I like this. There’s a culture of transparency kinda bubbling about. Have you noticed? People seem to be wanting to acknowledge to the world where they’re going wrong, or veering toward pretentiousness, in a spirit of “we’re all in this together, aren’t we?”.
image via wickedhalo.tumblr.com
I quite love the “Shit xxx say” videos doing the traps. Mostly because they’re not cynical or cruel. They’re acknowledging. They seek, I think, to enroll us all in the same story: “Yeah, I know I’ve got a little caught up, and I’m a little affected…”
And the net result is to connect us further with our humanity.
Which, dammit, is all I really want from this life.
I also like that some companies are getting in on the act, not hiding behind the constructed messaging anymore. It’s a mild breath of fresh air. Canadian Yoga brand Lululemon made this pisstake of the painful stuff people-who-are-just-a-little-bit-too-intimate-with-their-own-hamstrings can say. Clever. Brave. It works.
The cynical among us could say brands and businesses don’t have a choice anymore. Everything is transparent, everything Google-able and exposable, and you might as well get in first and acknowledge your faults before your narky customers dig them up.
But Trendwatching recently flagged the new movement: Flawsome….where companies expose their flaws, in a humane way, creating an overall awesomeness.
They describe this leaning toward transparency thus:
Last week I chatted to David Gillespie about some of the food myths he debunks in his new book Big Fat Lies. Today we have a quick chat about why the “lies” continue. I reckon you’ll like this one.
image via Marina Giller
It’s easy to conclude from what David exposes in his book and in the podcast that there is a conspiracy going on. I prefer – and so does David – to be more moderate and get informed as to why the bodgy science got off the ground in the first place. And how it then formed the basis of most nutritional thinking in the Western world – everything from our food pyramid to taglines in infomercials.
It’s almost comical. But understandable. The world wanted answers when rates of heart disease suddenly soared in the 1950s. A President had a heart attack. All that was available at the time was a silly study on rabbits from 30 years earlier that everyone had dismissed at the time as proving nothing of any worth.
But everyone latched on to the faulty science. The lies kind of domino-ed from there.
David is careful to say “ignorance” and commercial reality is to blame. Perhaps. But a breakfast cereal company selling us sugary flakes with clever marketing is only one part of the problem.
The bigger problem, to my mind, is that some of the peak nutritional bodies here and in other parts of the Western world, and many of the doctors, “experts” and nutritionists who we trust to tell us the truth, are often actively peddling these lies – and in the face of conflicting evidence. What’s more…
Some of the more vocal and influential nutritionists are paid by breakfast cereal companies and the like.
And many of the peak bodies are funded by major soft drink and junk food companies.
I won’t draw conclusions for you. I’m not saying such funding (which is often necessary for some of these organisations to survive) results directly in vested outcomes. But it’s good to know the full picture, right? Sadly, we’re rarely given it.
Anyway. You make up your own mind…
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While you’re listening, you may like to check out these links. They highlight the various multinational sugar-based and low-fat companies that fund the major nutritional bodies in Australia and the US. As I say, make up your own mind…
Also, you might also be interested to read this article on how the sugar industry sugar industry muzzles journalists or those who speak out.
And here’s the original column from the Daily Mail on how much sugar there is in breakfast cereals. A quote from the article that I found pertinent: “It would take a very brave government to pick a fight with the corporations that have built such lucrative businesses on the back of our addiction to sugar.”
As I’ve commented before, there’s not going to be a major campaign any time soon to get us off sugar. It’s just not going to happen. We have to take the responsibility on ourselves.
Someone on twitter also sent me this one – a rundown of how PepsiCo do their spin, including this: “Hiring respected public health experts and medical doctors to represent the company, creating an illusion of having a health-oriented mission, instead of being driven by profit.” Sigh…
This was something I got asked on my I Quit Sugar forums a lot. I promised to get to the bottom of the conflicting information…Et voila!
coconut water green smoothie, via The Alkaline Sisters. Recipe below
In a coconut shell.
1. yes, there is in fact sugar in coconut water
All coconuts contain sugar. The levels depend on the type of coconut, and it’s age. Something to note though, even the coconuts with the higher levels of sugar still only contain around 2.95ml of sugar per 100ml, which is not a lot. As I’ve shared in my I Quit Sugar ebook, best to stay under 4.7ml of sugar per 100ml. Of course, a bottle of coconut water – which is how most of us get our coconut water – is generally about 300ml. So. In one bottle there can be up to 9g of sugar, which is 2.5-ish teaspoons.
