Study Suggest 'Food Monitors' Trigger Cravings

Day to Day, March 18, 2005 · NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on new scientific findings that suggest food cravings are the result of internal biological food monitors. Recent research in animals shows that this system sets off an alarm when certain key nutrients are missing from a meal.

Click the link and then the "listen" button to hear the story (4 mins) from NPR's website.

Basically, there's behavioral evidence that all kinds of animals can detect and respond to the presence (or absence, I guess) of certain amino acids in their diet, and now a mechanism for this detection has been located in yeast. It's speculated that the same (or a similar) mechanism is at work in animals.

This ties in to my post a few weeks ago about that vitamin deficiency website. According to the research, you don't develop cravings for vitamins/minerals that might be missing from your diet because there's no mechanism (hence scurvy, pellagra, etc.). That's why the vitamin deficiency website would be a helpful thing if it were accurate and easily navigable. On the other hand, according to this model you wouldn't need any such website or tool for amino acid deficiencies because you develop a craving for or gravitation toward foods that contain the amino acid you might be short on.

I was kind of surprised that this research was so new; to me it's an old idea, but I guess it was just a matter of working out the mechanism

Of course, you have to be able to differentiate these from cravings that are just about sugar/starch, fat, and boredom.

I guess what would be helpful now is to identify sources of amino acids that might be "rarer" than others (esp. in a vegetarian diet) so that e.g. if I develop a craving for something awful like a donut (which probably doesn't net you much in the way of amino acids anyway), I can look it up and say "Oh, donuts are a good source of the amino acid lardokine, so that must be what I need. I see here that boogers are also high in lardokine but I know they're not as deathly caloric as donuts, so I'll just have a booger instead."

It's possible that the new food pyramid website has something like that. It's actually pretty helpful if you have the time to look around a bit.
- posted by k @ 12:10 PM

 
Today's Friday Five

asks what my 5 favorite words are. How can I possibly answer that? I wouldn't know where to start (though Robin Williams' answers on The Actor's Studio come to mind...)
If you think you know what one of my favorite words is, please post in the comments section.

In other news, I was saddened to learn today that 8 oz. of carrot juice is 2 servings. What does that mean? It means that the whole bottle is 160 calories, not 80 calories, and that it contains 26g of sugar, not 13g of sugar. This is nothing-added, flash-pasteurized carrot juice. Is this as bad as orange juice? Well, I guess I'll be switching back to tomato juice or something. At least it's still not as bad as soda or pre-sweetened iced teas. I think.
- posted by k @ 2:16 PM

 
Silver linings

+ 3-bean salad at Albertson's deli. First of all, it was $2/lb, and I got maybe a cup, so guess how much I paid? Yes, $0.33. That's a deal on a side dish, my friend. Secondly, 3-bean salad is what, nutritionally? Yes, that's right: low fat, low starch, high fiber. Also, I like the way it tastes. The only danger is just how much sugar might be in it. Still, beats the hell out of potato salad.

+ Blair Proposes Islam Extremism Conference "LONDON - Prime Minister
Tony said Wednesday he was considering calling an international conference on how to eliminate Islamic extremism following the London suicide bombings, while Britain's Muslim leaders demanded a judicial inquiry into what motivated the four "homegrown" suicide bombers.
I thought we all knew that terrorists are motivated by hatred of our freedoms. What else is there to know?
...
"The proposed international conference, Blair said, would focus on the possibilities of taking "concerted action right across the world to try to root out this type extremist teaching," particularly in religious schools, known as madrassas."
I'm surprised no one has accused him of offering therapy to terrorists!

"...He said 26 countries had been attacked by al-Qaida and associated groups, "so there is obviously a huge well of support and understanding for the problems that we have faced in this country just recently."
What?? Working with other countries? Is he some kind of pinko nutjob? What a bizarre tactic! Wouldn't it just be easier to bomb Pakistan back to the Stone Age, or invade it or something?

