While China is all in the news – and my Anthrax series completed – it’s about time I made good on a promise to TPTB to provide some fresh new content for Ye Glibertariat. I’ve struggled with this in large part because I find it well-nigh impossible to outline my adventures and what I learned into some concise, pithy narrative, or travelogue, or political/economic treatise. This is also (in small part) because I continue to travel there for business and each time I go I learn more and occasionally have to adjust what I think I know. Notwithstanding the above, my fear of a nighttime knock from either Steve Smith or ZARDOZ demanding I keep my word compels me to just write and hope for the best.
Beginnings
My first trip to the Middle Kingdom arose out of my boss’ trip there in October of 2016. Upon his return, he asked a handful of senior staff to pack their bags to go “see what he saw” and either verify or refute his impressions. As a longtime advisor and friend, he called me personally to tell me his own impressions. He spent a week or so between Beijing and Shanghai, the culmination of the trip being his reception at Beijing Sports University (BSU), the Chinese equivalent to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, with the added bonus that BSU is also a degree-granting institution. On the campus are some of the facilities that were used to host the 2008 Olympic Games.
Looking back at the entrance to BSU
The track and field events of the Beijing Olympics were held here
I had two major concerns about going, but I shut my mouth because I was not going to miss the opportunity to travel to mainland China. The first concern was physical: I had ankle surgery to repair a cracked medial malleolus, along with some other incidental damage; a November 30, 2016, fly date put me exactly four weeks from surgery, and inside the window of being off of crutches. I lied and said I would be fine when asked.
This will ensure I keep away all foot fetishists
The second concern was perhaps the more serious one: with 20+ years in the Marine Corps, including time as an intelligence officer, in the summer of 2016 I learned I was one of the 4.2 19.1 million people whose background security clearances were hacked from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) by the Chinese. (Your tax dollars hard at work, people!) Would I suffer an accident while I was there? Would I disappear? Would any self-respecting 中国人 really want my organs??
As it turns out, my concerns were for naught. The flight to Beijing from SFO was long, but not unbearable, and the accommodations were first class, thanks to the generosity of my boss. We stayed at the Four Seasons in Beijing and I have never been disappointed at any of their properties, anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, even the Four Seasons can’t control the pollution in Beijing.
View out the window of the high speed train from Beijing to Shanghai
After our tours around BSU, which included hanging out with and watching the Olympic weightlifting team training. China’s oly team is a point of pride in China. Yes, yes, we all know about the doping, but I can assure you, the same joke is made about our team. I know people at the highest levels of the sport and the refrain among US oly lifters is that you go to the OTC to learn how to “cycle” and beat testing, not to learn how to lift.
The surprisingly humble training room of a lot of gold medal lifters.
Some of the lifters and coaches posed with us – they were very kind.
I can’t recall what it says on the wall, though the gist of it has to do with hard work and success. Go figure.
Our tour completed, we adjourned for the more important part of the evening: breaking bre- okay, unfortunately, there was no bread, but I was the designated drinker for the American side and boy, did we put away some baijiu. Somehow, I managed to hold my own and American honor, but I barely made it back to my room before collapsing on the floor between my bed and the bathroom. I believe they call that – Success!
Coach Xie center; and a bunch of ?in the foreground
Why do I have to look into the lifeless eyes of my dinner before I eat it?
Diabetes in China: Another open secret
The most interesting exchange of the night occurred in the bathroom when one of the Chinese lawyers present, and also acting as a translator, told me that “the Chinese government is very open to… market-based solutions… around the problem of diabetes in China.” Wait? Did a Chinese lawyer just tell me that the Chinese were open to letting CrossFit open gyms in China and help them with their unfathomably large diabetes problem? Yes. I believe he did.
The International Diabetes Federation estimates when I was there were: 114 million diagnosed Type 2 diabetics, and 498 million pre-diabetics. You read those numbers correctly. Updated numbers in 2017 by the IDF were over 500 million pre-diabetics. My boss had been a voice crying in the night about Type 2 diabetes for years – decades even – here in the U.S. When he was given the chance to speak in China, that is all he discussed and it landed on receptive ears. There is no public health solution for that many people with diabetes. It is already crippling the U.S. medical system; it will result in unprecedented death in China that would make the coronavirus look quaint by comparison.
The second most interesting exchange of the evening was with Coach Xie, the legendary head of China’s weightlifting program. As it turns out, he can understand a lot more In-grish than he lets on, and he has a son attending a very prestigious west coast U.S. university on a swimming scholarship. He and Mrs. Coach Xie – who also happens to be the coach of the Chinese women’s national swim team – own property in Redmond, CA, if I remember correctly. In a discussion with me about what CrossFit could do in China, he looked me in the eye and said: “Jobs. Jobs for my sport.” He was so earnest it was heartbreaking.
The pipeline for olympic lifters in China narrows at the top to one spot per weight class. What that means in practical terms is that a young man or woman may spend a significant chunk of their young life to become the best lifter in their village, then city, then entire province. Given China’s population, anywhere else in the world, that young man or woman would be the best lifter in their country, but in China, all it takes is a missed lift and you go home… with nothing. Bupkus. Zero. It didn’t take much imagination to see that Coach Xie had probably shattered the dreams of hundreds of world-class lifters as a simple matter of mathematics. CrossFit gyms, however, and their incorporation of the oly lifts into workouts for everyday schlubs, instantly created a market for the technical expertise of the oly lifter. Add in some gymnastics work and now a failed national or regional lifter could open a gym and put that knowledge to use in the marketplace.
I knew I would have to come back to China after that conversation.
I don’t think I ever saw blue sky in China. Even when we were out in farm country in Xian Provence.
How long were you there for??
I saw plenty of blue sky in southern China. The north tends to have the worse smog problem because of where the steel and coal plants are, as well as the prevailing winds. Souther China has the ocean and the winds in there favor so the smog doesn’t tend to “sit” over those places as long.
It was a twelve day trip. We didn’t make it to southern China.
I was only there for a week but yeah, blue skies in Shanghai – gray in Beijing and zero visibility in Xian.
I wonder if pollution-compromised lungs aid the spread of respiratory virii.
Good question. It probably does. Lots of smokers there, too.
I assume it does. The industrial areas are filthy and damage the lungs. It’s one of the reasons I chose to leave my career as I would have been expected to live there for a significant portion of the year.
Interesting stuff, Ozy. Nothing on that table suggests a diet conducive to diabetes. What’s a normal Chinese diet consist of?
Lots of that beer and starchy food, and little real exercise? Will that do it even if they aren’t particularly fat?
Rice
Their traditional diet is mostly fish, rice, veggies and noodles – in other words, perfectly fine. I guarantee you that you will not find Type 2 diabetes like this in their history. Ironically enough, along with their embrace of western culture, they started sucking down the soda and it’s going to kill them. What’s happening in China with T2 is nothing short of the slow poisoning of the population via soda pop.
Boom. There it is.
Sugar sucks.
Thanks, Ozy!
Send me your sugar. I know what to do with it.
Mad Scientist in action.
I was thinking this.
Sure, sure. But there’s also this.
Shine on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-nGbAf81Zs
Also high rates of tobacco use which don’t help.
