Brittany in the Rain - Part 2

I'm (still) in Brittany and it's raining.  Well, at least that's the theme, part 2, but now I'm writing from an even rainier Paris.  Does ...it...ever...end?  Yet my memory lingers back to last week, and picking up where I left off in part 1, imagine being shuttled 35k north of Rennes to Parigne to the Chateau du Bois Guy, a tiny berg in the middle of nowhere.  Just key 48 26 20 latitude and 2 47 30 longitude into your GPS and you'll be there in no time, or at least what seems like a quick 18 hours.


The only reason anyone would want to go to Parigne is to visit the hotel/restaurant/conference center Chateau du Bois-Guy.  Upon entry, you will be smothered in champagne and guided to a non-descript room where your party will be subject to a performance of traditional Breton singing and dancing (the good part) and an otherwise forgettable meal (the bad part).  But it's a chateau and you're in France, so why complain?  Below is the main dish, tuna, and it looks a lot tastier in the photo than it turned out to be in real life.

 
One last stop in Rennes before heading westward to Josselin, a satisfying, leisurely lunch not far from the Place Saint-Anne in the city center, Cafe des Bains.  Two small dining rooms and a bar comprise this cosy Rennes find, with bathrooms fully equipped with showers, reinforcing the 'baths' motif in homage to a famous bathhouse from times of yore in the cafe's environs.






















Clicking on the menu to the right, you'll notice a few inexpensive menu options.  Co. and I splurged with the three-course 'trio' (entree, plat, dessert), along with a 1/2 bottle of Syrah red.  We split the sabayon de moules safrane and crostini de chevre a la confiture d'oignons et raisins entrees, both of which adequately did the job without anything spectacular.





For my main plate, I went with the rather pedestrian choice of emince de poulet 'a la plancha,' potato et chutney aux fruits de saison; Co. opted for the piece de boucher 'a la plancha' sauce au riz rouge ecrasee de pomme de terre.  Sorry for the blurry boucher.



For some reason, I didn't bother to photograph the desserts, which is too bad, because Co. is still talking about her craquissimo au caramel de beurre sale (+1€ supplement) - crunchy, smooth, savory, salty, sweet, all those good things you expect from a dessert that hits the spot.  Less to say about my cafe gourmand (+2€).  Total for two 'trio' menus, including the supplements and half pot of wine came to 46.70€.  The verdict is clear: if you are in the center of Rennes and looking for the near-perfect lunch without the gastronomic bells and whistles, then Cafe des Bains is the place.

To finish up the Breton excursion, 24 hours in Josselin, the quaint little town about 50k west of Rennes.  As this is Bretagne, it won't surprise you to learn that what Josselin has going for it is a castle, and the main thing our hotel - Hotel Restaurant du Chateau - had going for it was a view of the castle.


Given the rare one-night closing of our first choice for dinner, La Table d'O (see my previous entry), we weren't left with many choices, so the hotel restaurant was it.  Entering the nearly empty spacious room, we were informed that we couldn't be seated next to the windows looking out to the chateau because the tables were reserved, but no big deal.  (It was a bigger deal for the unassuming breakfast buffet, when the supposedly reserved tables again went unused. What's the deal with that?).  The dinner - the three-course menu of 26.90€ per person - was mediocre and not to be recommended.  I had the impression that the chef wanted to be special, but unfortunately had gone to the wrong restaurant school.  A couple of images below, nothing much to say.





It's not that the meal was bad, it just didn't hit any of the usual cylinders, and when you can't be flexible with a simple seating request, it just adds insult to injury.  Then again, there is that chateau, and there is something to be said about dining by castle light.  Total for dinner: 79.50€, no supplement for the castle.  And with that, dear reader, we bid adieu to rainy Brittany.

CHATEAU DU BOIS-GUY
Route de Melle F-35133 Parigne
tel: 02 99 97 34 50
website: www.bois-guy.fr

LE CAFE DE BAINS
36-38 rue St Georges
35000 Rennes
tel. 02 23 20 35 64
no website

HOTEL RESTAURANT DU CHATEAU
1, rue du General de Gaulle
56120 Josselin
tel: 02 97 22 20 11
website: www.hotel-chateau.com

Personal Styles, Learning Styles, And Politics

Not long ago, National Public Radio reported that 29% of the US population was considered to be on the left politically. That is interesting as about 28% of the population is abstract /random, a description that is related to personal style. The study of personal styles usually includes thinking styles and learning styles. The studies are designed to improve education, self-awareness, relationships, mental health, and productivity. There seems to be little research available on whether personal styles are related to political views, but the possibility is interesting. Personal styles reveal something about how we learn, think, and relate to the world. Knowing a little about personal styles is a useful thing.