2. yeah, but how much of that is fructose?
Well. Not so much. And this is what counts. A Brazilian study found the sugar content of an average baby coconut to be made up of:
glucose 50%, sucrose 35%, and fructose 15%
So fructose makes up a maximum of 32 per cent of the total sugars (remember: sucrose is 50/50 fructose and glucose), and often a lot less (depending on the age of the coconut).
All of which means when you look at that total sugar value on the label, it’s a little misleading. Unlike coke or fruit juice, where we know half (or more) of the sugar content is fructose, coconut water’s sugar content is mostly glucose (which is fine, metabolically speaking).
In it I chat, amongst other things, * how to navigate Easter * suggestions for morning tea, and snack times * fertility and quitting sugar, and how they work together, and I recommend Nat Kringoudis at The Pagoda Tree. * quitting sugar and the impact on exercise Streaming Live by Ustream I’d love to hear … Read more
You may remember David Gillespie from previous discussions such as Why Sugar is Really Grim For You. He’s the author of Sweet Poison and over the past 13 months since I quit sugar we’ve been in regular dialogue.
image via Bon Appetite
Sometimes we talk about the fact that much of what we know about sugar and fat is a big fat lie. Wonderfully, David has now published a book on this very point. Today we’re chatting about his new book Big Fat Lies: How the Diet Industry is Making You Sick, Fat & Poor. If you’ve been wondering, if sugar is bad and saturated fat is actually good, then why are we not been told as such, then this is your weekend read.
But curl up now with a nice buttery piece of toast and enjoy our “fact or fiction” rundown of some common nutritional advice we all get fed…
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The five myths we cover off are:
1. eating fat causes heart disease
(For a little more background on the bodgy science that tried to convince us of this myth, see my blog on Ancel Keys‘ fat study.)
This is a behaviour in myself I really wish wasn’t part of my makeup: friends call or drop in or write to ask if they can come stay and sometimes, not always, but way too often, I get…antsy. I feel they’re going to break my stride, stop me from achieving things.
Photo by Rachel de Joode
On the phone I’m too often distracted. When they drop in it takes me a good 15 minutes and some internal self-talk to be cool. And when I have someone coming to stay I have to talk myself down from a mild panic. This is partly borne from working for myself from home – my parameters are very loose and loved ones can forget that my lounge and kitchen is my office and that at 10am, when they want me to hang on the beach with them when they come visit, I’m meant to be at work.
I get irritated. I want the world to just go away in that moment.
I know not all of you work in the same manner, so you might not empathise. But maybe you do. Because you might find personal calls at work distracting. Or impromptu weekend drop-ins annoying when you’re in the middle of a project. Or when you’re stressed, visitors might tax your tolerance quotient. You issue impatient, “Yep, yep, yeps” as they talk.
If you do, you might find comfort in some ideas I came across.
Recently I read Trust the Process by Shaun McNiff, which is seriously a great book for anyone who gets writer’s block or struggles to access their creativity. He writes that
Picasso welcomed visitors to his studio because they recharged his creative energies.
It was these distractions that provided his inspiration for the day. His muses were people who popped by on that day.
Now. You might have noticed (and politely not commented): I’m am THE crappiest food photographer going around.
Cooking? I’m in my element. Dreaming up flavour combinations? Few can rival my boundless creativity (hyperbole alert). But I just seem to descend into an impatient numbskullness when it comes to capturing it in a pretty pic.
photo by Aran Goyoaga, Cannelle et Vanille
I’ve been meaning to ask a few friends of this site for a while to share their tricks. They most gracefully agreed to share theirs here with us all. And all of them are indeed graceful…their pictures speak more than my words can…
Aran Goyoaga, food stylist, writer + photographer
Her blog: Cannelle et Vanille, a basque-inspired mix of food, life, and photography.
Her story: a gorgeous Basque ex-pat living in the US since 1998. We connected online and share auto-immune love (Aran also has thyroid issues)…there’s a little community of us who’ve connected in this way and we plan to unite on a project one day, don’t we Aran!? Aran runs food styling workshops around the country and her first cookbook will be published later this year.
