Food Freedom, Mask Mandates, COVID Strategy, and How I'm Doing (Labs)

The PRIME Act

Remember the panic buying and food shortages of 2020? When grocery store shelves were cleaned out and restaurants closed, I recommended a family farm that raised beef (previously bought by closed restaurants) to my coworkers. The PRIME Act has been re-introduced to help family farms like this. It was introduced in 2020 to remove the requirement for most livestock to be processed at a relatively small number of industrial-size slaughterhouses. Smaller, local "custom" slaughterhouses could be used instead for meat staying within the state and would eliminate the need for those animals to travel for hours in trailers. Custom slaughterhouses "must follow federal, state, and local health and safety guidelines and are periodically inspected for cleanliness and safety— similar to how restaurants are inspected," says the Institute for Justice. Critics say the PRIME Act would make the meat supply less safe, but similar laws already apply to poultry.

The Freedom to Breathe Act

Our Senator Braun has introduced a bill to "prohibit any federal official, including the President, from issuing mask mandates applying to domestic air travel, public transit systems, or primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools. The legislation would also prohibit air carriers, transit authorities, and educational institutions from refusing service to individuals who choose not to wear a mask.

COVID Strategy

What to do about the resurrection of masks, testing, isolation, etc.? Dr. Vinay Prasad recommends peaceful noncompliance: in other words, don't test. His video about this was on this blog's feed, but I've pasted it below in case you missed it. Oh--he's also remarked that masks, boosters and Paxlovid haven't been shown to be effective (for most people in the case of Paxlovid).

How I'm Doing

I've been working out twice a week for the past month or two, doing pretty well on diet, and I even lost a few pounds (along with looking and feeling like I gained some muscle). My labs were pretty good, though some measures fell short of Dr. Davis's high standards. Part of it could have been from losing weight, though I don't know if I lost enough to raise my triglycerides. I was also taking iron until recently--my ferritin level was in the normal range, but I'd started feeling hot when I took iron.

My free T4 was a little higher and TSH a little lower than last year, suggesting my strategy of taking more iodine is working. I'm taking 1,000 mcg, which is kind of a high dose. I need to start eating a Brazil nut a day again for the selenium.

Fish oil is something else I need to add every day. I hadn't been taking it because eating fat by itself used to upset my stomach. But now that I can take it, I need to remember to.

So there's nothing worrying going on and I'm in good shape for being 54: I'm within 10 pounds of what I weighed in high school, I take no medications, and, despite the name of this blog, I'm not in any pain. And I've never had COVID!

Comments

Winning! Read some good news!

The good news keeps on coming. After four years of the country being in the biggest mess that most of us have lived through, it feels like spring is here early. The cold wind is refreshing, the snow is sparkling, and the days are getting longer. Photo from Pixabay . If you're getting this post by email, click here to see embedded videos from X. Trump bans the chemical and surgical mutilation of children in the name of "gender affirming care." This is just an executive order, which the next president could overturn; we need Congress to pass a law. The CIA admits COVID was mostly likely a lab leak after all. "The CIA analysis supporting lab origin of COVID was completed and published internally during the Biden administration. It was withheld from the public by the Biden Administration in violation of the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which mandated release," said Richard H. Ebright on X. The CIA now says lab leak is the most likely explanation for COVID-19. R...

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too. Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...

Let's Grow Vegetables from Seed

MAHA may be a great idea, but what you do at your house is more important for your health than what's happening at the White House. Growing your own vegetables provides food that's fresher and tastes better than store-bought and helps you get some fresh air, sunshine and exercise. If you grow enough, you can even can your own sauces and soups that don't have any franken-food ingredients. My first time growing celery from seed. Here in central Indiana, it's time to plant celery from seed since the average last frost date is 10 weeks away. In a few weeks, it'll be time to plant tomatoes. There are a couple of ways to figure out when to start various seeds where you live: You can find out when it's time to plant things by 1) looking up your average last frost date, 2) getting a seed packet and looking at the instructions for starting the seeds indoors, and 3) counting backwards on a calendar by the number of weeks indicated. You could also ask Grok (X's AI fea...

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm...

This Just In: Yogurt Doesn't Improve Health

A recent study from Spain finds "In comparison with people that did not eat yogurt, those who ate this dairy product regularly did not display any significant improvement in their score on the physical component of quality of life, and although there was a slight improvement mentally, this was not statistically significant," states López-García. Most yogurt is pretty much pudding with a little bacteria . Pudding is a sugar bomb. Hard to believe the stuff doesn't improve health outcomes, isn't it? But as usual, researchers are calling for...more research. "For future research more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food."

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog