My Amazing New Seafood Weight Loss Diet
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 30, 2011 by admin in Health & Wellness
Sunday, January 30th, 2011I expect to lose at least ten pounds while I figure out what’s safe to eat. Like they say: Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. TEACH him how to fish, and he’ll decimate the edible fish populations by 2050.
 Sorry Charlie. You’re not on the menu any more. |
I think I discovered a great new weight loss program today. It’s based largely on carefully selected seafood. Perhaps you’re thinking “Duh, we all know the benefits of seafood as a healthier, leaner protein source, rich in Omega 3″, right? Well this is a fairly new approach. It’s based on selecting seafoods that aren’t tainted with Mercury or other toxins, and that aren’t in danger of extinction from overfishing. Today I was making a simple Niçoise salad, something I enjoy once in a while. I only occasionally use a fresh piece of tuna, so today, as I opened the can of moderately high-quality tuna, I realized I hadn’t checked on the imperiled state of tuna populations in a while, and thought “Wow. What if this were the last can of tuna I ever opened?” So I did a little research. And after about fifteen minutes, I realized that if I commit to a seafood-only diet, and wade through all the conflicting and poorly-coordinated information available about overfishing and toxins, I should lose about ten pounds before I have it all sorted out. I’m not going to offer any advice here, beyond suggesting you do some research of your own before you order that Striped Bass special the next time you go out to dinner. But I’ve rounded up some good start points if you want to learn about the health risks or sustainability of your favorite fish. One lengthy but fairly easy to review summary is the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s 2010 Culinary Chart of Alternatives. It lists what to avoid, alternatives for each item, and has little red asterisks to highlight the ones that are the ocean equivalent of eating paint chips for dinner. This chart assembled by the Environmental Defense Fund breaks down how often you might want to eat some PCB’s and/or Mercury, based on whether you’re a woman, a man, an older kid, or a younger kid. Like we said, if the waiter recommends the Wild Striped Bass, call the cops. He’s trying to kill you. There’s also a wealth of information about seafood on the NOAA Fisheries Service FishWatch site, but personally, I’d take any US government agency’s “safe to eat” advice with a grain of salt, especially regarding the impact of BP’s use of Corexit on gulf seafood. In spite of their claims of rigorous testing, they’re talking about less than 2,000 samples being tested for a rather limited number of contaminants, and simply can’t speak with authority on long term impact, it hasn’t been long enough! If you’re interested in the process they use, which includes sensory testing, i.e. fish-sniffing, check out A Step-By-Step Journey: How Gulf Seafood is Deemed “Safe”. I wonder what a tofu Niçoise would be like?
Better New Year’s Hangovers Through Science
[ Comments Off ]Posted on December 31, 2010 by admin in Health & Wellness
Friday, December 31st, 2010Tired of all those mamby-pamby guides telling you that drinking water and taking aspirin will prevent your hangover? Get real, with our no-holds-barred, drink your brains out guide. Prepared by a retired top professional in the field.
  Go ahead and drink yourself silly. Just don’t be a baby about it. |
If you don’t feel like drinking a lot tonight, we already suggested some excellent New Year’s Eve movies. But if you DO decide to drink a lot tonight, do me a couple favors: First, don’t drive. And second, don’t complain about your hangover tomorrow. Drinking to excess is all fine and dandy, but man up and do it right, or don’t do it at all. Although I kicked the habit a few years ago, I actually have considerable experience in this arena, so you can trust my expertise. I estimate that in the more productive period of my illustrious drinking career, I easily consumed over a thousand gallons of vodka. Which is my first tip. If you’re going to funnel poisons into your body for an evening, be scientific about it. Anything other than straight vodka may be tasty and enable a lot of highbrow banter about palates, noses, and finishes, but is frought with peril. Wine, beer, and whiskey are variously chock full of fungus and mold, cogeners, and fusel oils. It should be telling enough that the smoky and fiery character of bourbons are derived from something that in German means bad liquor. Some of us have understood this vodka trick for years, and now science has finally validated the idea.Speaking of science, I bet you didn’t know that there’s an enzyme in our systems specifically for breaking down alcohol. Well there is. So while you’re drinking the most-distilled vodka you can get your hands on to ensure that it’s almost entirely simple ethanol, EAT SOMETHING for chrissake. Russians have understood this for ages; they do a little shot, have a little Zakuski, do a little shot, have a little Zakuski… wipe, rinse hands, repeat. Until you’re grabbing everyone within reach (your reach will dwindle as you slump under the table) by the neck to kiss them and tell them how much you love them, goddammit. Oh, and have a glass of water now and then. This isn’t rocket science; it’s just science. And one trick I’ve never heard or read about but I swear worked flawlessly for me for years: eat a couple of eggs right before bed. And by “right before bed” I mean as you’re passing out on the way to it. And aspirin? Whatever. If you’re drunk enough that you’re already anticipating a brain-splitting hangover, your body is so busy detoxing already I doubt it’s going to notice you slipped it a couple puny aspirin. No, the end of a hard night of drinking is hardly the time to start taking medicine, unless of course by “medicine” you mean copious amounts of recreational drugs. In which case, have at it. I never understood the idea of ingesting intoxicants and then not ingesting ALL THE INTOXICANTS AVAILABLE. I mean, the objective here is intoxication, right? No sense mucking things up by trying to figure out ways to not be intoxicated. I mean, if you don’t want to be intoxicated, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU DRINKING? And that leads to our last little tip, which is dealing with the hangover if you fail to prevent it. Not to be insensitive or anything, but this part is pretty simple too. Either get up, have a bloody mary, and go on about your day, preferably engaging in difficult manual labor, or lay in bed swearing you’ll “NEVER DRINK AGAIN OH DEAR GOD I SWEAR IF YOU JUST MAKE THIS STOP“. If you choose the latter, take a cue from the movie Trainspotting
5 Things I’d Do Before I’d Get A Flu Shot
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 10, 2010 by admin in Health & Wellness
Friday, December 10th, 2010People sometimes doubt my rather strong feelings about why I won’t get a flu shot. Here are some examples to help make my point.
