Minty Smoothie, Sana stuff, Yoga and Yogurt

Welcome to Monday!




After a busy day of work, linear regression (stats revision) and Vinyasa Flow from Yogadownload, I've got a moment to relax, blog and down a post-yoga smoothie. It's a little bit green.

Greenie

Good afternoon from chilly Christchurch, where I've been working on an assignment for my graduate diploma in Nutritional Science and pondering this question: What, exactly, is the point of cats if they can't even keep the fire stoked when I am out?  Truly, philosophical thoughts are really my thing.

Yesterday, while browsing the shelves at a small organic shop (the type where people let their kids loose to feast on the produce in a manner that would make the NZFSA shudder), I saw a old friend - Blackstrap Molasses. 

Blackstrap Molasses is the by-product of sucrose production. It is basically the good stuff left over after the bad stuff (sugar) is extracted. Back in the dark ages when I started studying nutrition, Blackstrap Molasses was the schizz. We kept a bucket of it in the kitchen of my student flat and used it in everything. Over the years, I just kind of.. forgot about it. 

I've decided to become reacquainted. After all, it is a mineral fest, being particularly high in manganese, magnesium, copper, iron, calcium. It also has some B6. Not sure what to do with it, I drizzled some in my smoothie mix. 

What's in this green thing?

• A frozen banana
• Three scoops of Sana WPC (unflavoured). Vegans could use rice protein.
• Tsp dried barley greens - I'm trialing this as a future product for the webstore. 
• Tsp Blackstrap Molasses
• Pinch of sea salt with kelp
• Water

The greens and the molasses together gave it a bit more bitterness than I usually like, but it was also sweet and my brain was a bit confused, giving me conflicting 'Mmmm, I love it, bleh, I'm not sure about this' messages. Molasses certainly doesn't have the instant sugary appeal of maple or agave syrup, which may be why it has fallen by the wayside.

I intend to explore the use of molasses in baking and smoothies. I feel that the 'dark', slightly bitter taste of it might go well with a strong chocolate flavour, and you know I'm ready to run with that idea :D.  After scoffing my green, molasses fortified smoothie, I felt strangely energised for the whole morning. I'll have to try it a few more times before I make up my mind about whether it's a winner or not. It might be like Maca - when I first tried it I was unsure about the taste, but now I really like it. Tastebuds are completely trainable.

Studycise

Today involved a lot of running around taking more pictures for my Photovoice project. I'm definitely in favour of combining two 'must do' activities (study+exercise) in this way. Today I was checking on a few community structures, such as parks, pools, churches and community centres.

I was glad to see that Risingholme Community Centre is still up.

Although there were indications of possible muntedness.

I was suprised that I hadn't noticed the state of the Opawa Community Church, which is just around the corner from my house:

And of course, the pool has some issues:

Luckily, while driving around, I got to see lots of this:

And, once I got back to my own little arena of peace, love and vege gardens:

I was fully ready for a banana/cacao/berry/maca/WPC extravaganza smoothie to get me set up for what looks like a long night of study.

My theory on smoothies is: If the straw doesn't stand up on its own, the smoothie is substandard.  It must be thick and tasty, or I am not interested.

About comments:  I've had to turn on comment moderation due to excessive spam comments. Also, if your idea of a comment is to say something non-specific like 'nice post' or 'I love your blog, check out mine', then this will probably be automatically deemed to be spam, even if it's not. Sorry, that's just how it has to be. I really hate advertising that masquerades as friendliness. There are a few things that piss me off consistently and that is one of them. It even pisses me off after a decent chunk of 85% Green and Blacks chocolate, and that's an indication of more than average badness.

Happy back? Check. Brain Food? Check

Today I have nil backpain and feel ready for an immediate return to more activity. It's a very dangerous state of mind. Today I caught myself bending down to feed the cats in a reckless, non knee-bending manner. Doing a hundred-thousand squats a day gets tedious, but on the flip-side, I will have a healthy back and firm buttocks. This speedy recovery also confirms my suspicion that the best thing to do for a disc rupture is.. nothing. Rest it. No rehab, no chiropractor, no deep massage. All of that is on the 'to-do' now, but for the last week, the list looked like this:

Back Health To-Do

1. As little as possible of everything

2. Particularly minimise anything that involves sitting or standing

3. If anything causes pain, don't do it, duh.

I think so often, the need to do something can override common sense. It's actually a bit like weightloss - sometime the best thing to do is just nothing. No special food, no tortourous exercise, no obsessing, no calorie cycling, planned cheats or low-carb days, just eat a bit less, move a bit more and let it happen. Sometimes I think we all try a bit too hard.

Today I am also making a stupendous effort to catch up on my Community Psychology (CP) paper, which involves a small mountain of reading. I have to read the textbook and relate the concepts therein to a stack of journal articles. At the moment I am resisting the content a bit because it leans heavily on the influence of society and the necessity to make changes at the policy/society level while de-emphasising the responsibility of the individual or the value of individual interventions. I tend to think that if you have a person, or small group that want/s to improve their life/lives, shouldn't resources be made available to those motivated people, rather than targeting an area, cultural group or a whole country, many of whom may not want to change/be healthier/develop cultural awareness/get educated?

As I remarked to a classmate, I fear my attitude is wildly un-CP. I need to mull it over more, while I slurp my cacao/maca/wpc/banana smoothie (see pic). I think the goals of CP (liberation and wellbeing) are great. I just don't know if society is ready to do what it takes to make that a reality for everyone - particularly as this would mean the few relinquishing the right to lord it over the many. Call me cynical, skeptical, having a grumpy day. Tomorrow will be better because.....

Tomorrow, the plumber comes to fix the hot-water cylinder! (wooooohoooooo!). We have had no hot water since Quake#2, exactly one month ago, therefore it is beyond exciting to be a fully restored member of 'those that bathe in their own bathroom'. I guess, in this instance, CP, I may exercise my right to feel ridiculously privileleged. Don't mind if I do.