Pain, Pain, Go Away!

The only real disagreement is whether supply [of STEM* workers] is two or three times larger than the demand. - USA Today Between mostly poor pay, variable benefits, instability (six layoffs in seven years) and lack of opportunities in engineering, and then living in a land of milk and honey in public accounting--where the Great Recession barely got my attention--I knew the "shortage of engineers" was a load of horse shit. Or as someone else described it, STEM was a lottery with a very expensive ticket. Perhaps I'm not alone here: a lot of low-carbers are scientific, analytical people who might have had trouble finding work in their fields.  Heaven knows I've had plenty of clues that there was a glut of engineers: taking a year to find an engineering job out of college, making less than the cashiers at King Soopers when I was temping as a mechanical engineer at Bechtel, and seeing few advertisements for positions. Changing industries and learning more about bu

My posts on fibromyalgia relief (which propose trying a paleo diet) have been getting a lot of traffic lately. I'm curious how it's been working out for people. Your results?

My refrigerator: Ox cheek and homemade mushroom soup in the containers. Bacon and liver sausage in the meat drawer.  My freezer: Black angus beef. My pantry: Note the coffee, jalapeno peppers and full-fat coconut milk--so-called "trigger foods" for acid reflux, which I had until I started a low-carb diet.  My medicine cabinet: All the medicine I own, aside from some Neosporin. I just threw out a bunch of decongestants and Pepto Bismal that expired years ago. The aspirin shown expired nearly two years ago. The toothpaste is for a cavity that started forming last year when I was stressed out and wasn't taking extra-good care of myself. 

It looks like Reason magazine has been reading about my diet...or maybe just studies showing no associations between red meat and mortality, saturated fat and heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease, or salt consumption and disease. Summarizing published research from the past few years, the article calls the government's dietary advice of the past forty years a fiasco of misinformation,  even noting there's a positive association between a low-sodium diet and death. It adds that the US government's Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has dropped their long crusade against cholesterol. The article explains, Observational studies [which the government relied on] may be good at developing hypotheses, but they are mostly not a good basis for making behavioral recommendations and imposing regulations. It's refreshing for the mainstream media to recognize that mainstream dietary advice hasn't been working instead of parroting the same misinformation. T

There might be nine inches of snow at my house, but yesterday was time to start gardening. Plants are expensive and it pays to start your own from seed. I've heard of people who spend an absurd amount of money to grow a garden . This isn't one of those guides. If you have some basic gardening equipment and a place outside to grow plants, you can start growing herbs and vegetables from seed for well under $100. You can re-use the most expensive equipment (a hanging fluorescent light). Before you buy anything, though, assess your situation and make a plan. If you have a sunny porch or yard and you're willing and able to frequently tend to some plants, you can make this happen. If this is the case, first, look up your average last frost date and length of growing season (click here if you're in the US). When I plug in my location, it tells me my average last frost date is May 17 and my growing season is 132 days long. With that information, I can see what I can grow he

From a press release sent by the Institute for Justice : Last week, the North Carolina Board of Dietetics/Nutrition voted to adopt new guidelines allowing people to give ordinary diet advice without a government license, thus settling a May 2012 First Amendment lawsuit filed by diabetic blogger Steve Cooksey of Stanley, N.C.... “Last week’s board vote recognizes that North Carolinians do not need the government’s permission to give someone ordinary advice,” said Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Jeff Rowes, who represented Cooksey in his lawsuit. “North Carolina cannot require someone like Steve to be a state-licensed dietitian any more than it could require Dear Abby to be a state-licensed psychologist. More at Reason.com .

A few weeks ago, I started using a moisturizer with super hyaluronic acid to heal my chapped lips. I used it along with Carmex. In two weeks, they were healed. Now, after three and a half weeks' use, they're as soft as they've ever been. During the first two weeks, I used the two products several times a day (even though the HLA stings a little on broken skin). Last weekend, two of my fingers got chapped from using a carpet stain remover without gloves. The sores were small, but surprisingly painful--so much so that I couldn't stand to run water over them. I tried HLA and Carmex, and they were healed (but still tender) in two days. Reading up on HLA, it looks like it's a natural substance that humans and other animals produce, but less so with age. It's a polymer that helps with joint and eye health, and healing. It's degraded by ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and iron. If you're using HLA topically, made sure you're not using it with a  moisturizer