticity which can prevent a lot of more "home spun" creations. It's time consuming, it can be economically unfeasible and sometimes just not pleasant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Which is why I am once again rolling my eyes at Michael Pollan and his call for the "old fashioned" ways. In the past few years, he's been touting that home-cooked meals eaten with the family are what's truly missing from our lives now and blame is placed solely on those modern thinking housewives. (I've ranted about his smug attitude <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2013/05/twisting-yourself-into-authentic-food.html" target="_blank">before</a>). </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I love cooking. I even love healthy Streamlined cooking. I love the sense of creating and sharing something out of food, even if it's just for my own gullet. But when I've worked 12 hours and still want to get some stress relieving exercise in the mix and have to clean the house, do homework, and yes, write this blog, well then, I'm not above going the less than "made from scratch" route. Or even a pizza or pannini from down the street. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0056620" target="_blank">recent study</a> did show that perhaps the decrease in household maintenance has contributed to decrease in energy expenditure which one can try to correlate to an increase in obesity. Although it doesn't really take into account that perhaps energy is being expended elsewhere. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But is that what we're looking for? Women who do nothing but chop wood, milk cows, mill grain, and start cooking the meal at 5 AM so we can have dinner? </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I think most modern working mothers (at whom Pollan seems to be aiming) really do not have time for this crap. Even my mother, she of Julia Child influence and natural "treats," didn't always make her own tofu and pickle her own crab-apples from our backyard tree. She had better things to do.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A recent sociology-anthropolgy study on this topic takes Pollan to task:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>"While Pollan and others wax nostalgic about a time when people grew their own food and sat around the dinner table eating it, they fail to see all of the invisible labor that goes into planning, making, and coordinating family meals. Cooking is at times joyful, but it is also filled with time pressures, tradeoffs designed to save money, and the burden of pleasing others" </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Basically, we have been creating ways to ease the burden of much our worklife, but it's supposedly bad when we then deny this nostalgic view among those who can afford to have said nostalgia. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yes, you shouldn't just shovel fast food at the family for dinner all the time. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/childhood-diet-habits-set-in-infancy-studies-suggest.html?_r=0" target="_blank">There are studies</a> that show that kids' tastes start early, so healthier dishes and fruits and vegetables thrown in between the mac and cheese dinners might make for better choices as they get older. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But we're not in Donna Reed land anymore. Even Donna Reed wasn't in that land:</span></span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGnvE051Ll5WobTsgj_uV5twXJ_Qa5CCv6o4aUSjaoguBhsf6uJvmgg5tNlGKjTyY0qaXXwjrz9Qswqfg9bneNarWyPZ9EMNXQrvbsPiQY_GbiBH3MskP6BBgQAjl94cHe2QDZAyWwfds/s1600/reed2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGnvE051Ll5WobTsgj_uV5twXJ_Qa5CCv6o4aUSjaoguBhsf6uJvmgg5tNlGKjTyY0qaXXwjrz9Qswqfg9bneNarWyPZ9EMNXQrvbsPiQY_GbiBH3MskP6BBgQAjl94cHe2QDZAyWwfds/s1600/reed2.jpg" height="320" width="203" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">OK, enough award-winning "bad girl" roles, Miss Reed. Those radishes aren't going to rosette themselves</span></i>!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, Mr. Pollan, go try working for drudge wages and see if you still want to pluck your own ducks before starting the home made croquembouche. The rest of us have reality to deal with. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Experiment in the kitchen. Just don't chain yourself to it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Archer, Edward, Robin P. Shook, Diana M. Thomas, Timothy S. Church, Peter T. Katzmarzyk, James R. Hébert, Kerry L. McIver, Gregory A. Hand, Carl J. Lavie, and Steven N. Blair. “45-Year Trends in Women’s Use of Time and Household Management Energy Expenditure.” <i>PLoS ONE</i> 8, no. 2 (February 20, 2013): e56620. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056620. <span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0056620&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=45-Year%20Trends%20in%20Women%E2%80%99s%20Use%20of%20Time%20and%20Household%20Management%20Energy%20Expenditure&rft.jtitle=PLoS%20ONE&rft.stitle=PLoS%20ONE&rft.volume=8&rft.issue=2&rft.aufirst=Edward&rft.aulast=Archer&rft.au=Edward%20Archer&rft.au=Robin%20P.%20Shook&rft.au=Diana%20M.%20Thomas&rft.au=Timothy%20S.%20Church&rft.au=Peter%20T.%20Katzmarzyk&rft.au=James%20R.%20H%C3%A9bert&rft.au=Kerry%20L.%20McIver&rft.au=Gregory%20A.%20Hand&rft.au=Carl%20J.%20Lavie&rft.au=Steven%20N.%20Blair&rft.date=2013-02-20&rft.pages=e56620"></span></span> <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Bowen, Sarah, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton. “The Joy of Cooking?” <i>Contexts</i> 13, no. 3 (August 1, 2014): 20–25. doi:10.1177/1536504214545755. <span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1177%2F1536504214545755&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=The%20Joy%20of%20Cooking%3F&rft.jtitle=Contexts&rft.stitle=Contexts&rft.volume=13&rft.issue=3&rft.aufirst=Sarah&rft.aulast=Bowen&rft.au=Sarah%20Bowen&rft.au=Sinikka%20Elliott&rft.au=Joslyn%20Brenton&rft.date=2014-08-01&rft.pages=20-25&rft.spage=20&rft.epage=25&rft.issn=1536-5042%2C%201537-6052&rft.language=en"></span></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Louis, Catherine Saint. “Childhood Diet Habits Set in Infancy, Studies Suggest.” <i>The New York Times</i>, September 2, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/health/childhood-diet-habits-set-in-infancy-studies-suggest.html.</span> <br />
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<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.type=newspaperArticle&rft.title=A%20Call%20for%20a%20Low-Carb%20Diet&rft.source=The%20New%20York%20Times&rft.description=In%20a%20finding%20that%20upends%20long-held%20notions%20about%20a%20healthy%20diet%2C%20a%20major%20study%20shows%20that%20avoiding%20carbohydrates%20and%20eating%20more%20fat%20contributes%20to%20weight%20loss%20and%20fewer%20cardiovascular%20risks.&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2014%2F09%2F02%2Fhealth%2Flow-carb-vs-low-fat-diet.html&rft.aufirst=Anahad&rft.aulast=O%E2%80%99connor&rft.au=Anahad%20O%E2%80%99connor&rft.date=2014-09-01&rft.issn=0362-4331"></span> Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-39475776443206040742014-08-25T17:39:00.000-04:002014-08-25T17:39:25.598-04:00Accountability or just plain ol' fat shaming?<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I know I usually start my blog posts with a jaunty introduction about something in my life, but then I was checking up on the website of <a href="http://bvmrd.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Registered Dietitian Aaron Flores</a> and he <a href="http://bvmrd.blogspot.com/2014/08/childhood-obesity-psa-completely-wrong.html" target="_blank">posted</a> about this video:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/50GtdumauWQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I am so disgusted, I can't even be jaunty. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I know we need to take accountability for our actions in life. And yes, it shows the "body" in question avoiding too much exercise and eating a lot of cake. <i>Mmmm...cake.</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And yet for all this lack of moving and hidden stash binge eating (<i>that</i> was a trigger for me) and endless huge meals, it was this guy's mother's fault for enabling this lifestyle! The shame! Fast food and juice for infants! You ruined your baby, mommy!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Look, my mom forced me to eat home-made granola and foods from <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/vegetarian-epicure/oclc/221630&referer=brief_results" target="_blank">The Vegetarian Epicure</a> and <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/recipes-for-a-small-planet-the-art-and-science-of-high-protein-vegetarian-cookery/oclc/699377&referer=brief_results" target="_blank">Recipes for Small Planet</a>. In other words, healthy, hippie food. And I still ended up with binging on hidden candy stashes, giving up on exercise, and tipping the scale at 300 lbs. in my 30s. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Giving your kid french fries isn't the sole reason he dies of a heart attack. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In fact, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2001.38/full" target="_blank">studies</a> <a href="http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/2/132.short" target="_blank">show</a> that parents trying to set more stringent dietary rules on their kids end up with more eating disorders AND obesity issues. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Then again, you can blame it on <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8424001" target="_blank">television</a>. Or the <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1845186#ref-jms1106-6-1-11" target="_blank">school system</a>. Or anyone else who you need to place shame upon. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In other words, its a rich tapestry of reasons as to why we might be obese and suffer from health issues because of it. And by shaming both the obese person and their parents..you might as well be blaming them for the economy, too. It doesn't help. In fact, I can only imagine it will make it worse, because you're making the situation worse. You're not asking or helping people take accountability. You're just abusing them for having birthday cake.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Mmmm...cake. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Which reminds me of THIS video, which is meant as a joke, but I think covers what the ad is trying to convey in a much better fashion and far more truthfully:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/sNGihLTYD0Y?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The answer is try to be healthy. Work on it and own it. I can certainly blame my parents for a ton of things, but my current weight and health are my responsibility alone. </span><br />
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i> </i></span><div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.type=blogPost&rft.title=Balance%20Variety%20and%20Moderation%20RDN%3A%20Childhood%20Obesity%20PSA%20-%20The%20Completely%20Wrong%20Message&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fbvmrd.blogspot.com%2F2014%2F08%2Fchildhood-obesity-psa-completely-wrong.html&rft.aufirst=Aaron&rft.aulast=Flores&rft.au=Aaron%20Flores&rft.date=2014-08-14"></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
<br />
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Carter R. “The Impact of Public Schools on Childhood Obesity.” <i>JAMA</i> 288, no. 17 (November 6, 2002): 2180–2180. doi:10.1001/jama.288.17.2180-JMS1106-6-1.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1001%2Fjama.288.17.2180-JMS1106-6-1&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=THe%20impact%20of%20public%20schools%20on%20childhood%20obesity&rft.jtitle=JAMA&rft.stitle=JAMA&rft.volume=288&rft.issue=17&rft.aulast=Carter%20R&rft.au=Carter%20R&rft.date=2002-11-06&rft.pages=2180-2180&rft.spage=2180&rft.epage=2180&rft.issn=0098-7484"></span></span>
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Clark, H. R., E. Goyder, P. Bissell, L. Blank, and J. Peters. “How Do Parents’ Child-Feeding Behaviours Influence Child Weight? Implications for Childhood Obesity Policy.” <i>Journal of Public Health</i> 29, no. 2 (June 1, 2007): 132–41. doi:10.1093/pubmed/fdm012.</span></div>
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Flores, Aaron. “Balance Variety and Moderation RDN: Childhood Obesity PSA - The Completely Wrong Message.” <i>Balance Variety and Moderation RDN</i>, August 14, 2014. http://bvmrd.blogspot.com/2014/08/childhood-obesity-psa-completely-wrong.html.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1093%2Fpubmed%2Ffdm012&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F17442696&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=How%20do%20parents'%20child-feeding%20behaviours%20influence%20child%20weight%3F%20Implications%20for%20childhood%20obesity%20policy&rft.jtitle=Journal%20of%20Public%20Health&rft.stitle=J%20Public%20Health&rft.volume=29&rft.issue=2&rft.aufirst=H.%20R.&rft.aulast=Clark&rft.au=H.%20R.%20Clark&rft.au=E.%20Goyder&rft.au=P.%20Bissell&rft.au=L.%20Blank&rft.au=J.%20Peters&rft.date=2007-06-01&rft.pages=132-141&rft.spage=132&rft.epage=141&rft.issn=1741-3842%2C%201741-3850&rft.language=en"></span></span>
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Klesges, Robert C., Mary L. Shelton, and Lisa M. Klesges. “Effects of Television on Metabolic Rate: Potential Implications For Childhood Obesity.” <i>Pediatrics</i> 91, no. 2 (February 1, 1993): 281–86.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F8424001&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Effects%20of%20Television%20on%20Metabolic%20Rate%3A%20Potential%20Implications%20For%20Childhood%20Obesity&rft.jtitle=Pediatrics&rft.stitle=Pediatrics&rft.volume=91&rft.issue=2&rft.aufirst=Robert%20C.&rft.aulast=Klesges&rft.au=Robert%20C.%20Klesges&rft.au=Mary%20L.%20Shelton&rft.au=Lisa%20M.%20Klesges&rft.date=1993-02-01&rft.pages=281-286&rft.spage=281&rft.epage=286&rft.issn=0031-4005%2C%201098-4275&rft.language=en"></span></span>