Holy smokes those guys could go through a lot of cigarettes. My experience was with itinerant brick layers. They’d be inside a glass melt furnace hanging fire brick (the dust of which is probably not great for your lungs). They took a smoke break every 1-1/2 hours. Some chain smoked while hanging brick. Nearly the whole crew smoked. They really dug Marlboro’s. It was a very effective tip after a good job.
Even the white collars smoked too.
Ciggies are one of the first luxuries in an emerging market.
What’s a normal Chinese diet consist of?
City Chicken?
Make hummingbird nectar?
I did training in Taipei in 97 or 98, and made 2 x 2-week trips to Beijing in 2009. The people were great — welcoming, interested, friendly. I regret the people I left behind when I decided to stop working for crazy people and quit that job.
I really look forward to this series, Ozy. You write engagingly well, and the topics are always interesting.
Thanks!
Thank you. I also found the Chinese people fascinating, friendly, and very Western-centric.
I spent a good deal of time there across a 20 month span – and I’ve been back since – but I love the place, even if my 9-year-old boy palate struggles there.
I mostly loved the food. Of course, each of the trips may have included hosts taking me to ‘congenial’ places. But none of the dishes were all that unfamiliar. I’d kill for more of the ‘Ants on a Tree’ noodle dish my hotel sometimes served for lunch buffet in 09. (I’d have to do another killing to be able to eat. Enjoy food while you’re can! No flour, beans, onions, garlic, or shallots takes a whole lot of fun out of food.)
WOW. Just … wow. The diabetes shocks me. We’re constantly inundated with the fact tjat diabetes is nonexistent in Asia because of their diets .
Biology is biology. Repeatedly shock your insulin system with rapid blood sugar increases and eventually your pancreas cries out for help.
Scruffy’s got it. This ^^^^^ is 100% correct.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dTIjEtSfP8
Yep. More bullshit from people who don’t know what they’re talking about. Childhood obesity is starting to reach numbers that are making an impact culturally. My recollection is that the numbers are about equal for boys and girls: 16% and 17% with boys being higher, I believe.
It’s the sodapop – I won’t say it’s “hard” to find diet or zero cal versions, but you have to look and it isn’t consumed like the regular (HFCS) versions. The traditional Chinese diet would be fine – lots of fish and veggies, maybe a little heavy on the noodles and rice, but it’s the Westernization of their diet that’s killing them: most specifically the HFCS in the sodas. Liquid HFCS is poison to human beings. They keep so active that it hides the damage to their kidneys, but it will not end well for the Chinese if it keeps on this course.
Huh. I didn’t notice too much soda when I was there, but that was a while ago. Not surprising though.
Cane sugar is 50% fructose, 50% glucose.
HFCS is 55/45.
That extra 5% isnt that big of a deal, its the added sugar that is a problem, not the form.
It’s the fructose. It gets processed differently in the body than glucose (and milk sugar, too).
I would highly, highly recommend reading Dr. Richard Johnson on this subject. He is, I believe, the leading doc/researcher on the planet on the effects of fructose on human beings (and mammals more broadly as all mammals have those same three hormonal ‘axes’). The relevant hormone pair is insulin/glucagon and fructose beyond what you could get from fruit (which is also in the pulp and therefore broken down much more slowly) is fundamentally bad for human beings.
Cancer cells appear to really dig fructose as well.
They also dig the other monosacharides. Cancer cells reproduce uncontrollably, and need constant sources of energy. Monosacharides are easy sources of energy, so yeah, cancer cells love them. Every other cell loves them for the same reason, it’s just that normal cells aren’t hungry all of the time.
It is what they consume. It’s the defining feature of (most) cancer cells, in fact: non-cancerous cells can make ATP from fats, proteins, or carbs. The “Warburg effect” is what happens when you drink that radioactive sugar and then they light you up during a PET scan: cancer cells preferentially “suck up” the sugar and that’s what shows up on the scans.
– Otto Warburg (likely the greatest biochemist of all time)
It is the dose, not the substance, that makes the poison, was the point that Rob was making. Maligning HFCS specifically makes no sense, as it is marginally worse if at all, to other common forms of sugar that are consumed as all of them contain comparable amounts of fructose. The best advice would be to avoid foods with added sugar, assuming that your suggested research is correct, as they all contain large amounts of readily absorbed fructose. Avoiding foods that contain HFCS specifically would be unlikely to result on any meaningful change if other forms of sugar aren’t also avoided.
Again, while I “kind of” agree with you, please read Dr. Richard Johnson on how fructose is processed in the body. (“The Fat Swicth” would be a good primer, but I’ll dig around for the papers he’s published on how fructose is not metabolized the same way as other sugars and try to link it here.) It isn’t simply the dosing. Fructose is uniquely different than, say, galactose, for example, or glucose.
You are correct that fructose is specifically processed differently. However, sucrose is converted to monosaccharides during digestion, so irrelevant when comparing HFCS versus sugar.
And yes, I have (unfortunately) been forced to read Dr. Johnson. He misleads by utilizing some accurate points and interspersing with hyperbolic rubbish.
If I do, I’ll be unable to not also read all of the studies that contradict him. And then I’ll have to dig into his and his detractors methodologies and see who screwed up more and in what way. Then I’ll have to weight the levels of errors in both sides, and then reweigh them to account as best I can for my own biases, and the next thing you know I’ve produced another meta study on nutrition that says the same thing every other meta study does, we know fuck all about nutrition beyond the basics. While that meta study might make for an interesting series of articles, the conclusion is about as certain as the sun setting in the west this afternoon.
It isn’t that I don’t trust your research, it is that I’m far too aware of the problems in research to trust any of it, especially in the realms of nutrition and psychology.
Shorter – not all hormonal differences manifest into physiologically significant differences. Not all physiologically significant differences manifest into health or performance differences.
Sorry Ozy, but I too think you are off base on this, and have read Johnson.
…we know fuck all about nutrition beyond the basics.
I’m not sure that’s true. I think your Grandma’s advice to avoid sugar and starchy foods is pretty spot on.
Also, I think it is encouraging how many docs are at starting to at least willing to take a second look at their nutritional advice, particularly in treating metabolic disorders.
Researching human diet is fucking impossible, anyway. People lie.
I am.
The diabetes doesn’t lie, Leap. And the evidence is everywhere. Johnson isn’t my only source, either. I would encourage anyone to read “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease” by Thomas Seyfried, as well.
And Caput, I think I’ve already written here about how bad academic science is. Marcia Angell (who used to be the editor in chief of NEJM for a couple of decades) has effectively said, “it’s fucked. You can’t trust anything.” Richard Smith (used to be the editor of the BJM) has said the same thing.
I don’t credit Johnson because he’s a doctor, or because of where he’s published, I credit him on the merits of what I’ve read. I may be a lawyer, but I do have a background in science. More to the point on diet and what is causing everyone to get fat, I’ve long tracked what I eat and I can look in the mirror and run my bloodwork against 99.99% of the population of planet Earth and I have a very good sense of how you and Grandma can avoid getting sick.
Let me put it this way: sugar is a toxin to human beings above more than small to moderate amounts; HFCS is uniquely toxic to human beings in the same way.
My grandmother’s diet consists almost entirely of sweet tea, biscuits, and jam.
In all seriousness though, basic macronutrient proportions are the easy stuff. Sure, in general you should probably avoid sugar. But fructose specifically, and more specifically a certain ratio of it that is only slightly off from other common ratios? That is the stuff that we don’t know, and frankly doesn’t pass the smell test. It is easy to demonize HFCS, and I’m not defending it per se as I agree you should avoid added sugars, but I don’t see where this one particular combination of sugars is the dietary apocalypse.