Tony Blair met Tuesday with two dozen representatives of the Muslim community to discuss anti-terror legislation the government plans to introduce by year's end.
The Muslim leaders will be "able to talk to the Muslim community and confront this evil ideology, take it on and defeat it by the force of reason," the prime minister said.
Wait, all Muslims are not extremists? The Prime Minister is meeting with Muslims after a terror attack by Muslims? I don't understand!! It's like upside-down world!

Ok, maybe my comments aren't that funny. What I'm trying to say is, "Where are the country singers threatening to put boots up people's butts?"
- posted by k @ 4:02 PM

 
Well, the Montessori Nursery School didn't want me, anyway. At least they were courteous about notifying people.
- posted by k @ 8:49 PM

 
Things you might like to know:

1. I bought a bike this weekend.

2. I'm going to an interview for a part-time job at a Montessori nursery school in about an hour.

3. Last week I interviewed at an after-school program for an underserved public high school.

4. I'm officially registered for the Gay Games in Chicago (July 2006). I think I know a couple of people who want to do the 5K, so I might sign up to do that and train with them. It will be good to have a goal, regular exercise, and people to train with. I might also sign up for the Tae Kwon Do.

Ok, time to check my directions and change my shirt.
- posted by k @ 11:08 AM

 
Am I turning into my mother?

Well, here I am.

Sipping tea, waiting for my kitchen floor to dry, watching a Hindi movie (Fiza--thanks AZN!) on TV. My kitchen drawers have been emptied, cleaned, and lined and refilled in an orderly fashion, and my hall closet has been reorganized to the point where the door closes.

I have to say, that Hrithik Roshan is a handsome guy, even if he is a six-fingered freak. Very expressive, too, for a heartthrob.

Uh-oh, he's going to die. Don't do it, Fiza!
- posted by k @ 2:33 PM

 
You know, I thought I was done talking about yogurt, but I'm not.

It just steams my taters that these bastards, or the system, or the will of the underinformed people, or the busyness that invades our lives to the point where we don't have time to read labels--whatever it is, I hate that it can make yogurt into something unhealthy.

Yogurt is a healer. They have corrupted it.

It's just symptomatic of the overal sickness in the country that a lower-cost product is automatically less nutritious*. But putting HFCS in yogurt is just a crime. It's like dressing up babies in fishnets, though I guess we have that symptom too, if you look at the world of Jon Benet Ramsey and her pageants; even before she was killed, there was something f---ed up about the whole situation.

I'm sorry, but it just makes me mad (and sad)

*Cascade Fresh is only 60 cents. I can afford it! But it's not widely available.
- posted by k @ 4:46 PM

 
It really does make a difference:

I just ate a little cup of Lucerne (Safeway brand) low-fat pre-stirred strawberry yogurt. Not only did it taste bleh and have a distinct jello-like taste, but I think it has given me a headache.

Let's take a look:
Calories 240 (for a cup of yogurt??!!!)
Calories from fat 25 (not so bad)

Ingredients (are you ready?): Cultured pasteurized grade a fat free milk, grade A milk, strawberry base (high fructose corn syrup, sugar, strawberries, water, natural flavors, modified food stach, red 40) modified food starch, kosher gelatin.

We can only pray that kosher gelatin is also vegetarian. Did you notice how the first ingredient in the "strawberry base" was high fructose corn syrup aka DEATH?

Let's compare that with the Cascade Farms low-fat yogurt (they also have fat-free, but I'm trying to be fair).

Calories 140 (the nonfat is 110)
Calories from fat 18

INGREDIENTS: cultured grade A pasteurized nonfat milk (with active cultures), fruit juice concentrate (peach, pear, pineapple, and apple), fruit, natural fruit flavor and color, tapioca, pectin.

ahh, the relief. I guess I'll be buying my individual yogurt cups at Whole Foods from now on.

Remember:
All yogurt cups are not equal. Always read labels!

