Rowan's Round of Days

A couple of the fascinating links people over on G+ offered to the posting of my rant there.

Isn't He Lovely: The Sexist, Racist, Male Invention of Dieting
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/isnt-he-lovely-the-male-invention-of-dieting

Men eat meat, women eat chocolate: How food gets gendered
http://www.salon.com/2010/07/02/food_gendering/

One of the things about being sick is that I often have no energy to speak of. So I have been catching up on video (something I usually have a hard time sitting still for).

So I finally watched Ile Aiye (The House of Life) a David Byrne film about Candomble in Bahia, Brazil. It was very fun to see the various Orixa being danced. The film is very disjointed, or to be kind, impressionistic. I liked it, but a bit more linearity would have been nice for this Western-mind and so the commentary track helped alot.

One of the things that I hadn't thought about was how much the music and dances of Candomble are part of the culture. One group that struck me were the Filhos Gandhy (Sons of Gandhi) who dance for peace using the forms of Candomble and are a Carnivale troupe of about 7,000 men. I would love to dance the Orixas for peace. We need more parades.

So House folks or other local people interested in the Orixa, I do own this film and would be happy to share (either by lending or by having movie night on our giant TV). It is about an hour long but I do recommend watching the commentary too.

Another film that I watched was My Big Fat Diet about a study of bringing a more traditional low carb diet to the Namgis First Nations people of Alert Bay in Western Canada. Their traditional diet had been replaced in the last 100 years with pasta, potatoes and sugary treats such that they are having terrible problems with obesity and diabetes, etc. A study enrolled around 100 people and it was neat to see what that meant in the way of local support. Feasting is a big part of Namgis culture (potlach, etc) and people worked on new low carb recipes to support tribal members in the study. The local grocery store said some interesting things about the way local buying patterns changed - more cream, less milk, LOTS of cauliflower. LOL, I know that one.

Another fun thing was that at the end of the year-long study they had a ceremony in the ceremonial house where people brought in bags of flour representing how much they had lost and they danced around them in celebration. (About 1/4 ton between the 100.)

So, I started a low carb way of eating about eleven months ago. I have lost 55 pounds and have about ten pounds to go. I love the idea of a local community of support, though I have to say that fatsecret.com has been great.

I have also caught up on Season IV of The Guild and watched Burlesque. Somewhere I know I have a couple of interfaith DVDs that I will watch if I get a chance. But hopefully my brains will be back soon and I can go back to reading and WoW and, oh yeah, going to work. LOL

I'd post this to Fatsecret but the site has been down for hours. *sigh* And I want to capture the numbers somewhere.

Funny how challenges come when you least expect them. A co-worker brought me some Chinese preserved plums with licorice as a thank you for some work I did for him. These plums are *really* hard to find in the US. I REALLY love them. These are usually a once-a-year treat when a different co-worker's family sends them from China for Chinese New Year.

But (a) they are plums and (b) they have sugar added. I have no idea how many carbs because Chinese labeling laws are different. The package says:

Chan Pui Mui (Preserved Plum)
Plum (85%)
orange peel (6%)
sugar (5%)
licorice (3%)
salt (1%)

14oz of them are sitting on my desk calling to me. 14oz all to myself instead of one or two the other co-worker would share because he knows I love them. QQ

/me resorts to googling "Chan Pui Mui nutrition"

Hmm. Asianfoodgrocer.com thinks 26g of carbs for 7 pieces. Or about 4g each. The Asian grocer picture is even the exact same bag. Hmm. If I plan ahead I could do one. But would it start up carb cravings? That is the question.

I've been wanting to write up something just for me on my health choices. After the my stomach hates me entry I was haunted by the question the Healthy Skeptic asked (I paraphrase) "If hyperacidity is the cause of GERD/IBS/etc why isn't it a disease of young people since stomach acid declines with aging?" He has put up a section just on this topic at http://thehealthyskeptic.org/heartburn .

I went off my acid suppressing meds at the beginning of April. I also decided to do a low carb diet but held off on that until after visiting my folks.

So April 19th I started the new Atkins induction. Atkins surely has changed since I did it in around 1999. They have added low carb veggies to the mix.

A week on with that I am feeling pretty good. My stomach doesn't hate me as much although I have had some hearthburn and reflux. Plus a week isn't long enough to really tell anything. I don't intend to take HCL w/ pepsin, I am just trying to let my body come to its own place. At least for now. I've been surpressing acid for so many years, who knows what it has done.

It is also hard to get interesting food when one is dieting. It entails more shopping and cooking than I have been doing lately. Esp., the veg which goes bad so quick. Pasta keeps so well. And buying prepared stuff from Whole Foods and Zanotto's is so easy when one is tired. So we'll see how I do on this long term. WTB a live-in cook (in my dreams).