Eating Healthy / Odds n Ends

A few Shorts today:

Natto boogers

Natto - My good friend from Burma (and our Sushi chef)  gave me a small package of Natto to try for lunch today.  Going in, I knew that Natto was fermented soybeans and that it's wicked high in micro nutrients, especially vitamin K.  But what I didn't realize was how slimy/stringy it is.  Like spider webs.  It was quite a mess to eat with the 'strings' getting everywhere - all over my hands, in my beard, in my sardines, you name it.  The taste was milder than I expected, just kind of 'soybeany' I suppose, but boy what a mess.  It was kind of like being a little kid again, I could've done with a bib and a bunch of wipes.

Eating Healthy -  Later in the afternoon our deli manager (the Sushi chef's husband) asked if I wanted to try a new product they had received - a 'hummus' made from edamame instead of chickpeas.  I declined, mostly because I usually don't eat beans and I'd already tried the Natto for lunch.  Anyway, a customer was within earshot, listening to this exchange.  She was grabbing something from the bulk bins and had a couple of 'nutritional bars' made mainly of sesame seeds and honey in her hands.  She asked if I had tasted them before because they were oh so good, and even raw!  I told her I had not and she responded by saying 'so you just work with the healthy food all day, you don't actually eat it' ... BIG smile runs across my face.  Of course you, being a reader of this blog, know what I was thinking.  I did pretty well by just saying 'I do eat healthy, I just don't eat bars'.  I left it at that, but I think she didn't quite get that one might not see prepackaged bars and soybean hummus as entirely healthy prospects.

I think I look older with a beard

Dr. Oz - remember my post Dr. Influence about the craziness that ensued when Dr. Oz talked up raspberry ketones?  Well, he's still out there pimping things on his show ( I had a rep tell me just today that one of their products was mentioned), but I haven't had a day repeated like that one.  And I have a theory as to why - it's when he mentions DIET products that people jump off their couches and rush to the stores.  I'm not judging here, I'm just calling it like I see it.  Kinda shows where we're at in our society though.

Statins - I had dinner with the some friends the other night, including the woman whom I discussed in my post Conventional Wisdom, where I couldn't help pipe up about her going vegetarian in an effort to avoid the use of Statins.  The subject came up again, but this time I didn't chime in.  I didn't feel the need nor did I have the desire.  You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.  This plays to the larger picture of the Paleo/Primal lifestyle where you find most folks come looking for the idea (usually looking for something different than what is currently not working for them) and are ready for change.  But you can't just go out there trying to convince everyone of the benefits of Paleo.  Most people aren't receptive to ideas that fly in the face of standard advice - nutritional or otherwise.  I, and indeed many others in the Paleosphere, have discussed this very notion plenty, usually coming to the conclusion that we're more than happy to share and discuss our trials and tribulations - when asked.  There's a boat load of information out there in blogs and books for when people do come knocking.


Speaking of my Burmese friends, this pic was from November, 2010 when they got married in Texas.  I was the only Gringo there (I'm in the back row) but they made me feel like Family.  They and their culture are so incredibly hospitable.  We could learn a thing or two from Family oriented societies like theirs.