What change in thinking are you referring to? The only change I’ve had has been a fundamental philosophical one over the past few years. When you sit back and realize just how little people know, and just how much you take for granted, it starts to really move you to experience things for yourself.

Nutrition is a great field where “taking things for granted” really kicks your ass. The FDA, at one time, was all “People’s diets should be 10% sugar!” Then the sugar lobby got a hold of them, and they amended their recommendation to 25%. 25% of your diet as sugar! Empirically, that amount will cause diabetes in most people by age 40. Thanks Big Bro! [needs citation]

So, if you can’t trust them, who can you trust? Seriously, it’s a fact that red meat is bad for you. A fucking fact, it leads directly to all kinds of things that kill you! But when is the first time you ever heard that from anyone? Hopefully you aren’t hearing it for the first time from me. I know i sound melodramatic when i say “meat is poison”, but i don’t know how else to wake people up than to try and at least shock them.

No one knows anything, JP. I can read as many blogs talking good or bad about the Master Cleanse as i like. Lay folk talk about it, MDs talk about it. Hell, i think the creator of it was an MD, so what good is all of this appeal to experts if the experts disagree? They don’t know!

Well, guess what, now i know because i did it. I no longer have to ask whether its a good or bad experience, whether i’m better off afterwards than i was before, or whether it’s quackery.

Here’s the weird thing, though: It can be good for me, and quackery for you.

As for debate and conflict, i really don’t see how there could be any, given everything i just said. You get your opinions about something you’ve never done, and i get my experiences about something i’ve just done. I mean, are you going to tell me that i don’t feel better? Are you going to tell me that i didn’t learn anything? Are you going to tell me that this is worse for me than my 7-day drinking benders, my 2-story funnels of IPA, or my year spent indoors, on my ass, working?

Important note, here. I haven’t finalized how i feel about the cleanse yet, but there will be a blog post coming that explains whether i advocate it or not, and for whom. That verdict is still out for me, but it is coming.

Yeah Nick, I am considering getting Cara set up to broadcast live from the kitchen while she cooks. We just went crazy grocery shopping, fresh off the fast and looking mostly at organic only foods/recipes. I think it would be fun to learn about the needs/best-practices of running a cooking show, right from the comfort of our home. I’m sure i’ll never look at a kitchen the same, after that (makes for informed decisions when deciding where to move to next, as well!)

Interesting facts about Paris, Omar. I think the ecocity movement is interesting, it’s all about reorganizing the city so you can literally walk to everything you ever need, a vast change from the way American cities are currently organized. It’s kind of ironic that we travel so much farther to and from work every day (so much more work done, from the physics definition), but so little of it is reflected in our physical bodies (because we choose to exert our wallets instead of our muscles.)

Hmmm!

To address your speculation of the French, in my experience, there are few fat people in Paris. It’s a long-running debate why obesity rates are so much lower there, and nobody really knows. They have a very active lifestyle; most Parisians, from what I understand, take the Metro to work on a daily basis. The couple of times I’ve done jobs in Paris, I spent between 30 minutes to an hour a day walking to and from Metro stations. That daily exercise makes a big difference. As for food, I found most portions were smaller. But while the portions are smaller, almost every meal (lunch and dinner) is soda/alcohol + cheese + meat + starch + desert. I rarely ate vegetables or had them offered to me. The Parisians tend to just eat a piece of bread or a pastry for breakfast. Mostly though, they eat what I think you would now consider crap.

http://camura.com/post/perma/58692
http://camura.com/post/perma/58688
http://camura.com/post/perma/58688

I dig your picture at the top of the blog, btw.

Looks like there a few veg-oriented shows on public tv and one low-rent internet tv channel. It might be cool to start an Atlanta-centric video cookbook channel. All you need is the right on-air talent!

http://www.delicioustv.com/
http://www.vegtv.com/