Stated differently, we all agree that cyanides are deadly. Arguing over whether a particular combination of hexacynides and tetracyanides is worse than a different combination because one contains slightly more tetracyanides is missing the point that cyanide is bad. Added sugars are not good for you under most circumstances. Positing that HFCS is particularly bad because it has 5% more fructose than other common sugar sources is missing the forest while picking tree bark out of your teeth.
From the The Fat Swicth description on Amazon. The HM signal has been lit
The story includes discussions of … San women with steatopygy (characterized by massive behinds)…
sugar is a toxin to human beings above more than small to moderate amounts
No argument here.
HFCS is uniquely toxic
Still not convinced of this. I put it in the same bucket as other sugars. If I turn something down because it has HFCS, I would still turn it down if it was pure sucrose, or fructose, or any combination of the two.
It is easy to demonize HFCS, and I’m not defending it per se as I agree you should avoid added sugars, but I don’t see where this one particular combination of sugars is the dietary apocalypse.
Agreed totally, and the thing is, if we eliminated the corn subsidies and the sugar tariffs, we would not need to worry about it, as HFCS would go away as a major concern. Everyone would go back to using sugar because it would be cheaper.
And Barley prices would drop, so beer would be cheaper too, as some corn produces returned to barley production.
I love Glibertarians. This is where an article about a trip to China turns into a discussion on various sugars and health.
Caput/Leap/et al. – If I had just left HFCS off of my remarks, I think we would agree, so I’ll just agree with you. Stay away from sugar. That’s what I’ve taught my kids and I don’t need to add the HFCS qualifier.
And Barley prices would drop, so beer would be cheaper too, as some corn produces returned to barley production.
Intrigued, newsletter, etc.
I’ll just agree with you
Do you even internet, bro?
Intrigued, newsletter, etc.
Short version, numbers totally made up as I dont remember the details:
Barley is sold by farmers in two major classes:
Top Tier is sold to malting houses at something like $120 / unit (bushel? hogshead?).
Feed barley is sold for feed (duh) at like $20 /unit.
You often dont know which you are going to get at planting, so it is a gamble. I think it is like a 20%/80% breakdown on average. In a bumper crop year, lots of barley farmers may end up with quality grain, and that top end price drops dramatically. And in a down year, the price shoots up, but you just may not have any top quality grain, so it doesnt matter. Its a hell of a crap shoot.
Corn, on the other hand, sells for $60 / unit consistently.
Farmers have been slowly shifting from Barley to Corn because the financial risk is too high on barley production, which drives up the price of the high end barley. There is a new equilibrium, but it is at lower barley production and higher barley prices.
End the corn subsidy and the equilibrium shifts again leading to more barley production at a lower price.
Absolutely. The interesting part, however, is how different sugars are processed.
Also, to your point, I agree: consumption of cane sugar will get you plenty of diabetes, as well, just as assuredly as fructose will.
My honey…my cold dead hands…
I’ve read that Asians are genetically predisposed to diabetes, so all it takes is a modest increase in BMI and other factors to send diabetes rates soaring.
It may be. There is a significant body of evidence that suggests that “old world” bloodlines, i.e. dark-skinned people, are way more adversely effected by fructose consumption than the more pale-faced folk.
I found it interesting that one of the factors for comfortable fructose consumption is to make sure it is balanced with an equal or greater amount of glucose.
All I know is HFCS is right out for my digestive tract. Makes having to read labels a critical part of shopping.
Amazing how many places it gets used, isn’t it?
It’s getting so much easier to find sugar-free stuff now. Funny, lots of people want to cut out sugar and BAM, the products appear as if by magic!
Seriously.
It keeps getting easier to find foods compatible with Keto.
There is a very short list, a very short list, of pre-made stuff that Mrs. Dean will bring home, because of the sugar added to just about everything that isn’t a hunk of animal or something straight off a plant. Not as bad as it used to be, but I’m not sure I’d say its much easier to find the no-sugar-added stuff.
The local HyVee has three aisles of paleo/keto stuff. I don’t personally buy much, if any, but it is nice to be able to get salad dressing without shitty oils and sugar, for instance.
That’s incredible. I haven’t seen anything like that, but Mrs. Dean rarely lets me go to the grocery store. Something about poor impulse control.
Have you checked the labels to see if this is just fad marketing, or if they really have purged all the added sugar?
My theory is that sugaring everything really got underway during the entirely misguided “low/no-fat” era, as a way to make things palatable after removing an essential and tasty nutrient.
If your theory is true, they could simply have rolled out the old recipes under a low sugar label.
Sugar is also a desiccant and shelf stable, so replacing fat with sugar cuts down on the amount of preservatives needed. There was a pretty big push against “artificial” preservatives as well during that time.
I have a 30 year old rule, that predates, obviously, all the keto stuff: I never buy off the shelf tomato sauce with sugar added. It limits the choices dramatically. They exist, but even within the same brand, type A will not have any added and type B will.
Its about the only food item I carefully read the labels on.
On a homemade marinara a touch of sugar helps balance the acidity.
But on store bought I agree. They add way too much sugar or HFC to most commercial tomato sauce.
The Baijiu I was served in Shanghai was absolutely heinous.
It had the aroma of dirty socks and a chili pepper finish.
I’m not exaggerating.
As a Marine aviator I learned how to drink all manner of horrific alcohol from… well, basically everywhere. After I while I learned how to (effectively) “hold my nose” while drinking so it’s just liquid going down the throat: like swallowing a pill or castor oil. The baijiu in Beijing wasn’t so bad, but it’s fire water no matter how you slice it.
As a rule, I sampled the local hooch wherever I went (Scandinavia, Central America, Caribbean, Philippines, etc…). It was an insight into local culture and generally considered polite, if not outright humorous, to my hosts. I didn’t have much difficulty with it until I got to China. Baijiu is in a class of its own.
And I include Salmiakki Koskenkorva in that analysis, god-awful crap that it is. Whoever thought up ammonium chloride as a flavorant was more than a little off.
The Habu saki in Korea (I think) and Okinawa (I also seem to recall) was some clear liquor with a habu snake pickled in there. You used to get a tee-shirt along with drinking a big shot of that garbage in some bar in Osan. I lost that tee-shirt over time, but I really liked it. Great thing to generate conversation when I wore it out.
I believe the Finns make salmiakki ice cream and candy, too.
I didn’t mind the beer (they served it with lunch!) and I normally don’t like beer.
It was the rice wine that put me on my ass
One of my family members married into a Chinese family. They smuggled some authentic baijiu into the US. I, for reasons that will be obvious if you ever met me irl, was nominated to defend the honor of our side of the family and throw back for an hour with all the Chinese grandmas.
Its not the worst thing I’ve ever done for a sibling, but its top 5 for sure.
Yeah, I got better over time with it, but it forced me to get good at that dice game (a lot like the liar’s poker we played with dice when I was a pilot, but it went by a different name). Otherwise, my liver would have failed.
Another enjoyable read (plus pics).
How many parts to this series will there be?
One for each chinaman.
None for the Chinawomen?
Shorter than the Anthrax series then.
BURN!!!
