Calories

Calories have been on my mind lately with books and blogs discussing them seeming to abound.  You know, calories in/calories out.  People get worked up on both sides of the issue of whether or not calories are important in terms of health and weight loss.  I'm going to put in my two cents by giving you an analogy that I've come up with.  It has to do with comparing calories and health to working and wealth. 

In general, people associate working hard with making money (wealth).  Seems reasonable.  Work hard, or more hours, build your wealth.  Work less, or not at all, and less wealth you will have. 

But, as it's easy to see in this case, your bank account is not defined by how hard or how much you WORK.  It is defined by how many DOLLARS you have.  There are lots of folks who work plenty hard for long hours but are not capable of building much wealth.  One obvious reason for this is that some people get paid peanuts.  Put another way, monetary wealth is about how much MONEY you have, and working is a only a relative measure of  money.  I know plenty of people (hi Aspen) that don't work hard, or much, but have plenty of money.  Let me now show you how this situation applies to calories and health.

Most people associate calories in/calories out with health (and weight loss).  Again, seems reasonable.  More calories in than out, health goes down and weight goes up.  

BUT,  your body does not deal in calories.  It's currency is nutrients.  The reading on a bomb calorimeter when someone flips the swith and literally incinerates an apple is NOT a measure of it's nutrient value.  Your body utilizes the nutrients in food, or it's metabolites, for everything from fuel, to storage, to repair and regeneration.  NUTRIENTS are used to build your health in the same as money builds your wealth.  

Here is the simple analogy:  Your bank account is only correlated with how hard and how much you work. The bottom line is how much money you put into it.  Similarly, your health is only correlated with the calories in the food you ingest. The bottom line is how many nutrients you eat.

While it's easy to fix the above wealth example by merely talking about how much money you make and spend instead of how much you work, things get WAY more complicated when you want to start taking about health in terms of nutrients and exercise.  For example, how many nutrients are actually in food (seasonal/ regional/ soil differences)?   How many of them do you absorb, or don't absorb (and why)?  What nutrients do our gut bacteria feast on and then in return make for us to use? And on and on.

I'm not fond of talking about calories in terms of health and nutrition, but a) it's a rough gauge of food density which is here to stay, and b) there is no simple way to replace it in broad spectrum terms.  Too much variability. 

So where does that leave one in terms of what to think about calories?  That is for you to decide grasshopper.

The Skies

Colorado blue is definitely my favorite color, and I do miss it so, but I must confess, it has been very fun getting familiar with a whole new set of skies and weather patterns.  

Several years back I had become very interested in watching the skies in order to see if I could tell what the weather had in store.  This was born out of necessity as I was wanting to play outside and was tired of off the mark weather forecasts.  The difference of it raining at say 6 in the evening, as opposed to 3 in the afternoon, is huge in this regard, and yet, the typical weather forecast only tells you 'afternoon showers'.  So I learned by observing, and if I do say so myself, I became quite good at close range forecasting for Aspen.  

For example, I could tell when riding my bike to work in the morning if the wind direction was 'backwards' or not ... indicating likely inclement weather on the way.  Or things like when it was 'warmer than it should be', which I linked to the leading edge of turbulent systems that would push hotter air in front of them.  And I could pretty accurately tell from the wind if the clouds and rain hanging over certain valleys were going to be headed my way.

I didn't spend hours on the google machine studying meteorology like I do with nutrition and exercise.  No, I merely observed.  I paid attention.  And in doing so, I learned more than just about the weather, I became more connected to the land itself.  I discovered places where the wind naturally divided or split in some of the valleys.  I was keenly aware of where the sun rose and set relative to the mountains throughout the year.  I could tell whether the wildlife would have enough natural food in the mountains by watching the trees and shrubs in the spring (and if they didn't it meant they were more likely to be rummaging through town in the Fall).    It was all quite fun really, and like I mentioned, I'm looking forward to doing the same here as well.

