Onto Something? Fat Chance--Part 1

Hiromi and I have both listened to a nine-installment documentary series recently called The Real Skinny on Fat.  Billed as a weight-loss series, it was very wide-ranging, but consistently lauded the merits of high consumption of fats. The line-up of presenters was truly impressive.  Most of them were from the medical field, but a sprinkling of individuals from other disciplines and trades were also interviewed. 

I have often felt overwhelmed with the plethora of viewpoints and the abundance of information on healthful diets--some of them in conflict with each other.  Being reasonably well-informed on the dietary guidelines from official sources has not always been reassuring.  I have often felt like following that advice has saddled many of us with excess baggage.  The Trim Healthy Mama approach to eating has reportedly worked wonders for some of the people I know.  I've resisted jumping onto that bandwagon, knowing that simply eating without putting a lot of thought into what I was eating wasn't working very well, but not having time or energy to learn what I needed to know to engineer and maintain dietary changes. 

I wasn't very far into this series before I told Hiromi that I felt like we really needed the Lord's wisdom to sift through all the information we were being exposed to.  We needed to know what was worth trying, and what really didn't make sense, in our situation at least.  I've been praying to that end.  This is my effort to distill this information.  I believe it will come out in bits and pieces in multiple posts--probably in a less well-organized format than would be ideal.

I saw early on that some of the defense of the Ketogenic and Paleolithic diets, in the vocabulary at least, borrowed heavily from presuppositions about the origin of man--evolutionary origins, in the view of many of the presenters.  Seeing this did not prompt me to automatically discount what they were saying about diet, but--thank-you-very-much--I'll need something beyond "this is the way cavemen ate" to be prompted to jump on this particular bandwagon.  Thankfully, many of the presenters did a good job of defending this way of eating from a scientific viewpoint. 

I heard the name of Ancel Keyes repeatedly.  He was the "villain" who tricked America into forsaking animal fats and expellar-pressed vegetable oils in favor of heavily processed vegetable oils.  Adding hydrogen to these oils created trans fats, which means they can be solid at room temperature.  These oils are usually chemically extracted with solvents.  His evidence was cherry-picked, and woefully misguided.  A corresponding emphasis on high consumption of carbohydrates (and probably other factors as well) has propelled our population into an obesity epidemic.  Correcting Ancel Keyes' errors is one thing that offers us a better way forward. The fact that ingesting animal fats and minimally processed oils from vegetable sources can actually affect our health in a positive way is the new understanding.

One of the most exciting topics in the docu-series was fasting.  What an elegant answer to the complications of many laborious and limiting plans out there!  Calorie-counting, specific food combinations, careful food choices with strict exclusions, timing regimens--so very many diet plans require intensive attention to detail.  This one is simple:  abstinence for a period of time.  I find it reassuring that Scripture references fasting in a good light for the most part, although the Pharisee was not commended for advertising his piety by announcing that he fasts "twice a week."  Jesus fasted 40 days just before the momentous events that led to his crucifixion.  Fasting clearly has a credible precedent. 

And now, on this Circadian-rhythm-disrupting first day of daylight savings time, I'm off to begin to get my equilibrium readjusted by going to bed in a timely manner.  And of course, I'm way past the two-hours-before-bedtime deadline for screen time abstinence.  We'll see if the speaker who touted this was onto something or not. 

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Or maybe not just yet . . . Several unrelated tidbits--

Last week three vehicle gas tanks were drilled into behind Shane's business building on West 4th.  It's a wonder that happened without an explosion.  Two vehicles were owned by the Rock Group and the other was a Ramsey Oil pickup.  A battery was stolen from a trailer, but not much else seemed disturbed.  The vehicle and the thief were both visible on a security camera, but not that visible. 

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Uncle Perry is now at the Wheaton House at Mennonite Friendship Communities for rehab after a short hospital stay in which he was discovered to have pneumonia, and probably a kidney stone, which had been causing intense abdominal pain. 

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Our long-standing drought is now the longest period without rain ever since records were kept.  In northern Oklahoma, right next to Kansas, the drought has reached "exceptional status." It's expected shortly to extend north into south central Kansas where we live.

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Our church is having a "comfort blitz" on Thursday of this week.  Many comfort[er?] tops have been pieced, and Christian Aid Ministries is in need of these "blankets" to distribute to needy people, so we're making an effort to assemble and finish a bunch of them to help meet the need.  Usually it's a women's sewing day project, but this involves the whole-church, and we'll plan to eat together in the evening. 

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Yesterday was the Gathering for Gardeners.  Hiromi and I were both present the entire day.  I had given my Food Production class students a one-day vacation from class in exchange for their presence for the first session.  They left then to prepare to attend Ben and Beverly's wedding.

I had the pleasure of introducing my students to Allen Hirst, my high school biology teacher.  He's a Master Gardener, and apparently belongs to the Hutchinson Horticulture Club as well.  To my surprise, he launched into a short story about what happened at Partridge High School when the Amish students invaded the place after Kansas law changed to require attendance till the age of 16.  "They were great students," he said.  "The other kids accused them of cheating. 'They study,' they said."   Mr. Hirst grew up on the farm where Al Millers are developing a private park--just south of where Ken Schrocks live. 

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Hint:  If you're starting spinach and lettuce indoors under lights, don't leave your lights on for 16 hours as I've often heard recommended.  I learned this when I observed the little spinach plants developing a seed stalk and did some research on what triggers bolting.  Apparently temperature and day-length are both involved.  We were getting the temperature right, but the day length needed to be shortened to something less than 14 hours.  The lettuce still looks fine, but I understand a delayed effect can occur.  I hate when that happens.

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I recently read a fascinating article on how toxoplasmosis can affect animal (and human?) behavior.  It's a protozoan-induced disease that can be passed from cats to humans.  Here's the link.  I don't know many people who have had toxoplasmosis, but it's probably often simply not been diagnosed.  What if it could explain some of the otherwise puzzling behaviors that sometimes appear?