Questions, pleading and greetings...

..from the slightly cranky zone. Haha, sorry for starting the post on a downer. I'm ok, really, but have done something to my dodgy hip, and am a bit gimpy. Very gimpy actually. 

I can't pinpoint exactly what I've done, but over the last week, a small niggle has expanded into an ankle to hip situation. Experimental jumping around confirms that this makes it worse, but yoga makes it better, so I'll be doing some of that later today. 

What else helps? Raw Fudge:

Getting the Crazies Out

It's exam week. That means, that although I feel like I don't have the time, it is more important than ever to eat right and exercise. Moving my bod helps get the crazies out of my head.

Sorry about the pic. I don't really exercise in the dark.  But, I only had time for one attempt at the self-timer, and there you have it. Today, study in hand (title of the paper: 'is exercise good for you?') I did a 'wave' session of 20 minutes.


What's that?

Souping It Up

C

This week has been intense, but I kept on it, and as we all know, if you keep doing, eventually it gets done and you have earned your right to watch Project Runway. I am still a little behind on emails, so if you are waiting, just hang in there and I'll catch up in the next few days.

On Wednesday I actually submitted an assignment at 2 a.m. in the morning and reflected on the days, years ago, when working until the early hours was almost an every day thing. Luckily, this time around it was just an exceptional few days; I have no idea how I used to do it.  Wait, I DO remember. I did it by being miserable and having no life. No wonder I gave that up.

Just call me Spence..

I know I promised you some pics from my cousin Asher's exhibition, but in all the excitement of going somewhere without my textbooks, I forgot my camera. For those on Facebook though, you can see some pics of his work here.  Also I swiped the above pic, which was my favourite exhibition painting, from Facebook. I had to crop it, apologies to the artist. I've probably changed its entire raison d'être. 

It's a very psychological piece of work, but I won't say too about that, in case that insight comes under the category of personal stuff that you tell your cousin over a few wines and don't expect to be blabbed to the world on her blog. :D I know when to hold it in, most of the time.

The lack of camera was probably a good thing, seeing as the mulled wine, Jamie Oliver recipe, was too delicious and required an intense, two-handed sip and sniff technique. I am definitely making that wine recipe, very, very soon.  Friday 1st of October looks good for that; that day marks the end of Semester 2 assignment deadlines.

That's a paper from the British Journal of Psychiatry. It's relaxing bedtime reading.

I'm writing two hefty assignments. One on the post traumatic stress issues that one might encounter after a natural disaster - for example, an earthquake (for some reason, I'm quite fascinated all things quaky, it's really hard to say why..), and one on Forensic Psychology: Risk Assessment. That one is a bit Criminal Minds.

I'm not sure that Forensic Psychology is something I want to pursue, but I've done my research, just in case. I've watched seasons one through six. I know that if I want to catch baddies, I'd better get a new wardrobe. :D 

Do you think CSI's and Behavioural Analysts really traipse around crime scenes in high-heels and white pants, contaminating the site with flyaway blowdried hair? I am a doubter. 

There's a lot of work to do, so I'd better get back to it. I'll leave you with some foody pics and a few others that I just found on the camera card. 

Razzy monitoring the progress of the pumpkin seeds drying

Lunch at Bully Hayes, Akaroa. Now that I've seen this pic, I intend to head back there ASAP. That was a great lunch.

Bully Hayes is right by the water. I need more of this outdoor ambiance in my life.

Last nights dinner - Roast vege quiche. It has mayo mixed in with the eggs - I had some that needed to be used up. The veges were sauteed with a bit of white wine vingear and salt. This gave the whole thing a more interesting flavour. Quiches can be a bit boring.

Kumara chips and mayo - lunch today.

The Programmer talking to some donkeys. I know.. cute+cute+cute. I can hardly handle it.

I hope you are having a great weekend! I'll be back with more ramblings and pics on Monday ;)

Cultured Eating

Hello, hello! How is your week going? Mine's been super productive. I decided that if I went to the effort of making a study schedule, then I'd might as well stick to it. What bought that on?  A B-minus. :-/  

To be fair, the marker did praise my writing style glowingly, then commented that I'd completely missed the point for half the essay and therefore, could be allocated no marks for that part. Again.. the grumpy face.. ;-/

Sometimes I realise that I  need to make more of an effort to discover the world outside my kitchen, photo-wise. Looking back through the last days pics reveals that The Programmer has enhanced our collection with fabulous images such as this:

and this:

My effort?

