Healthy Food is LESS Expensive Than Junk Food (Note: I Was Right)

As you know, I have been saying for a long time, DO NOT BELIEVE THE HYPE that junk food is cheaper than healthy food. No one had ever done a definitive study of the subject, so that idea was all based on speculation and hype.

But now, there is a study. It’s conclusion…

I was right.

Can Anything Be Sold As a “Dietary Supplement?”

The FDA is investigating whether “inhalable caffeine” is safe.

Stop reading this now and just think about that for 30 seconds.

What do you draw from that?

When I used to work in R&D at a vitamin company, they would market all kinds of useless products under the moniker dietary supplement.

But now we are no longer talking about useless products, but rather dangerous ones.

So it begs the question, are the laws surrounding dietary supplements too soft?

This example of inhalable caffeine would seem to support that notion.

Although nutritional supplements are not allowed to make any direct health claims, they also are not regulated for what they contain (think Chinese imports).

No regulation means a prime market for charlatans and criminals.

That means, for now, it is up to consumers to do their homework.

Read labels and don’t buy any suspect nutritional supplements.

For more information, visit the VITAMIN FUN HOUSE, where you can ask questions and get well-researched answers about supplements.

THE VITAMIN FUN HOUSE.

Salads

Hi. It’s Joe.

I’d like to be able to say I am eating more salads.

Actually, I think I can say it. I am eating my third salad in two days right now.

It’s got spinach, mushrooms, green pepper, roma tomato, grass fed beef, chicken, and some Neuman’s Own Italian dressing (one of the few dressings that has no added sugar, although it does have a lot of highly processed oil in it).

It’s almost totally Paleo, except for the dressing. No cheese, even. I guess the chicken is not strictly Paleo, as I am sure it was raised in an industrial facility. But the 100% grass fed beef was raised on a farm in Montana. Bison would be better, but this will do.

 

Organic Food Companies – The Paleo Diet This Week

Hi. It’s Joe.

This week, I violated the Paleo Diet plan a few times. Remember, my goal was to try to adhere to it as best as possible. I arbitrarily settled on 80% compliance as the baseline lowest I would go.

I ate some cheese this week. I also ate some sweets at work. I have a co-worker who makes the best baked goods I have ever tasted. This week was National Chocolate Cake Week (or so she claims), and she rose to the challenge. So did I, by eating some.

I also ate some birthday cake and chocolate ice cream at the end of my work day yesterday. Not a huge amount. I also had a couple of beers at a work celebration yesterday. It was on the company, so who am I to decline free beer?

But for most of the week, I think I was pretty compliant. I ate Paleo chili, homemade beef and veggie stir fry, some HuHot Mongolian Grill, eggs, and tofu. I did eat a veggie wrap at Barriques, and so the tortilla itself was not compliant, but the innards were.

As I was writing this, just minutes ago, Fed Ex delivered me a shipment of 100% grass fed Black Angus beef from Montana. There are now 12 1-pound bricks of frozen Paleo friendly beef in my freezer. It’s stir fry beef, so I plan to incorporate them into meals the next couple of weeks. No, they were not cheap, but they were not as expensive as I thought either, and shipping was free, and I got some free grass fed Black Angus meatballs as part of the deal.

I used to be an affiliate of the grass fed beef company in Montana, but they dropped me for some reason. That’s too bad, because I would totally endorse their product.

I also got some dry ice in the package they sent it in. Hours of fun. I wish it was Halloween, so I could make a bubbling cauldron of (no sugar added) fruit punch.

P.S. I fully admit to putting “Organic Food Companies” in the title of this post as an attractant for web traffic.

Echinacea Root. Not Flower.

Sick?

This is the time of year that I remind everyone about Echinacea (and my 8 years in R&D at a vitamin company, that gives me a modicum of credence to make such reminders).

Echinacea gets a bad rap sometimes as being ineffective at fighting colds.