Learning style is a description of how we receive, store, and use information. A simple, but useful, model for personal style was developed by Alexander Gregorc. His model uses two perceptual qualities, Abstract and Concrete, and two organizational methods, Sequential and Random (or nonlinear ). Gregorc couples these to form four possible style categories: concrete/sequential (CS), abstract/sequential (AS), abstract/random (AR), and concrete/random (CR). Although everyone has all four qualities, most people are predisposed toward one or two of them. A survey found that about 51% of the population prefers CS, 28% AR, 13 % CR, and 8% prefer AS. These refer to a person's dominant style. It is important to remember that everyone has some of each style and there is no "best style". Still, investigating personal styles can be fun and enlightening.

What's Your Style? A person's dominate style can be related to preferred occupations, satisfying hobbies, and even things they might find difficult. A simple, 15-question test can determine approximately a person's style. It takes about 10 minutes and is at this link if you are interested. (1) The learningweb site also has more detailed descriptions of each style. Please note that these are very approximate categories that may change with time and that they may be situational. A person may prefer one style at work and another for leisure, such as a surgeon who is CS at work may much prefer AR type activities for hobbies.

Learning Styles: Although a person's style changes with maturation, it is useful to consider that a student has a preferred learning style. Students with a CS style tend to prefer programmed instruction, workbooks, lab manuals, field trips, and applications while students with an AS style tend to prefer lectures, books, syllabi, and guided individual study. Students with a CR learning style prefer independent study, games, simulations, and problem solving, and students with an AR style usually prefer television, movies, assignments with reflection time, and group discussions. There have been some efforts made to match teaching styles to student's learning styles but it is impractical except in the largest of schools. Teachers are encouraged to be aware of the different learning styles and to use a variety of methods directed to each style. There is much more to know about personal learning styles and a good reference for that is thelearningweb.net.

Political Styles: Perhaps political discourse could be improved by a knowledge of preferred styles. The most polarizing divide in politics lately had been between Conservatives and Liberals. A 2009 Gallup Poll survey found that 40% of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. That's not quite the same as the breakdown in the personal styles categories, but the similarity is interesting. From considering personal styles, we know that CS and AR dominant people perceive and organize information differently, much as Conservatives and Liberals do. Rather than there being a big Liberal/Conservative divide, perhaps issues could be considered a personal style difference. Then, rather than calling each other elitists and ignoramuses, we could just say "That is certainly an abstract/random approach to the problem." or "My, aren't we being concrete/sequential today?"

Brittany in the Rain - Part 1

One of my favorite garage band songs is The Outcasts' "I'm in Pittsburgh and it's Raining", covered magnificently by The Vibes. Is there a more a propos song title to sum up a city than that one? I had that song going through my mind repeatedly during my recent sojourn in Brittany, otherwise known in France as Bretagne. Bretange is not exactly famous for its temperate weather, with its blustery winds and rains blowing in from the Atlantic, and this was my first visit there that truly lived down to expectations. What's that expression, if you don't like the weather, wait two minutes and it will change? That about sums it up for Bretagne - looking out my hotel window and seeing that the skies had cleared, by the time I made it out the door, it was pouring. Well, this isn't a meteorological blog, and weather or not, one has to eat. I hardly profess to be an expert on Breton cuisine, but if I had to wager, I would say that your best restaurant bet in that region is one of the thousands of creperies scattered from Fougeres in the far east to Brest in the far west. My recent visit only spanned from Rennes to Josselin and, not being a strong admirer of the simple crepe, I ventured elsewhere to sample the local cuisine. My aspirations were humble - no Michelin-starred venues for this trip. The closest Co. and I came to what promised to be an inspiring gastronomic experience, La Table d'O had a little sign on the door when we went to reserve that the restaurant was closed 'exceptionnellement' the Saturday evening we were in town.




Starting off solo in Rennes, I had a couple of addresses that I culled from Le Fooding, L'Arsouille and Le Cours Des Lices, but I opted for one that would require less walking in the rain and the possibility of ordering one of my favorite traditional French dishes, chaucroute de la mer, Le Galopin.





