Nutrition

With the pace of technological change we are seeing today, there are a lot of new food products on the shelf. Unfortunately, the public has been the guinea pig for a lot of these products. Often, it takes a few years-- or even decades-- before the health risks of the new products are really known.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably already know that "trans" fat causes heart disease in otherwise healthy individuals. That's why Canda is considering banning it.

More recently, evidence has come to light suggesting that artificial sweeteners cause metabolic disorders.
Diet soda has been consistently correlated with obesity. My immediate reaction to this was to write it off as a simple "correlation without causation" scenario, but there are reasons to believe otherwise.

Excerpt from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/96849.php

The authors... measured changes in the core body temperature of the rats. Usually, when the body of an animal gets ready to eat, the "metabolic engine" revs up, which raises the core temperature of the body. But when they gave the rats fed on saccharin sweetened yogurt a new, sweet tasting, high calorie meal, their core body temperature did not go up as much as that of the rats who had been fed on yogurt sweetened with glucose.

Swithers and Davidson argued this was because the saccharin fed rats had a blunted response that had the double effect of making them eat more and making it harder for them to burn off calories.

If you're looking for a website with some good nutritional information, try out http://www.acaloriecounter.com/diet-guide.php This guy knows what he's talking about.

Back from the Dead!

It's been a while since I posted here. I didn't really mean to let it go this long. Anyway, since I last posted, I have:

• moved from Pittsburgh to the San Francisco area
  
• It's a lot warmer here, folks.
• There are so many Asian and Indian immigrants out here! Not to mention Hispanics.
• People love their food.
  
• Which is likely to be seafood or vegetarian food
• You can pay $5 for a gallon of non-organic, plain old milk at Target
• gotten a new housemate
• learned a lot about the mobile GPS unit industry, and the map data suppliers for the industry
• figured out how to use Craigslist.org
• you can buy a TV
• or post in the personals section
  
• made my first real investment (in a Certificate of Deposit)
• Enrolled in a freehand drawing class
• I know how to draw a vase now... mostly
  

What will the future hold? Well, possibly I will:

• Endure the coming depression
• Yahoo is about to disgorge many of its employees
• Consumer confidence and inflation don't look good.
  
• Invest in a mutual fund
• Overseas investments look good right now; commodities too.
• Better keep some money market funds around, though...
  
• Start exercising more regularly
• 3x a week
  
• Get a new haircut
• New idea: short hair
  
• Download the Internet
• this one is a "stretch goal"