May the force be with you.
- posted by k @ 4:35 PM

 
I have elected not to blog much today

because work is going to take a little more work today. Also, the Fri 5 question is pretty hard.
Have a good weekend!
- posted by k @ 1:55 PM

 
Correction:

The yogurt I liked so much at Whole Foods was Cascade Fresh, not Cascade Farms. I bought some more yesterday. I hope they get more widely distributed: no added sweeteners or stabiliziers, plenty of live and active cultures, low price. Not sure if it's organic, but Dannon certainly isn't.
- posted by k @ 10:22 AM

 
On the other hand...

I think there's a real difference between being non-productive at work and non-work activities that are important and restorative.

This guy, Todd Hodgkinson, has a book you may have heard of by now called How to be Idle. I'm going to paste some bits here from an interview he gave to Mother Jones magazine because I really strongly agree with them (please note, I have been heavy-handed with the virtual scissors, i.e. I encourage you to read the entire article for context, but these are the bits I wanted to emphasize). If you're interested, he was on Talk of the Nation recently, too. I have decided to butt-in my comments (in italics); I wasn't really there at the interview.

What would happen, Hodgkinson asks, if we did embraced, say, a four-day work week, or decided to work three hours of the day? One possibility is predicted by the idler’s golden rule: one creates in inverse proportion to the time one spends working. Hodgkinson spoke with Mother Jones from his seaside farm in Devon, England, after an afternoon spent puttering about the garden.

Mother Jones: We stay late at the office, we don’t take our vacation time, we neglect our families and our interests. Where did we go wrong?

Tom Hodgkinson: What seems extraordinary is that the richest countries in the world, in terms of economic output, are the ones where we work hardest. You would have thought that the end of all this innovation, technological advancement, and financial wizardry should be to create less work, not more of it. I think you have to put it down to, particularly in the case of America, Benjamin Franklin and the whole idea of a new attitude to money: “Time is money.” He invented that idea. Before that, time wasn’t money in the same way; in the medieval age it was regarded as sinful for money to be the object of your life.

Me: I think this is part of the paradox of Americans spending more time at work but being less productive than their counterparts in certain other countries. We spend time being uncomfortable and in unpleasant environments and somehow that justifies what we get paid, instead of having the reward being tied to productivity without mandatory amounts of time spent in the office. It's not true that if you spend 8 hours at work you will do 8 hours of work; [most] human beings aren't regularly able to sustain that sort of thing for more than a couple of hours at a time (then you can take a break, recharge/do something different, and go back to it). The hours you're spending at work not working and not taking care of yourself are wasted for you, your employer, and the country. I do think it's possible to do more than 2-3 hours of work in a day, though. The type of work and your relationship to it also makes a difference.

Tom Hodgkinson: ...If you look at the literature of the 19th century, you get things like Kafka and Dostoevsky, who basically write about feeling bored and alienated. That’s because we lost contact with the important things in life like work that you enjoy, or the garden, nature, your family and friends.

I realized I’d rather work hard for two or three hours in a day—which was the only real work I was doing—and then bobble about the rest of the time, in the park or whatever. I’ve found that there isn’t any correlation whatsoever between the hours put in and the quality of what comes out.

TH: For most of us, the opportunity to become creative is being squeezed at both ends. We think, “Well, I’ve been doing all that work, and now I’m going to reward myself by doing a lot of spending.” What would happen in the days before time was money and money and machines weren’t quite so dominant would be you’d have all this other time when you’d do what turned into hobbies. Little things like making clothes, baking bread, cooking, even useless things like bird-watching, sketching flowers, playing guitar in the home--that sort of time is gone. And the time we have? We’re so exhausted, we want to let ourselves get sucked in to the escape world of TV. I’m speaking from experience; I’m not above all this.

TH: Part of this individualism is you feel this pressure that you alone have to conquer the world, and if you don’t work all the hours God gives then you start feeling really guilty. If you can stop feeling guilty, then I think it’s easier to start doing what you want to do.
...
There are a lot of little tricks you can do to inject a bit more time into the day. Most important is limiting yourself to a 40 hour week, not working 50 hours or 60 or 70. It’s just crazy. It’s actually irresponsible to you and irresponsible to your family and friends. Why should your employer’s profits be more important than your own family? You’re not even going to get any of the profits—all you get is not losing your job. It’s a very negative system.