Some of my initial observations are that the typical winter skies here are a 'monochromatic grey'.  Kind of like we're right in the middle of a cloud with no relief in color to be found.  

Grey skies

To be sure, there is a lot of drab and fog, but to my delight, it's not as dark as I'd imagined.  If you have natural light coming in some windows and make sure to get yourself outside, it seems to be bright enough.  And the sun does pip in and out, more often in the afternoon.  Heck, we've even had a few flat out sunny days, like this past weekend.  I think it will be more challenging predicting the immediate weather around here as there aren't as many natural landscape features to break things up, but I will be looking for patterns every time I check out the skies.  (I know, you're saying just predict rain and you'll be spot on most of the time ... I'm looking at you mom!)

Let me give you an example of how my weather observation skills are spilling over already.  As the end of December was drawing near I suspected that it had been a very dry month for this area.  Very, very dry.  Nobody told me this, I just knew that winter is the wettest time of the year up here in the PNW and something unusual was happening (it was also colder than usual and this WAS something that everybody was talking about).    Anyway, long story short, I was able to find stats saying that last month was the second driest December on record for the Portland area. All the while, my family here was clueless about it.  

So all of this blabbering does really come back around to health, and in a big way.  You see, it's all about observing.  Not just the weather, but taking time to become aware of what's going on around you in everyday life.  Being more in the here and now.  And Lord knows, we could use more people in the here and now.
 

Tazmanian Chocolate

 

A friend of mine from Aspen was visiting Tazmania last month and brought back some of their locally made 'dark' chocolate.  It's amazing stuff.  Top 3 of all time for me in terms of taste and consistency.  However, as you can see from the pic below, it's a bit odd in terms of ingredients.  Maybe their idea of chocolate is different than ours, or it could just be that they're upside down!

 
As you can see, sugar is the first ingredient so I wouldn't consider this 'dark' chocolate.  That's fine with me though ... I don't hold grudges as far as chocolate is concerned.  The other thing you'll notice is that vegetable fat is an ingredient.  At first I was not at all amused by this.  A chocolate PUFA bar I thought.  Swell.  

Then, to my delight, I deduced that the particular vegetable fat they used in this case happens to be coconut oil.  Two things led me to believe this.  First, the texture.  Seattle Chocolates makes chocolate truffle bars with coconut oil and I love them.  They have a silky smooth texture, just like this Tazmanian bar does.  Second, as you can tell from the pic below, I could actually see the white coconut oil.  They must have used quite a bit of it.  For sure, at first, I wasn't convinced I was 'seeing' the coconut oil.  I thought it might be salt, or even chocolate bloom, but it is neither of those.  

I find it a bit strange that they chose to use the wording 'vegetable oil' instead of coconut oil.  Perhaps in Tasmania people still think of it as arterycloggingsaturatedfat.  I'm sure lots of people do here as well, but in a very positive sign, I picked up 78oz of Nutiva coconut oil at Costco for $19.99 the other day.  And, of course, they had a whole frigging pallet of it.  

Go Coconut Oil!!

Good Deal Food Shopping

It's been fun going around to the variety of markets here shopping for my food staples.  Although I'm new to living in Oregon, I've spent a bunch of time vacationing here so I'm very familiar with the area already.  The big difference is that this time I'm looking closely at prices.  Since there is a ton of competition as far as selling food goes, a lot of good deals are to be found.  I suppose that's what happens when you have so many people living together. 

An aside here:  I'm overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people and traffic.  I knew, of course, what it was like, but this time I'm not going home to a small town where I know almost everybody.  It reminds me of the movie Crocodile Dundee from the 80's when Dundee learns there are 8 million people all living together in NY City and says something like 'this must be the friendliest place on earth!'  