1. Lighting is everything. Shoot in natural light when possible. Find a bright space, but try to avoid direct sunlight as it casts harsh shadows on subject. If sun is right on top, diffuse the light with a diffuser, a sheer curtain or even a sheet of parchment paper taped to the window. Manipulate light using white or black foam board. White will reflect even more light into the subject and black will take away. Play with these elements until you find the bright/darkness balance that speaks to you and the mood you want to evoke.
photo by Aran Goyoaga, Cannelle et Vanille
2. Determine what the focus of your image will be. Then think about what depth of field suits this image that you want to create. You will have to think about the lens you want to use. Once I have determined the lens I will use, I examine the light available. I set my aperture and ISO according to the light. The aperture I select will also affect the depth of field so I take that into account. I always shoot in manual mode so I control all the settings and I shoot RAW.
Sunscreens confuse me. They’re full of toxins…should I bother with it at all? Zinc? (oooh, but the nano-particles?!)…You too? Good. I did some scouting, asked experts and here’s what I found…just in time for Australia Day!!
photo via bauhaus
A lot of the sunscreens out there do NOT protect us against harmful UV rays, plus they can contain chemicals that affect our hormones, damage our skin, and sometimes increase the risks of skin cancer. Oh, the tedious, messy, modern-life irony of it all! Today’s post is going to try to get to the bottom of the sunscreens that are purposeful AND harmless.
However, my advice, first and foremost, is:
don’t use sunscreen
Covering up with a hat and clothing, and not staying out in the sun too long, is the best tact. No chemicals, no “stuff” and far more economical. But also (and, yes, I know it goes against how we were raised)…
Getting sun, without sunscreen, is actually good. Better than good actually. Recent studies reveal that people who spend more time outdoors without getting sunburnt, actually decrease their risk of developing melanoma. The benefits of Vitamin D exposure (which can only be reaped without sunscreen) actually protect against many types of cancer; including breast, colon, endometrial, esophageal, ovarian, bladder, gallbladder, gastric, pancreatic, prostate, rectal, and renal cancers, as well as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Indeed, more people die of Vitamin D deficiency-based cancers than from melanoma. I’ve written about it previously here.
Get sun every day, but only for 20-40 minutes at a time and, if you’re in Australia, before 10am and after 5pm.
Just don’t get burnt. (In countries with less harsh sunlight, any time of day is fine for sun…and in fact advisable by many doctors these days.)
I get sun every day. BUT I never stay out sunbaking. AND I stay out of the sun in the middle of the day. I personally wear sunscreen ONLY if I’m outside longer than 20 minutes in the middle of the day…the sun here is just too strong. Plus, I generally find that by eating coconut oil – which has an SPF of four – this protects me. You can read more here. So. If you use sunscreen…
non-nano zinc oxide is best
Sunscreens come in two forms:
physical sunscreens, containing either zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, which form a film on top of the skin that reflects or scatters UV light.
These are your best option.
chemical sunscreens, which absorb UV rays before they can do damage.
The Environmental Protection Agency‘s graph below features chemical and physical sunscreen ingredients, as well as the type and amount of ray protection that they provide and their class. Note how zinc oxide fares.
don’t want zinc? what next?
If you’re going for a chemical sunscreen, you need to know this:
Happy respill everyone. I’m heading off to watch the disaster that is Australian politics unfold. Personally, I’m glad/not surprised it’s all happening. Truth must find its way out. It can only fester below the surface of consciousness so long before the pressure builds up. The boil must be lanced. And we are at a point, … Read more
So you’ve reached the end of eight weeks of sugar-free life. Here’s to a new, calm, life – free of sugar (!)
To that end, this week I’m giving away
five x premium memberships to Science of Stillness, each valued at $297
to help you kick off your new life.
image via maui yoga
Tom Cronin (who I met in Bondi a few years back) and Nick Broadhurst have created the Science of Stillness , an online personal transformation program that teaches you meditation.
My assistant Jo has been testing it out for the past few weeks and I asked her to share the gist:
Jo: I was keen to check out the Stillness Sessions as I’ve been wanting to try this meditation style for a while now. The Science of Stillness program is a seven module online video program. Once you’re logged in, you have a personalised dashboard, which you can edit and update, and use to search posts, comments, and the forums. Easy, clean to navigate. No angst!