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Robinson, Thomas N., Michaela Kiernan, Donna M. Matheson, and K. Farish Haydel. “Is Parental Control over Children’s Eating Associated with Childhood Obesity? Results from a Population-Based Sample of Third Graders.” <i>Obesity Research</i> 9, no. 5 (May 1, 2001): 306–12. doi:10.1038/oby.2001.38.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1038%2Foby.2001.38&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Is%20Parental%20Control%20over%20Children's%20Eating%20Associated%20with%20Childhood%20Obesity%3F%20Results%20from%20a%20Population-Based%20Sample%20of%20Third%20Graders&rft.jtitle=Obesity%20Research&rft.volume=9&rft.issue=5&rft.aufirst=Thomas%20N.&rft.aulast=Robinson&rft.au=Thomas%20N.%20Robinson&rft.au=Michaela%20Kiernan&rft.au=Donna%20M.%20Matheson&rft.au=K.%20Farish%20Haydel&rft.date=2001-05-01&rft.pages=306-312&rft.spage=306&rft.epage=312&rft.issn=1550-8528&rft.language=en"></span></span>
</div>
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<br />Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-852657048493845712014-08-07T21:57:00.002-04:002014-08-07T22:18:10.915-04:00Happy fluffy dinner balls<i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">[No references, just a recipe]</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's just been a wacky week. Along with gout recovery, we're finally getting repairs done on the apartment. Repairs that were needed from Superstorm Sandy. And of course, some of the "simpler" fixes have turned into multi-day event dramas:</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjisXu9vmFDJ5RlqSd-McRtx7GcjDZ4tWi_-NLGkSvIXNU0wv41IYgKpbfCZQXaAFm8h49UnFNCWx_lde0niDs3xE9eeZKjYBmOML7fAlmFIP_J1TTQcyHrRat_3O-oXvRHd5kewShYDu8/s1600/bathroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjisXu9vmFDJ5RlqSd-McRtx7GcjDZ4tWi_-NLGkSvIXNU0wv41IYgKpbfCZQXaAFm8h49UnFNCWx_lde0niDs3xE9eeZKjYBmOML7fAlmFIP_J1TTQcyHrRat_3O-oXvRHd5kewShYDu8/s1600/bathroom.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>I just wanna take a shower!</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So between work obligations, dealing with maintenance men and having newish pets still acclimating to each other (and said maintenance men), all of a sudden it's 6 PM and dinner has to be on the table. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What's a streamlined ska librarian to do?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Thankfully we had some ground turkey, and meatballs are usually quick, but I wanted to kick them up a bit and still keep them healthy. I had some yams, egg whites and tons of spices. And then I added a little molasses for contrast and taste and also to help create some caramelization. They were very light and barely solid, but I didn't want to go the flour route, so I threw in a little corn meal.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The result?</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHRY8vz9VcNSBUke3WPaFboDgmPESTjCPAJYgra4iYqCWulDyRuGnOSa2G5KozPFXVplGAxCS2fvtJuvaMsXULmN1FaHXgr2XB4NqoI6xkDcRwnpcj0sgTMj-Qm1vUw19uI0p62nwtKxo/s1600/meatball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHRY8vz9VcNSBUke3WPaFboDgmPESTjCPAJYgra4iYqCWulDyRuGnOSa2G5KozPFXVplGAxCS2fvtJuvaMsXULmN1FaHXgr2XB4NqoI6xkDcRwnpcj0sgTMj-Qm1vUw19uI0p62nwtKxo/s1600/meatball.jpg" height="298" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Not the best photo but I'll leave that to the "foodies"</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">They were amazingly fluffy and wonderfully fragrant with just the right molasses crust on the bottom. Paired with a little sauerkraut cooked in a sherry-sour cream sauce and fresh tomatoes with zataar....perfection after a stressful day!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><b>The Streamlined Ska Librarian's Fluffy Spicy Meatballs</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>(Serves 4-6) </i><b><br /></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 lb. ground turkey</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3 TBS. Tandoori spice blend (I buy mine from my local fave, <a href="http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2013/05/dual-specialty-store-indian-market-spices-east-village.html">Dual Specialty Store</a>.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2 tsps. minced garlic</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 TBS. dried ginger </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2 TBS. molasses</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2 egg whites</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 1/2 cups cooked sweet potato or yam</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1/2 cup corn meal</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1. Preheat oven to 350F</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">2. In large bowl, combine all ingredients until well blended</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">3. Form into balls about 1 1/2 to 2 in in diameter</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">4. Place on oiled baking pan</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">5. Bake until done (about 30-45 min.)</span><br />
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<br />Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-56457631322144333872014-08-04T16:13:00.000-04:002014-08-04T16:13:35.856-04:00What's Next...Lumbago?<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This post took longer than expected. In fact, it was supposed to be about another topic and released before the end of last month. But then I developed gout. Yes, you read that right. And, boy, was it not pleasant!</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_gout_james_gillray.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="James Gillray [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="The gout james gillray" height="236" src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/The_gout_james_gillray.jpg/512px-The_gout_james_gillray.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>There is no exaggeration to this image.(Via <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_gout_james_gillray.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a>)</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I find it ironic that during my Retro Ska Librarian Lifestyle (aka Sedentary, Binge Eating Unhealthy Diet Life of Dan), this never happened. But a few years into Streamlined, Leafy Green, Daily Workout Ska Librarian Life of Dan .... hot poker glass shard demons jam into my bunion joint.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm hoping this was a one time event and not a chronic condition. And forcing myself to spend several days immobile with my foot up has once again made me realize how much I really need and want to move on a daily basis.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(What's also fascinating is finding out how many of my friends are gout sufferers. Who knew this persnickety affliction affected so many? I guess I know a better class of people than I thought!) </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I tried to avoid too many fitness and nutrition websites during my recovery, lest I get too antsy, but I did start falling back to the <a href="http://www.nutritionblognetwork.com/" target="_blank">Nutrition Blog Network</a>, figuring my RD "colleagues of another terminal degree" might give me some interesting recipe ideas. And from that website, I came across this recent post from <a href="http://dietitianwithoutborders.com/walk-10000-steps-a-day/" target="_blank">Dietitian Without Borders</a> on "How to Walk 10,000 Steps a Day". </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>And here I can only walk zero! *sob*</i></span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But it did give me an idea for a blog post. All those steps...</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I see a lot of friends and colleagues with the FitBit bracelet nowadays. Interestingly enough, many of these were gifts to these people from loved ones. Nothing like passive-aggressively telling someone to move more...</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Don't get me wrong. I think it's great if you want to keep track of moving. And, as that aforementioned link shows, it's something we should probably all be doing in simple easy ways. I see it in the same vein as calorie-tracking, which I'm sure will get me in trouble, as that seems no longer a supportable choice for weight loss and maintenance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But I look at it as a template. I can see calorie levels and get a better understanding of portion control, even if not I'm not following calorie counting to the exact digit. And knowing that 10,000 steps is equivalent to 5 miles, well that can give you a better sense of how much you should really be moving. And when these FitBit and similar apps show you how much you actually move ... I'm sure it's an eye opener.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But many of my NYC pals using these apps (gouty or no) find it funny that they tend to go way past the limit of steps per day pretty early on each morning. That's because we live in a city where walking is just something you do, even during motorized commutes: </span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?836141" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Subway, New York. Step Lively... Digital ID: 836141. New York Public Library"><img alt="Subway, New York. Step Lively... Digital ID: 836141. New York Public Library" src="http://images.nypl.org/?id=836141&t=r" title="Subway, New York. Step Lively... Digital ID: 836141. New York Public Library" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>It really hasn't changed all that much</i> via <a href="http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchdetail.cfm?trg=1&flag=3&strucID=1017083&imageID=836141&word=commuters&s=1&notword=&d=&c=&f=&k=1&lWord=&lField=&sScope=&sLevel=&sLabel=&sort=&total=22&num=0&imgs=20&pNum=&pos=8" target="_blank">NYPL Digital Gallery</a></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We are a walkable city. It's been measured. Evidently, and not surprisingly, my NYC neighborhood has a walkability score of 100. Of, course, you can look at it from the other side: 3 or out 4 gas stations in the neighborhood closed in the past few years and there's no parking without a huge cost. And not that walkability always signifies a good thing to urban planners. You can look at <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1361920911000216" target="_blank">the research</a> that shows financial status can play a much bigger role in walkability as opposed to all other markers. (i.e. If you can't afford to drive, you won't). <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749379710004307" target="_blank">This report</a> that shows a correlation between high walkability and higher crime rates.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But that's not taking into account a place like NYC. We just move more.We sort of have to. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, lot's of walking, better diet ... was I a candidate for this dreaded "disease of kings?" Could I have done everything to prevent this issue? Slept more and eat even better? </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2014/07/23/ajcn.114.085191.abstract">This study </a>showed that while those people who slept less tended to eat for a longer period throughout the day, they did not intake more calories than those who slept longer. That doesn't quite take into account those of us binge eaters. Longer hours awake may mean more opportunities to binge. And <a href="http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2014/04/30/ajcn.113.081216.abstract?cited-by=yes&legid=ajcn;ajcn.113.081216v1">this one</a> showed that a low glycemic diet (in a controlled test) did show a lowering of weight, but did not really decrease inflammation, as it was thought it might. Although I'm pretty much already in the low GI fruit eating group anyway.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">No, it may have just been fate that did me in.It was also pointed out that stress could have been a factor. So even with extra walking and good eating, I'm not sure I could have escaped this pain. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If it does come back (and man, I certainly do hope it does NOT), I just need to be more aware of the situations and how it might be better controlled. And I think that means being more aware, but also getting back to taking of advantage of this oh so walkable, moveable city of mine. It may not have made me the healthiest young adult, but it always has the potential to get you moving more:</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/center_for_jewish_history/4575514923" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Men and boys playing paddleball, Cincinnati, Ohio, circa 1950 by Center for Jewish History, NYC, on Flickr"><img alt="Men and boys playing paddleball, Cincinnati, Ohio, circa 1950" height="408" src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3375/4575514923_7751af22f0.jpg" width="500" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Believe it or not, I even played this when I was a Retro fella. Via The Center for Jewish History on <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/center_for_jewish_history/4575514923/in/photolist-7YjHbk-55TYhy-3bniTk-jH64PM-574csG-56GU2o-57ARuy-azzsVV-opipen-gkrye8-57m7MN-5Qdesm-cz2gqL-5XYyEy-aAMcZL-2NtmP-3aWuNX-3aWuLV-cty3z-57X6a6-cWULj9-6UzpTh-9CXd7F-2M3chd-aeFc6h-or9Q7c-4QhFam-7VVu4z-afnvmp-5Aj8gr-9s2wJ6-9s2wHB-9s2wGM-9s2wLv-9s5uM5-9s5uF5-9s5uJA-9s2wyH-9s2wBa-9s5uGq-9s5uR1-9s2wvc-9s5uKo-9s5uRN-9s2wEP-9s2wu8-9s2wCH-9s5uVm-9s5uPf-9s2wJD/">Flickr</a></i></span></td></tr>
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