Entering Le Galopin, which had the look of a mid-level brasserie, I received a warm welcome from the owner and was promptly seated in a quiet part of the restaurant, but in full view of the evening's festivities. As the tables filled, I had the impression I was the only non-regular in the place, with the staff shuttling back and forth with handshakes, bottles of champagne, and fresh lobsters, slaughtered directly out of the restaurant's aquarium. Le Galopin appears to be something of a Rennes institution, which may say more about the other options in town than the quality of the brasserie's fare. The only way to get the chaucroute was to order the inexpensive 'menu voyage,' a 22€ bargain from which I also selected the poellee d'encornets entree and a slice of boring chocolate gateau for dessert.
The chauroute was pretty standard, consisting of a mound of sauerkraut topped by three pieces of fish, salmon, lotte, haddock, and plenty of salt, and I mean plenty. Following up on the bowl of salt accompanied by encornets entree, I whipped through my half bottle of Chinon rouge (13.50€) with room to spare. My verdict: if you want an excellent chaucroute de la mer, go to Bofinger's in Paris. The upsides: a pretty diverse range of menu options and the comfort of loners - by the meal's end, two other tables were occupied by a single male patron.

Next up for dinner was a group event at L'Amiral, an even closer walk from my hotel in Rennes' center.

 This one was dinner gratis, meaning I didn't get to select and I didn't get to pay.  More of a chic Art Deco interior than Le Galopin, L'Amiral, a traditional seafood restaurant was roomier and classier.  The croustillant de chèvre au miel et aux noix entree (11€) was terrific, despite the copious morsels of sausage that I had to shunt off to the side, not being a sausage eater myself.  This was followed by a not so shabby main plate of dorade grise grillée aux petits légumes, sauce beurre blanc and some sort of pineapple caramel concoction for dessert.  A satisfying meal overall, though not particularly gastronomically memorable. Photos of the dorade and dessert follow:







I think the message is clear - if you have to choose between Le Galopin and L'Amiral, go with the latter, unless you're a Le Galopin regular, which means you'll go there whatever I tell you.


LE GALOPIN   
21 av. Jean Janvier 35000 Rennes 
Tél.: 02 99 31 55 96

L'AMIRAL
2, Boulevard La Tour d'Auvergne, 35000 RENNES
Tél. 02 99 35 03 91





How to Choose the Right Decorating Style For Your Home

Choosing the right decorating style is important to making your home feel like your own. It can sometimes be difficult to figure out what your style is, but there are clues you can use to help yourself figure it out. What stores do you shop at? What magazines do you read? Asking yourself these questions will help you get a glimpse at your individual sense of style. You can learn even more about your style preferences by taking a good look at your own home. Similar trends or even items that tend to repeat themselves in your home are a clear indication of your style preference. Like a certain room best? This is probably a good indication that that room possesses the kind of style that most appeals to you.

Sometimes items that look the most out of place can offer the best clues. Do you have a piece of furniture that doesn't match the room it's in, but you absolutely love it? This might be a sign that that piece has the kind of style you love, but you might have been afraid to go in that style direction for an entire room or your entire home. There are lots of clues to what your real style preference is, and if you keep your eye out, you'll know how you should be decorating in no time.

Before deciding on a decorating style, consider the style of your dwelling itself. While this doesn't have to completely determine the way you decorate, it does play a role. If you live in a modern high rise, a country look might not be for you, though that might look great in a small brick house. Multiple styles will often work, but there may be one or two that may not. On the other hand, choosing a completely opposite style could work in some cases if you're willing to be bold.

Retro Style
Bright colors, vintage appliances, the Jacobsen Egg Chair- sound appealing? If these things are what excite you, retro style may very well be for you. Decorating in retro style enables freedom of expression and the ability to combine dissimilar pieces in a way that comes together in your home. If you enjoy scavenging for 1950's vintage items and pieces that come with stories, retro decorating is for you.

Some well known pieces that coordinate well with retro style are mid-century modern classics like the Ball Chair and the Egg Chair. To illustrate this style in your home, you may also want to look for tables and chairs in bright colors, vintage appliances, and accessories like a mid-century rug or a George Nelson clock. Varied colors and textures will complete the look and have you on your way to a retro style home.

