Sweet!*

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\*only for peeps without a friend with a wifi ;-)

Google voice transcriptions are pure entertainment. This is a confirmation message from the dentist.

Day. Hi this is. Montali a calling from Prudential New York. New office of Dr. Benjamin shores. I'm calling to confirm the upcoming appointment with that please you know that you have any questions about the upcoming appointment is very important that you call our office immediately at (212) 213-6622 Please note that when your address is 220 Madison Avenue, Suite be between 306-1030 7th Street, please stand in line for your appointment details, yeah appointments for Georgie, yawn, hey Monday. Yeah. Remember 28 at 12 PM. Yeah, we look forward to seeing Georgie, yawn, hey Monday. Yeah. Remember 28 at 12 PM. Yank you, and have a great day.

I made something close to perfection after a million unintentional stews. Not that I hate stews. I love stews and soups but still the lack of moisture control in my recent cooking was starting to annoy me.


Savoy Cabbage
Yellow peppers
Jalapeños and HOT chillies - a very generous gift from (e:Terry)'s wonderful chillie plants
Roasted caramelized tomatoes
Caramelized onions
Ginger
My own spice mix with a cardamom shot. (I need to figure out how I made this batch, it's so good and I have no idea what I put in because I made it in a very distracted way over a week).
Red peppers
Zucchini
Turmeric powder

All stir-fried in a tsp extra virgin olive oil - (e:Paul), that oil rocks. I am tempted to buy that bottle off you!!

Things have reached a rather bad state when these three documents are your only regular fortnightly anticipated reads.

1. Walgreens Chocolate mania.


2. Random Pricerite ogling.


3. Coop Bulk Food craziness.

{The coop is 20 minutes away, which is also a bit of dealbreaker for me. Grocery shopping is a time-eater on days I am struggling to find extra time.}

I wish Guercio's were not a complete 2.1 miles away. I know that's not much when you drive or even bike but it takes me 30 minutes to get there. Once I do, it's hard not to linger and buy a ton of awesome things and carrying or carting all of it back takes more than 40 minutes. That's a good 2-4 hours down the drain. I just cannot afford the time.

TODO 1
(e:heidi)'s comments on the powerlessness of individuals in changing their diet always makes me think about my wages (slightly above minimum, almost the lowest bin in terms of taxation), dependents (none) and quality of diet (I want to believe, fairly good).

I think that people can change their diets if
a) they have the will power
b) the motivation
c) proper guidance for the switch
d) options to aid a gentle and gradual but complete switch
e) some level of daring
f) a shop like pricerite within a mile of where they live.

I want to do a couple posts on this after I am done "dissertating".

TODO 2
A personal debate on BMI and obesity and what are the right tools of measurement. This is a complicated issue. Arguments can be made on every single side and indecision reigns supreme. Emotions come into play depending what kind of personal brushes you have had with the medical community, your current and past health and issues you have had or are still having with weight loss/control/gain. In addition, there is the dry statistical debate. Mixing all of this leads to arguments sounding slightly biased and unconvincing. So I want to tackle each in context but in independent posts.

TODO 3.
The unending Coop Vs. pricerite opinion

TODO 4.
The unending "is organic farming really worth it?" and "is eating organic really worth it" current evidence post.

On secondthoughts, this is a completely worthless debate. Coop activists need to wake up and smell their snobbery and bias against the poor. Organic farming is only relevant for animal products not plants or fat-free produce. It's not logical to argue that organic produce is somehow better because really, there is ZERO evidence or even likelihood of any "inorganic" chemicals being anything other than fat soluble. Thus, no arguments that include such points as chemical residue in washed produce is accurate. The "it just tastes better to me" is so lame as to not merit any mind space.

The thing is all of these require a ton of research and review. In fact, I could take my research on these and turn it into journal articles and submit them for peer review. Which is probably what I should do, since this will eat into my time.

OR

Just ignore all these TODOs. Hold on to what I believe and keep encouraging people that healthy eating is not about political beliefs, snobbery, or even activism. Its about eating what makes your body not die inside and rejuvenates your organ systems instead of overloading them with toxins and other tough to process components.

I am re-discovering all of Bach magnificent Cantatas once more and BWV140 is one of my all-time favourites.



I love the absolutely perfect build up of the vocal ornamentations to the crescendo of the choir from 4:26. Hearing the cantatas is almost equivalent to getting a virtual pair of wings if you close your eyes.



Did you know that Bach wrote a brand new cantata every single week for the Sunday worship service, and that there are nearly 260 of them? Prolific was a gross understatement when it came to Bach.

Evince has djvu file support but just not in Fedora, at least by default.

You need the evince-djvu module to make Evince launch djvu files:

sudo yum install evince-djvu

The Waltz is my most favourite kind of classical music after sonorous abstract cello recitals and baroque orchestral works. Wait till you reach around 3:20, when they give the dance a modern interpretation. :)

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SUPER EDIT:

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Though I like the poster below for how it presents information, I think all of us need to review this really informative book on reality and myths surrounding Obesity: directly leads to the PDF.
Source: Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF)


NB1:
The book has some excellent data presentation - far prettier than the poster below. A pity, its locked into PDF. I am going to see if I rip those diagrams and also put it on this post in direct contrast to the pretty poster in my original post.

NB2:
For me, the real challenge is to examine if I am cherry-picking results or have done a balanced survey of the peer-reviewed literature. I am currently disinclined to accept any pigeonholed set of beliefs on the many sides of this whole obesity discussion. In many ways, I see more confounders in the equation than is comfortably explained away. If there is an epidemic that needs immediate addressing, its one of confusion and indecision.

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And now my original post:

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Just saw this here:


Now, that is classy presentation. Twenty years back, I would have been a 4 instead of being relegated to 2s and 0s most arbitrarily.

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EDIT:
The real sources
I posted this because I find the data presentation in this poster very compelling. It is capable of eliciting a strong response from everyone just because it is so directly and simply presented. However, you have raised some concerns over the source of the chart. So I dug more and came up with the real sources of this compilation:

• The portion size statistics and graphics came from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute's (NHLBI) website. They have 2 full slide sets for post and present portion sizes:
• Set 1:
• Set 2:
• The BMI chart was adapted from the NHLBI's evidence report titled: "Clinical guidelines on the identification, evaluation and treatment of overweight and obesity in Adults. The evidence report." Available at:
• The facts for the diagram came from here:

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I am also going to keep adding equivalent data presentations from non-commercial sources to this post.

Source: RAND health, an offshoot of the famous RAND Corporation, a non profit think tank whose name expands to just Research And Development
Data from Sturm, R., J. Ringel, and T. Andreyeva, "Increasing Obesity Rates and Disability Trends," Health Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 2, March/April 2004, pp. 1–7.




Source: Centers for Disease Control a.k.a. CDC
See:
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Food subsidies and the food pyramid
{Re: (e:heidi)'s observation. Last para Comment #66257}

From PCRM. Physicians Comittee for Responsible Medicine

Note that the government recommended food guide pyramid is now a plate with %s. I personally think it makes more sense and is more comprehensible even though the new food plate also has its critics. An argument is that the government shouldn't be telling us what to eat. However, people who determine the food pyramid or the plate are just scientists working for the government. This diagram raises the real parallel question for me, why are these scientists who come up with food portion recommendations not on the committees that decide on what to subsidize?!
...
And just for fun, from Apples From Oranges:

You have to hand it to the Gnome3 folks. At least the message looks crisp and smart.



Even though what followed was an undeniably ungraceful crash.