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<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Carr, Lucas J., Shira I. Dunsiger, and Bess H. Marcus. “Walk Score<sup>TM</sup> As a Global Estimate of Neighborhood Walkability.” <i>American Journal of Preventive Medicine</i> 39, no. 5 (November 2010): 460–63. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2010.07.007.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“How to Walk 10000 Steps a Day.” <i>Dietitian without Borders</i>. Accessed August 4, 2014. http://dietitianwithoutborders.com/walk-10000-steps-a-day/. </span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Juanola-Falgarona, Martí, Jordi Salas-Salvadó, Núria Ibarrola-Jurado, Antoni Rabassa-Soler, Andrés Díaz-López, Marta Guasch-Ferré, Pablo Hernández-Alonso, Rafael Balanza, and Mònica Bulló. “Effect of the Glycemic Index of the Diet on Weight Loss, Modulation of Satiety, Inflammation, and Other Metabolic Risk Factors: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” <i>The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition</i> 100, no. 1 (July 1, 2014): 27–35. doi:10.3945/ajcn.113.081216.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Kant, Ashima K., and Barry I. Graubard. “Association of Self-Reported Sleep Duration with Eating Behaviors of American Adults: NHANES 2005–2010.” <i>The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition</i>, September 1, 2014, ajcn.085191. doi:10.3945/ajcn.114.085191.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Manaugh, Kevin, and Ahmed El-Geneidy. “Validating Walkability Indices: How Do Different Households Respond to the Walkability of Their Neighborhood?” <i>Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment</i> 16, no. 4 (June 2011): 309–15. doi:10.1016/j.trd.2011.01.009.</span></div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1016%2Fj.trd.2011.01.009&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Validating%20walkability%20indices%3A%20How%20do%20different%20households%20respond%20to%20the%20walkability%20of%20their%20neighborhood%3F&rft.jtitle=Transportation%20Research%20Part%20D%3A%20Transport%20and%20Environment&rft.stitle=Transportation%20Research%20Part%20D%3A%20Transport%20and%20Environment&rft.volume=16&rft.issue=4&rft.aufirst=Kevin&rft.aulast=Manaugh&rft.au=Kevin%20Manaugh&rft.au=Ahmed%20El-Geneidy&rft.date=2011-06&rft.pages=309-315&rft.spage=309&rft.epage=315&rft.issn=1361-9209"></span> </div>
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Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-55891867735891204252014-07-31T09:22:00.000-04:002014-07-31T09:22:20.966-04:00July Foodie Pen Pals Reveal<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I was writing another post, but time just snuck up on me...</span><br />
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<div align="center">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.theleangreenbean.com/foodie-penpals/" target="_blank" title="The Lean Green Bean"><img alt="The Lean Green Bean" src="http://www.theleangreenbean.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/FPP-post.jpg" height="135" style="border: medium none;" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So it's time once again for free food in the mail!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I had taken a few months off of the food trade. There were many other obligations and lately the local post office hasn't been too up to snuff when it comes to packages, so a few got lost or way delayed in the mail. (And I'm <a href="http://evgrieve.com/2014/02/reader-mailbag-what-has-happened-to.html" target="_blank">not the only one in the neighborhood</a> feeling that pain). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But I figured I'd give it another shot. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This month I was matched with <a href="http://ilonaskitchen.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Ilona</a> from New Jersey. On the plus side, an "almost local" make for easier to deliver packages. On the not so plus side, Ilona's wasn't going to be so impressed with NYC local delicacies she can get with a short drive across the river. So I put together a few odds and ends from the neighborhood. And even though Ilona's all about recipes, I weighed my package more on the snack side. You can check out <a href="http://ilonaskitchen.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">her site</a> for details of what I sent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But what did Ilona send me? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRVwzJH2ExOJfVym_BMZTIIERIzHxhLZSzSv_Nksz8hCboIkjTQznvG0TYne2gopWdlBrvszz5MAhOG8wufOPUHOfdZIL8tRiW2sI5qxZzWv16o-XqMDhFt2GFxIr1vNSGs1Kzqux-FCU/s1600/fppjuly2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRVwzJH2ExOJfVym_BMZTIIERIzHxhLZSzSv_Nksz8hCboIkjTQznvG0TYne2gopWdlBrvszz5MAhOG8wufOPUHOfdZIL8tRiW2sI5qxZzWv16o-XqMDhFt2GFxIr1vNSGs1Kzqux-FCU/s1600/fppjuly2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It was another caffeinated delight of a package! There was coffee beans (called Americadoodle flavor - have yet to try that), <a href="http://coffeeriocandy.com/" target="_blank">Coffee Rio</a> caramels (lasted about 2 days), <a href="http://jmorganconfections.com/index.asp?inc=caramels.asp" target="_blank">J Morgan's</a> vanilla sea salt caramels (lasted less than two days), <a href="https://www.haribo.com/enUS/home.html" target="_blank">Haribo</a> juicy gummis (shared with many and gone fast), a <a href="http://www.pamelasproducts.com/products/whenever-bars/oat-raisin-walnut-spice-whenever-bars/" target="_blank">Pamela's Whenever bar</a>, and the <i>piece de delices</i>, <a href="http://www.vintagebee.com/" target="_blank">Vintage Bee</a> creamed honey with spiced apple.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr-mXX6GzYzQ1MTzFjawLuZexdJYCK0BsJBNB-elySiVoCla2tKCgucnfwWyYiW3OrzAGzmH9KCYoj8UVQTeWAP6TWe0j4NOCH6bDobMtddeYMWUOzBpr7-6zUJVp9rN6jb8pL0DkpI-E/s1600/fppjuly1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr-mXX6GzYzQ1MTzFjawLuZexdJYCK0BsJBNB-elySiVoCla2tKCgucnfwWyYiW3OrzAGzmH9KCYoj8UVQTeWAP6TWe0j4NOCH6bDobMtddeYMWUOzBpr7-6zUJVp9rN6jb8pL0DkpI-E/s1600/fppjuly1.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>You can't see my other hand is sticky with honey already...</i></span></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This stuff was AWE-some! I tried to parse it out, but it did not last more than a week. It ended up in a few desserts, but mostly it was just eaten out of the jar. I'm thinking I will have to buy some of this in bulk and use it in my <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-sweet-streamlined-new-year.html" target="_blank">honey cookie recipe</a> for upcoming Rosh Hashana.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So thank you, Ilona, for getting me back on the FPP track.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If you're interested in joining the free food in the mail brigade, find out more details <a href="http://www.theleangreenbean.com/foodie-penpals/" target="_blank">here</a>. </span><br />
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<br />Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-49095936543658254332014-07-20T14:54:00.001-04:002014-07-20T14:56:50.592-04:00Hitching a ride on names<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">For many years, I had heard about Marcella Hazan's <a href="http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178" target="_blank">famous tomato sauce recipe</a>: an incredibly simple idea with what looks like not enough ingredients that somehow becomes something magical. Crushed tomatoes, butter and an onion, cooked for about 40 min. That's it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I've talked before about not following recipes to the letter, but I do like to try them out correctly on the first go, before I decide what I can do to tweak them to my taste. So I made Marcella's recipe as it was written.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Oh. My. God.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There are some creations of masters with which you do not tamper! It was pretty amazing both in its simplicity and it's final complex taste. My only concession is that the end product does not always end up on pasta. I use it on veggies, meats and on occasion, just plain toast.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1675405" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Heinz - Woman with tomato shap... Digital ID: 1675405. New York Public Library"><img alt="Heinz - Woman with tomato shap... Digital ID: 1675405. New York Public Library" src="http://images.nypl.org/?id=1675405&t=r" height="261" title="Heinz - Woman with tomato shap... Digital ID: 1675405. New York Public Library" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Mmm...funny shaped tomatoes!</i> via <a href="http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/" target="_blank">NYPL Digital Gallery</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I don't see it as an everyday sauce. (that's a lotta butter for my everyday Streamlined lifestyle!) And sometimes I do want different flavors and textures, but then what I am making is not Marcella's sauce.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And doing a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=marcella+hazan+tomato+sauce&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb#channel=sb&q=marcella+hazan+tomato+sauce+review&revid=2063765488&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official" target="_blank">brief search around the internet</a>, you see quite a few photoshopped versions of the sauce, but there's also a few where someone decides to "modernize it just a bit." Perhaps "veganizing" or "paleo-ing" it up. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And a lot of those "modernizations" usually include substituting butter with olive oil and perhaps adding garlic, basil, hot peppers, etc.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Which means you're making ANOTHER SAUCE! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There's nothing wrong with making other sauces. I myself love garlic and basil in tomatoes, or chilis, or fish sauce or assorted vinegars and curries, but I can't stretch that to say I'm making a"modified" Marcella sauce. The whole purpose of it is that it really is just those three ingedients. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And all those other recipe bloggers ...you're just using name recognition to try to get some more attention. I find this ironic as more and more folks are trying to find "<a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2013/05/twisting-yourself-into-authentic-food.html" target="_blank">food authenticity</a>" and yet you're completely changing something while claiming this provenance. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Harsh? Yeah, but we see that even more so in the fitness world. Yoga has been reiterated so many ways that it's become impossible to know what is considered that form of exercise. Pilates has gained so many "improvements" that I can only wonder that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pilates" target="_blank">the canterkerous old boxer</a> would probably smack all these modern practitioners. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But the biggest shift I see is taking all these exercise regimens and making them more ... comfortable. Basically creating a spa environment for what should probably be just a sweaty time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Take <a href="http://wellandgood.com/2014/07/07/is-crossfit-chic-coming-to-new-york-city" target="_blank">this recent article</a> about a new CrossFit studio in NYC. I'm not a huge fan of CrossFit; I have far too many leg and hip injuries and, as I've said before, I'm not too big on team exercise classes or events. So, not putting it down, but it's not for me. And what I do like about it is that it's about movement and exercise taken to a rather basic form. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But here's a studio looking to </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"deliver the luxury-level amenities to the CrossFit community" by adding yoga, spa treatments and the like.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So is this still CrossFit? Isn't this really ... a spa & gym? It seems to me that they're just taking the name and using it as a marketing ploy. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Or is it that people just don't like exercise to be basic and dirty? They need pampering along with a name exercise?</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?800960" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="The spa, Central Park. Digital ID: 800960. New York Public Library"><img alt="The spa, Central Park. Digital ID: 800960. New York Public Library" src="http://images.nypl.org/?id=800960&t=r" height="225" title="The spa, Central Park. Digital ID: 800960. New York Public Library" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Do they have pull up bars at this spa? Or is just hot yoga? </i>via NYPL Digital Gallery</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I get that people need a push. <a href="http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v30/n4/abs/0803052a.html" target="_blank">This study</a> shows that overweight subjects found exercise less pleasurable the more they had to exert during the exercise. And that, of course, led to less adherence to the exercise regime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But is claiming a name making it more palatable? I don't think you'll get more intense exercise out of added facials and rubdowns. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Exercise is still hard. And calling something that it's not is merely pasting glitter on the same idea. Trying to make yourself popular without actually BEING the thing in question is just bad form. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'll just wait for butter to be included in my pilates workout, then. </span><br />
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<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References: </span><br />
<br />
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Ekkekakis, P., and E. Lind. “Exercise Does Not Feel the Same When You Are Overweight: The Impact of Self-Selected and Imposed Intensity on Affect and Exertion.” <i>International Journal of Obesity</i> 30, no. 4 (2006): 652–60. doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0803052.</span></div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1038%2Fsj.ijo.0803052&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Exercise%20does%20not%20feel%20the%20same%20when%20you%20are%20overweight%3A%20the%20impact%20of%20self-selected%20and%20imposed%20intensity%20on%20affect%20and%20exertion&rft.jtitle=International%20Journal%20of%20Obesity&rft.volume=30&rft.issue=4&rft.aufirst=P.&rft.aulast=Ekkekakis&rft.au=P.%20Ekkekakis&rft.au=E.%20Lind&rft.date=2006&rft.pages=652-660&rft.spage=652&rft.epage=660&rft.issn=0307-0565&rft.language=en"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Is ‘CrossFit Chic’ Coming to New York City?” <i>Well+Good NYC</i>. Accessed July 16, 2014. http://wellandgood.com/2014/07/07/is-crossfit-chic-coming-to-new-york-city/.</span></div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.type=webpage&rft.title=Is%20%E2%80%9CCrossFit%20chic%E2%80%9D%20coming%20to%20New%20York%20City%3F&rft.description=A%20new%20facility%20wants%20to%20up%20the%20ante%20on%20what%20a%20CrossFit%20box%20can%20be%E2%80%94with%20high%20design%2C%20luxe%20locker%20rooms%2C%20yoga%2C%20and%20more.&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fwellandgood.com%2F2014%2F07%2F07%2Fis-crossfit-chic-coming-to-new-york-city%2F"></span> </div>
Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-20220297273940867532014-07-08T16:45:00.004-04:002014-07-08T16:52:52.148-04:00The Illiteracy of Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtrVIHki4PrhO4GQbFn_vw7p5vX61jUXq95oklfFWMvfPUIYscl1a2oZS2d5BBSZc0H-kGFd4ojhjZVCdIMdrxTI0w-GkZmdr7IKwxajFgdt2P2ha5QJ8AOojL7VKWGW5IjTQ8Fbv0TTk/s1600/dmcnulty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtrVIHki4PrhO4GQbFn_vw7p5vX61jUXq95oklfFWMvfPUIYscl1a2oZS2d5BBSZc0H-kGFd4ojhjZVCdIMdrxTI0w-GkZmdr7IKwxajFgdt2P2ha5QJ8AOojL7VKWGW5IjTQ8Fbv0TTk/s1600/dmcnulty.jpg" /></a></div>
<i>"Whaddaya mean 'illiterate'? My father and mother were married right here in the city hall!"- Dorothy McNulty (aka Penny Singleton) in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027260/?ref_=ttqt_qt_tt" target="_blank">After the Thin Man.</a></i><br />
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Ah, I love that movie.<br />
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There's a strong movement in many professions about literacy or one's knowledge about a certain subject. Certainly in my own profession of librarianship (or more often academic librarianship), there's a constant push for information literacy. Some professional library organizations like the Association of College and Research Libraries (or ACRL) spend an awful lot <a href="http://www.ala.org/acrl/issues/infolit" target="_blank">manpower on it.</a> And virtually <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19322909.2014.855586#preview" target="_blank">every academic library</a> has to partake in this exercise.<br />
<br />
To weigh over on the Librarian side of the Streamlined Ska persona, I have some serious issues with how information literacy is thrown en masse as THE answer to successful students navigating the ever changing resources in front of them. I'm more of a fan of developing critical thinking skills among library users and less of a specified learning objective. If I base technical proficiency for librarians based on when I was in Library School, well then, it probably hasn't changed much. I don't think being technically savvy is the answer to successful research. It's part of it, but just enabling one key phrase is not going to get youngsters to understand how to formulate a question in order to find an answer that might be more than just parroting their favorite website.<br />
<br />
That's my very small nutshell. I would suggest reading <a href="http://senseandreference.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/the-problem-with-threshold-concepts/" target="_blank">Lane Wilkinson</a>'s take on ACRL's attempt to recast info lit in terms of threshold concepts to see a larger timeline and set of resources as to part of this argument.<br />
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"But what has this to do with food and weight maintenance," you ask? Well, we're now in the age of trying to teach food literacy. (I mean "we" in the sense of us all, although <a href="http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2012/08/food-literacy-connecting-good-eats-and-good-reads/" target="_blank">librarians</a> did stick their nose in it, too.)<br />
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And it's very similar to info lit: If we teach the basic tenant of this subject to someone, they will better prepared to make an informed decision about their food intake. And a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1747-0080.12096/abstract" target="_blank">recent literature review</a> of food literacy programs geared at adolescents shows ... that few of these initiatives show a positive impact on dietary choices. Even though the need is still there. <i>Whomp-whomp.</i><br />
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And yet if you look at the 19 studies reviewed in this paper, they all had different learning outcomes. While they were all about getting a better understanding of healthy eating, there was not overriding method or exercise. <br />
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So we have librarians trying to agree on a set way of determining outcomes and we then have ... well, I was going to say "Dietitians and Nutritionists have many ways to determine outcomes," but that's not entirely true.<br />
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It seems a lot of people feel they can teach you to eat better and be more healthy, even without a professional accreditation. Information literacy still tends to stay in the Academic wheelhouse, and usually with the librarians. For food it's not always the professionals. Sort of in the same way as "Why do I need a library? It's all online." <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2013/06/well-if-famous-people-eat-it.html" target="_blank">Anyone can write a cookbook</a>. <br />
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Man, people are stupid.<br />
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Still, getting back to actual research in food literacy, I'm thinking the reason it's so difficult to tackle this in a uniform matter is that most people have very different concepts not only of food, but of themselves. It's one thing to say, "I prefer searching Lexis-Nexis to Westlaw." It's another to say, "I only eat vegetables that look and feel and taste this way," such as in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24916299" target="_blank">this study</a> from the Netherlands. (Although as a long time former employee of a Dutch company, I rarely found any Dutch who liked their veggies raw or crunchy!)<br />
<br />
<i><span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="nl"><span class="hps">Het spijt me</span><span class="">,</span> <span class="hps">maar</span> <span class="hps">het is waar!</span></span></i><br />
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And let's look at <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24976290" target="_blank">this study</a> about perceived body fat. While gender made a huge difference in results, it seems very few folks were correct in estimating their own body fat percentage nor were they satisfied with their current body fat. <br />
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So here we are studying ways to get folks to make better choices when they already cannot perceive themselves correctly nor do they prefer the taste and texture of healthier foods. How do you change that? How do you teach someone to make lifelong decisions that may often go against their internal make up? Is it the same as teaching a freshman how to better prepare a research question?<br />
<br />
At this point, I suppose I could make a grand conclusion summarizing how once again the librarian and dietitian groups need to come together to create some universal moment of literacy. But I'm not, because I don't really think that'll work this time. Not that we shouldn't play together, but not like this.<br />
<br />
Instead I really think we need to move into the idea of <b>critical thinking</b>. It's not if you're an expert on a subject. It's that you know enough to try to question WHY something might work for you, information or food-wise. And it opens up your mind to finding out more in order to make an informed decision that works for you. <br />
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I always say that's what makes a good librarian anyway. Perhaps that's also why the Streamlined Ska life has been manageable, as well!<br />
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<i>ETA: I will say that most of my career OUTSIDE of academia, we never worried about this stuff. It was always just critical thinking. </i><br />
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References:<br />
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<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
Bongoni, R., R. Verkerk, M. Dekker, and L. P. A. Steenbekkers. “Consumer Behaviour towards Vegetables: A Study on Domestic Processing of Broccoli and Carrots by Dutch Households.” <i>Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics</i>, June 1, 2014, n/a–n/a. doi:10.1111/jhn.12245.</div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1111%2Fjhn.12245&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Consumer%20behaviour%20towards%20vegetables%3A%20a%20study%20on%20domestic%20processing%20of%20broccoli%20and%20carrots%20by%20Dutch%20households&rft.jtitle=Journal%20of%20Human%20Nutrition%20and%20Dietetics&rft.stitle=J%20Hum%20Nutr%20Diet&rft.aufirst=R.&rft.aulast=Bongoni&rft.au=R.%20Bongoni&rft.au=R.%20Verkerk&rft.au=M.%20Dekker&rft.au=L.%20P.%20A.%20Steenbekkers&rft.date=2014-06-01&rft.pages=n%2Fa-n%2Fa&rft.spage=n%2Fa&rft.epage=n%2Fa&rft.issn=1365-277X&rft.language=en"></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
Brooks, Natalie, and Andrea Begley. “Adolescent Food Literacy Programmes: A Review of the Literature.” <i>Nutrition & Dietetics</i>, December 1, 2013, n/a–n/a. doi:10.1111/1747-0080.12096.</div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1111%2F1747-0080.12096&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Adolescent%20food%20literacy%20programmes%3A%20A%20review%20of%20the%20literature&rft.jtitle=Nutrition%20%26%20Dietetics&rft.stitle=Nutrition%20%26%20Dietetics&rft.aufirst=Natalie&rft.aulast=Brooks&rft.au=Natalie%20Brooks&rft.au=Andrea%20Begley&rft.date=2013-12-01&rft.pages=n%2Fa-n%2Fa&rft.spage=n%2Fa&rft.epage=n%2Fa&rft.issn=1747-0080&rft.language=en"></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
Campisi, J., K. E. Finn, Y. Bravo, J. Arnold, M. Benjamin, M. Sukiennik, S. Shakya, and D. Fontaine. “Sex and Age-Related Differences in Perceived, Desired and Measured Percentage Body Fat among Adults.” <i>Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics</i>, June 2014, n/a–n/a. doi:10.1111/jhn.12252.</div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1111%2Fjhn.12252&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Sex%20and%20age-related%20differences%20in%20perceived%2C%20desired%20and%20measured%20percentage%20body%20fat%20among%20adults&rft.jtitle=Journal%20of%20Human%20Nutrition%20and%20Dietetics&rft.aufirst=J.&rft.aulast=Campisi&rft.au=J.%20Campisi&rft.au=K.%20E.%20Finn&rft.au=Y.%20Bravo&rft.au=J.%20Arnold&rft.au=M.%20Benjamin&rft.au=M.%20Sukiennik&rft.au=S.%20Shakya&rft.au=D.%20Fontaine&rft.date=2014-06&rft.pages=n%2Fa-n%2Fa&rft.spage=n%2Fa&rft.epage=n%2Fa&rft.issn=09523871&rft.language=en"></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
“Information Literacy Resources.” Accessed July 8, 2014. http://www.ala.org/acrl/issues/infolit.</div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.type=webpage&rft.title=Information%20Literacy%20Resources&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ala.org%2Facrl%2Fissues%2Finfolit"></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
“The Problem with Threshold Concepts.” <i>Sense & Reference</i>. Accessed July 8, 2014. http://senseandreference.wordpress.com/2014/06/19/the-problem-with-threshold-concepts/.</div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.type=blogPost&rft.title=The%20problem%20with%20threshold%20concepts&rft.description=Over%20the%20past%20four%20months%2C%20an%20ACRL%20task%20force%20dedicated%20to%20rewriting%20the%20Information%20Literacy%20standards%20has%20been%20releasing%20successive%20draft%20versions%20of%20a%20new%20Framework%C2%A0%20for%20Information%20Literacy%20in%20...&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fsenseandreference.wordpress.com%2F2014%2F06%2F19%2Fthe-problem-with-threshold-concepts%2F"></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
Yang, Sharon Q., and Min Chou. “Promoting and Teaching Information Literacy on the Internet: Surveying the Web Sites of 264 Academic Libraries in North America.” <i>Journal of Web Librarianship</i> 8, no. 1 (2014): 88–104. doi:10.1080/19322909.2014.855586.</div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1080%2F19322909.2014.855586&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Promoting%20and%20Teaching%20Information%20Literacy%20on%20the%20Internet%3A%20Surveying%20the%20Web%20Sites%20of%20264%20Academic%20Libraries%20in%20North%20America&rft.jtitle=Journal%20of%20Web%20Librarianship&rft.volume=8&rft.issue=1&rft.aufirst=Sharon%20Q.&rft.aulast=Yang&rft.au=Sharon%20Q.%20Yang&rft.au=Min%20Chou&rft.date=2014&rft.pages=88-104&rft.spage=88&rft.epage=104&rft.issn=1932-2909"></span>
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Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-51185490990169411122014-06-24T22:17:00.001-04:002014-06-25T16:52:02.838-04:00A Pinch of Oz<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, almost a year after getting my <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2013/07/when-your-trainer-breaks-up-with-you.html" target="_blank">"Dear John" letter from my trainer</a>, I finally bit the bullet. No, I didn't get a new trainer ... yet but I did decide to return to the bigger, more expensive gym where I first met him. And you really do get what you pay for:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://images.nypl.org/index.php?id=101310&t=w" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://images.nypl.org/index.php?id=101310&t=w" height="246" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Via the <a href="http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/" target="_blank">NYPL Digital Collections</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Perhaps it's the initial giddiness of these first two weeks back in the old place (although the actual gym moved down the block, but it's still the same chain as before). The sheer happiness of finding fully equipped weight rooms, working squat racks, TRX bands, a decent amount of working cardio machines and even the semblance of regular cleaning so there's not a patina of mystery stains after using any stretching/abs/floor areas. Maybe that will wear off in a bit, but for now I can see the difference in my workout already. And that has had a positive effect on my food intake, as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Of course, there are a few of the regular flies in the health ointment. That huge cabinet of supplements still stands near the main entrance and the hard sell has begun. My last trainer had a reflex flinch every time we passed by that cabinet after our first session when I ripped him a new one and said if he ever tried to sell me one pill, our sessions were over. Harsh? Yes, but it worked!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But now the push is back. They even offered a welcome back goodie bag of the stuff (I declined). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">If you're running a place that pushes exercise and even nutrition as hard work (no judgements, and fun, but hard work) , why are you also then selling this "easy boost"? (It's rhetorical, I know why.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I know this is a business model. I know this is a way to make some extra funds. But I see it as a mixed message. And yet, it's not like it's the only place trying to sell us a "cheating way to win."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I get sent lots of library links, cute tattoo videos, and of course, many links about nutrition and weight loss from a variety of my friends. Most of these are out on the usual social media memes, so I often receive them again and again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And then Dr. Oz <a href="https://news.google.com/news?ncl=dyrRzF646gpiVgMG5lSzaNqUnG4zM&q=dr.+oz+senate+hearing&lr=English&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IyCqU9TpM9e2yATE9IDIBg&ved=0CCgQqgIwAA" target="_blank">happened this past week</a>. So I got a loooooot of links about it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">While I'm not surprised at the results of the hearing or the backlash around it, it does raise the question: If everyone supposedly thought Dr. Oz was a quack about these supplements, why did he still sell so many of them? My "professionals-of-another-degree-mother," the Registered Dietitians, have been weighing in on Oz's claims for quite some time, a lot of it <a href="https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=%22Dr.+Oz%22+dietitians&oq=%22Dr.+Oz%22+dietitians&gs_l=news-cc.3..43j43i53.2093.7495.0.8291.19.2.0.17.0.1.434.613.0j1j4-1.2.0...0.0...1ac.1.ewiglj4ybR0#authuser=0&gl=us&hl=en&q=%22Dr.+Oz%22+dietitians+criticism" target="_blank">critical</a> towards the man. (Although there are <a href="http://plantbaseddietitian.com/tag/the-dr-oz-show/" target="_blank">some</a> who use his show as their own PR sounding board). You think having some credential might be taken into account.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yet we still all want to believe that something will be a "miracle," especially when it comes to our health and weight. <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2007.136/full" target="_blank">One study</a> a few years back showed that the majority of people surveyed did believe that dietary supplements would help in obesity. The numbers were higher for people who were overweight or obese. Yet results, especially those from <a href="http://ncp.sagepub.com/content/26/5/512.full" target="_blank">evidence-based</a> research, show that the efficacy and safety of these supplements is still unknown, and even the ones from "natural ingredients" have not been shown in any positive results of dieting individuals.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And these are often the same people who "eat clean" or deny certain basic food groups. They'll still take a mystery concoction that is "magic"? Is it ethical to promise a miracle, especially if you have a few initials after your name and a global audience?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There's nothing wrong with having faith that you can achieve whatever you want for your body in terms of being healthier. But I'd rather do it on my own belief that "mystery miracles" are not part of the equation.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMLpAJM6YwxD8ZHe8HbFPP_nEDUHJ-cTcJfQ257zxmWLdubLnGpNSL19zHzjhq6kXYR1YiZ85fFPDzIgYGhD1Yye8o0wdzXoz60OhD_pCHc6YrYH4-q-FtMRt7vcQXpQFvTU3uthzxUuU/s1600/tonic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMLpAJM6YwxD8ZHe8HbFPP_nEDUHJ-cTcJfQ257zxmWLdubLnGpNSL19zHzjhq6kXYR1YiZ85fFPDzIgYGhD1Yye8o0wdzXoz60OhD_pCHc6YrYH4-q-FtMRt7vcQXpQFvTU3uthzxUuU/s1600/tonic.jpg" height="145" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">via <a href="http://collections.si.edu/" target="_blank">The Smithsonian Collection</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Yeah ... no.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Laddu, Deepika, Caitlin Dow, Melanie Hingle, Cynthia Thomson, and Scott Going. “A Review of Evidence-Based Strategies to Treat Obesity in Adults.” <i>Nutrition in Clinical Practice</i> 26, no. 5 (October 1, 2011): 512–25. doi:10.1177/0884533611418335.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Pillitteri, Janine L., Saul Shiffman, Jeffrey M. Rohay, Andrea M. Harkins, Steven L. Burton, and Thomas A. Wadden. “Use of Dietary Supplements for Weight Loss in the United States: Results of a National Survey.” <i>Obesity</i> 16, no. 4 (April 1, 2008): 790–96. doi:10.1038/oby.2007.136.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-56264093248806217682014-06-15T20:42:00.001-04:002014-06-16T09:36:28.916-04:00Sometimes a swift kick...<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Definition of a bad day:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qQb3jVXRJLpY7tSSY6HAiEFuyKZM5IadNlcdxKW8TwyAUEVQihXpTrQmg8UrOR5tHxJliRA67-dP9iOTk3Biqqdh6dmEhv1XyUfzS9JnJvECCFP_XLaFCXkz_73TegTX7kkPLskRNLM/s1600/rangers-lose-game-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7qQb3jVXRJLpY7tSSY6HAiEFuyKZM5IadNlcdxKW8TwyAUEVQihXpTrQmg8UrOR5tHxJliRA67-dP9iOTk3Biqqdh6dmEhv1XyUfzS9JnJvECCFP_XLaFCXkz_73TegTX7kkPLskRNLM/s1600/rangers-lose-game-5.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Via Getty Images</span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's been a frustrating week or so, even if this is the farthest the NY Rangers have come in 20 years. Still, not the way you want to spend a weekend, seeing this happen.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But if anything, it's sort of become my new "<a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-calorie-is-calorie-is-calorie.html" target="_blank">clickable moment</a>" or perhaps a re-ignition of my old one. It's time to take stock of what I'm doing and smack myself in the tuchas to get back on it. In a way, the past few months have been filled with a quite a few "on hold" plans and events, all unresolved, which admittedly took away from my laser-like focus of the Streamlined Ska Librarian lifestyle. And now they've all ended in a somewhat disappointing way. So, the Rangers loss is sort of the symbolic culmination of all that stuff.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">You can see my blog entries dropped off, too. And while I can say that my food choices weren't always great, it was definitely the drop in intense exercise that really dragged me down. And a lot of that was due to the very cheap gym to which I belong. The final straw was going three days with some missing
dumbbells, thereby preventing a decent workout. (It's hard to do chest presses with only one weight .. and the bench presses were not there). Oh, and the
fact that there was no airflow in this basement gym, which led to mold
and mildew growth. And the boxing bag broke. Hat trick of gym hell. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It was time to go. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So I've bitten the bullet and rejoined the expensive gym. It is a financial sacrifice? Yes. Do I think it's worth it? Most definitely. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As I've said many times before, I know what I need to stay in Streamlined mode. And that, sadly, does cost something. Or at least it requires more of a real gym. Some other life amenities will have to go, but that's ok, I'm willing to make that decision.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As I said in previous posts, exercise makes me happy...the inability to do said exercise does not. I have become a picky gym bunny. Who knew?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Well, I did, actually. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And already, I just feel better. Because I know I will be the intense happy guy I can be, the guy who didn't get a chance to really appear for the past 6 months. And I also know, I'm doing it for me. Not because I'm back in Retro Ska Librarian body, cuz I'm not there yet, but rather because I can see Retro mindset creeping up if I don't.And that ain't good</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It brings to mind a recent post from <a href="http://bvmrd.blogspot.com/2014/06/taking-stock.html" target="_blank">RD Aaron Flores</a>. (Always a dietitian work into the posts!) I'm not going to say I agree with everything he says, but the mindset is there. You have to comfortable knowing what works for you and be happy in your journey to get where you want to go health-wise.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And my taking stock meant that swift kick is upon me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">No scholarly references this time, just a shout out the Rangers. You still inspire me. </span><br />
<br />Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-79408954501854347172014-06-11T19:05:00.002-04:002014-06-11T20:09:59.118-04:00"Stop Saying Wheee!"<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I do not know why but for someone who is very good at group activities and following rules, I've always felt really uncomfortable at enforced "enjoyment events." Summer camp sing-a-longs, any solstice drum circle and especially group exercise classes where they shout at you to enjoy yourself. They creep me all out. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Look, I know spin classes and laughing yoga work for many people, but I just don't like them. I don't need to be told when to say "Wheee!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(This blog entry's title actually comes from a scene from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCb5rLjtF-4" target="_blank">here</a>. It's very apt to this topic).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"But, Mr. Streamlined Ska Librarian," you say, "If I enjoy it, won't I do it more?" Why, yes, small handful of blog readers, you probably will. I think it's sort of obvious that one tends to do any activity more often if one enjoys it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipiYK94eSw9F8js8JyLo-ZRcJG1aN_lhyLFveOzhX_bcD098EHrQ8Rh0RF7uHwspIZEC3t0AhQkOvhteDmVZD_todDP1asNkbMWpOrhTKV8-QGOGipx-0Ep889SrZEXioiJ5Kw183TPWw/s1600/treadmill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipiYK94eSw9F8js8JyLo-ZRcJG1aN_lhyLFveOzhX_bcD098EHrQ8Rh0RF7uHwspIZEC3t0AhQkOvhteDmVZD_todDP1asNkbMWpOrhTKV8-QGOGipx-0Ep889SrZEXioiJ5Kw183TPWw/s1600/treadmill.jpg" height="320" width="301" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2350131/Wooden-treadmills-torture-chamber-fat-wobblers-1920s-exercise-equipment-revealed-glory.html" target="_blank">via</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Maybe I'd have this same expression during my cardio if I had those fabulous heels to work out in. Wheee, indeed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">However, there might be another reason why enjoyable exercise works towards weight loss or weight maintenance. A <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11002-014-9301-6#page-1" target="_blank">recent study</a>
showed that subjects who were told they were doing a physical activity
"for fun" as opposed to "for exercise", ate less afterwards. There was
less of a reward aspect to their physical activity. ("I ran 60 minutes
on the treadmill, so I can have 2 donuts!") </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And I do find that fascinating. Especially when <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0097927" target="_blank">another recent study</a>
shows that we consistently misunderstand what is meant by "moderate
exercise." And we're only misunderstanding it in one direction. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So
at least if we're not getting enough vigorous exercise, we're
probably eating less to compensate if we enjoy that exercise. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I do enjoy running, even if it means having to get through those initial 10 minutes of my brain saying, "You can stop now!" Once I get going, I'm very happy. I also enjoy boxing very much and yes, even heavy weight lifting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But it doesn't mean I don't get bored with the routines and I rarely consider weight lifting to be "just for fun." However, I still like it more than many group exercise instruction. I feel less uncomfortable, which makes it more enjoyable. But I also know that it's work. I'm doing this for a reason. And being Streamlined does make me happier and more comfortable with myself. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And sometimes you just need to be comfortable and satisfied to get towards happiness. Yet <a href="http://hsb.sagepub.com/content/55/2/196.short" target="_blank">another study</a> shows the relationship between obesity and subjective well-being. Not surprisingly, there seems to be a inverse relationship, and women suffer from low satisfaction due to obesity far more than men. But they also mention one interesting hypothesis from their results:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>"Our findings demonstrate that where obesity
is more prevalent, the difference in life
satisfaction between the obese and nonobese is smaller for women and
almost nonexistent
for men. The same relationship is likely to exist
over time: the emotional cost and advantage of obesity and nonobesity,
respectively,
may be decreasing as the prevalence of obesity
increases. If future research finds evidence for this trend over time,
it would
offer additional insight into the causes of the
exponential growth in obesity over the past 30 years: a cyclical process
in
which the emotional cost of obesity declines,
resulting in greater prevalence, resulting in fewer emotional costs."
</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In other words, if we all get fat, we'll have less options to which to compare! Yay, now we can make fun of you for being bald!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But, even if we're all moving towards an inevitable obese society, it still doesn't mean you can't have fun being active in some way. And if that makes life better, then it's probably something we should all do in some way. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Just don't say Wheee. Nobody says wheee. Nobody.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Canning, Karissa L., Ruth E. Brown, Veronica K. Jamnik, Art Salmon, Chris I. Ardern, and Jennifer L. Kuk. “Individuals Underestimate Moderate and Vigorous Intensity Physical Activity.” <i>PLoS ONE</i> 9, no. 5 (May 16, 2014): e97927. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0097927.