Traditional Style
Traditional remains one of the most popular decorating styles. This style has a familiar feeling and appeals to most age groups. Traditional style homes often feature decorative trim and detailing like crown molding and patterned fabrics. These homes are accessorized but not over the top, remaining pleasantly predictable and without any wild accents.

To decorate your home in traditional style you'll want to start with jewel toned walls. Remember the emphasis is on comfort, and to achieve a look of understated elegance. Wallpaper can be used to add life to your walls, and its patterns should complement your fabric choices. Use varied textures and fabrics, but keep your overall look consistent- do not try to mesh too many different style groups. Choose lamps with ivory or white shades in the living room and a four posted bed in the bedroom, and you'll be on your way to a stunning exhibit of traditional style.

Country Style
If you like things that are homemade, or look that way, you should consider decorating your home in a country style. Homes with country style décor have a rustic feeling, with simple patterns and warm, cozy rooms. As with other styles, the best way to start to achieve a country home is to start with paint. This time, you'll want to paint your rooms with muted earthy colors. Accent this with splashes of classis blues, greens, and yellows. Use fabrics with plaid or floral prints and be sure to display your favorite handmade rugs and quilts.

A great way to accent country homes is with small accent pieces made of metal, particularly copper or pewter. If you're crafty, you should definitely consider this style for at least one room of your home, as it offers a great way to display handmade baskets, pottery, quilts, painting, and more. Open shelving is also a popular choice to display all these great items. When it comes to selecting furniture, choose antique pieces with few details and painted surfaces, like a great rocking chair or pine table.

Contemporary Style
Uncluttered and light filled is the simplest definition of what a contemporary space should look like. Add an open floor plan and you're on your way to contemporary heaven. Contemporary has become one of the most popular decorating styles, and it's easy to see why. To achieve a contemporary look, focus on creating an uncluttered open space with minimal furnishings. Clean lines are a must, so when choosing contemporary furniture look for simple, functional pieces. When it comes to colors, neutrals, blacks, and whites will help you to best create a contemporary space. A few bright accents will brighten up your space while keeping it cool, calm, and contemporary.

Perhaps the most important thing to consider when decorating in this style is that less is more. Choose recessed lighting when possible, and in larger rooms try a floor lamp with sleek, straight lines. To accent your space, choose pieces that combine glass and metal or stone, bringing together seemingly contrasting elements in creative ways. Wall art is a must in this decorating style, with black and white photography being an extremely popular choice.

Modern
Decorating in modern style intimidates some people because when done incorrectly sleek and streamlined can be misinterpreted as stark and cold. If you're willing to keep a careful eye, however, modern style can be an excellent choice for your space and is perhaps one of the most captivating design choices when done correctly. Like contemporary decorating, modern decorating works best in open spaces. Streamlined pieces with clean lines are also favored, but this time shy away from neutrals and use bold colors. The goal of modern decorating is to make a bold statement, while still creating an inviting space.

When choosing modern furniture look for neutral upholstery. Leather is a popular choice, as is low profile furniture with simple designs. Glass is a great choice for tables and accent pieces, adding a chic complement to your modern space. Wherever possible, choose the sleek look of stainless steel appliances. Be willing to take chances with bold style for a space that will be uniquely yours.

How to Tell What Style Your House Is

Pocahontas was chatting with her friend Captain John Smith, comparing her reed-covered hut with his sturdy log home. "Hey John," she asked, "What style is your house?"

"I'm not sure," Smith answered, "I think it's a Colonial."

Most American homes contain some elements of Architectural style; some are "pure" examples of style, but most have bits and pieces of different styles. The job of identifying a home's style is a little easier if you know a bit of history and look at a few key features including massing, roof shape, window size and placement, and detailing.

Colonial Homes

Most American Colonists were English, so most Colonial homes are derived from English styles. The earliest were based on old medieval homes, easily identified by simple massing, a few small windows, and massive chimneys. The New England saltbox with its lower back roofline is a common adaptation of the medieval style; Dutch Colonials have similar massing but are distinguished by their distinctive gambrel roof style.

Interest in English Colonial architecture grew tremendously with the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia in the early 20th century. A great many suburban homes of the 1930s and 1940s are based on the Colonial Williamsburg model and that influence continues today.

Georgian Colonial style is very common and has many variations. The best-known Georgian homes are of red brick, although wood siding is also common. Georgian homes are simply massed; usually have a centered front door; double-hung windows; and a gabled or hipped roof. Georgians range in decoration from the very plain to the very elaborate.