Certainly (so far) less of a nut punch.
My time in China contained only a few nut punches, but it’s nothing that most people here probably don’t already know. The cultural comparison make for a fascinating lens to view one’s own society.
Nut punches. Life was valued way more cheaply in China
I witnessed a car-motorcycle crash on the way to a jobsite in 2008. As usual there was a whole family on the 250 cc motorcycle, nobody wore a helmet. The dad was arguing with the car driver, the mother was shrieking, one kid was crying, the baby was bleeding from its head. The car driver got back in his car and drove off.
I didn’t see it, but a Chinese welder stepped on a bare wire and electrocuted himself on a different jobsite.
Another jobsite, a contractor tripped and fell into the glass melt furnace while it was firing.
Most factories had 8 foot high fences surrounding them. The walls were topped with shards of glass. The joke was that the glass and walls were to keep people in (most workers stayed in dorms at the factory). I’m not so sure it was a joke.
I don’t know, Sean. I haven’t outlined it, so it’s all kinda stream of consciousness with me making points that were relevant to me at the time. I expect it could stretch on for quite a few if TPTB don’t mind. I spent the better part of 2 years there and I’m not even through with my first trip.
I’ll just keep writing until one of us gets “China fatigue.”
??
Please don’t take this personally, but since you mentioned the OPM hack, here’s my theory on it:
That hack and others like it (known and unknown) are most properly viewed as prep for either “cyber Pearl Harbor” or (more likely) “cyber MAD”. Meaning that rival nation-states who have all that info can use it to exert all sorts of pressure on the US government in ways that didn’t exist before. Sortof an analogy to a general blockade being used to exert explicit economic pressure. An example of what I’m envisoining if it were to go beyond MAD and into open warfare might be “hey, if we end up in a military conflict, you might just find that 25% of your military families’ credit cards or mortgage payments don’t work anymore, and their bank accounts are empty”. A specifically targeted example would be “hey look, 2 of the key engineers on the development teams for so-and-so project happen to have kiddie pron on their computers…”
Anyway, stuff like that can be held over the government’s head now. You can disrupt military action in a lot of ways, and a bunch of your folks suddenly finding themselves in very messed-up financial situations at home is a good example of what can be done.
I don’t take it personally and agree with you completely. My more immediate concern when I was headed for China was that I would get grabbed and find myself being accused of being an American “spy” and I would be in a very uncomfortable position, given that they had my SSBI and everything on it.
If you weren’t a spy, what were you doing in china?
Trying to get that triple delight?
This is pretty much why i’ll never go to china.
Upon his return, he asked a handful of senior staff to pack their bags to go “see what he saw” and either verify or refute his impressions.
Sounds like a heckuva a good boss.
As always, Ozy, a good read.
In a discussion with me about what CrossFit could do in China, he looked me in the eye and said: “Jobs. Jobs for my sport.” He was so earnest it was heartbreaking.
Good man, trying to take care of his people rather than trying to just win competitions.
I really, really like Coach Xie. We had other interactions through mutual colleagues, but he’s a good egg. And to anyone who wants to point out the Chinese are doping, my only answer is to recommend Icarus, the documentary that stumbled onto -and became – the world’s largest doping scandal. It’s utterly jaw-dropping.
I keep wondering what big name Operación Puerto was about to hit when it was suddenly shut down.
Yes.
Sideways vaginas to feed your yellow fever!
http://archive.is/yHQjy
Can’t follow the link at work, but the perfect completion of that joke would be if the ladies were all laying on their side.
30.
Yowza.
Always important to keep this in mind, too.
Ruh-roh.
I wonder how this will play with minority voters, some (many?) of whom are pretty pro-drug war, pro-law enforcement. The BLM activists notwithstanding (and they are about as representative as crypto-dark money lefty activists ever are, which is to say, not at all). Still, I can’t imagine this will help his campaign. Let your inner jackboot out, there, Mini-Mike!
It’s those asshole defending themselves who are the problem!
Aaaannnnnnddd….. that’s the end of his campaign!
Wow. He is absolutely toast – Done. No way he is the Dem nominee now, and – even if he is – he is going to get crucified at the ballot box for that.
Are you kidding?? These sorts of things are just hiccups for leftist politicians. Look at Gov Blackface.
Adding to your example set, see the Prime Minister of Canada.
*chuckle*
My MIL will definitely vote for him now.
But yeah, he’s toast.
You live in a different reality than me. Democrats can say anything and the media will bury it. Example: Uncle Joe insulting a woman. Every headlines was “the meaning behind Joe’s, clearly joking around comment”, not Biden insults woman.
While I generally agree with your sentiment, I believe it is different in this case and specifically for Bloomberg because no matter how much they try to cover for D’s, Trump has done something no Republican before him has and that is to openly – and repeatedly – court the black vote by pointing out what D policies actually do. That’s number one. Second, the record low unemployment among blacks seems to be (finally) having an impact. Third, big name black “influencers” (like Kanye) are publicly coming out in his favor – there just isn’t the same ostracization in being black and pro-Trump as there used to be. Finally, Bloomberg isn’t Bubba – he’s a New York nanny-state authoritarian and those comments are NOT going to play well around the nation, especially for the D nomination where he’s competing primarily against Biden for that constituency. He needs that bloc to win and I think it will get enough run from ‘Pubs that Mini Mike’s mouth finally may have undone whatever chance he had (if any, really).
Trump was also a big stop-and-frisk supporter, if memory serves. I wonder if he will be able to control his Twitter long enough to avoid stepping in this cowpie and reminding black voters that he was as bad as Mini-Mike on this issue.
I also don’t know how much actual black voters will care, as many of them are pretty law-and-order.
D.C. Airport: Bag of Dead Birds Found in China Traveler’s Luggage
The traveler arrived on a flight from Beijing, China January 27 and was destined to an address in Prince George’s County, Maryland. During a baggage examination, CBP agriculture specialists discovered a package with pictures of a cat and dog that the passenger said was cat food. The package contained a bunch of unknown small birds, about 2.5 to 3.5 inches in length.
The birds from China are prohibited for import due to the potential threat of highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Why would you even…
It is hard to imagine such a thing being anything but nefarious.
Ozy, I look forward to reading your further articles. I’ve visited several Chinese cities, but mainly Shanghai, Suzhou, Shenzhen, and HK. I’ve never visited Beijing. The smog was brutal the first time I experienced it in Shanghai, but the south has pretty clean air. I met some great people there and wish them well. The food was very inexpensive and delicious.
The people generally seem relatively happy, even those fishing on their lunch breaks in the dirtiest stream I’ve ever seen.
China really does things big, which is so different from the rest of eastern Asia (Japan, Korea, Thailand, etc) The roads in Shanghai and Shenzhen were huge and everyone went the speed limit.
My most remarkable though about China was the following: When taking a HK based car from Shenzhen to HK you could feel the change once the check point was traversed. People switched sides of the road and shifted from totalitarian fear to freedom and liberty (This was 2014). Everyone was speeding, the radio stations were more vibrant, and the people seemed more alive.
I still have a bottle of Wuliangye Baijiu at home. I use it to prep my skin for B-12 shots. Not a drink that can be easily consumed without a chaser.