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0097927&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Individuals%20Underestimate%20Moderate%20and%20Vigorous%20Intensity%20Physical%20Activity&rft.jtitle=PLoS%20ONE&rft.stitle=PLoS%20ONE&rft.volume=9&rft.issue=5&rft.aufirst=Karissa%20L.&rft.aulast=Canning&rft.au=Karissa%20L.%20Canning&rft.au=Ruth%20E.%20Brown&rft.au=Veronica%20K.%20Jamnik&rft.au=Art%20Salmon&rft.au=Chris%20I.%20Ardern&rft.au=Jennifer%20L.%20Kuk&rft.date=2014-05-16&rft.pages=e97927"></span></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Wadsworth, Tim, and Philip M. Pendergast. “Obesity (Sometimes) Matters The Importance of Context in the Relationship between Obesity and Life Satisfaction.” <i>Journal of Health and Social Behavior</i> 55, no. 2 (June 1, 2014): 196–214. doi:10.1177/0022146514533347.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Werle, Carolina O. C., Brian Wansink, and Collin R. Payne. “Is It Fun or Exercise? The Framing of Physical Activity Biases Subsequent Snacking.” <i>Marketing Letters</i>, May 15, 2014, 1–12. doi:10.1007/s11002-014-9301-6.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1056%2FNEJMoa1309753&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F24476431&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Incidence%20of%20Childhood%20Obesity%20in%20the%20United%20States&rft.jtitle=New%20England%20Journal%20of%20Medicine&rft.volume=370&rft.issue=5&rft.aufirst=Solveig%20A.&rft.aulast=Cunningham&rft.au=Solveig%20A.%20Cunningham&rft.au=Michael%20R.%20Kramer&rft.au=K.M.%20Venkat%20Narayan&rft.date=2014&rft.pages=403-411&rft.spage=403&rft.epage=411&rft.issn=0028-4793"></span>
</div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1007%2Fs11002-014-9301-6&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Is%20it%20fun%20or%20exercise%3F%20The%20framing%20of%20physical%20activity%20biases%20subsequent%20snacking&rft.jtitle=Marketing%20Letters&rft.stitle=Mark%20Lett&rft.aufirst=Carolina%20O.%20C.&rft.aulast=Werle&rft.au=Carolina%20O.%20C.%20Werle&rft.au=Brian%20Wansink&rft.au=Collin%20R.%20Payne&rft.date=2014-05-15&rft.pages=1-12&rft.spage=1&rft.epage=12&rft.issn=0923-0645%2C%201573-059X&rft.language=en"></span>
</div>
Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-45867983498775295362014-06-01T19:10:00.000-04:002014-06-01T19:10:09.731-04:00That diet is bananas!<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">First, if I may:</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8kVR_0gcdxazGJstRHPq9TalVeHg5ObA78LoK1DPeXVVS13caz3knH5A-ocYXxc3K0k7BKt1EskVnnzZGU0S8D1gyxSIoHpqkQvsunHygu3U_Hpgds46kCTk9IBTegU9qK2BZQb6HPI8/s1600/rangers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8kVR_0gcdxazGJstRHPq9TalVeHg5ObA78LoK1DPeXVVS13caz3knH5A-ocYXxc3K0k7BKt1EskVnnzZGU0S8D1gyxSIoHpqkQvsunHygu3U_Hpgds46kCTk9IBTegU9qK2BZQb6HPI8/s1600/rangers.jpg" height="238" width="400" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">LET'S GO RANGERS!!!!! WHOOOP!! WE WANT THE CUP! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">OK, now where were we...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A browse through some of my recent cookbooks acquisitions brought this little ditty to light:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpcYdgP3Mx2hJpQFhobY7LeG2bmu18pn1EaWC8OlQYqDVnbOBTx5eCBuxBsS5GqXx4hDSFqPUmgkVDGg1xz36NqAD0O7OP0QfJ79xUp286yq-WjiRyL9QHaI0X3E8sBL19LTxPzwPIx4/s1600/meatloaf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxpcYdgP3Mx2hJpQFhobY7LeG2bmu18pn1EaWC8OlQYqDVnbOBTx5eCBuxBsS5GqXx4hDSFqPUmgkVDGg1xz36NqAD0O7OP0QfJ79xUp286yq-WjiRyL9QHaI0X3E8sBL19LTxPzwPIx4/s1600/meatloaf.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">via <a href="http://experimental.worldcat.org/xfinder/CookbookFinder?searchType=basic&sn=1430824" target="_blank">The Buffet Cookbook</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is not something met with my usual lip smacking culinary fantasy. However, it <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=banana+meatloaf&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb" target="_blank">seems this was a fairly common recipe</a> in mid-century cookbooks. And I was intrigued. Instead of getting immediately creative, I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter (except I halved it). The result?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfSlVghFl73WEcegV4dCI0qm-HkytHWv3hP4jxj_cIvJRvTMR39aTO_x3GosEfCFHFU1bbSEJjQZA2C4sNP6qoLxezOUz_r3zkCv2SkU99kfMCzOoPHEDybTpy6MOfzN5xK0cverF6W0/s1600/meatloaf2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfSlVghFl73WEcegV4dCI0qm-HkytHWv3hP4jxj_cIvJRvTMR39aTO_x3GosEfCFHFU1bbSEJjQZA2C4sNP6qoLxezOUz_r3zkCv2SkU99kfMCzOoPHEDybTpy6MOfzN5xK0cverF6W0/s1600/meatloaf2.jpg" height="320" width="271" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Ummmm...no. Granted, my dinner guest thought it was delicious. I thought it tasted like, well, bananas mashed into beef. Blerk.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This might have been good with some sort of curry or jerk spice. Something tangy-spicy to interact with the bananas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">To me, it was a failure. Even if the blog reviews of this recipe were saying it was amazing.You can't believe everything you read. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Which is why <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/4-days-11-pounds/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0" target="_blank">this particular article</a> in the NY Times made me a little nervous, at least by it's headline. Men losing 11 pounds in only 4 days? If you look at the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sms.12194/abstract" target="_blank">full study</a>, overweight men were given <i>severe</i> caloric restriction (360 cal/day!) combined with intense exercise, then continuing increase exercise for another week. And surprise, these men lost a lot weight. And they seemed to have kept it off after a year. But even the scientists confirmed that this needs more observation and it may not be ideal for those without the initiative.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But also, there was a only a handful of men in the study, so this cannot be considered a universal solution, just yet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Also, looking at it in perspective, when I started my Streamlined lifestyle change, I worked out with my first trainer that if I cut my intake to 2700 cal/day, but increased my exercise, I could maintain my goal of a one lb. of weight loss per week.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now that was already a huge calorie drop for me. Doing a quick and dirty calorie count on Retro Ska Librarian meals, I was probably taking in 4000-6000 cal/day. Way more than any recommended daily allowance. So coming down to 2700 was already a shift, never mind that it also meant I should be engaging in "intensive exercise" at least 5 days a week (otherwise weight loss would have been only do to even less calories). I cannot imagine handling 360 cal/day. That's not even a bagel or a beer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So while this is an eyebrow raising study, do we see it fitting into a healthy lifestyle change? I'm sure someone will try to bank on that! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>"The Danish Starvation Diet! Eat like a Little Mermaid!"</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But what makes it more difficult could be our overall diet. A <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1871695" target="_blank">brief</a> written for <i>JAMA</i> has two doctors saying it is the way we store fuel in fat cells that can actually prevent us form properly losing weight. Coming back to the theory that it's not how much you eat, but what you eat. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm not sure how I feel about this theory, and it is just that at the moment, a theory. Taken at it's basics, yes, it is healthier when you count calories to try to eat healthier foods (I suppose 2700 cal/day of frosting tubs would have not have been very smart of me to do). </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But will this idea throw more people into the arms of "quick fix" diets and pills, as they feel they are "doomed" by their fat cells? Frank Bruni, fellow former pudgy guy, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/opinion/bruni-diet-lures-and-diet-lies.html" target="_blank">does see it</a> as a problem that we all fall into:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
"And the vogue for painstakingly tailored eating regimens and dieting techniques is to some extent a distraction from that, a dangerous one, because it promotes the idea that basic nature and fundamental biology can somehow be gamed, cheated, transcended."</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There is no cheat. There is no extreme way of doing this. And I can no longer buy into any special diet. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It is highly possible that my fat cells have been so overworked that weight loss for me might be harder. But I did do it, without denying myself anything out of the ordinary. However, maybe those "trigger" foods are what these doctors are talking about. I don't know, I just know what worked and it wasn't advertised on TV.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In any case, there is no easy answer. Never was. Never will be.
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">You want a miracle, look at those beautiful NY Rangers! It took 20 years, but they finally hit their goal! (OK, ouch...)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">4 Days, 11 Pounds. (n.d.). <i>Well</i>. Retrieved May 23, 2014, from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/4-days-11-pounds/</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Bruni, Frank. “Diet Lures and Diet Lies.” <i>The New York Times</i>, May 26, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/opinion/bruni-diet-lures-and-diet-lies.html.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span> <br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Calbet, J. a. L., Ponce-González, J. G., Pérez-Suárez, I., de la Calle Herrero, J., & Holmberg, H.-C. (2014). A time-efficient reduction of fat mass in 4 days with exercise and caloric restriction. <i>Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports</i>, n/a–n/a. doi:10.1111/sms.12194</span></div>
<br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Ludwig DS, & Friedman MI. (2014). Increasing adiposity: Consequence or cause of overeating? <i>JAMA</i>. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.4133</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span> Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-40088847810257890852014-05-14T22:54:00.002-04:002014-05-14T22:54:16.009-04:00Librarians vs. Dietitians: Does This Profession Make Me Look Fat?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMtBNPDPQATBb47XrgWiuFGSydCOU9vgE0w8I_ZNa-nEPWjMnpwoqIlHdp_OhWX_oZw40LmfrSj8ZofJ8svS0ncvnOxwUd-J2_ak26qWMJ1y8qTxZrftxvVwNZTWI-IlsFajRM0eXHuuc/s1600/superboy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMtBNPDPQATBb47XrgWiuFGSydCOU9vgE0w8I_ZNa-nEPWjMnpwoqIlHdp_OhWX_oZw40LmfrSj8ZofJ8svS0ncvnOxwUd-J2_ak26qWMJ1y8qTxZrftxvVwNZTWI-IlsFajRM0eXHuuc/s1600/superboy.jpg" height="640" width="433" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Oh, Superboy, don't you know Lana doesn't care what <i>YOU</i> look like? It's only Lana that needs to stay away from the Midwest casseroles.You can have super seconds!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'd like to say this was the only "fat shaming" comic from that era, but they did use it quite a bit. Then again, they were the prototype of the typical sitcom situation of chubby hubby - hot wife. In fact, they went one better: chubby-hubby - multiple hot wives!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeFDrYajQY4PK-NQ0r_qWuSsoglDQ4b3GzKaou4GdkWBqwIXmTH8_Dqi_vI-y81ClM2Iax14NkfV93JUGXPvzbx2LgzcV6if_PABpbZUfGee_jYph-pWAQjtuTXAYYMyuAs0VIjwR2Grc/s1600/bbdd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeFDrYajQY4PK-NQ0r_qWuSsoglDQ4b3GzKaou4GdkWBqwIXmTH8_Dqi_vI-y81ClM2Iax14NkfV93JUGXPvzbx2LgzcV6if_PABpbZUfGee_jYph-pWAQjtuTXAYYMyuAs0VIjwR2Grc/s1600/bbdd.jpg" height="153" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Which is why the most recent episode of FX's Louie, "So Did the Fat Lady" showed some amazing moments of true statements on how fat women are treated even when on date with a non-buff guy. You just need to read that monologue and see the clip <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/read-louies-memorable-speech-about-fat-girls.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I've seen some backlash, but most of the comments on the internet are (surprise!) mostly positive. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We never get over the body image issue. Which brings us back to another chapter of:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><b>Let's Compare Stereotyped Professions!</b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This month's <i>Today's Dietitian</i> has an article on body image among Registered Dietitians, or, more importantly, how RDs are perceived when they are not "thin." Because when people hear that someone is involved in nutrition, the assumption is that you cannot trust them to be "good" if they're "fat".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I can see how this can be a problem for RDs. Never mind that thin doesn't mean healthy. But it can become way too time consuming to worry about your public perception when you should be worried if you're doing a good job.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Librarians don't fret about their weight. They do, however, fret about <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=librarian+image&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb" target="_blank">EVERY OTHER ISSUE OF THEIR IMAGE</a>. And what's sad is that it's been going on for decades. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm not sure if the constant fear of appearing "cool" is better or easier than the fear of being "fat." In fact, it's pretty easy to slide into "creepily odd" from "attempted cool.". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But even though my Librarian peeps fret more, I think it's probably more of a burden to the Dietitians. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I can speak from the both sides of being "uncool" and being "fat." Cool is really subjective; you'll always find someone who probably fits or relates on some level and will embrace the uncoolness. And for all their vintage clothes and snarky attitudes, Librarians have found more often that library users actually want to more older, nerdy types because they are perceived as<i> knowing more</i>. And I say this as a heavily tattooed librarian that can easily quote kitschy 60's comics. Most patrons treat me a lot different now that I've aged into suits and button down shirts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But being fat...even your fellow fatties have issues with that. Body image is harder to escape. Especially as you relate it to perceptions of health. Studies show that our perception of health and weight are pretty skewed and it <a href="http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/15/3/323.short" target="_blank">starts at a fairly young age</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, I'm not sure who "wins" this round. It's bad enough we both have to deal with <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2013/02/dietitians-and-librarians-separated-at.html" target="_blank">a lot of other stereotypes</a>. But self-image is a very rancid icing on this unhealthy cake.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And yet we continue to see this in all media, even comics. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Maybe this tiny segment on <i>Louie</i> might make a difference. But we can just keep on keepin' on in our two much-maligned, but truly awesome professions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Dietitians and Their Weight Struggles.” Accessed May 15, 2014. http://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/050114p32.shtml?utm_content=buffer42dff&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Adc&rft.type=webpage&rft.title=Dietitians%20and%20Their%20Weight%20Struggles&rft.identifier=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.todaysdietitian.com%2Fnewarchives%2F050114p32.shtml%3Futm_content%3Dbuffer42dff%26utm_medium%3Dsocial%26utm_source%3Dtwitter.com%26utm_campaign%3Dbuffer"></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Fonseca, Helena, and Margarida Gaspar de Matos. “Perception of Overweight and Obesity among Portuguese Adolescents: An Overview of Associated Factors.” <i>The European Journal of Public Health</i> 15, no. 3 (June 1, 2005): 323–28. doi:10.1093/eurpub/cki071.</span></div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1093%2Feurpub%2Fcki071&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F15905184&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Perception%20of%20overweight%20and%20obesity%20among%20Portuguese%20adolescents%3A%20an%20overview%20of%20associated%20factors&rft.jtitle=The%20European%20Journal%20of%20Public%20Health&rft.stitle=Eur%20J%20Public%20Health&rft.volume=15&rft.issue=3&rft.aufirst=Helena&rft.aulast=Fonseca&rft.au=Helena%20Fonseca&rft.au=Margarida%20Gaspar%20de%20Matos&rft.date=2005-06-01&rft.pages=323-328&rft.spage=323&rft.epage=328&rft.issn=1101-1262%2C%201464-360X&rft.language=en"></span>