MJ: And idleness and hard work aren’t mutually exclusive; there's just a more balanced way of approaching hard work, right?

TH: Yes. And I had that approach right from the beginning. It wasn’t exactly the old “do nothing all day,” it was just that you appreciate the value of a good portion of doing nothing in your day—for your mental health, your physical health, your relationships, that sort of thing. But also you appreciate the importance of getting out of this wage-slavery thing, more or less, and try to look after yourself, and that’s the anarchist side of it. People say, “Aren’t you going backwards?” or “You’re a Luddite.” But I think it’s good to look at how people lived before, and then take the best bits of that culture and try to mix it in with your own.

Me: I guess there are only four other things I would add. 1)I do think that slogging away is sometimes important. For example, when I was writing my thesis, I would put in maybe 8 or 10 hours of work in a day with only minimal breaks for food, sleep, hygiene and fresh air (and towards the end, let me tell you that sleep and hygiene were below my normal standards--which are pretty high). But that's a sprint--a short burst of a lot of energy with a clear goal (deadline) in sight. You can't be sprinting all the time. The pace for long-distance has to be slower in order to be sustainable. Where I disagree with him is that I think that craftsmanship does take work and re-working and refinement: you might have the initial idea or inspiration for a song in a few minutes, but to bring that to fruition requires many hours of work. 2)I think it's important to spend some (but not all!!) time every day or every week doing something that's not really for you and that you may find unpleasant. It might be as noble as working at a soup kitchen (as long as you don't develop a hero/savior complex), as lowly as cleaning your bathroom (esp. if you share it--otherwise it's just for you), or as mundane as a mindless or irritating task in your workplace (even if you get paid for it). I think unpleasant tasks with little tangible payoff are important because they let you enjoy enjoyable things more, and you realize that there's an intrinsic reward in getting something done, even if you don't directly benefit from it, and also it can help you learn to have a good attitude about tasks, which you can then apply to pleasant tasks, so you can actually get more of those done. You gotta have some fiber in your diet. 3) Well, I think 2-3 hours is a low-end estimate. I think 8 hours at one stretch is too much, but maybe 4hrs-(break)-3hrs is doable. Again, it depends on the type of work (data entry, manual labor, writing a novel--all very different) and your relationship to it (you want to do it/you have to do it and in between) 4) I think his use of the term "idleness" is misleading because a lot of what he suggests, e.g. gardening, playing guitar, even walking or exercising, are active, and I think it's important to stay active. Neither he nor I seem to be advocating slothful idleness!

- posted by k @ 2:04 PM

 
This makes me feel a little better. I think.
Hey, at least I'm below average!

Report: Workers Lazing with Too Little Work
Morning Edition, July 12, 2005 · Whatever happened to 9-to-5? Well, a Web survey finds that the workday may Really be from 9 to 3 -- or 2... Seems the average employee wastes more than two hours a day at work. And that doesn't count lunch hour.
- posted by k @ 10:40 AM

 
My new favorite toy!

The weekly Piano Puzzler from NPR's Performance Today (PT).

"Ever play "name that tune"? Composer Bruce Adolphe (left) has added a PT twist to the game. Every Wednesday, he re-writes a popular melody in the style of a classical composer and challenges a listener -- teamed with host Fred Child -- to identify both."

I used to listen to PT all the time when my station was WNIU/WNIJ from DeKalb. KQED doesn't carry PT (or if they do it's at some undogly hour) but the classical station from Sacramento State just might. Anyway, I guess they started doing these puzzles in 2002 (I stopped listening in 1999) and there are over 90 in the archive! I know how I'm going to survive work this week (gotta keep something interesting in the ears, or else the data entry stops on account of boredom and distraction).

It's like a game that was designed just for me! Only I haven't been listening to as much classical music lately, so I'm a little rusty around the edges (in fact, the way I stumbled across the Piano Puzzler is because I was on PT's website today because I was in the mood for "classical"). Nevertheless, I fully intend to submit my name and hope they call me some time so I can play. Some of them are pretty tough--I can more often get the composer than the tune, but at least he seems to like showtunes, which works to my advantage.
- posted by k @ 11:42 AM

 
Today's Friday Five: I'll at least address it.