Revival and Eclectic Styles

Home designers and builders have been influenced by styles from earlier times throughout American history. In the 19th Century, many homes were based on classical models.

Greek Revival homes have very simple forms, often just a single rectangular block. Taking cues from Greek temples, builders added a front porch with massive columns, and a very heavy cornice line at the roof.

Italianate styled homes emphasize the vertical and are almost always very elaborately decorated. The cornice line at the roof of an Italianate is notable for wide overhangs and large scrollwork brackets, and the windows are often crowned with ornately carved headers.

Colonial Revivals aren't copies of original Colonials; rather they're liberal interpretations of all shapes and sizes, using Colonial details and elements for inspiration. The Colonial Revival style was extremely popular during the early 20th Century and almost always has a front porch, a detailed cornice line, double hung windows, and symmetrical massing. Many new homes that don't fit into other stylistic categories might be best classified as Colonial Revivals.

Tudor is a very free-form style. Typically they're very asymmetrical with very steeply pitched roofs. A wide variety of material is seen on the outside, although the best-known examples include some "half-timbering" - areas of stucco or brick broken up with wood timbers. The entry of a Tudor home is often modest but heavy, and windows are broken up with many small panes. Tudor style was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s and is seeing a comeback today.

Victorian Homes

"Victorian" refers to a group of styles popular in America during the late 19th century that was made possible in part by the invention of new framing techniques.

Queen Anne is the most common Victorian style and is characterized by an irregular shape, a steeply pitched roof, elaborately carved details, and large porch. Queen Annes are known for their multi-hued color schemes and complex siding and trim details.

Shingle style is uniquely American in origin, and was one of the first styles to be embraced by society Architects of the late 1800s. Shingle style homes are often similar in massing to the Queen Anne style, but as the name suggests, used wood shingle siding as exterior cladding. Shingle style homes make a point of avoiding elaborate exterior detailing and trim.

Early 20th Century

In the first half of the 20th century American Architects began developing new home styles instead of relying on classical and European models for inspiration.

Among the more notable American styles is Prairie, popularized by Frank Lloyd Wright but practiced in various forms throughout the country. Prairie homes are typically long and low with deep roof overhangs; windows are often grouped together. Porches are common and usually supported by massive columns. The Prairie style wasn't in fashion long but strongly influenced hundreds of thousand of "ranch" homes across the country.

Craftsman style began in California and quickly became the preferred style for small homes across the country until about 1930. Small Craftsman homes are usually called Bungalows and are characterized by low-pitched gabled roofs with wide overhangs. Details such as beams and brackets are very common. A Craftsman home has a "hand-crafted" look that continues throughout the interior.

Late 20th Century

After a period of little interest in "styled" homes, good design is making a comeback. Some older styles are popular again including Georgian Colonial and Craftsman, and a few new styles have been developed that are fashionable in many parts of the country.

Classifying a late 20th Century home can be difficult as they're often a mix of elements from different styles. But most homes have at least one strong feature that puts closer to one style than another. Find that dominant feature and you'll be on the right track to naming the style.


Fast Food and Calories

Here in the technology and information age, we have more knowledge and advancements than ever before in history. Sixty years ago, who would have ever thought that you could send an instant message over a phone, let alone take a picture with it? Sixty years ago, who would have thought we would be capable of sending a man to the moon, but fail the war on obesity and cancer?

Isn't it oddly shocking that America is so well-advanced in everything except health and fitness? While the fitness industry tells us to count calories and exercise for fat loss, we grow fatter and fatter as a nation.

Running parallel to the fitness industry is the fast food chains, doing their best to keep on the top of "healthy eating" trend. It seems the fast-food industry can tailor to anyone's dieting needs with "fat-free," "low-calorie," and "low-carb" menu items.

Today, fast food is considered a normal eating venture among the average person. People aren't just eating out on special occasions or weekends anymore; they are eating out all the time. But is it the calories in fast food that's so destructive to the body and waistline or does the problem lie deeper?

Fast Food and Obesity

Fast food is simply tasty, ready-cooked meals packed to go. Fast food has been around since the early 1900's, but its popularity sparked and grew in the 1940's with the birth of good ole' Mickey D's; quick food priced cheaply. Within a few years similar fast-food operations popped up everywhere in the blink of an eye.

With the compelling rise in fast-food restaurants since the 1940's, oddly, too, started the rise in obesity and cancer during that same time period. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math and link fast food to the obesity and cancer crisis.

