Watching Your Children the Paleo Way

One clear and present problem in society is the way kids are not being allowed to be, well, kids. While that may conjuure up ideas of an argument about schools, this problem stems from parents, and their desire to keep their kids away from harm. Most of us have fond memories of spending time away from our parents and spending that time doing things that we wanted, such as running through the woods, swimming in a creek without supervision, playing with pocketknives and fire, riding a bicycle without a hemet or protective pads on. A parent's worry is understandable, but living dangerously and obtaining scars are a child's lifeblood. They have a physical need to test their own boundaries, even if it means that they need a first aid kit at times. This simple fact can be simply proven by the way children still have need of band-aids even with worried and terrified parents watching over them like a hawk.

Sugar is Causing a Dental "Epidemic"

The BBC reports:

"More than half of the 1,000 dental operations carried out each year are on children under the age of six.
Dental surgeon Sharon Lee said she sees a constant stream of toddlers: "It obviously upsets me immensely but we do have a job to do to look after the child."
Five-year-old Kaitlyn was one of them.

Tooth decay meant that she needed to have eight molars removed - almost half her teeth.

"It could have been sweet drinks, sweets, biscuits, anything. Just too much sugar in the diet," said dental surgeon Dr Rod Llewelyn of her rotting teeth.

Her mother, Sharon, said the culprits were her daughter's love of sweets and tomato sauce. The little girl was at one point eating half a mug of tomato sauce a day.
But after the traumatic experience of seeing her daughter undergo the extractions, Sharon vowed to ban the ketchup entirely and cut back on the sweets served to her three children."

Now, it seems that these dental surgeons understand what constitutes sugar, such as tomato sauces and biscuits, as well as the items conventionally seen as full of sugar like soda and candy. So why are we not stepping up to ban these items as well? Schools have gotten rid of the soda machines and snack machines due to the health concerns over the sugar in the items the machines sell, but then why are these kids being served sweetened milk in the lunch line along with tomato sauces, breads, pizzas, pastas, corn, and potatoes? These items contain sugar as well, but due to lack of education the public has on these things, "What do you mean my bread is sugar?", they are considered acceptable.

It is great to see doctors, even those who deal with teeth, talk about what foods contain sugars, but the lack of education that people have astounds me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/erix/ / CC BY 2.0

Yesterday was a Day of Fun and Cheats

We determined that two movies we all wanted to see, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and Avatar, were playing at a nearby cinema for only $1 a ticket. Since for us, "nearby cinema" actually means an hour away, we decided to make a day of it and this would mean we would need to eat out at least once. Lonestar is our restaurant of choice due to the fact that Tuesdays kids eat free, we have three of them, and their menu is rather Paleo (Me) and Primal (Wife) friendly. However, the kids and my wife were all begging for Chinese and since the Chinese restaurant has a Mongolian BBQ setup, meaning I pick my meats and veggies and they cook what I want, I agreed.

Nuggets of Wisdom on my Paleo Lifestyle

Here are just some of the things I said as I was talking to my friends about eating Paleo/Primal and living that type of lifestyle. It struck a chord in me as to how much I have changed in the past three months so I thought I would share.

"What to eat: Meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables, salad, fruit (but not too much), nuts, seeds.

What not to eat:  Bread, rice, pasta, potato, cereal, wheat, dairy, beans, any processed food, sugar.

The Fat Question: Fat is healthy – even saturated fat. The one type of fat to avoid is vegetable fat. This means margarine, vegetable cooking oils and processed foods that contain vegetable oil. In addition, whilst eating the fat from free-range animals is healthy, eating animal fats from industrially farmed animals is not as healthy. Avoid the latter if you can."

"My hunger has gotten to where I rarely get hungry more than once a day actually... must be all that stomach fat keeping my body working, lol."

"I just cook meat, I am on 20 grams of carbs or less, and eat the the small amount of veggies raw... often I eat zero carbs per day, lol. The kids say they love that they get meat every meal, that they would rather have meat than rice or pasta or anything else."

"I wasnt a veggie fan, but after no sugar, veggies started to taste good. Romain lettuce can sometimes be sweeter than a rather unsweet grape."