Here's a question you may interpret however you wish: name five most unpleasant awakenings you've experienced!

When I first read the question on Adam's blog and saw that his interpretation had to do with actual wakings-up, I kind of took exception. If the question were only about actual wakings-up, then I would have no answers to it at all, because by and large I consider waking up to be a good thing, especially when you consider the alternative. Even if I have been upset or ill the night before, I usually feel at least a little better in the morning, or at least able to slog on or take another crack at it. Even if the rest of my day is really crappy, there are usually a few moments when I wake up and there's still a chance for the day to go well. So, the only bad wakings-up I've had have been because they were too early or I hadn't gotten enough sleep. 9/11 was pretty bad--I heard the news on my clock radio first thing--but it was for everyone.

But that's not the only possible interpretation of the question. The other way of looking at it, is of course, in the sense of realizations or "rude awakenings." Hmmm. In general, it’s hard for me to designate any awakenings as negative because firmly believe that knowledge is power and when you realize something you are in someway empowered or freed or able to make better decisions. Although I think such awakenings can be pretty unpleasant when they happen, I think in the long run they can be very helpful. Sometimes they're not even that bad in the moment. I remember waking up one morning and realizing I didn't really believe in a god--it was just a relief to be clear about it (that was in high school. before you become upset, let me just say that my current spritual beliefs are very complicated). Similarly, coming out to myself was just a relief; I felt much lighter afterwards. Sometimes it's a struggle to integrate these insights, and sometimes they force you to re-think your belief system, which is really a hassle, but eventually I think you achieve a balance (or go crazy, either one). I guess a fair way for me to handle this would be to talk about some of the awakenings I'm currently struggling with/haven't integrated:

1. Mortality of yourself and everyone you know. You have a life, and then your car crashes, and you're dead. Boom! The end! Fini! There is no more you! WTF??? Supposedly this is something we all already knew, but I think at some point it hits you and you have to deal with it. For me it has become relevant recently because my co-worker's 20-year-old daughter (whom I had met 2 days before) died in a car crash a few weeks ago. How can you be 20 and dead? How can someone I just met not be a person anymore? Oh shit: that could happen to me! It's true, but it doesn't make any sense.

2. Your parents are just people. They're fallible, they're human, they're mortal, and sometimes they act like children. If they can't always take care of themselves, how can they take care of you? (though somehow they did) Which leads to...

3. No one is really an adult. There's no moment when you cross the threshold and then you are suddenly endowed with all the confidence and background information you need and you are able to act completely rationally. You will always be faking it and making a best guess. I would have believed that I just haven't crossed the threshold yet, but H. says you never do, and I have started to notice other "adults" doing just what I would do, when I hoped they would have had a better answer. To reassure all you young'uns out there, I will say that while there (apparently--ask me again in 10 years) is no clear line of demarcation, there is adulthood by degrees. There are developmental issues you struggle with and then resolve (sort of like Erikson's idea), and the longer you are around, the more you figure out what to do (i.e. the fewer novel situations you will be faced with, so you can have done most things at least once and know what you would do differently a second time) and the less things freak you out; part of that graduated attainment of adulthood is learning to roll with things. If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same;

4. You're implemented in meat. Ok, first, disclaimers: you don't have to believe this, but I do, and it's the result of a long, painstaking process to get a cohesive belief system for myself. I haven't done so yet, but I think it improves by degrees and I'm almost constantly refining it. So this is also not my final answer, but this is where I am right now and I have to work through it for myself. Ok, second, what does that mean? Um…well everything you think is you is dependent on, effectively, meat. Cells, organ systems, all of that. If anything goes wrong with those things, something goes wrong with you. You may think you have a serious existential crisis, but really you only have a vitamin deficiency—or in other words, what’s the difference? This is counter to everything we like to believe about ourselves. I would like to do a blog post sometime about how I think humans are like/dislike animals, robots and angels(which I don’t believe in); sometimes we try to reduce our understanding to only how we are like one of these (i.e. emotional/deterministic??, rational/deterministic, spiritual, respectively) but we are sort of like (but not identical to) any of them, but somehow even our spiritual selves are subject to the vicissitudes of meat. Anyway, there is a longer discussion that I’m not going to go into here, but to sum: isn’t it bizarre and unnerving sometimes what difference a few days, or a meal, or a good night’s sleep can have on your entire outlook? Or how even the greatest thinkers, statesmen, philanthropists etc. can be brought down by simple viruses and bacteria?