Fast Food and its Nutritional Value

To say fast food has a "nutritional value" is an oxymoron. There is absolutely nothing nutritional about fast food. Fast food simply feeds hunger and/or your immediate craving. Fast food does not feed your body in the form of usable lasting energy or building materials, the essence your body thrives on for life itself.

Fast food is highly processed with a wide array of additives. The concept of fast food is obviously, food ready-to-eat and served quickly. To ensure fast food's low cost to the consumer, the fast food products are made with highly-processed ingredients to give it shelf-life, to hold consistency, and to enhance flavor. Fast food is altered from its original healthy form it was meant to nourish the body with, to a denatured form that lacks any nutritional value whatsoever.

According to Diana Schwarzbein, M.D., "The FDA Total Diet Study found that fast-food hamburgers, across the board, contained 113 different pesticide residues." So my question is why does the FDA want to regulate the sale of vitamins, minerals, and herbs that are actually beneficial for the body when there's a linking fast-food / cancer / obesity crisis on our hands?

Why Fast Food is Fattening and Dangerous

Wake up people. It's not the calories in fast food that's damaging to your health and waistline, it's the chemical additives such as aspartame and MSG (monosodium glutamate). These chemical additives are approved by the FDA and studies show that they lead to weight and disease issues.

Synthetic chemicals added to processed food, including fast food, damage your body's cells. Your body is made up of nutrients found in plants and animals you eat. Man-made food items loaded with pesticides, as well as aspartame, margarine, and other man-made chemicals do not nourish your body. If your body can't use what you put into it you will gain fat and decrease health.

Since we can't visually see what actually happens at the molecular level when we eat processed food, we discount it and rely on the FDA to do our thinking for us. After all, if its FDA approved, it MUST be okay to eat, right? Not at all.

Nutrients from the food we eat allow us to burn fat and be healthy. Your body cannot process synthetic chemicals. If a food item can't be processed, it will end up lodged in areas of your body, primarily fatty areas and tissues, creating an acidic pH.

A simple fast-food chicken breast can contain everything from modified corn starch to hydrolyzed corn gluten. Hello? Chicken comprised of corn? A fast-food chicken nugget is nearly 60% corn, and corn is what farmers use to fatten up cattle.

Michael Pollan, author of, The Omnivore's Dilemma says it perfectly - "How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalist to tell us where our food comes from?"

A good visual that Dr. Mark A. Gustafson found is that it takes fifty-one days to digest fast food chicken nuggets or French fries. FIFTY-ONE DAYS! Does that sound healthy? I could care less about the caloric, fat, or carbohydrate content. That's not the problem, people. The problem with fast food is that it's void of nutrients and loaded with chemicals not recognized by the body.

What's even more devastating is the book The Fast Food Diet written by Stephan Sinatra, M.D. This is a sad state when a doctor promotes eating chemically-altered food with addictive chemicals and damaged fats that scars the artery walls and contribute to total metabolic damage.

Eating Good and Avoiding the Hidden Dangers

Granted, calories do count to an extent, but what counts more is the quality of the calorie. If you want to lose fat then you have to change your eating habits. This doesn't mean opt for Healthy Choice® and Smart One's® frozen meals because they appear to be healthy. Food manufacturers use deceptive marking tactics to create an illusion to make people buy their product.

To lose fat and keep it off you should choose foods in their natural state, such as fresh organic cuts of meat, fresh organic fruits and vegetables, essential fats, and plenty of filtered water. It's vital that you go back to the basics.

Make eating fresh and organic food choices the bulk of your diet. If you do that, you will never have to count calories again. The quality of food outweighs the quantity every time.

The Best Food

Everyone eats so everyone has an opinion about food. But if health is the objective, mere opinion doesn't count nor does fad or majority rule.

Most people think the average cooked diet based upon official food pyramids is just fine. Some eat predominantly fast food. Others advocate veganism (eating only plant foods), or lacto-ova vegetarianism (plants plus milk and eggs). There are also proponents of special foods such as fresh juices, soybean products and macrobiotic cooked grains and rice.

Everyone can make arguments on behalf of their beliefs. They can cite examples of people who have escaped disease and lived long. Some argue morality and ethics, such as those who say sentient animal life should not be sacrificed for food. Others set their eating practices by the standards of holy writ that eschew certain forms of foods and sanctify others. Others just eat what tastes good and that's logic enough for them.

