Tommy Lundberg, an exercise researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Solna, Sweden, and the author of The Physiology of Resistance Training, says that strength training is far more important than most people realize.
“You get improved glucose control, especially if you have Type 2 diabetes,” he says. “You feel better —which is a very important effect, as it can reduce stress levels — and you typically get better sleep. As you age, it helps you function better so you can carry out your daily activities for a longer period of time. It also helps reduce your risk of falls.” https://www.newsmax.com/health/health-news/strength-training-resistance-longevity/2024/01/24/id/1150856/
Quote for Today – 05.24.24
“We’re not born with unlimited choices. We can’t be anything we want to be. We come into this world with a specific, individual destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it. Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”
Steven Pressfield
Still Not a Vegan?
On average, 86 percent of people surveyed for Statista’s Consumer Insights in 21 countries said that their diet contained meat – highlighting that despite the trend around meat substitutes and plant-based products, eating meat remains the norm almost everywhere in the world. To satisfy the world’s hunger for meat, 340 million tons of it were produced globally in 2021. Because meat consumption typically increases as countries grow wealthier, that number has been rising.
Eating Meat Is the Norm Almost Everywhere — https://www.statista.com/chart/24899/meat-consumption-by-country/
I had a vegan meal while posting this. Just sayin’.
Can Someone Please Explain This To Me?
Lessons I Wish I Had Learned From a Lifetime of Cooking #4
How to Use Chopsticks – the article https://thewoksoflife.com/how-to-use-chopsticks/
The video:
Lesson #4. You can always get better at something.
Back in my East Coast days I would take a bunch of guys into NY Chinatown for some authentic Chinese food. The restaurant was a classic hole in the wall, one of the places that didn’t cater to non-Chinese diners. All the menus were in Chinese and the family banquet style menus were posted near the ceiling on the wall. The group would get seated, tea was served, and I would point to the menu on the wall for our table. Sometimes I pointed to a menu I thought I had ordered in the past and the food was different from the last visit. Didn’t matter. It was all good.
My friends all got forks, spoons, and knives. The waiter would remove my silverware and return with a pair of chopsticks and one of those awkward soup spoons. I always had to ask for a fork and regular spoon because I was really bad at using chopsticks.
I still can’t use chopsticks very well. Too bad we didn’t have the internet or YouTube back then. At least I now have instructions and a video to watch.
Time to practice!
More Cranberries
Cranberry is associated with multiple health benefits, which are mostly attributed to its high content of (poly)phenols, particularly flavan-3-ols. However, clinical trials attempting to demonstrate these positive effects have yielded heterogeneous results, partly due to the high inter-individual variability associated with gut microbiota interaction with these molecules. In fact, several studies have demonstrated the ability of these molecules to modulate the gut microbiota in animal and in vitro models, but there is a scarcity of information in human subjects. In addition, it has been recently reported that cranberry also contains high concentrations of oligosaccharides, which could contribute to its bioactivity. Hence, the aim of this study was to fully characterize the (poly)phenolic and oligosaccharidic contents of a commercially available cranberry extract and evaluate its capacity to positively modulate the gut microbiota of 28 human subjects. After only four days, the (poly)phenols and oligosaccharides-rich cranberry extract, induced a strong bifidogenic effect, along with an increase in the abundance of several butyrate-producing bacteria, such as Clostridium and Anaerobutyricum. Plasmatic and fecal short-chain fatty acids profiles were also altered by the cranberry extract with a decrease in acetate ratio and an increase in butyrate ratio. Finally, to characterize the inter-individual variability, we stratified the participants according to the alterations observed in the fecal microbiota following supplementation. Interestingly, individuals having a microbiota characterized by the presence of Prevotella benefited from an increase in Faecalibacterium with the cranberry extract supplementation.
Short term supplementation with cranberry extract modulates gut microbiota in human and displays a bifidogenic effect — https://www.nature.com/articles/s41522-024-00493-w
The further I got into reading this study the more I realized it was way over my pay grade.
I’ll sumarize – eat more cranberries because they’re good for you.
My earlier post Cranberries was much easier to understand.
Lessons Learned From a Lifetime of Cooking #3
Technique matters. Note the parboiling then rinsing of the potatoes.
Not all potatoes are the same. Note the specific variety used.
Garlic. But of course.
My mind drifts back to the time I spent in Madrid, sitting outdoors at a cafe enjoying the evening, a glass of Spanish wine and potatoes.
Lesson #3. You can always get better at whatever dish you think you know how to cook. Even if it’s simple fried potatoes.
This video has over one million views. The house smells wonderful now.
The next time I make these potatoes I’ll cut back on the amount of olive oil.
Who Needs Shark Tank When You Have the USDA
Imagine a small business that makes hummus like these guys https://www.eatlittlesesame.com/pages/our-story
Now imagine the government tossing money at them.
The United States Department of Agriculture awarded Little Sesame $2.2 million to develop its business and support organic chickpea farmers. https://www.fastcompany.com/91090694/usda-little-sesame-organic-farming-grant-hummus-chickpea-biden-administration
This makes me want to become an organic chickpea farmer but I’m too old to switch careers now.
I also know nothing about farming.
Things That Make You Go Hmm…
Conflicts of interest for members of the US 2020 dietary guidelines advisory committee.
Hmm…
Thank you Dr. Farrago.
Papa, Why Don’t You Celebrate Your Half-Birthday?
Today is my half-birthday on The Road to 70. The question came from my 6.5 year old granddaughter on her 6.5 half-birthday. My initial response was totally adult, something about not celebrating half-birthdays the older you get. But the more I pondered the question the more the real answer should have been why not? So for the first time in a very long time I am celebrating my half-birthday today. No party, no cake, no presents. I’m simply basking in having created the life I wanted and still being around to write about it.
I don’t feel old. I know I’m old. I felt old a few years back when this happened:
And unlike some of my relatives, I grew up.
I knew I grew up when I stopped buying/collecting guitars. I finally cured myself of the proper number of guitars equation.
(I think this one is still in a guitar bag somewhere in the house, forgotten until I saw this picture.)
Two I released into the wild that somehow ended up in Owasso Oklahoma.
After a four year hiatus due to The Great Pandemic I rejoined the Y and got back to some serious resistance training. It didn’t take long to discover various muscle groups of mine that had stopped working. Absolutely no surprises here since I sit on my butt for hours on end, working, writing, reading. So to commemorate my half-birthday and to prevent other muscle groups from withering away I started a new age-friendly exercise. Rucking.
There’s no denying rucking is an efficient workout. The added weight on your back strengthens your legs and trunk, while simultaneously giving you a low-impact cardio session. These benefits increase when you add hills to the mix. Heading uphill with a pack pushes your VO2 max, while going downhill challenges your stability and eccentric muscle control, according to longevity expert Peter Attita.
I Rucked Every Day for a Month—Here’s What I Learned — https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/30-days-of-rucking/
It was a short ruck, with maybe 15 pounds in my backpack and my calves are telling me I need to do this more often.
My half-birthday happened to fall on the last day of the NBA regular season. Although I wrote “no presents” it would be awfully wonderful if the Thunder finished the season with the number one seed going into the playoffs.
If any of my relatives in Oklahoma happen to read this post you can tell Tiny Human #1 I celebrated my half-birthday this year. And for the curious who would like to see a current snap of the 6.5 year old, here you go.
garyskitchen.net 