Thinking about food

The Sunday NY Times Magazine was all about food this week. Good stuff. An interesting article about calorie restriction and the apparent slowing of aging that it causes. If we all ate 25% less than we do, well some of us would have to eat a higher percentage less, we could slow down aging, and drastically reduce heart disease and cancer. Without drugs or even exercise. Problem is, most people would rather die, or at least just take the drugs, than cut 25% of their calories. It is pretty extreme, I guess. Most people that are at a healthy weight to begin with lose 15% of their body weight in the first year of 25% reduction and then plateau. That means that I would weigh about 136 pounds. I would not look well at 136 pounds. I know this because I've been as low as 139 pounds, when I was training really hard and profoundly anemic, and I didn't look well. But I was fast riding my bike and, evidently would have been healthier if I had stayed that weight. If I didn't die from one of my semi-weekly sinus infections or bronchitis. Interesting study nonetheless.

Michael Pollan did a piece where he asked people to send him any rules that they follow concerning what to eat or not eat. There were some good ones. A woman by the name of Michelle Poirot invoked a Zen teaching that says "when you drink tea, just drink tea." In other words, be mindful of your eating, don't eat while you are doing something else. I'm bad about this. I almost always read or watch TV while I'm eating. I need to work on that. Another one that I really thought was good was from Laura Kelley and she said that she uses a rule of economics to avoid overeating. "The law of diminishing marginal utility reminds me that each additional bite is generally less satisfying than the previous bite," she says, so she remembers to slow down and really enjoy the first bites and then stop eating sooner. That's good, I'm going to use that one. There were other good ones, like don't eat anything you are not prepared to kill yourself, and I've thought of that one but I don't really want give up meat all together. One guy said that he doesn't eat anything that is pretending to be something else, which is actually one of my own guidelines. I don't like turkey presented as anything other than turkey. I don't like turkey sausage or turkey burger or turkey ham. If I want to eat turkey, I will and if I must have those other things, then I'll suffer the consequences and enjoy the real thing. This is why I like sausage, bacon, and hot dogs; because they are honest foods. They are not good for you but they taste good so you eat them in moderation and get on with it. Hmm, now I'm hungry.

How to get rear-ended by a local

Well, the foliage season is winding down here in Central Vermont. As beautiful as it is around here this time of year, and as happy as we all are to have some people here for a change to bolster our economy, this time of year presents a few challenges. For reasons that none of us can quite comprehend, people in the throes of a foliage binge will routinely stop their cars in the middle of the road and get out to take photos of nothing in particular. This can be somewhat of a surprise to those of us that end up taking the scenery for granted in the midst of our day to day travels. This year we had an additional challenge presented to us in the form of... hay sculptures. The Killington Chamber of Commerce or Economic Devlopement and Tourism Council, or some such organization sponsored this hay sculpture contest where local businesses built sculptures out of those giant round hay bales. There were bears and beavers and turkeys and owls and sushi rolls and all kinds of random stuff. When I first heard the idea, I have to admit that I thought it was kind of stupid. But it turns out that it was a pretty good idea because people really loved the things and it gave them another reason to stop unexpectedly in the middle of the road for a photo op. I guess this proves conclusively that if you build it, they will come. Even if "it" is something of totally dubious value. The event was such a success that next year they are planning some sort of festival to go along with the sculptures and Cabot Cheese (yum!) wants to sponsor it. People love stuff they can look at without getting too far away from their cars, that's for sure.

0% financing, no money down. For weapons

The automobile is mechanized violence. Seriously. Sure, they feel all soft and friendly from the inside, what with the artificially conditioned air and multi-channel, surround sound audio pumping the soothing sounds of NPR or, better yet, delivering the second season of CSI Miami from the DVD player (you're never safer than when Horatio Caine has your back.) And those heated leather seats... But think about what it's like on the other side of that thin, protective metal skin. The noise, not just of the engine but of rubber on pavement, various hums and whistles, the huge displacement of air as the thing whooshes by. Not to mention the smells and noxious fumes left in the wake. Violence. Think about what's actually going on in the guts of the thing - internal combustion. Four, six, eight, even ten explosions for each cycle of the crank shaft. Explosions, the detonating of petroleum distillates, right there in front of your feet. Does that sound safe? And you know what happens when they collide with one another, with immovable objects, with innocent onlookers and their pets. Like Kurt Vonnegut said, "thanks to Henry Ford (nasty anti-Semite that he was) anyone could afford to run over his neighbor's dog at 100 miles per hour." You may have heard that automobiles are not good for the environment, and if you have not heard that, I would recommend that you stop listening to talk radio and fox news (deliberately lower case, by the way.) Have you ever seen a deer, or other mammal, standing at the side of the road, watching the terrible spectacle with a mixture of terror and confusion? That is the only sane response to the unnatural violence being perpetrated against the poor creature's habitat. And that is precisely how I imagine I look as I ride my bicycle along the shoulder of mighty Route 4 on my way home from work, trying to drown out the roar with earphones stuffed in my ears, hoping to spare myself the knowledge of my likely doom. I wonder sometimes if, when he is being hit from behind, a cyclist knows that it's about to happen. If the awful clatter of an automobile actually running over you is somehow different from the awful clatter of one missing you by mere inches. Mostly though, I hope not to find out.