I took these pictures a few years ago at the height of my “tea phase”. I had a few loose-leaf teas, and I was finding that tea strainers were unreliable: they leaked tea leaves, were too easy to overpack, and eventually broke after a few dozen uses. I set out to roll my own tea bags. (more…)
For about a week and a half now, I’ve been taking a multivitamin every day. And since then, I’ve started to feel like my mood has improved. I seem to be less morose, and less defensive, and a bit more confident. I feel better, not in any physical way, but in a more not-identifiable overall general way. I think have a little more energy than normal.
[From BoingBoing] This site from caffeine-addict blog Energy Fiend will calculate how much of any of your favorite energy delivery products you would need to drink in a day in order to die from caffeine overdose.
For example, I know that 75 and a half cans of Rockstar is my limit. Likewise, 166 and a half bottles of Coke Blak will do me in. However, I can drink 7-Up to my heart’s content.
[Link]
A Canadian guy who goes online only by the name Angryman has, in the spirit of so many Internet-enhanced amateur research projects since Strawberry Pop Tart Blow Torch, begun a personal experiment to eat nothing but monkey chow for as long as he can stand, and see what happens.
His stated motives are fairly uninspiring: laziness, complacency, basically not wanting to deal with the onerous tasks of selecting food, cooking food, and cleaning up after cooking and eating food. On the other hand, his promise of “less than $1 a meal” seems at once cheapskatey, yet fundamentally economical.
But one redeeming line of thought he makes is this: Do we, in fact, have any biological need to have the extent of food variety that we have? If our closest animal-kingdom cousins are expected to be fully healthy on a steady diet of pellets, why can’t we?
Food, at least for Americans, is very emotional and psychological. For the average American, the question “what do you want to eat” is answered by the tongue and the brain, and influenced by habits and cravings, instead of being answered by the stomach and the body, influenced by actual dietary needs.
Some infant nutrition experts, such as pediatrician Clara Davis in the 1940s, advise parents to let young children pick their own food, because they are reacting purely on physiological responses. If their body has enough vitamin C but needs protein, for example, they will likely go for the peanut butter but maybe not so much for the orange juice.
R told me once that Europeans have a more pragmatic attitude towards food, where food is seen more as an energy source rather than a form of entertainment. Most animals don’t have a widely varied set of food sources; they may have seasonal preferences, but mainly seek out a small set of food options. As an extreme case, the koala eats nothing but a single type of leaf, and barely even any water. One rumor has it that the military tried developing a perfect food sometime in the mid-1900s, trying to approach full nutrition with minimal waste.
All this puts the human or at least Western attitude towards food into question. What is the purpose of food? Have we added an additional purpose that provides no survival value? Is this a positive or negative purpose, i.e. do the emotional/psychological benefits outweigh the physiological and nutritional detriments?
Well, whether or not it is, monkey chow may not be the answer. Angryman’s results by Day 5 are not promising. As it turns out, the manufacturer of his new dietary intake has made it clear that their product is not intended for humans, though it’s anyone’s guess what the distinction is that makes it it is appropriate for a wide variety of other primates.