5. Come to think of it, I guess I have recently had many smaller unpleasant awakenings that don’t necessarily lead to greater understanding, though in their defense I have to say that I still think it’s better to know so I can do things differently next time. Here’s a sample:
a) I’m outside my apartment and I realize my keys are not with me b) I realized that while in college I should have given a little more thought to post-graduation employment prospects; there were things I could have done (and considered doing!) that would have made this time easier. c) Not a realization, but a sinking feeling that those in power whom I disagree with politically are not always acting in what they sincerely think is the country’s (or state’s or whatever’s) best interest, but are cynically marketing their actions that way. If they really thought what they were doing was the right thing, that would be one thing. d) Shoot! Income tax is kind of a let-down. I believe in highways and schools and things, but damn, what happened to my paycheck? Likewise surcharges on my phone bill…. And so on and so forth.

Ok, I hope that wasn’t too much of a downer. I didn’t intend for it to be. If you were brought down by it or concerned about me, I encourage you to go back and read the part about how I think waking up is a good thing.

Woo-hoo, 5pm on Friday! Finally!
- posted by k @ 2:12 PM

 
Trader Joe's Vegan Pad Thai Bowl

I said I would talk about it, so I will. I had one for lunch on Tuesday, and it was the beginning of my descent into a week of less-than-optimal food choices. Basically, there were a lot of calories (and a lot of starch and refined fat) and not enough vegetables or flavor. It was fairly cheap and cooked quickly, but I would have to give it only a 2 out of 5 on the nutrition scale and a 2 out of 5 on the taste scale. So I won't be doing that again. There are some foods that are nutritionally lacking but spiritually pleasing; this wasn't one of them. Also the texture of the tofu was a little strange.

The same day, I bought a Trader Joe's Vegetarian Asian Rice Bowl ($1.99), which I haven't tried yet. After the other bowl I'm a little afraid. Nutritionally the rice bowl is less scary; I just hope it tastes good.

I have to say that in general I enjoy shopping at Trader Joe's (there's one right across from my work, so I often dash over and grab a salad...'n stuff), but I have a few gripes about it. One is produce: it's just weird and unnatural the way they do it. The other one is the total and complete lack of no-added-sugar yogurt cups. They have nonfat organic yogurt with lovely fruit flavors, but then you turn it over and read the label and it's like (I am not making this up) 160 calories. You know where those calories come from? Sugar. Death. It's true that dairy products have a certain amount of naturally occuring sugar (e.g. lactose, etc), but it's also true that Dannon Light & Fit yogurt is only 90 calories a cup (they use splenda or nutrasweet). The best compromise I have found was at Whole Foods. A brand called (I think) Cascade Farms has lowfat (or fat free?) individual yogurt cups in a variety of fruit flavors (including boysenberry!) that's only 110 calories. Additionally, they don't use an artificial sweetener; they just don't use a lot of the sweetener they do you use (cane juice or something). This is like the approach of Honest Tea, which I have to give a big thumbs up to. Anyway, not only does the Cascade Farms yogurt taste just fine, but it's only 70 cents a cup (Light & Fit is usually a dollar or $5 for 5 at Safeway), AND--are you ready?--they use pectin instead of gelatin. That's right, folks. Many non-fat yogurts use gelatin to stabilize them, and as we know, gelatin is usually not vegetarian.

So, to sum:
1. Trader Joe's: good. Pad Thai bowl: not good.
2. Yogurt: important. Cascade Farms Yogurt: good.
3. Honest Tea: very good!
4. Reading labels: Very important!