Diabetic Cookbook from 1917, almost purely Primal

Found this very interesting book written in 1917: "Diabetic Cookery; Recipes and Menus" by Rebecca W Oppenheimer, a very primal like diet from 90-odd years ago. What the hell happened to us? Why have we screwed up our nutrition so poorly? I mean, I know what happened. Industry happened, excess of corn syrup happened, bad science happened, and worst of all, people became sheep. It is irritating to see hoe blinded we have become to our own bodies and the results that we can see taking place in other people, as well as the lack of results. This makes me think of William Banting and if you don't know who that is, see below.

William Banting's Letter on Corpulence, from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Banting

"In 1863, Banting wrote a booklet called Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public which contained the particular plan for the diet he followed. It was written in the form of an open letter in the form of a personal testimonial. Banting accounted all of his unsuccessful fasts, diets, spa and exercise regimes in his past, then described the dietary change which finally had worked for him, following the advice of a physician. His own diet was four meals per day, consisting of meat, greens, fruits, and dry wine. The emphasis was on avoiding sugar, saccharine matter, starch, beer, milk and butter."

Here is the full text from "Letter on Corpulence" written 1869. He even charts his weight loss. It's pretty cool. Especially because we have known how to be healthy. It seems that the public opinion is that when a new study comes out, the older studies become null and void. This is not the case, only BAD studies and those that were fabricated and revealed only part of the truth should be null and void, regardless of how old or new they are.

Remember, "Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food." - Hippocrates, the father of medicine.

Trainer tells what he has learned about health and fitness:

I found this online around a month ago and thought I would share it, mainly because it is useful, informative, I agree with most of it, and he asked for readers to share it if it was useful.


FitnessSpotlight.com wrote:

"Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2008. Part of our “Best of the past” series time to time will include reviewing and updating some of our top old posts for everyone to re-read (or read for the first time in many cases). Enjoy!

I was riding my mountain bike yesterday and all of the sudden it just came to me. I just started thinking about how many things I’ve learned through my own personal working out (since I was a kid and playing competitive sports) as well as being a trainer (since 1998). So today I just wanted to share some of the things this 36yr old has personally learned about all things health and fitness….in no certain order….

Researchers shed light on ancient Assyrian tablets

I have a HUGE interest in History, Anthropology, and Archaeology, so expect for me to blog about interesting finds such as this. New Cuneiform tablets have been found that contact a largely intact treaty Assyrian treaty dating to the 7th century BC. I personally love it when new tablets are found mainly due to how much light they shed on history.

Researchers shed light on ancient Assyrian tablets:

"Researchers Shed Light on Ancient Assyrian Tablets
ScienceDaily (Apr. 10, 2010) — A cache of cuneiform tablets unearthed by a team led by a University of Toronto archaeologist has been found to contain a largely intact Assyrian treaty from the early 7th century BCE.

'The tablet is quite spectacular. It records a treaty -- or covenant -- between Esarhaddon, King of the Assyrian Empire and a secondary ruler who acknowledged Assyrian power. The treaty was confirmed in 672 BCE at elaborate ceremonies held in the Assyrian royal city of Nimrud (ancient Kalhu). In the text, the ruler vows to recognize the authority of Esarhaddon's successor, his son Ashurbanipal,' said Timothy Harrison, professor of near eastern archaeology in the Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations and director of U of T's Tayinat Archaeological Project (TAP)."

If you are interested about this sort of thing as I am, there is a fair bit about the correspondence found in the Al-Amarna cache in History of the Ancient Near East. Marriages, recognition of other states as equals, extradition agreements. It is very cool and makes me sad that I am changing my degree from a BA/Masters in History/Anthropology to an AAS in Web Design.

In Which I Gather Meat

Our indoor grill has stopped working a month ago, and during our search for the same model or a different model that would suit our needs, we came up empty handed. Luckily, it is getting warm around here again, making outdoor grilling much easier to be done. There is one problem: I procrastinate. I have been procrastinating this past week in taking the propane tank to get exchanged so that I can actually use the gas grill that my father bought me last year (two years ago?).

What moved me to actually do the deed? We had been consuming farm-fresh eggs for the past two weeks and last night we used up the rest in a quiche. Now, that we are out of eggs is not a problem, it is the fact that my wife has started to get sick from eating all these eggs, and mainly only eggs as her source of protein. Even felt sick to her stomach after eating the quiche that featured pork sausage.

Because of this, I promised her meat.