In Aspen I shopped where I worked and bought a little food every day or every other day to stick in my backpack on the way home.  I also purchased my meat from ranchers in bulk.  It's quite a change up having to drive to the store a few times a week.  Anyway, a few quick impressions before I tell you about the deal I stumbled upon.  First, prices in general are way cheaper here.  There are big discount stores and some of them have items that you would only have found in 'natural' stores a few years ago.  Things like Kerrygold cheese and greek yogurt.  Second, there is no sales tax in this state.  If an item is $9.99, that's the amount you owe when you pay at the register.  I had a 10% employee discount at the store I worked at and that BARELY covered the state and county sales tax.  Scary.  

The best price I've found on ground grass-fed beef here is in Trader Joe's which has it at $5.99/lb for the frozen brick (Angus no less).  At most other places it's at least $6.99/lb for frozen and even more for fresh.  In my mind, $5.99 is a very good price.  I paid more in Aspen even when I bough it in bulk quantities from local ranchers.  And buffalo was even more spendy.  One evening my bro and I were Xmas shopping and he asked if I wanted to go into another grocery store that was in the strip mall we were at.  My exact words were 'Sure, I always like going into grocery stores'.  Now, I've been to this place's sister store and know that it is of the higher end variety.  That is to say, if one is looking to save money, you wouldn't be shopping there.  So imagine my surprise when I was perusing the meat section and came across fresh ground grass-fed beef on a buy one get one free deal.  Their everyday price was $7.99/lb for that item, so the discount put it at 4 bucks a pound.  As you can guess, I was a little skeptical.  There was a hand written sign with ubiquitous 'buy one get one free' stickers on the packages.  Not being one to pass on a good deal I first purchased 6 units and brought them home where I then looked the company up online to see if they were putting out a legit grass-fed product.  Check on that one (from the PNW too).  Next, I had some for dinner to see if it tasted good.  Another check.  Then I put the rest in the ice box to see if it froze well.  Bam ... good to go.  The finale of the story involves me going back there multiple times, sometimes twice a day, to stock up.  I stuck the product I purchased in the freezer and when it was solid I pulled it out of the plastic tray and sealed it in a smaller bag.  I wound up purchasing 60 units in total!  The meat manager there must have thought his bogo sale was going pretty gangbusters.  Heck, on the third day he almost doubled the amount of space he devoted to the sale (he could only fit about 14 out at once in the beginning).  

I suppose I could have asked the meat manager to package me up a bunch at the sale price and would have only had to come in one more time, BUT, I was worried he was going to figure out that he was essentially giving that stuff away if he noticed one person was completely pimping out their freezer with it.  Who knows, perhaps they were sitting on a bunch and figured it was better to get rid of it at cost than to lose it.  However, it sure doesn't seem like old product to me and I'm not exactly a rookie when it comes to consuming grass-fed ground beef.

Takes after his crazy uncle

The lesson here is to be on the lookout for good deals.  Even on high quality food.  Deals and Aspen are not synonymous so this is all a bit new to me.  

It's also strange for me to not be working during the holidays (or at all right now)  I worked my butt off this time of year in that small mountain town. 

Happy Holidays to everyone and best wishes for 2014!


PS One of the many perks of living with family is stuff like finding selfies of your nephew on your phone with his tongue sticking out.  Stinker!

School fiber

I was with my bro picking up his kids from elementary school the other day when I snapped the two pics below of the bottom portion of their lunch and breakfast menus (pickup is in the cafeteria).  Since they're a little hard to read I'll just recap and tell you that they use the words whole grain/wheat and fiber a whopping 14 TIMES in the bullet points!

Those unsuspecting kids must have a serious whole grain deficiency.  I imagine most of them get nothing but meat, eggs and veggies at home.  Poor little guys.  Not to worry though, the school, following the government guidelines, will make it all better.  Horror the thought that one might actually want to minimize this stuff in their diet.  No room for lost souls I suppose.

Makes me pity the janitors in our schools with the amount of insoluble fiber being served up these days.  Yikes.

Oh yeah, they offer 1% white milk or fat free chocolate milk.  Conventional Wisdom is alive and kicking my friends.  Alive and thriving actually.