What are you having for lunch?
- posted by k @ 1:39 PM

 
Something completely different

I generally try to avoid controversial or political topics on this blog, but there was a very good editorial that I wanted to share with everybody (and later you can look forward to my review of Trader Joe's Vegan Pad Thai Bowl). What I like about it is that it starts from place of shared values and tries to show (with documentation) how those values extend to the position in question (this is in contrast to the type of editorials I don't like, which just basically say that the other side is stupid or evil) without just saying "well, there's no right answer."

Stephanie Coontz, the director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, is the author of "Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage." She wrote this editorial in today's New York Times (free log-in required):

The Heterosexual Revolution
THE last week has been tough for opponents of same-sex marriage. First Canadian and then Spanish legislators voted to legalize the practice, prompting American social conservatives to renew their call for a constitutional amendment banning such marriages here. James Dobson of the evangelical group Focus on the Family has warned that without that ban, marriage as we have known it for 5,000 years will be overturned.
My research on marriage and family life seldom leads me to agree with Dr. Dobson, much less to accuse him of understatement. But in this case, Dr. Dobson's warnings come 30 years too late. Traditional marriage, with its 5,000-year history, has already been upended. Gays and lesbians, however, didn't spearhead that revolution: heterosexuals did.
Heterosexuals were the upstarts who turned marriage into a voluntary love relationship rather than a mandatory economic and political institution. Heterosexuals were the ones who made procreation voluntary, so that some couples could choose childlessness, and who adopted assisted reproduction so that even couples who could not conceive could become parents. And heterosexuals subverted the long-standing rule that every marriage had to have a husband who played one role in the family and a wife who played a completely different one. Gays and lesbians simply looked at the revolution heterosexuals had wrought and noticed that with its new norms, marriage could work for them, too.
The first step down the road to gay and lesbian marriage took place 200 years ago, when Enlightenment thinkers raised the radical idea that parents and the state should not dictate who married whom, and when the American Revolution encouraged people to engage in "the pursuit of happiness," including marrying for love. Almost immediately, some thinkers, including Jeremy Bentham and the Marquis de Condorcet, began to argue that same-sex love should not be a crime.
-----------
Giving married women an independent legal existence did not destroy heterosexual marriage. And allowing husbands and wives to construct their marriages around reciprocal duties and negotiated roles - where a wife can choose to be the main breadwinner and a husband can stay home with the children- was an immense boon to many couples. But these changes in the definition and practice of marriage opened the door for gay and lesbian couples to argue that they were now equally qualified to participate in it.
Marriage has been in a constant state of evolution since the dawn of the Stone Age. In the process it has become more flexible, but also more optional. Many people may not like the direction these changes have taken in recent years. But it is simply magical thinking to believe that by banning gay and lesbian marriage, we will turn back the clock.
- posted by k @ 2:09 PM

 
Do you produce excess ear wax? Do you crave butter?
UK health Web site launches online diagnosis

LONDON (Reuters) - A Web site launched on Tuesday will allow people to read their bodies for clues as to their health and to consider possible help for any ailments.
Users of the online diagnostic tool -- www.mybodylanguage.co.uk -- face a range of questions such as "are you forgetful?," "do you crave butter?" and "have you lost your sense of humor?" from the cyber doctor.
Depending on the answer, patients are told the probable vitamin or mineral deficiency they may be suffering from, and what they should do to get rid of the symptoms.
"Body Language empowers the general public to have greater control over their own health and puts the emphasis on prevention rather than cure," one of the creators, biochemist Graham Cope, said in a statement.
Cope and co-creator Jim Campbell set up the free-to-users Web site to help people take steps to improve their health.
"We have developed the Body Language concept so that people can identify deficiencies and replenish them with healthy foodstuffs," said Cope.
Campbell, a forensic scientist, said many doctors use the same kind of thinking in their medical diagnosis as used by the Web site which gives detailed explanations as to causes and effects of health problems.