Eating beliefs seem to take on an almost religious character. People feel guarded and pretty zealous about food and don't like others meddling. But since health is intimately linked to what we take into our mouths, thinking, honest reflection and willingness to change are in order.

It is easy to be deceived because wrong food choices may not manifest their full impact until late in life. Nutrition can even pass through genetically to affect later generations. In this regard, food ideas are also like religion in that hundreds of different sects can each claim to have the truth. But none of them needs to fear disproof since adjudication will not occur until everyone is dead and gone to the afterlife.

The body is extremely adaptable and will attempt to survive on whatever it is given. If the food is incorrect there is usually no immediate harm. But the body will eventually be stressed beyond its ability to adapt, resulting in disease, degeneration and loss of vitality. Unfortunately, such consequences are so far removed in time from the eating regimen that caused them that few understand the relationship.

So be careful before subscribing to bold claims about what is or is not good to eat. The true test of any health idea lies too far out into the future. Our best hope then is to be well grounded philosophically before we slide our legs under the dinner table.

How do we develop a healthy eating philosophy and sort through all of the competing eating ideas? I am going to explain here a very simple principle that is so reasonable you need not even look for proofs. Follow along with me and see if you don't agree.

Consider the following three premises:

1. Just like a tree is genetically adapted to absorb certain nutrients from soil, and a lion is genetically adapted to thrive on prey, and a deer is genetically adapted to browse on vegetation, so too, are humans genetically adapted to certain kinds of food.

2. The majority of foods we are presently exposed to are a product of the Agricultural/Industrial Revolution and occupy a small part of the genetic history of humans. (Refer back to the 276-mile time-line in which only a few inches represent industrial-type eating practices.)

3. The natural, genetically adapted to food for humans must predate them. In other words, how could humans exist before the food they needed to survive existed? We were completely developed biologically prior to agriculture and any method of food processing. That means whatever diet archetypal humans ate was the perfect diet because that was the diet responsible for the existence and development of the incredibly complex human organism. That diet was the milieu, the environmental nutritional womb, if you will, from which we sprung.

If you consider these three premises, the logical conclusion derived from them is that the best food for humans is that food which they would be able to eat as is, as it is found in nature.

Our tissues were designed to be bathed in food nutrients derived from natural living foods, not with dyes, preservatives, synthetics, nutritiously barren starches and refined sugars and oils. Make no mistake; if we are not eating according to this principle, our bodies are in constant deficiency, imbalance and toxin exposure. The result of generations ignoring this principle is an epidemic of obesity, chronic degenerative diseases and the exhaustion of our digestive processes.

A feature of all natural food is that it is raw - alive if you will. This is consistent with the Law of Biogenesis that says life can only come from preexisting life. Life begets life. In spite of scientists' dreams to the contrary, we have never observed life springing from non-life, nor have we ever even been able to create life from non-life in a laboratory. If we eat living foods, we enhance our own life. If we eat dead, devitalized foods we become devitalized and dead. Granted, this will not happen all at once, but as the adaptive reserves are exhausted we become just like the dead food we eat.

So a fundamental feature of our natural diet was that it was raw. Yes, even the meats, organs, eggs and insects - raw. Remember, we're far back in time, even before the use of fire (much less the microwave, stove, oven, grill, deep fryer or extruder). Studies of the diets of past cultures and today's still-primitive societies reveals that they ate exactly as their genes and the environment dictated.

We were not suddenly dropped from outer space onto Earth with fry pans, matches and rotisseries. We began on the forest floor, not in a line to a fast food counter. We had only our natural bodies in a natural world, exactly like every other creature. Every other organism on Earth eats raw foods exactly like they are found in nature. Do you think nature doesn't notice our decision to change all that?

Would tofu qualify? No, because tofu is found nowhere in nature. Would oatmeal porridge qualify? No, because oatmeal porridge is found nowhere in nature. Would hamburgers, French fries, pop, breakfast cereals, granola, canned foods, candy, sports drinks, muscle building powders, vitamins and minerals, mashed potatoes, carrot cake, croissants, bagels, Jolly Ranchers, Ding Dongs, Cocoa Krispies, Good 'n Plentys or Fig Newtons qualify? No. None of these are found as such in nature.

