Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Some people are still trotting out the old "Japanese are healthy because of their starchy diet" chestnut.  There are a lot of differences between Japanese and American diets and cultures. One I hadn't heard of until recently was annual physicals for Japanese citizens and ex-pats 30 and over living in Japan. The checkups are free--employers are required to provide them. Those without a regular employer can go through their city office. The results of these physicals are shared with your employer, who can tell you to shape up or ship out (or pass you over for promotions). With this in mind, many Japanese go on an annual "cleanse" to prepare for their physical. "They do things such as eliminating fried foods and alcohol, and pay close attention to getting more sleep, usually for a month or so beforehand," says ex-pat Jessica Korteman. A lot of Americans likewise make New Year's resolutions to diet and exercise--but we have a lot less skin in the

Awhile back, I was looking at the ADA website (American Diabetes Association) to see their carb recommendations. Oddly, I couldn't find any. No, I didn't imagine having seen dietary recommendations designed to keep diabetics sick and the organization's  medication and sugar sponsors in the clover--they changed their page in August 2017. Here's the old page  via the Wayback Machine from June 2017, recommending 45-60 grams of carbohydrate or even more per meal: Look at the list of junk food on their site from 2017: So how much carbohydrate do they say diabetics should eat? Figure it out yourself! The ADA is a bunch of narcissistic assholes for ever recommending that diabetics--people with a disease of carbohydrate intolerance--eat a baked potato, or a cup of pasta or cake or ice cream at every meal . Don't expect them to ever admit they were wrong. 

Fat Head Kids: Stuff About Diet and Health I Wish I Knew when I was Your Age by Tom Naughton. Written for older kids, but has information that will probably be new to a lot of adults. It uses a spaceship as a metaphor for the human body and programming as a metaphor for personal metabolism. Drs. William Davis, Richard Feinman, Ann Childers, John Briffa, Michael Eades, Andreas Eenfeldt, Michael Fox, Dwight Lundell, Robert Lustig and Eric Westman provide interviews through the movie. Love Paleo. This movie was released in 2015, but I hadn't heard about it until recently. Several people--including Dr. John Briffa, discuss the major health improvements they've seen on a paleo diet and why it works.  What's with Wheat? Regular readers already know that wheat in its current form is genetically very different from what it was a few decades ago. What they might not know is that monocrop agriculture  isn't good for the environment, that wheat has glyphos