But this is because vitamin companies are charlatans who use media hype to sell you inferior products. Remember, I worked at one for 8 years, before firing them for charlatanry.

The science is clear. It is the ROOT of Echinacea that is effective against colds and flu, not the flowers or leafy parts.

Most commercial Echinacea products contain the flowers and leafy parts, with little if any root. It is also really important to get Echinacea purpurea root, which has the highest concentration of effective biochemicals.

Such products are hard to find, but do your homework and find one, because the good stuff works against colds and flu.

Get well soon!

Fitness for the New Year

As you know, every month or so, I pursue a fitness challenge of some type. Although it was not technically a new year’s resolution per se, the one that corresponded to January 2012 was to follow as closely as possible a Paleolithic style diet.

The operative phrase there is “as closely as possible.” In this day and age, it would be very difficult to strictly adhere to a Paleo diet, and the goal with all of my fitness challenges is to do obtainable things. So I am going for 80% Paleo, which seems reasonable.

Because it has been going so well, I am continuing with my fitness challenge to do five 45-minute light to moderate workouts per week. Again, “light to moderate” equals obtainable. If I try to pursue something too difficult, I might fail.

That is probably why the exercising has been going so well. It is not a chore. It is kind of enjoyable and blends well with my life. I am going to alter the workout schedule to be a bit more rigid. If I can, I am going to try to workout in the morning before work every week day. If I miss, I can always make up one or two on the weekends, but if I get them all in by Friday I won’t have to worry about it on the weekends.

This morning I did the stationary bike for 45 minutes and at lunch I was able to get out for a 50 minute power walk. So I am calling it 2 workouts for the week so far, and it is still only Monday.

The diet is going well today too. The only non-Paleo food I have eaten so far is the brown rice that was in my Paleo chili. I am allowing legumes as a protein source, so the peanuts and unsweetened soy milk I consumed are OK. I also had an apple.

I have Baby Rocket band practice tonight and if Gina makes some of her kickass food and it is not Paleo, I am going to be eating the 20% non-Paleo foods for the day.

10 Minutes – Strange Outlook On Life Paradigm Shift

Hi. It’s Joe.

This morning I depileated my chinny chin chin, where for the past many months I have sported a goat. My face looks chubbier without the gruff, but that is only an optical illusion.

So this past week, kicking off the new year, I have been going gangbusters on my new years resolutions. They were 3-fold, although one of them would have happened regardless of the calendar flipping over.

The first was to pick up learning Welsh again and the second was to learn jazz piano (but really just to learn piano in order to play jazz, or anything else). These are the two official new years resolutions.

My goal was modest, to practice for 30 minutes five times per week on both Welsh and piano. Over time, I will get better and better. This is what I have to keep in mind. I, like most people, enjoy instant gratification. I want immediate results. But learning an instrument or a new language does not always yield immediate results. So I think the tendency is for people to give up when they don’t get fast results.

This is especially true of diet. But diet is different because it is STOPPING a habitual behavior (over eating and unhealthy food choices) rather than developing a new habitual behavior like piano or Welsh, in my case. I think it is a lot easier to develop new skills than relinquish old ones.

That said, my third NY resolution is dietary. I am trying to adopt a paleolithic diet, and I have been fairly successful. Over my birthday weekend this past weekend, I was in violation of it, because people brought a lot of tasty sweets to my rocknroll birthday party on Saturday. That was a treat, but not the norm.

I learned how to make my dad’s awesome chili recipe, and it is arguably paleo friendly, although some say legumes are not a paleo food. I need them to be though, because it is a very nutritious protein source. So that’s a subtle alteration of the diet I am allowing.

I made the chili for my party on Saturday, and it all got eaten. So I made more on Sunday (with paleo friendly bison) and that should last me the whole week. Yum.

I am trying to get my local Piggly Wiggly to sell unsweetened soy milk. Again, soy is not strictly paleo. But sugar DEFINITELY isn’t.

Time.