I’m taking today and tomorrow off from blogging since it’s a long weekend and I’m running in and then recovering from the Blue Nose Marathon.
I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled ranting on Tuesday. Have a great weekend!
Remarkable Rhubarb
It’s just about rhubarb season and I’m so excited! I’ve already seen some at the farmers’ market but I’m going to hold off until I can get it for free from my parents garden.
Rhubarb is one of my favorite vegetables. I love the tartness. When I was a child I used to eat stalks straight from the garden. That might be a little too tart for most people though. Rhubarb is pretty versatile. It’s great in many desserts, especially paired with strawberries in a pie or crisp. Or make it into a chutney to be served with meat or crackers. One of my favourite rhubarb recipes (strawberry-rhubarb fool) comes from the LCBO. I like to make the strawberry-rhubarb part and either use it as in the recipe or mix it with yoghurt and granola for breakfast.
Rhubarb is a good source of calcium, vitamin C, and potassium. It also only contains 27 calories per cup!
Follow Friday: Grist
Grist is an environmental news source that also provides information about food and the interesting intersection between food and the environment. From information about GMO to farmers markets to how insects might feed the world, Grist has it all. You can also follow them on twitter @grist.
Book review: The Cure for Everything by @CaulfieldTim
I finally finished reading The Cure for Everything by Timothy Caulfield recently. I loved that it was an approachable read. Timothy’s writing style and self-revelations made it accessible to lay readers (even those without the slightest scientific inclination), entertaining for science geeks, and informative for all.
I was surprised to learn the importance of lifting heavy weights to fitness. I am also still reluctant to accept that stretching is unnecessary. I agree that stretching doesn’t prevent injuries and I don’t generally stretch pre-workout. However, I think that there are benefits to stretching after exercise or as exercise (e.g. yoga). When I first starting seriously exercising over 12 years ago I had major cramps in my calves due to lactic acid build-up from failing to stretch. Once I started adding a few stretches into my routine the pain went away. Plus, if you want to be remotely flexible, I’m not sure how you’re going to achieve that without stretching. Anyway… this was really my only issue with the book.
It was refreshing to read a chapter on nutrition in which I couldn’t find anything to majorly disagree with. Personally, I don’t go in for calorie counting as I think more focus needs to be placed on developing a healthy relationship with food and finding pleasure in healthy choices. However, I can’t say that no one should calorie count and for some people it is a useful technique in weight management.
While reading the book I was feeling so smug that I believe in science. Then I got to the final chapters… I know that there can be major ethical conflicts with published research but somehow I had managed to push out of my mind how pervasive it can be. My smugness quickly vanished. I consoled myself with the knowledge that good science is still good but homeopathy is pretty much always a sham.
I recommend that everyone read this book. Health care professionals should read it as both a reminder and a source of information on other areas of the industry. Everyone else should read it to help them extract the truth from the many conflicting and misleading messages about health that are constantly inundating us through the media and friends.
The ethics of eating animals
The New York Times came out with a recent contest asking readers to tell them why eating meat is ethical. Not sure how I missed this when the contest came out (submissions were due in early April and apparently the winner has been announced although I haven’t seen any of the entries). My first reaction was “How could anyone argue that it’s ethical to eat meat?” As a sporadic meat eater I have no problem with eating meat but I didn’t see how it could possibly be construed as ethical. I decided to revisit the meaning of ethics. After reviewing a little Aristotle and checking out the definition of ethics I can now see how eating meat could be argued to be an ethical practice. If something is ethical because it serves to better mankind or increase happiness then certainly, for those who enjoy partaking, eating meat could be argued to be ethical. Eating meat betters me because it provides me with essential nutrients. Eating meat makes me happy because it tastes delicious. Of course, I think that vegetarians and vegans hold the higher moral ground here. But, as long as your morals don’t preclude killing other creatures then eating meat is not unethical.
After writing the above, I managed to find the winning entry here.