I was fortunate that I got to see a TON of China because it was in the job description, so I’ve been to all of the cities you mentioned. I didn’t notice the change being that drastic between Shenzhen and HK, but I was there in 2017 and that was the same year that Shenzhen actually passed HK for annual GDP. The HK folks seemed snitty over it, but Shenzhen is a miracle. I have it on my list of topics for discussion and I’ve got some photos from my time there.
Shenzhen’s growth is incredible, the city is all new and everyone is from somewhere else. They also have great seafood restaurants.
I met some entrepreneurs while I was there. They were doing everything possible to grow. They eventually had to move west because the city was too expensive to manufacture in anymore.
The feeling crossing over was possibly my own confirmation bias. I was traveling to HK for many years earlier and China proper was a no go until the early 2000’s.
This is a vent. You married dudes know what that means.
Re sugar. So my Shirley Temple poke cake disappeared in a flash. It also made me xompletely rethink my self-medication via sugar. Immediate reaction (which I took to be panic attacks but were not): shortness of breath and hot flashes and dizziness. Now, I’m postmenopausal, but I started to notice a pattern after I took one of my Xanax and it did NOTHING.
Had labs drawn today. BP sky high (143/100). Probably stress, though. So I swore off sugar. Not hard at all when I remember the consequences, except now I don’t want to eat at all.
Back to low-carbing except I’m still put off plain meat without a buffer of some sort (sauce or bread).
I’m still put off plain meat without a buffer of some sort (sauce or bread).
How are you with spicy sauces?
Just fine. Bryants BBQ is almost all vinegar absolutely gritty with spices but I like it. I like pickled hot sausages too.
Mayonnaise is utterly nauseating now. Have to use butter or honey mustard or Miracle Whip on a ham sandwich. Butter is just fine so it can’t be the fat itself.
Miracle Whip?
*Dry heaves*
I can get some interesting curry recipes if you’re good with heat, some are even vegetarian.
If you’re good with spicy foods, there should be no shortage of ways to make the meat more palatable. If the recipe for Abuela Dean’s Original Olde Schoole New Mex Red Sauce ever surfaces, I plan to post it here. There’s not a damn thing it doesn’t make better.
We’ve about stopped having sandwiches with bread unless we are eating out. Mrs. Dean makes salads now, with the lunch meat on the salad and avocado, olives, cheese, tomatos, etc. I couldn’t really say what the dressings are, but I think if mayo isn’t your bag, you can use yogurt to make a fine spread or dressing.
That’s just it. Mayo USED to be my bag and was a major player during my strict Atkinsing days.
A whole lot of things went wonky last year after my ulcer.
Did they take blood for an A1C test?
Yes. I asked for that one specifically. ‘Lytes, hemoglobin, kidney function. We shall see.
I highly recommend moderate carbs. Its not sexy, but it works. When my wife was pregnant and had gestational diabetes, we went on it and both of us lost weight.
Breakfast 15-30 g carbs
Snack 15-20
Lunch 30-45
Snack 15-20
Dinner 45-60
Snack 15-20.
Its one meal short of being a hobbit.
Looks like a minimum of 135 grams a day. Unless you are a top level athlete knocking down 6,000 calories a day, that doesn’t sound like moderate carbs to me.
It’s Zone-friendly, so moderate for a typical diet.
I suspect you could cut back significantly and see benefits. But maybe not. I’m convinced that our metabolisms vary enough that you never know until you try.
I’m pretty sure if I was taking it 135+ grams of carbs a day I would weight at least 30 pounds more than I do. And I’m not exactly thin.
I’m a middle-aged (ahem) woman so tend toward the gut myself. In my youth I joked that I preferred 70% of my calories from dessert – now it’s one mouthful a day and I’m out!
Just checked my stats for the past couple of weeks. I’m averaging between 80-100 grams of carbs a day, and dropping weight. And no 6,000 calorie days until we get some decent weather here (and the carb intake will go up dramatically those days).
I’m averaging between 80-100 grams of carbs a day, and dropping weight.
I’m envious.
Also sedentary, which undoubtedly factors in.
I do my spin classes on Saturdays (where I don’t track my food consumption), and try to get a 30-45 minute work out in most other days. And Saturdays, there’s definitely more carbs (workout bar ~30 minutes before the class, bagel after class, etc.).
I’ve tried going the low carb route, dropped about 10 pounds quick, but then stalled out. Counting calories works for me, although it’s a PITA. So far I’m down 34.5 pounds, and ~8% body fat. I want to drop about another 10, then see about holding it there for a month or so.
My wife was told she had gestational diabetes despite eating 25-50 g of carbs a day. I don’t know much about this at the biochem level, but Robb Wolf has suggested being low-carb can trigger a false-positive on the glucose screening test.
Anyway, the OB required she attend a high risk pregnancy nutritional class for mothers to be with gestational diabetes. When she heard about how few carbs my wife ate, the dietitian lost her shit and insisted my wife eat a sandwich on the spot. Then explained that 150 grams a day was low carb and the absolute minimum amount that should be consumed.
It was the most bizarre thing. I mean this is a nutrition course supposedly designed to reduce the carb intake of pregnant women and they are shoving sandwiches at my wife and telling her to at least triple her daily carb intake.
That’s fucking nuts.
But not at all surprising. The pros can’t help you if they themselves haven’t explored the current state of nutritional thinking.
I read an article by a doc who said her trining in nutrition lasted approximately 5 hours.
Ridiculous.
You are on your own. There is a lot of info out there and experimentation is a must. I’ve been reading a lot about lipids and blood tests and now it’s a lot clearer to me why everyone is on fucking statins.
It sucks, but it’s what we’ve got today.
everyone is on fucking statins
Speaking of toxins and the medical community as the marketing arm of Big Pharma. . . .
Lost a friend when he lost his mind on statins.
Pure poison.
It is 135-195 per day. That is well below the food dodecahedron suggests.
It isnt keto, but it is still moderate.
I’m gaining weight just looking at that list.
That’s insane, after my ode to carbs posted below. This “moderate carb” schedule would put more car/calorie in your wife than me when I’m carb loading.
“BP sky high (143/100).”
That’s cute.
I think some minor lifestyle changes and you’ll be just fine. Do what you can sustain over the long haul, not just what achieves your goals the quickest.
You made me LOL.
Thanks.
Ozy, your concern about be sought after by the CHICOMs because of your past is interesting.
I worked for a major US defense cotractor on a system all here would recognize and traveled to Taiwan regularly in support of it. SOP after every foreign trip was filling out a “foreign persons contact” report. It included a question on what hotels you stayed in and which room in the hotel. I always stayed at the same place, a huge name-brand hotel – in the same room. There was a reason we couldn’t take are company laptops with us or do business on non-company internet connections.
I can say with certainty that I know I was surveilled when I was there, more than one occasion. I am also aware that it is pretty much de riguer for foreign businessman to be kept in certain rooms in major hotels. The security services are known to image drives and pull everything. I am confident that somewhere some Chinese intel guys are enjoying my porn stash.
It wasn’t quite on par with my stay in East Germany, but yeah, the Chinese were definitely monitoring the major hotels when I was there.
Or the chinese were better at hiding it.
My question was always was it the CHICOMs or the Taiwaneses doing the surveillance – or both?
They all look alike?
Re: the sugar discussion. We knew a bunch of folks who were researches at NIH, specifically into the effects of sugar on humans. To a person, they all had sworn it off after a certain amount of time working there and doing that work. I imagine it’s like being a smoker who works in a unit with lung cancer patients or working with burn victims every day and suddenly discovering your concern for fire safety. You just can’t be exposed to the information – the obvious consequences of certain actions – in that volume for that length of time and not be affected by it. I grew up with a wicked sweet tooth (that’s the Rhode Islandah in me speaking) and it took me a long time to notice how my actions as a kid (and adult) around candy looked disquietingly similar to the drug-seeking behaviors of addicts of drugs.
When I read a study that mice (or maybe it was rats, I can’t remember), will initially choose the cocaine laced water over the sugar laced water in their pens, I wasn’t surprised. When I read that after a few days the rodents will abandon the cocaine and prefer the sugar water from then on, I had my epiphany.
I still go on the occasional “candy bender” or binge, but I can limit the damage and I know it for what it is. At least I’m no longer rationalizing and excusing it with a bunch of pseudo-scientific bullshit that allowed me to tell myself “it’s fine” because it’s not. If I were forced to pick a single metric to measure health of a population it would be their A1c. The tsunami of death that is coming will not be pretty. It won’t matter what kind of healthcare system we have: Obamacare, Medicare, whatever. There is no public health solution for what’s coming.
Where the rodents of undetermined species isolated during the study? Serious question. Properly socialized rats will avoid both drug and sugar laced water if they have a good social life, and seek out laced water when stressed or alone. We are often quick to point at external causes to be the root of our problems because mirrors are uncomfortable. A fat society could be caused by availability of sugar, but it could also be that we have a broken society that seeks comfort in sugar resulting in its wide availability. Content people rarely have addictive issues, while discontent people exhibit addictive behavior towards a wide range of stimuli that are not known to normally be addictive.
When making societal sized judgments, always beware of the pretense of knowledge.
The study I read said they were controlled for social versus alone/stressed.
Keep in mind, that if their every need is taken care of mice choose hedonistic extinction.
That’s my choice, too.
I am very familiar with the… I’m not sure I want to use “science” as a noun here, but the epidemiological evidence that you are citing about addiction and being alone, contentment, etc. I also agree wholeheartedly; my own view is that it is ALL the pretense of knowledge. We’re trying to model – and therefore isolate – causal factors for something (diabetes) that is assuredly a multivariate problem.
I can’t find that paper at the moment and I don’t really have the time to go run it to ground. Off the top of my head, I thought there were multiple rodents in the cage, as it were, and the (attempted) single variable at play was simply the water. My theory is that cocaine has that initial high that’s better than sugar water, but that over time the sugar water provides a ‘feeling’ of satiety, of being like food, and that might explain the shift off of it. Whatever, all that matters for me is the N of 1 – Myself.
And I also know the history of how the Sugar Board corrupted the dentists, then the doctors, and demonized anyone who tried to argue against the cholesterol myth. They’re still doing it, in fact. The sugar archives have been posted by UC San Francisco and include papers that were left in an old mill. They suggest that “Big Tobacco” was actually a client of Big Sugar.
As a final point, I will note that a big part of the slave trade involved labor for sugar cane harvesting in the Caribbean, which would become rum, etc. There is a compelling argument it is behind a fuckload of suffering in the world. And while the libertarian in me wouldn’t ban it, I would sure as fuck end all of the government intervention in favor of it because it’s poisoning the country and the world. But that would hurt a LOT of monied interests.
I’m completely on board for removing all inferences in the sugar market both positive and because by the government. I also have no doubt that many ills were made by people seeking government intervention on their behalf in the sugar industry throughout the ages. Where we part ways is singling out sugar as a particularly heinous evil.
Taking your slavery example, my initial reaction is to discredit everything else you’ve said out off hand, because you’ve made such an obviously bad faith argument that it calls everything else into question. Slaves were certainly brought to farm sugar. They were also brought to farm everything else. In a world where sugar never existed slaves still would and they would still have been brought to the new world to farm other cash crops such as tobacco, indigo, or rice instead. The contention that sugar is in any way responsible for slavery when slavery existed for millennia prior to our knowledge of sugar is outlandish.
I don’t want to come across as harsh or dismissive, and apologize up front if I do, but I think you have lost the ability to view this dispassionately.
That’s because you’re reacting and arguing with something you think I said or implied, rather than what I actually said. For example, what I actually wrote about sugar and slavery:
That’s it. That’s the sum total of what I said about sugar’s contribution to slavery. Now, by comparison, let’s see what you said I said in response:
You did something similar earlier, too, but I ignored it. I don’t think I’m the one whose having problems viewing this dispassionately. I’m certainly not sticking claims into your mouth from whole cloth. I never said sugar was “responsible” for slavery, so you are correct, that would be an outlandish claim – but as we can see, I didn’t make that claim. Not even close. You just claimed I did and then went nuts from there.
1) My argument was originally about the HFCF mix vs sugar cane mix. I think that quibbling over the two is misguided.
2) I think that the researchers are correct, but incorporating a lot of unstated assumptions into their research. Sugar is absolutely vital for athletic performance. Most academic researchers (but not all!) don’t do anything approaching peak athletic performance. Same for most test subjects and medical patients included in trials. Most are likely DYELs. Most diabetics are DYELs. When I was a pre-diabetic DYEL, 0 to 20 carbs a day was best carb intake and got me non-pre-diabetic. There are a number of research results in line with this
Now, I’m in the gym 6 days a week, for an hour+ a day, working to the literal definition of peak athletic performance (going to muscular failure once most days). For that kind of training, sugar is an absolute necessity. Can’t improve cardiovacular or metabolic health without strenuous exertion. Can’t strenuously exert without carbs. “Eat to condition, condition to lift more”. On my rest day I’m usually pretty low carb. I think if most of the population was like that, the researchers would be coming to different conclusions.
Something like 98% of the population is DYEL, so 98% of the population can probably be improved health-wise by cutting out all carbs.
3) Carbs don’t cause diabeties directly by my reading of the lit, obesity and inactivity do (refined carbs including HFCF are a HUGE indirect contributor as they increase the palatability of calories and reducing the fiber-load of foods eaten). But carb restrictions can (probably – medium evidence in the lit) (contribute to a) cure diabeties. Just like a headache is not caused by a lack of Advil, but a headache can be cured with Advil.
==============================================================
But I think that we both agree that, for most people, shifting to a diet primarily consisting of:
1) More lean protein that most people eat
2) A shitload of minimally processed vegetables
3) More liquid plant fats than solid animal fats
4) Some, but not a ton of, grains primarily in their minimally processed form
Is a diet intervention likely to reduce diabetes, cancer, et al.
Um, no – I don’t agree that shifting to that diet reduces those diseases or is even beneficial.
Really? I’d like to hear why / a counterpoint of a generally applicable diet for “most people”.
Not a criticism or challenge to you personally, but IMO the diet you propose is based-on current/modern USDA guidelines which aren’t grounded in the previous 100+ years of nutrition (for lack of a better descriptor) science, and embrace faddish trends such as minimally processed and whole grain.
I need to stop commenting on this topic as I promised myself I would stay away from certain areas!
When Mrs. Dean got really serious about her training, she started including more carbs. Our issue really is that I’m pretty sedentary, and she exercises enough for both of us, so we basically eat different diets during the day (she is still pretty carb-restricted, but not as much as me). Dinner at night is a shared meal.