I had been hoping for a website like this! However, I hope this one will be refined and updated.

The basic idea is that the body gives little warning signs of nutrient deficiencies, which, if left uncorrected, could lead to serious problems. It has been my opinion for a growing number of months that my body has been giving me warning signs, but to my frustration I didn't know how to read them. Based on this website, I guess I need more Magnesium, Iron and Zinc and possibly B vitamins. Interestingly, I bought and started taking a multivitamin a few days ago, before I heard about this website. It would be a good idea to chart whether I see any changes in my "warning signs" after days and weeks of taking the vitamin, but I probably won't get around to it.

I have a couple of caveats about the Body Language website: 1. Although they are good about citing their sources, you might want to check out what the sources are. In some cases they are articles from peer-reviewed journals, but in other cases they are websites. 2. Some of the articles do not contain all the information you might like to find, such as how the "warning sign" relates to the nutrient and what foods contain the nutrient (though usually if you navigate the website or follow links you can find the latter information). In a few (maybe 2 of the 10 I read) cases the articles were complete enough to satisfy me. The other thing I think would be helpful (and fun!) is a quiz/questionnaire format, where you answer "yes/no" to each of the warning signs, and at the end your score informs you of your possible nutrient deficiencies, with links to more information. That way you could see trends more easily.

Again, the guys running this are a biochemist and a forensic scientist; they're not doctors, but then again they're not goat farmers.
- posted by k @ 10:22 AM

 
Much better escapism.

I have no idea what this is, but they're showing 5 episodes back-to-back on AZN TV (which I think I like--the station, that is). Anyway, I saw part of one, and I'm kind of sucked in now. It works out pretty well, because for the last couple of weeks I have been sitting at work thinking "Gee, I would like to see or read some sort of Japanese Sci-Fi/Fantasy of decent quality, but I don't know where to start."

Fushigi Yugi
- posted by k @ 5:29 PM

 
Reviewing the Reviews.

Well, today for no reason I read/heard 5 different reviews of War of the Worlds. Yes, FIVE.
Three were on NPR, (David Edelstein on Fresh Air, Ken Turan on Morning Edition, and Bob Mondello on All Things Considered) then Mick LaSalle of the Chronicle and finally, of course Roger Ebert. What's interesting is how different they all were. Only two really liked it, and they did so for different reasons. Two really didn't like it, and one was mixed on the low end. They do all comment on a few of the same aspects of the film (Spielberg's history with aliens, terrorism/modern fear&anxiety, special effects, Tom Cruise's abilty/lack of to emote) but react to their handling differently. But anyway, I found the range in opinions unusual.

I have to say, I am starting to see Heidi's point about Mick LaSalle. (He's her Bobby Flay.) I've seen him admit that he likes action movies but make a distinction between well-made action movies and "2Fast2Furious," and his reviews of non-action/horror movies are usually nuanced, but to be honest I think he just likes seeing things get blown up. I also notice that he seems to pass some significant films over to Ruthe Stein, who's like the embarrassing woman reviewer, and to the more discerning Carla Meyer, so that he can review cheap thrillers. What's that all about?

Roger Ebert's was interesting because he really didn't like it, and he's kind of known for finding some redeeming value in almost any movie. He was also a little disappointed with Howl's Moving Castle, but Idon'tcareIwanttoseeitanyway! !!! Anyway, do you think he's just having a hard time in his personal life and taking it out on the movies, or that he's been told by his editors to be meaner, or that his own tastes/need-to-be nice are shifting, or that recent movies have been so bad he can't find anything nice to say about them? Inquiring minds want to know. (plus I have a soft spot for Roger Ebert because he's a big ol' geek and he looks like an aging lesbian librarian.)

But I didn't really need to see 5 reviews to know that I don't think I would enjoy WotW. It sounds too scary. Mick LaSalle says it's first-class escapism, which might be nice, but why would you want to escape into two hours of fear, anxiety and shocks? Nevermind that I consider myself a fan of science fiction; what I consider to be science fiction doesn't involve a lot of chases and blowing things up.
- posted by k @ 1:56 PM