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Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-37370925695253060122014-05-12T16:45:00.003-04:002014-08-04T10:13:09.993-04:00Knowing and "No"ing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This was making the rounds recently, from Jimmy Kimmel:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Not too surprising. I'm a little more surprised by the comments on some sites that linked to this, somehow blaming the restaurants for not really handling gluten free food properly for those who have celiac disease and THAT'S why these answers are ignorant. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Wait...what?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This video shows that people are denying themselves gluten WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING WHY! Why are you blaming restaurants for something you don't even know why you're avoiding?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm sure this was staged in some way, but I certainly hear this enough from folks when they approach me to ask my opinion of trying a diet, as the Streamlined Ska Librarian lifestyle is so successful ... for Streamlined Ska Librarians. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Yes, as I've said many times, what worked <i>for me</i> was portion control and an increase in exercise. <i>For me.</i> And having tried "specialized" diets in the past, I know that any sort of real restriction, especially for those of us with binge issues, does not work in the long run. But many people, like those in the video, want to hear that eating "special" is THE answer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But I also notice in these all new gluten-free/paleo/artisinal-crafted diets that they forget one main thing: our portions have gotten a LOT bigger in the past several decades.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm not even going to reference one scholarly article. There have been <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=%22portion+size%22&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C33&as_sdtp=" target="_blank">so many</a> written lately. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=%22portion+size%22" target="_blank">Soooo many</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And basically they all show that increased portions increase our energy intake AND that portions have gotten bigger in general.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So it's not that you're eating no gluten. You're still increasing the amount of other food you are eating. And a lot of these "faux foods" actually have more sugar, so...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Let's take a look back at some vintage cookery. We often get unneeded/unwanted donations in the Library or we are looking to de-accession older, damaged copies. So when old cookbooks come in, they often are sent to me to covet, pick through and invoke Head Librarian privilege.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>"Mine! Stay away! Hissss!"</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And while there are some truly questionable recipes in some of them, I do love perusing them. Look at this lovely setting from the <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/betty-crockers-picture-cook-book/oclc/861037379&referer=brief_results" target="_blank">Betty Crocker's Picture Cookbook</a> section on salads: </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm not sure what kind of salad they're making, but it certainly got Grandpa and Grandma all excited! Get a room, you two! </span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now some of these salads, many of which include canned fruit, gelatin and/or mayonnaise, would not normally make it to my table, nor might they induce friskiness as I approach AARP levels. But I can't help but notice that most of these salads say they "serve 6" even though they include a much smaller amount of ingredients than similar salads found on culinary websites today. So you can dress up your salad with Princess Mayonnaise (1/2 cup mayo, 1 tbsp maraschino syrup, 4 chopped maraschino cherries and 1/4 cup cream, which equals about 2.5 TEASPOONS per person) and not deny yourself a serving of Baked Prune Whip for dessert (I'll only share that recipe if asked).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One of the other books I took home was the <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/larousse-gastronomique-the-encyclopedia-of-food-wine-cookery/oclc/413918&referer=brief_results" target="_blank">Larousse Gastronomique</a>, which is more than just recipes. It's an encyclopedia of historic food in France. It's filled with descriptions of ancient herbs, spices and cooking methods, as well as citations of various foods in French literature. (The Balzac marzipan story is fascinating.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It also references foods, like otter, which "have a horrible taste." I like that sense of completion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">By including all sorts of foods, even those not considered edible, the book shows that you can extend your food choices to everything. It's the exact opposite of what we see today. The readers of this cookbook avoided foods in that were considered poisonous or bad tasting. Otherwise, it was fair game to experiment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Nowadays should we look at the dozens of pages of garnish recipes and avoid them because they might contain gluten? Also, very few of the recipes give the amount of people they were meant to serve as it's assumed you wouldn't eat an entire plate of <a href="http://www.boucherie-aurieres.fr/agneau/41-cote-filet-double-d-agneau.html" target="_blank">Double D'Agneau</a> on your own. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So if you really want to have a Streamlined Ska Librarian body ... tough, it's mine. But don't deny yourself soemthing unless you KNOW why you're doing it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">OK, I'm going to go try some Otter a la Princess. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
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<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Crocker, Betty. <i>Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book.</i> New York; London, 1950.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Montagné, Prosper, Charlotte Turgeon, and Nina Froud. <i>Larousse Gastronomique: The Encyclopedia of Food, Wine & Cookery</i>. New York: Crown Publishers, 1961.</span></div>
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<br />Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-65397890582317039012014-05-03T17:19:00.003-04:002014-05-03T17:20:09.666-04:00Certified with issues<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, this happened ...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWAQnWbV0rh4GqF4Ah8xFQixGBU02-AyIv-wKcMAAJTijRmjAmSyTeZRZcvqCnChRvz1W60ozATMaWFfgcf7cuQbhIzXHJ9cMXAvrb0yL4fT0lmtmZbpdJSZHx8C28sUO1bq_HpjOrQ_I/s1600/certificate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWAQnWbV0rh4GqF4Ah8xFQixGBU02-AyIv-wKcMAAJTijRmjAmSyTeZRZcvqCnChRvz1W60ozATMaWFfgcf7cuQbhIzXHJ9cMXAvrb0yL4fT0lmtmZbpdJSZHx8C28sUO1bq_HpjOrQ_I/s1600/certificate.jpg" height="252" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It's always nice to have a sense of completion. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I admit that I tend to be a combination of the "needs to know everything" and "ooh, bright shiny object" sort of researcher. (I think those are prevalent in most good librarians, streamlined ska-loving or no). I tend to delve into new subjects and often find myself running off to the next one soon after. Because I like to know WHY and HOW.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But even though I've been hunkering down into nutrition and weight loss research for a few years, I have not tired of it yet. I think that's because of a few reasons. One is that there's always new material and research being published, both scholarly and "media-oriented." The other is that I'm living it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This weight loss/maintenance/lifestyle/whathaveyou cannot leave my head. Especially now that maintenance needs a tweak or two. Part of that is being vigilant, resourceful, positive, etc.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The other, more difficult part, is just accepting yourself in the mirror. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I will admit, I think I look hot. I think (and people agree) that I look much better now at age (as of this coming Sunday) 49, than I did at 39 or even 29. But that doesn't stop me from having moments of body image issues. That moment of "oh crap, what the hell do I look like here?" even though in the next moment, I can think "nice guns!" or "check out the dude!" But now that there's been some tight pants issues, the "oh crap" stuff gets magnified. It's ridiculous, I KNOW it's ridiculous, but that's how mindsets about weight and body image work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There have been quite a few studies on body image, but <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2011.140/full" target="_blank">very, very few of them include men</a>. Although there was a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144513000259" target="_blank">recent one</a> with college men showing that they react to "fat talk" the same way women do...it can make you have body issues. Is it all the same for us? Probably not. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, it's interesting to see this <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bustle/positive-body-image-_b_5193674.html" target="_blank">recent post and video</a> about one man's struggle with body issues. It hit a few chords for me. And it does drive home that it's really only recently that men have begun to talk about this at any level near where women do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But the big thing he mentions is that you can lose weight, but unless you're in the right mindset, it's not going to remain off. It's merely a diet that has a start and end and invariably it's not the band-aid you think it is. But men tend not to talk about those issues that make us reach for the extra cupcake. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And I can see this in me. This recent weight loss (now over 2 years on) is beginning to crack and that is what I'm addressing now. It's interesting to run through the regimen in my head and see where it needs .. sharpening, as it were. To see what issues need to be addressed now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I know I will not let myself get back to total Retro Ska Librarian weight and body issue laden self. But I can see I need a little more "jumper cable" work on myself and to check myself when I think I see what I do when I run past a large window or when I get dressed for work in the morning. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sadly, there's no certificate for that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
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</span><br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Engeln, Renee, Michael R. Sladek, and Heather Waldron. “Body Talk among College Men: Content, Correlates, and Effects.” <i>Body Image</i> 10, no. 3 (June 2013): 300–308. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2013.02.001.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1016%2Fj.bodyim.2013.02.001&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Body%20talk%20among%20college%20men%3A%20Content%2C%20correlates%2C%20and%20effects&rft.jtitle=Body%20Image&rft.stitle=Body%20Image&rft.volume=10&rft.issue=3&rft.aufirst=Renee&rft.aulast=Engeln&rft.au=Renee%20Engeln&rft.au=Michael%20R.%20Sladek&rft.au=Heather%20Waldron&rft.date=2013-06&rft.pages=300-308&rft.spage=300&rft.epage=308&rft.issn=1740-1445"></span>
</span><br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Pagoto, Sherry L., Kristin L. Schneider, Jessica L. Oleski, Juliana M. Luciani, Jamie S. Bodenlos, and Matt C. Whited. “Male Inclusion in Randomized Controlled Trials of Lifestyle Weight Loss Interventions.” <i>Obesity</i> 20, no. 6 (June 1, 2012): 1234–39. doi:10.1038/oby.2011.140.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1038%2Foby.2011.140&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Male%20Inclusion%20in%20Randomized%20Controlled%20Trials%20of%20Lifestyle%20Weight%20Loss%20Interventions&rft.jtitle=Obesity&rft.volume=20&rft.issue=6&rft.aufirst=Sherry%20L.&rft.aulast=Pagoto&rft.au=Sherry%20L.%20Pagoto&rft.au=Kristin%20L.%20Schneider&rft.au=Jessica%20L.%20Oleski&rft.au=Juliana%20M.%20Luciani&rft.au=Jamie%20S.%20Bodenlos&rft.au=Matt%20C.%20Whited&rft.date=2012-06-01&rft.pages=1234-1239&rft.spage=1234&rft.epage=1239&rft.issn=1930-739X"></span>
</span><br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Yes, Men Struggle With Body Image Issues, Too: Here’s My Story.” <i>Huffington Post</i>, April 29, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bustle/positive-body-image-_b_5193674.html.</span></div>
</div>
Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-64575351820122525232014-04-27T11:41:00.002-04:002014-04-27T11:41:17.106-04:00Trudging back in...lip up!<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm back! Did you miss me?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Almost a month without a post! I'm making for a bad blogging statistic. Then again, I'm not doing this professionally or receiving kickbacks/free schwag, so there have been other pressing matters. To be fair, I've even missed a lot of the Rangers games on their way to the playoffs, so you KNOW I've been busy!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I believe all the other pressing issues that made the blog so very post-secondary are now squared away...at least on my part. If and when there is news to reveal, I will do so when it happens. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Then again, as you know, I am not one for very much personal detail on my site, except in relation to my Streamlined activities. So, there may not be much change here, except that I'll now (hopefully) be back to regular posting and perhaps a return to the <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/search/label/Foodie%20Pen%20Pals" target="_blank">Foodie Pen Pals</a> pool. I didn't give up my regular perusals of scholarly journals and the accursed Well section of the NY Times, so I've amassed quite a few "for a future blog post" citations. But as I'm going through these citations, I'm noticing one thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Nothing new is really being said.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We've kind of hit this data/news plateau in that yes, our portions and sugar intake have increased and we all work longer hours than we used to and we exercise less and now we're all facing this great obesity dilemma. And while this is going on, we're still bombarded with health and nutrition "experts" (and we probably ignore the poor underpaid RDs and Librarians who have FACTS) in order that we may find the quick fix.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And I could, I suppose, post the basic same post for the next several decades and I certainly would have enough resources to do it. But others are doing it better and on a more regular basis.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So right now it's back to the increasing scale.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Here's a recent photo of me at work:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYGlF2joz1Tue6-cRX82tJ483t6JoqF0VaaY-psgHhQjUyu-3-Zzdk2IbtQxJj6L4qsKeS81GizlqJZq-DXSB3yBM4NFeItPQ8TVkqOb3NLoDG-w6xtH1wsx83kj1qWqz9BtrY7QKn5J8/s1600/libraryday2014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYGlF2joz1Tue6-cRX82tJ483t6JoqF0VaaY-psgHhQjUyu-3-Zzdk2IbtQxJj6L4qsKeS81GizlqJZq-DXSB3yBM4NFeItPQ8TVkqOb3NLoDG-w6xtH1wsx83kj1qWqz9BtrY7QKn5J8/s1600/libraryday2014.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And here's one from two years ago at a similar event:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit0_qsexunLZQugT_Mnpsvet8y5aZtl6FbFO3fG0Y_3m4-ZCzFpKCAYJ6WNfCWzdLHIEvZedZaUimAXbOxJQ3yAlqL3AFbdlwAuQmaDnsrxL5FFkCNhGQmFQiDjaMiSzLS4FDZUK-Zrvo/s1600/libraryday2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit0_qsexunLZQugT_Mnpsvet8y5aZtl6FbFO3fG0Y_3m4-ZCzFpKCAYJ6WNfCWzdLHIEvZedZaUimAXbOxJQ3yAlqL3AFbdlwAuQmaDnsrxL5FFkCNhGQmFQiDjaMiSzLS4FDZUK-Zrvo/s1600/libraryday2012.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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</span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In the older one, I'm drowning in an old suit. It's way too big for me. In many ways, that was cool. I basically now had dressy clown clothes because I lost so much weight. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In the newer one, I'm bursting out of my outfit and not all in a good way. Extensive weight training had begun and my body shape was something I never imagined having. Yes, my back, chest and shoulders are all much bigger. That jacket can barely fit around me on the top. I no longer fit in a medium t-shirt and that's not from fat gain, but rather from larger lats and shoulders. I don't mind THAT sort of size increase.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But you can also make out that the "donut" is making a comeback. Not that it went away completely, but it definitely got a few extra fillings injected. And that's an issue.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I am doing less exercise, and more binging. Maybe from stress, maybe from timing. Most likely just not being present while I'm eating. It does take will power and mindfulness. (And somewhere, my teenage punk self is derisively sneering at my using such a word about life. But, hey, we all grow up, kid!) </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But is it really stress doing this? A <a href="http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/S0899-9007%2807%2900249-3/abstract" target="_blank">rather extensive literature review</a> from a few years back shows that the answer is a definite "maybe". But they still think it does play a role:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>"Despite the limitations discussed, we can make some broad conclusions that support the idea that stress can influence food intake. The studies examined revealed that stress can lead to decreased and increased eating, which may be related to stressor severity, such that in animals a severe stress results in a lower intake and <b>in</b> <b>humans the response is variable</b>. There is some evidence to suggest that elevated stress levels are associated with a greater desire for hedonic, highly palatable foods that are energy dense. This may contribute to excess energy intakes and weight gain, which is supported by longitudinal studies that suggest there is an association between chronic life stress and future weight gain."</i></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Chronic life stress." I wouldn't say my life is chronically stressful situation. In fact, I think the stress makes me control more things around me, such as exercise. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One of the studies mentioned in the previous one was <a href="http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/9806309/reload=0;jsessionid=Zhc7xEPIhChpqE43bO95.20" target="_blank">this paper</a> regarding twins in Finland and weight gain. They also took into account personality traits, as well as stress factors. One of the conclusions (although again, they say this was a fairly modest study) was that <i>"low levels of extroversion in young men [was a] stable personality character related to subsequent weight gain."</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One thing I have never measured low on was extroversion. (As one of my old friends once said, "Dan, you're not subtle as a brick, you're subtle WITH a brick!" That was about my dating habits, but you get the idea...) So this would mean I should always have been a skinny fella...at least if I grew up in Finland with a twin. <i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The answer once again falls to ourselves. I found what works for me, and, unfortunately, I need to find a way to maintain that while still having a life and the stress contained therein.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But there is one difference now. And I find it fascinating. I now feel deprived if I DON'T exercise and I find that I lose little ground muscle-wise if I miss the gym for a week. In the past, I would find myself not being able to lift the amount I had been if I hadn't been doing it for a while. Or getting winded easily. But now I notice I can still lift, pull, span, fly, squat, etc. at continued higher weights. Even my abs are stronger under the donut (the six pack under the pony keg). And again, looking at myself in the mirror...yes, there's a donut, but I also can't help but see a more solid, muscly body, as well. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So while there are moments that I am terrified I will fall back to complete Retro Ska Librarian, I see that I made a big effort to get to Streamlined and it doesn't fall away immediately.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">But I have to keep at it, and that includes blogging about it. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">You're stuck with me and my muscly fingers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I will add one more thought to this long post. Another recent NY Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/what-id-say-to-my-fat-son.html" target="_blank">op-ed piece</a> was by someone who was a fat child in the midst of a non-fat family and his journey (via fat camp AND self-awareness) to his own acceptance. It struck a lot of familiar bells. But one thing he focuses is on is what he would say to his son if his son was fat. And it was getting him interested in sports and moving and activity, but with support. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Now as I've posted <a href="http://dancherubin.blogspot.com/2013/07/no-fat-scouts-or-why-i-suck-at-sports.html" target="_blank">so many times before</a>, being that "bad at sports" fat kid myself, it wasn't just me at an age to be aware enough that I was fat to want to do something. It's having the upbringing to know enough about moving and sports and activity to enable that innate feeling in your kids. If I had children back in the day, I imagine they'd be sedentary pop culture bookworms like me. If I had them now, I think I'd make more of a conscious effort to explore movement with them, whether or not they felt fat, thin or didn't care. ("Hey kids, let's play Legion of Super Heroes Freeze Tag!" And it has to be alphabetical or you run a lap!")</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Or, I'd probably just make them sing and dance along to this:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I'm back, kids!! </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References:</span><br />
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<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Korkeila, M, J Kaprio, A Rissanen, M Koskenvuo, and T I A Sörensen. “Predictors of Major Weight Gain in Adult Finns: Stress, Life Satisfaction and Personality Traits.” <i>International Journal of Obesity & Related Metabolic Disorders</i> 22, no. 10 (October 1998): 949.</span></div>
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</div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Predictors%20of%20major%20weight%20gain%20in%20adult%20Finns%3A%20Stress%2C%20life%20satisfaction%20and%20personality%20traits&rft.jtitle=International%20Journal%20of%20Obesity%20%26%20Related%20Metabolic%20Disorders&rft.stitle=International%20Journal%20of%20Obesity%20%26%20Related%20Metabolic%20Disorders&rft.volume=22&rft.issue=10&rft.aufirst=M&rft.aulast=Korkeila&rft.au=M%20Korkeila&rft.au=J%20Kaprio&rft.au=A%20Rissanen&rft.au=M%20Koskenvuo&rft.au=T%20I%20A%20S%C3%B6rensen&rft.date=1998-10&rft.pages=949&rft.issn=03070565"></span></span> <br />
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Max, Joshua. “What I’d Say to My Fat Son.” <i>The New York Times</i>, March 22, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/what-id-say-to-my-fat-son.html.</span></div>
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</div>
<div class="csl-entry">
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Torres, Susan J., and Caryl A. Nowson. “Relationship between Stress, Eating Behavior, and Obesity.” <i>Nutrition</i> 23, no. 11–12 (November 2007): 887–94. doi:10.1016/j.nut.2007.08.008.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Adoi%2F10.1016%2Fj.nut.2007.08.008&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Relationship%20between%20stress%2C%20eating%20behavior%2C%20and%20obesity&rft.jtitle=Nutrition&rft.stitle=Nutrition&rft.volume=23&rft.issue=11%E2%80%9312&rft.aufirst=Susan%20J.&rft.aulast=Torres&rft.au=Susan%20J.%20Torres&rft.au=Caryl%20A.%20Nowson&rft.date=2007-11&rft.pages=887-894&rft.spage=887&rft.epage=894&rft.issn=0899-9007"></span></span> </div>
Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769820150190197335.post-88558452582639401182014-03-29T23:05:00.000-04:002014-03-31T13:17:43.513-04:00"The plural of anecdote is not data"<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicUq2LJIdDgLZKffuZNupcYGiqjMTrE3tl_pZH3qtLqOL6A14E-pV6ZdHK4DOIrhtyGlBkrC7aSLGHPPhjHFwMw8qKrDu6QVETPf2Ue0zDtAmcJqN8HMWmF2E3UWSZ7UtdU38ocPT-fUk/s1600/hazan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicUq2LJIdDgLZKffuZNupcYGiqjMTrE3tl_pZH3qtLqOL6A14E-pV6ZdHK4DOIrhtyGlBkrC7aSLGHPPhjHFwMw8qKrDu6QVETPf2Ue0zDtAmcJqN8HMWmF2E3UWSZ7UtdU38ocPT-fUk/s1600/hazan.jpg" height="251" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Tonight's dinner: lamb tandoori meatballs, brown rice, brussel sprouts with lemon & garlic and a dollop of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178/marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce.html" target="_blank">tomato sauce a la Marcella Hazan</a></i></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hey, I'm still here! Things might be perking up here again, now that my MOOC is finally ending (provided I don't tank the final test). It was an <a href="http://edx.org/" target="_blank">EdX</a> course from McGill University on Food Chemistry, as done by their <a href="http://www.mcgill.ca/oss/" target="_blank">Office of Science and Society</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I took this course for a few reasons. First and foremost, I'm a firm believer in continuing education. It's important to be a lifelong learner, be it a new language or creative technique, or taking on an entirely new topic. Not surprising coming from a librarian, I suppose. After all, it was one of <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=6e4DAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=melvil+dewey+continuing+education&source=bl&ots=MAmUU8F-O_&sig=_rY3SbxJg_jeugyXfL69nvSBvbE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PXk3U6_OJKmnsQTu1oGAAw&ved=0CD8Q6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=melvil%20dewey%20continuing%20education&f=false" target="_blank">Mevil Dewey's big passions</a>, as well. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And, seeing as I have been so immersed with food and health and weight, I thought this course would be interesting. I also thought it would be a little less daunting and time consuming than the MIT Solid State Chemistry course I MOOC'd last year. (Averaging 3 hours a night on differential equations and molecular modeling was invigorating, but a little too much of a time suck).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So, this course seemed like a just right slice of healthy dessert. I think it also helped that the professors giving the course were of the same mind set and belief as mine in regards to food and weight maintenance: you should look to the research, but it's not that all the answers have yet been found.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I really enjoyed how they would delve into results of various intervention studies, case control groups and meta-analyses to show how results can be skewed or varied depending on who is marketing the results.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And they had a healthy skepticism for most of the media-based nutrition gurus out there. The title of this blog post is a quote from one of the professors in regards to some of the "natural miracle weight loss miracles" we see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And it was nice to see that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15051593" target="_blank">studies they referenced</a> were the sorts of things that I was uncovering <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24172297" target="_blank">in my own searches</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">That's not to say that I didn't learn a lot. I actually learned quite a few things about epidemiology, agriculture and fertilizer, molecular reactions and the like. Learning about things you already know is sort of like re-reading a good book. Adding new things into the mix is like finding out there's more volumes in to the series. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What do I have to show for this course, aside from a nice certificate if I don't tank next week's final? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A renewed respect for my own journey and my continued search for research. I admit that it wasn't just the stress, weather and workload that was affecting my maintenance. It's the amount of crap you have to mine though when you connect into the health movement. But this MOOC helped me see that you CAN find the actual facts and data underneath the anecdotes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The Streamlined part of my persona has always been one of constant work. The Libarian part doesn't really get to rest on this topic either. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The Ska part never worries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">References: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Dewey, Melvil. "Adult Education" from <i>Journal of Social Science: Containing the Transactions of the American Association</i>, 266-268: 42, American Social Science Association, Leypoldt & Holt, 1904, pp. 152-156. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Johansson, Kari, Martin Neovius, and Erik Hemmingsson. “Effects of Anti-Obesity Drugs, Diet, and Exercise on Weight-Loss Maintenance after a Very-Low-Calorie Diet or Low-Calorie Diet: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.” <i>The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition</i> 99, no. 1 (January 1, 2014): 14–23. doi:10.3945/ajcn.113.070052.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Pittler, Max H., and Edzard Ernst. “Dietary Supplements for Body-Weight Reduction: A Systematic Review.” <i>The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition</i> 79, no. 4 (April 1, 2004): 529–36.</span></div>
<span class="Z3988" title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_id=info%3Apmid%2F15051593&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Ajournal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Dietary%20supplements%20for%20body-weight%20reduction%3A%20a%20systematic%20review&rft.jtitle=The%20American%20Journal%20of%20Clinical%20Nutrition&rft.stitle=Am%20J%20Clin%20Nutr&rft.volume=79&rft.issue=4&rft.aufirst=Max%20H.&rft.aulast=Pittler&rft.au=Max%20H.%20Pittler&rft.au=Edzard%20Ernst&rft.date=2004-04-01&rft.pages=529-536&rft.spage=529&rft.epage=536&rft.issn=0002-9165%2C%201938-3207"></span> Dan Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11472801052363861457noreply@blogger.com0