When we’re not travelling, we eat out once a week (Saturday lunch). I think one of the biggest barriers to healthy eating is people eat out too much, and don’t have the cooking skills or motivation to make their own meals.
Fast casual and upscale supermarket buffets are about 85% of where I eat out. Next comes Taco Bell where you can get a surprisingly well-balanced macro load out if you know what you are doing.
1) I wasn’t the one who started quibbling; I just added that HFCS is processed differently and has other (additional) deleterious effects from other sugars. e.g. Fructose results in runaway production of AMP and other downstream effects, but I agree: SUGAR = BAD and it can be left there. (You autists can’t seem to let the exceptions go, however)
2) We’ll have to disagree that “sugar is absolutely vital for peak athletic performance.” I competed in the first two CF Games and I’ve put my name in the hat every year of the Open. I know where I stand against most of humanity for my age and against even the big dogs. I also know the diets and workouts of some of those people – a good number of them, in fact, male and female. The diets vary widely, for certain, but I assure you that there are top athletes in the world who do not need sugar, falsifying your claim that it is “absolutely vital.” It’s not, but don’t @ me because if what you’re doing works for you, then please carry on. Just know that there are world class athletes who aren’t cramming sugar into their pie holes.
Blah. I knew that was going to bite me in the ass. I don’t mean peak person-to-person comparisons. I mean peak performance for a given person. Recent macro mix is a parameter of current performance similar to recovery, sleep, stress, etc.
Every time someone tries to demonstrate that any particular athlete performs better on low carb than high carb, the high carb wins out. The only exceptions have been ultra-endurance athletes, a few of whom have been found to perform better by carb cycling with low carbs in the off season and then ramping up to a peak the day of competition.
Lots of researchers with “yeah but they aren’t fat adapted yet”, but not a lot of putting up or shutting up.
I’m not bragging. My performance is shit. I’m not strong. I’m not conditioned. I shouldn’t have discussed myself on this point.
It’s still N=1, no matter what. Here’s my day so far:
Coffee with whole cream.
3 eggs with a little Romano
Workout.
Spinach salad with ribeye, tomatoes, avocado and an olive oil vinaigrette dressing.
I may or may not have dinner tonight.
Simple.
I am happier with fewer carbs. I am also not trying to win an Ironman or anything like that. I like to experiment to find the mix that provides good energy, clarity of thought, decent sleep.
And morning wood.
I’ll help you out and say that I know of a number of top athletes who have claimed exactly what you do – that you need the carbs to “keep it up.” When you get to peak athletic performance, what is essentially going on is an experiment to see what the ideal work/rest ratio is and what fuel is necessary to sustain it. By that I mean that top CF athletes (for example) are doing multiple, soul-crushing workouts every day for months on end. Somewhere in there for every individual is an “ideal” amount of sleep, nutrition, and rest/recovery between workouts.
I know a number of athletes who have said, just as you have, that you have to have a much higher level of carbs in order to accomplish this. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I also know athletes who are strict Zone and do that same thing, are at the top of the leaderboard, and they’re consuming less than 30% of their daily macronutrient load from carbs. And it isn’t sugar.
I wouldn’t have disagreed about carbs, but I do take “qualified” issue with your statement on sugar.
But when we’re at this point, we really are in the realm of angels dancing on the heads of pins because you’re not going to die of diabetes and neither are the super athletes. So, we’re really engaged in another Aspie argument more than two standard deviations from what the average person needs to not get obese.
you’re not going to die of diabetes
Chuckles nervously.
That’s the hope anyway. I gotta run, but I wanted to say its always interesting to talk with someone who can disagree without being disagreeable. Especially when I’m doing such a poor job of expressing myself today.
Not at all, Leap. I always appreciate your contributions here. ?
Even more so on this. Thank you.
Sure their is. The problem is that the medical community is not up to the task. Two hundred years ago, engineers and doctors where both very similar – highly educated professionalized organizations protected by rent-seeking guildes. The progressive era broke the back of the professional engineer, leaving only a remnant, and the engineers put a car (or two) in every driveway, a super computer in every pocket, etc etc.
The doctors guilde survived, and the goods and services they provide suck as much as public housing, for the same reasons.
There’s no reason that doctors can’t be providing effective lifestyle interventions. They just never figured out how to because they were protected from the market forces that would have forced them to develop those skills.
The doctor’s guilde (not including surgeons) has largely become a marketing arm of Big Pharma. There’s a reason I haven’t been to a doctor for 5 years.
Yeah, its the whole medical community (I guess I don’t know about surgeons). The “you can’t do that here” / certificate of need / drug approval process / rent seeking industrial complex.
At least, that’s my take on it from someone who needed lifestyle interventions for decades and was failed by the medical community at every turn.
Yep. 86% of the medical spend is on the “lifestyle diseases” – hence my comment that “there is no public health solution.” Because in my view “public health” as a field is complete horseshit. A big chunk of the population is suffering from lifestyle choices and the solution for that is – like religion – one soul at a time. There are a few exceptions that stick out: in my opinion, the last two useful public health interventions were hand washing in hospitals (sanitation) and scurvy.
Doctors who treat injury as a result of accidents are doing God’s work and that field is incredible. Most of the rest of medicine is symptomatic treatment of underlying disease states that result from hyperinsulinemia and sedentarism.
There is no public health solution for that many people with diabetes. It is already crippling the U.S. medical system;
No shit. In part because it comes with a raft of comorbidities. Including a massively increased risk of sepsis due to bad circulation in the extremities.
I had a carb and sugar heavy diet in my 20s to early 30s. I praise Allah for Mrs. Dean shifting us to Atkins to break the habit, and then to what we have basically been on since – carb restricted-to-lightish keto. I generally take in less than 10 grams of carbs, and virtually no sugar, at breakfast and lunch. Dinner is more variable, but unless I’m drinking beer its a rare day I see 30 carbs and more than a negligible amount of sugar.
Its interesting how you lose your taste for it after awhile. My sweet tooth is about 80% gone – I used to have a hard time passing up cookies, candy, whatever at the office, but its gotten much easier.
RC- When I played with keto and fasting, I was amazed at what happened to my “sweet tooth.” Yes, you recalibrate your taste buds. When I went keto for long stretches, whole milk would taste sweet, like ice cream! Not an exaggeration. I also noticed I could “feel” my metabolism. It was crazy. I was perfectly aware of whenever I ‘left’ euglycemia.
I’m much better now, but the key is “out of sight, out of mind.” The problem is that it’s fucking everywhere. When I was completely keto I can vividly remember being in an unfamiliar grocery store and accidentally turning down the candy aisle: the mere sight of all of that stuff gave me an insulin reaction. I could feel my metabolism reacting.
Huge wakeup call.
I’m much better now, but the key is “out of sight, out of mind.”
I’ve always said that to get control of your diet you only need to do two things. (1) Stop eating out. (2) Exercise self-control for an hour at the grocery store.
For anyone who wants to get sugar and carbs out of their diet, the first thing they need to do is go through their fridge and pantry and throw out, well probably most of what’s in there. You’ve got to get it out of the house, and not let it back in. Mrs. Dean, who works with people who sometimes want to change their diet, tells them that. Most of them fail at the first jump, unfortunately. The first week is the hardest.
And get keto sticks.