Christmas cookie kryptonite

I've made it to Oregon and I'm settling in here with my brother and his family.  I plan to take some time off before I start the next chapter of my life, whatever that may be.  Perhaps I'll even do a bit of traveling around this area to check out my new home.

As I've mentioned before my sister in law is a registered dietician of the conventional wisdom type and we stay away from the nutrition talk, which is totally fine.  And as much as I cringe at the majority of food choices in their household, I'm big enough to stay quiet.  What do I know anyway, I learn everything from the internet machine

Okay, I'm not going to use this forum to gripe about their eating habits.  I'm just going to poke fun now and again.  Like the following.

You know I'm not dogmatic in my approach to nutrition in general and paleo/primal in particular.  I also consider myself pretty darn healthy and don't sweat it when I have gluten or seed oils on rareish occasions.  So I figured being with the family and all it was going to be cool to partake in some holiday baking and have a treat or two.  I wasn't at all going to blink about having some gluten.  And then came out the kryptonite.  CRISCO.  Lots and lots of Crisco.  In the mix and on the pans. It was enough for me to only man up and take a 'bite' of one of the kids treats.   My 'bite' would be stretching the definition of the word really.  I know it wouldn't have been the end of the world and all, but I just thought it funny how much of a turn off that was for me personally at this point.  I believe that stuff would better serve as lubricant on the bottom bracket of my bicycle.  I considered asking nicely if we could use butter to make one of the recipes and then realized that their idea of butter is the country crock spread in their fridge, which is, as you can guess, made from seed oils.  Ah well, at least I have chocolate to cheer me up.

I'll admit to making cookies and such with shortening growing up (right mom!)  The difference now is that they make it in 'sticks' like butter in addition to the big tubs we used to get.  Oh, and that I've learned a thing or three from the interweb thingy about nutrition as well.  I wonder if they think I'm crazy paying so much for real pastured butter?  On second thought, never mind that question

Act II

Today was my last day at my job.  I'll start going through things and packing up in order to head out to Oregon here shortly.  Kind of feels like Act II of my life is ahead of me.

In 1998 when I rolled into Aspen I never would have guessed I'd still be here today enjoying the simple, but satisfying work in a grocery store.  In many ways this job has been the perfect one for me here.  One of the biggest positives was the feeling of being part of the community by helping provide a nice environment for people to shop for their food.  Sounds kind of corny, but getting to know regular customers and people of the town in this way was pretty neat.  Even the seemingly morbid though of knowing at least 20 co-workers and customers who knew me by name that have passed away since I arrived is a feeling that cements my time to this place.  Lots and lots of memories in that store.  Lots of faces.

At 15 years, I was only 10th in the store for length of tenure.  So when I say it was like a family there, you know I'm not kidding.  And not being a big corporate company, I didn't feel like a small cog in a big wheel either.  I had a lot of autonomy and trust in my position there.  Also, there's the whole benefit of the medium manual labor entailed in a grocery store, lifting and putting away odd sized objects most days of the week.  Anyway, I'm just gushing over how much I enjoyed my job while here in Aspen.  I'm quite certain that if I had to endure the restaurant biz here I wouldn't have ended up staying nearly as long.

All of this isn't to say that I'm not slowly coming around to thinking about the next chapter of my life.  If I wind up in another grocery store somewhere down the line that will be fine (this is, after all, where I'd consider myself an expert now).  But I do think a job that will challenge me more mentally is probably in order (I do have an Aerospace Engineering degree after all!).  I LOVE to analyze things, so I need to take this into consideration also.  Ah, I'm just thinking out loud at this point. 

Probably sounds like a lot of gushing over a little job, but 15 positive years at one place is pretty cool.  I am, however, not going to miss those florescent lights and that damn Kenny G song you hear in every grocery store and elevator that is seemingly infinite in length.  I actually have a theory about Kenny G - I believe he only recorded 3 minutes of unique material and the rest of his music catalog is a perpetual repeat of that cacophony.  I can't be the only one to have come to this conclusion, eh?