For those of you who are by now panicking (if not gagging) at the thought of eating raw foods, yes, there is danger of food-borne pathogens. But if you are careful and clean, the danger is far less than the danger of a lifetime eating devitalized processed foods. Raw natural foods must be safe or our ancestors would have not survived and we would not exist!

It is a choice. When faced with a choice, why not opt for the wisdom of nature? Is it not strange we are the only creatures on the planet to cook our foods? Is it a wonder, given this, that we succumb with every imaginable chronic degenerative disease virtually unknown in creatures eating the raw natural diet?

Simply think of yourself placed in nature in the total absence of modern technology. Ask yourself the question, what would I eat... and what could I eat? You could eat and digest fruits, nuts, insects, a few plants, honey, worms, grubs, eggs, milk and animal flesh. These are about the only food substances in nature humans are capable of digesting without technological (including fire) intervention. These are, in fact, the very foods that are the mainstay of nomadic primitive societies. Only when these foods become scarce do unpalatable, inedible foods such as most grains and vegetables become cooked and processed to change their palatability, neutralize toxins and increase digestibility.

So that is where we have been. But does this have anything to do with us here today in the 21st century microwave age? It has everything to do with us because it is this expansive historical context that served as the womb that shaped and defined us. It is this natural wild setting that occupies the vast majority of our history and predominates our genetics. It is the incubator within which life on planet Earth has developed.

What would have been the predominant food in the wild? Likely prey. Envision yourself placed back in time in that setting with a family to feed. You would be looking for the most calorie- and nutrient-dense foods you could find. That would not be a few wheat seeds, some grass or a root. You would let the herbivores do all the grazing and digestion with their specialized stomachs that are capable of converting essentially any plant material into edible protein and fat. Then you would eat them. I don't like that either, but that is the way it is.

Pretty simple isn't it? We should eat what nature provides that we can digest. Yet this is not explained in nutrition textbooks, and PhD nutritionists graduate without even grasping it. It cuts through all the theory, belief, and guesswork. It matches our natural bodies with our natural food.

Our immersion in modern cookery and food processing has misled us. Foods such as granola, tofu, cauliflower and lettuce, which are marketed as the ultimate health foods, are in fact not natural human foods at all. These products either do not exist in nature, are so scarce as to never possibly be a sustaining food, or in their raw precooked form are unpalatable and even toxic.

For example, raw soybeans contain a variety of chemicals that can stunt growth and interfere with the body's digestive enzymes. Eat enough of them and you'll die. Modern grain products are a result of agriculture and in their raw form are unpalatable, indigestible and also toxic. In nature one would never find enough kernels of rice, wheat or barley to even make up a meal, even if they were edible in their raw form. (Sprouted seeds and grains are an exception to this since they are digestible, raw and nutritious.)

Who, if they were really, really hungry - and options were available - would eat raw broccoli, cauliflower or lettuce? These foods are only now made palatable by cooking or doctoring with manufactured dressings.

Now this creates somewhat of a dilemma. Knowing what our natural diet is and consuming it are two different things. We are so acclimated to the modern diet that the notion of eating raw meat, for example, is nauseating to most. Nevertheless, as evidenced by primitive (but nutritionally advanced) peoples, raw meat and organs can be eaten with great nutritional benefit to humans, and they are totally digestible and nontoxic. Some cultures even bury raw meats and let them rot (ferment) and then consume them with gusto. These societies are robustly healthy until modern foods encroach. Then, like a dirty bathtub ring, modern degenerative diseases decimate those people at the periphery in contact with modern foods.

It would be very difficult today to achieve the ideal raw, natural diet. But if the basic principle is kept in mind it helps remind us of our origins and points us to the appropriate, genetically adapted-to foods.

This does not mean no processed or cooked foods should be eaten. It simply means that consistently doing so will stress the body's genetic capabilities and will ultimately result in less than optimal health.

Look around the grocery store (usually the outside aisles) and consider what it is that could be eaten in its natural state. Increase the proportion of those foods. Processed foods should be chosen that compromise natural principles the least and are as close to nature as possible. They should be whole foods, packaged carefully to protect nutrient value and be free of synthetics, refined oils and sugars.

For example, whole milk yogurt that has not been homogenized or pasteurized is ideal. The same thing pasteurized would be next best. The same thing pasteurized and homogenized next. Worst would be non-fat, pasteurized, homogenized, artificially flavored and sugared yogurt (which is, of course, what the majority eat because it tastes most like what they are used to - candy).


 
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