I always say Dr. Atkins saved my life. I haven’t been low carb in years (I keep saying I will but I won’t and my life right now makes me uncaring for the first time in my life), but I think it’s still working its magic.
Ozy, great article. I’ve never been to China and am not the biggest fan of Chinese food, American-Chinese or Chinese-Chinese, but I’ve always enjoyed learning about China and other Asian countries. Looking forward to the series.
Thanks, SSD.
You sure you don’t want t argue about cocaine riddled mice and diabetes??
I apologize for my part in the argument. I enjoyed this article and appreciate all your contributions to this site.
RA – please don’t say that. I’m teasing all of us. I’m as guilty of doing the exact same thing as anyone else here. See my comment above to Leap. We all tend to latch onto the ONE THING in someone’s comment we take issue with and then we wind up arguing at the extreme ends of what is probably a rather non-controversial statement.
We’re
libertariansGLIBERTARIANS!! – it’s what we do.No offense taken by me and I hope others will forgive me when I do the same thing and understand it doesn’t come from a bad heart, simply bad internet conversational habits, I’ll call it.
In truth, as an amateur author, I love, LOVE – and am deeply grateful – that I can publish something like this and engage with people who’ve ACTUALLY READ THE FUCKING ARTICLE!! I’ll happily endure the pedantry and quibbling as a minor price to pay for what I get in return.
There was an article?
It had to be said.
I’m surprised it took that long!
You fucking asshole!
*drops gloves*
Seriously, even at our worst we are waaaay better than most.
It’s what I dig most about you freaks!
We all tend to latch onto the ONE THING
Indeed we do. And not just in our back-and-forth here. I suspect its more or less hardwired.
Thank you. Still bad form on my part for jumping into an argument without thanking you for the excellent (as always) submission.
I consider the participation all the thanks a writer could ask for. Plus, we’re all regulars here, so there isn’t that concern that someone’s just jumping in to fuck with me. But thank you and thanks for jumping in and pulling me up short. My wife will tell you I could use a lot more of that. 😉
I’m lucky, I got this article in lecture form,
Great job Ozy!
Yeah, but we were also smoking and joking and you were captive in my truck, so you had no choice! Hope you’re well, Bob. I’m waiting on more geology articles with baited breath, but I know you’ve got some things on your plate. Plus, I’m glad to see you getting out and playing some disc.
Be well.
No, I’ll pass on that, but if we can argue about cocaine riddled diabetic mice then you might be on to something.
I don’t know much about the causes of diabetes beyond the basics, but the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers was a major area of my research. To call treating these ulcers a cash cow is an understatement. A doctor can bill $15-25k to Medicare for treating a single ulcer, and it’s very difficult to wean the docs off that to treatments with higher efficacy that only pay out $1-2k. On the other hand, contained health care systems like Kaiser and single payer nationals are embracing the lower cost alternatives.
The patients are often non-compliant with diet/exercise so treatment fails, ulcer gets axed, new ulcer forms, and doc gets to bill another 25 grand for minimal effort. Rinse and repeat.
-2 feet for the Wife……..
Damn, I’m sorry Yusef. That’s a very difficult experience to go through.
I thought you knew, it’s been a 6 year long, slow slide to where she is now, I complained about her diet for 33 years, She knew,
I knew she had been having a hard time, but didn’t realize the extent. I’m sorry you’re both going through that, and I hope she’s able to stabilize soon.
That really sucks, bro. I’m hoping they can get her squared away and back home soon.
I can’t recall the number, but we amputate an appalling number of feet every year, all from diabetics as far as I know. The black humor is that a single foot must miss its buddy, because its only a matter of time before it goes, too.
The number in California a few years ago was 10,000 foot amputations. I remember reading that and being in shock. Two miles worth of feet (har-har) just from California. I don’t even know how to process that, really.
I could fill volumes talking about this, but the answer isn’t in talking. It’s doing. We have to get people, to steal from my old boss’ mantra, “off the carbs and off the couch.” It’s simple, but not easy.
I have been keto (tested regularly by urine) since 2015 and have noticed only benefit with essentially no downside; the only possible “downside” being decreased alcohol tolerance ie: you get drunk faster, which is likely a feature not a bug to most.
I am in no position to make grandiose prescriptive statements about humanity, and I agree that much of “nutritional science” is completely bogus; all I can say is that it works for me. Long-term, I have had no change/increase in energy levels, no change/increase in athletic performance. I say this is a former semi-pro soccer player, so I understand what maximum exertion looks like. Primary effects vs. high/moderate carb intake are 1) *much* easier to control weight, 2) improved cholesterol numbers, 3) faster satiety and fewer food cravings.
I see no reason to ever change my diet unless given an exceedingly compelling reason to do so.
Lack of money and of beer were my only problems with low carb diet.
That’s awesome! What is your normal reading, now? Have you found that it has dropped as your body has become better adapted? Which meter?
I’m usually in the “Low” range, if I’m sooper hydrated it’ll drop to “Trace”. I’ve come to see it mostly as a Boolean, either you’re in ketosis, or you’re not, the degree to which you are doesn’t matter as much. I just use Keto Sticks from Walgreens and you’re right; when I started it was more frequently in the “Moderate” range. Something else I notice: the longer I’ve done it, the easier it is to get back into ketosis. I typically only cheat if I’m on vacation, but it’s really quick and easy to go back into ketosis afterward since I’ve been in it for years.
So, our offices are being repainted. We will have an “accent wall” (insert eye-roll here), which we can apparently choose the color for.
Painter: So, what color do you want your accent wall?
R C: Dead. Flat. Black. Like my heart.
CEO (walking by): Give him the same color as the Chief Medical Officer.
I like my job, but some days I wonder how I still have it.
Hey AZ! Razorfist…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uezDB-FLb7s
Need to catch up. He’s entertaining as hell, and generally has a good point or three in there somewhere.
I don’t know the “One True Dietary Solution to Health”, and I am skeptical of those who do. I have found in my own life that I get the best results in terms of weight loss, energy levels, immune function (ie ability to avoid/rapidly recover from colds etc around me) from reducing calories and increasing exercise with NO other limits. Obviously when cutting calories you will automatically limit starches and added fats, so I won’t claim my experiences disprove anything in the Keto/Paleo/Atkins faiths.
The one thing I will say is this: All the doomsaying about how our current diet is dooming us is badly overblown. Life expectancy is up even with the rise in diabetes. I find discussions that refer to one or another food as poison to be sensationalized and thereby less persuasive.
Now if only I could get myself motivated enough to get back on the wagon.
I think that came across more hostile than intended. I just am skeptical about hyperbolic claims in this area, particularly those that partake of the “One True Answer” flaw.
I’m going to reply in the next thread.
Life expectancies are down three out of the last four years, RC. They just ticked up ever so slightly this past year. A lot of people will point at various things as “the reason,” but I know beyond cavil that of the 2.2 million Americans who die each year, the top listed causes are either direct byproducts, or coincident with, bad lifestyle choices, diet chief among them. (I know the doctors won’t like hearing that MedMal is the third leading cause of death, but I think everyone should peruse those CDC mortality statistics every once in a while.) I have a grim fascination for them.
I meant Jar, but wrote RC. Apologies.
I’m very late to the party. I like this. Thanks Ozy!
I have one quibble, not related to the sugar discussion.
This will ensure I keep away all foot fetishists
You’ve heard of Rule 34 right?