No offense to all the well-intentioned police and medical professionals of the world, but I learned a simple rule at a fairly young age: If there’s a cop or a doctor around, something bad is going on. And in the case of doctors, I always like to point out that their financial well-being relies on a continuous supply of sick people. Which is why I tend to shun them; although I’m happy to see a professional if a limb is partially severed or a bone is protruding through my skin, I tend to be a little suspicious about all the precautionary measures they suggest. Especially after having browsed the trade mags that some doctors are foolish enough to leave lying about the waiting room. You know, the ones that have big ads with headings like “Increase Your Billing By 35%!” Which all ties in with why I refuse to get a flu shot each year. I mean, it’s also rather disturbing to think about injecting something into my bloodstream that contains stuff like chick embryo fluid, cells from monkeys, sheep blood cells, mouse serum, material from guinea-pig embryos, or cells from human aborted fetal tissue. And in the case of flu vaccines, high levels of aluminum, mercury, and formaldehyde (full list here). I’ll take my chances on the flu, thank you very much; with the worst case I ever had, my fever hovered around 104°F for several days, and I actually kind of enjoyed the hallucinations. Plus, being laid up like that also seems to be the only way I ever manage to get a few days off in a row, and catch up on some bad TV. So in any case, I’m not here to tell you not to get a flu shot, have at it. Maybe you’ll luck out and your offspring will have the agility and curiosity of monkeys, the craftiness of mice, the docile nature of sheep (always handy in the workplace) and be as cute as hamsters. By the same token, I’ve probably made it clear by now that there’s not much hope of getting me to get one. If not, below are several things I’d gladly do before getting a flu shot myself. Read the rest of this entry »
You Look Hot With A Fag In Your Mouth
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 10, 2010 by admin in Health & Wellness
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010Would making teens associate having a cigarette in their mouth with having a penis in their mouth be more effective than the new FDA anti-smoking campaign?
We took a look recently at how the government gets it all wrong with anti-smoking campaigns by creating legislation that actually drives innovation in tobacco packaging. So I guess we shouldn’t be surprised – since our government is pretty much owned by all the industries that it’s supposed to regulate – that the FDA’s latest anti-smoking campaign looks like it was assembled by interns at RJ Reynolds’ ad agency. Although presumably inspired by the dramatic and offensive images used in the UK and Canada, the images in this campaign are almost kitschy, horribly retouched, and more likely to inspire Photoshop contests than deter smoking. As a smoker who occasionally ponders quitting, I can tell you with confidence that these images will have absolutely no impact on my cigarette consumption, nor any smokers I know. In fact, when other countries mandated that cigarette makers place these images on their packages, a friend of mine would ask friends traveling abroad to try to get him complete “sets” of all the disgusting images for his collection. Telling a smoker to quit smoking because it’s going to kill them is much like telling a skate punk to quit skateboarding because he’ll end up with broken bones poking out of his skin. The danger is part of the seductive nihilistic appeal. If the government really wanted adults to quit smoking, they’d issue free Chantix. It would probably be cheaper than all of these PR campaigns, and might actually help a few people quit. And when it comes to preventing youngsters from starting, I think The Onion was onto something with their It’s Gay To Smoke parody (video below). If you could actually get teens to associate sticking a cigarette in their mouth with sticking a penis in their mouth, peer pressure would take on a whole new dynamic, and maybe the youngsters that really do want a penis in their mouth could get down to business, and the rest could be “scared straight”, so to speak. But seriously, the fact is that a typical teen these days looks for images more graphic than these on purpose, so they’re certainly not going to be deterred from smoking by looking at them. I’d even argue that it’s sort of like the giggling, gross-out teen equivalent of the way Mad Men glamorizes smoking. So below are a few stabs at some alternatives. We challenge you to Photoshop and submit something better, which shouldn’t be hard; these took me about ten minutes. The FDA site has the images in a PDF file (13MB) or zipped JPEGs (6MB) if you’re interested. Read the rest of this entry »
10 Secrets To Being Happy, Healthy & Wealthy
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 16, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Saturday, October 16th, 2010Or: “If You Really Know All The Secrets Of Success & Happiness Why Are You Writing About Them On Some Crappy Blog?”
 Why is this woman smiling, in spite of her hideous appearance and trivially self-involved thoughts? Because just by being born, she has everything you spend you whole life only praying you had. |
I’ve been both a victim and a beneficiary of the self-help movement since the 1980′s. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hittin’ a self-help guru in those days; I even had a band manager/mentor (Hi Jim!) who simultaneously inspired my band with forward thinking, and tortured us with pleas to become his est podlings. While there’s a lot of self-improvement tripe out there, there’s also a lot of great stuff. Laugh if you like, but I can shamelessly say that I’ve found something useful in books by all the big names, from old school stuff like Napoleon Hill
Read the rest of this entry »