The whole grain elephant in the room?

Were you watching 60 minutes last night? Sugar is bad, sugar is toxic, sugar can give you cancer, okay I’m paraphrasing here but the segment was on after the one about the space program and with a hook like that who wouldn’t put down the chocolate and pay attention. The scientist, Dr Robert Lustig has been researching the sweet stuff and his findings are alarming. I’ve posted the link below.

However there is another staple that you’ve probably had some of this morning or will be eating some of today that needs to be cut back as well. Wheat. Working in a bookstore I get to read the back of plenty of books when I’m shelving them, but one, Wheat Belly by Dr William Davis really caught my attention so much so that I bought it. Davis’s opening remarks about constant exercise and lack of weight loss struck a chord with me. I’m not exactly fat but I have to work out every day to maintain my weight well I did but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The next thing that got my attention was that the wheat we eat isn’t what my parents and grandparents used to eat, the grain was cross-bred with other varieties to make it smaller, more resistant to disease, double yield and stave off famine in developing countries. The only thing they didn’t do to it was test the effect it had on humans.

Then I got to the bit where wheat messes with your brain chemistry and I very nearly put the book down. Oh come on! I thought, this was all going so well and then you have to go all junk science on me. So I put Dr Davis to the test, substituting my normal cereal for one of his recipes and didn’t feel the need to snack, had lunch (again wheat free) and then dinner. I didn’t feel the need to eat anything extra and all the usual temptations were there I just didn’t want them. I’m not completely wheat free because my husband insists on pizza Saturday nights and I don’t want to eliminate wheat completely because accidental ingestion can cause some pretty bad reactions. So Saturday night bad things get eaten but for the rest of the week I have my willpower and that’s not all.

Eight weeks in and I’m down one dress size, I exercise twice a week instead of every day (I think if I kept up the seven day a week thing I could drop another dress size but I don’t need to) and my energy level is through the roof. I still eat plenty of meat, fish, eggs, cheese, nuts, chocolate etc just no wheat. Links to both the CBS article and a link to the book itself are below. I never recommend something without first trying it. I highly recommend this.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57407294/is-sugar-toxic/?tag=pop;stories

http://www.kingsenglish.com/book/9781609611545

Gullible US?

My family has a saying never discuss religion or politics with people you want to stay friends with.

Politics in the US wears its heart on its sleeve, I knew that when I moved here. As those of you who’ve read this blog before know I don’t exactly give a flying fig for it. In the UK it’s easy to ignore-sure I voted back home and if you know me well you might be surprised who I voted for but that’s not the issue here. Because right, left or independent should never be the basis for liking someone, and should never ever be hurled as an insult. Yet in the US it never fails to be and this election campaign is one of the bitterest insult-ridden yet. You can blame technology for a lot of it, citizen journalism, one click and your facebook comment or tweet can go around the world if it is controversial enough. Negative attack politics is rife. Now I know that honest politician is an oxymoron but we didn’t come out of the womb with a political party symbol tattooed on our butts we choose our political affiliation or lack of it, the same as we choose our best friends, our lovers, our jobs, the food we eat, or how we use our brains. Here’s my favourite trick, don’t listen to the words, use the mute button and look at the body language every politician has a ‘tell’ when they’re lying or flip-flopping the trick is spotting it and that's a lot easier when you can't hear the spin.

NB

In the UK Monster Raving Looney party candidates stand quite often for local government-and they’re a joke. In the US tea party candidates stand for election and Americans take them seriously even voting some into office.

http://www.loonyparty.com/

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/felkins2.html

What’s so dangerous about daytime running lights?

I used to think DRLs were a necessary evil, they come on when I turn the key, I have no say in the matter unless I want to hack my car (and I don’t) When it’s dark or overcast as a matter of habit I put my main ‘dipped’ headlights on. Most people in the US seem to rely on DRL and according to various websites DRLs have reduced front and side impact crashes by 5% or 0% depending upon which data set you look at. The word you should pay attention to here is front-not back. At the back DRLs don’t operate the tail lights which is fine in clear visibility but drive in rain, spray, fog or snow and unless you put the main lights on no one can see the back of your car, until you either brake and your brake lights come on, you indicate to pull out, or they run into the back of you. Brake lights and tail lights are not the same thing. Driving back down I15 yesterday from NV to UT in snow and heavy spray, I saw multiple cars with their DRLs on and nothing else. There were also some drivers who didn’t have DRL but hadn’t turned their lights on. Don’t take my word for it, have a friend check the back of your car and see what comes on when you have only DRL. On one of the sites I visited (lightsout.org) they equate DRLs to stone age technology when sensors could be installed that would turn the lights on automatically or better yet, improve the driver training programs and stop relying on safety devices that don’t make us safer.

http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/drl.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytime_running_lamp

http://www.lightsout.org/story.html#ourcase

http://m.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/car-life/auto-therapy/spotlight-on-daytime-running-lights/article2191954/?service=mobile