Sauerkraut.

Yes, I do think that Sanaworld needs a dose of cabbages - cavolo in Italian, not to be confused with cavallo (horse). You can see how that could cause an embarrassing restaurant moment for a tourist (or so I've heard... *cough*).

Fermented food is something that, apart from yogurt and alcohol, seems to be quite absent from modern diets. Fermentation is an ancient food 'processing' technique in which the action of endemic or added bacterial cultures renders a food more nutritious. The most often cited benefits are the presence of pro-biotic organisms, such as various species of Lactobacillus, and enhanced digestibility of dairy and grain products.

Those of you that follow this blog (all four of you.. helloooo *waves*) will know that if I'm going to eat bread, it will be a properly fermented sourdough. You can add this: if I'm going to eat cabbage, it will be as sauerkraut - otherwise I'm not a cabbage fan. I'm not 100% sure that the canned sauerkraut in the pic is fermented. This one was more correctly pickled in white wine. Making sauerkraut (which I have done in my tie-dyed skirt past) is time consuming, but worth it. I found a very complete explanation of how to do it here, on the Marks Daily Apple blog.

I've got to say, I have a love-hate with that blog. Sometimes he writes brilliant stuff and sometimes comes out with random posts that seem to defy science and make me squint sideways at my monitor.

Dinner last night was something I first discovered in a local Dutch cafe, run by real people from Holland. It's an organic, lean beef sausage in sourdough with sauerkraut. The traditional sausage is something more spicy, but we work with what we have.

If you are interested in delving further into the benefits of fermented grains, this post, from the Whole Health Source blog is well worth a read. It's kind of wordy and health nerdy, but you will feel much brainier after reading it. I was particularly interested in two aspects of the article: The first part was that fermentation reduces levels of grain lectins, which I have a theory about as regards arthritis (and other auto-immune conditions*). The second interesting point was that fermentation increases the content of certain amino acids in grains, making them a more complete protein.

Of particular interest is the increase in lysine, an essential amino acid which is deficient in most grain products. As any nutrition student knows, lack of one amino acid tends to decrease absorption of the ones that are present, which is why vegetarians should eat legumes with their rice. Cooking further increases the availability of proteins in fermented grains. I found this statement (tenth paragraph) really interesting, and I think an important thing for my vegan readers to know:

"Fermentation followed by cooking increases the digestibility of grain protein, bringing it nearly to the same level as meat"Stephan Guyenet, wholehealthsource.blogspot.com

So, now I am mad keen to try making a soaked, sprouted, fermented, cooked rye sourdough. Has anyone tried this? Does anyone want to join me in giving it a go? I'll see if I can dig up a reliable method.

______________________________________________________________________________

* In my case, I'm pretty convinced that my osteo-arthritis was an auto-immune problem. The reason is that it came on dramatically while I had Glandular Fever and went away completely after about six months on a very low-lectin diet.  I did a lot of research which led me to this conclusion, it's not just something I pulled out of my butt, but would take a lot of explaining and I'm not sure my biochemical knowledge is up to it yet. Anyway... that's why I say 'and other auto-immune conditions'.

Off road driving (?)

Today, after a session of 'detox' yoga - which seems to involve a lot of spinal twisting - I looked at my 'to do' list and decided to tackle the groceries and send the Sana orders first. To be honest, my assignment is not going very well. Due to a last minute chance discovery of a bunch of new, contradictory research, I must do a rewrite. You can tell I'm thrilled about it. On a positive note: I don't need to think too hard about what I'll be doing tomorrow (grins bravely).

I wonder how many people have been pushed into mental disorder by studying mental disorder? I'm sure there's a first time for everything.

Ok.. the shopping.

First, I had to uncover my car. It looked like... an igloo. It was a smooth, white lump in the driveway. Yes, we do have a garage, but it is currently our home gym. Priorities.

Then I had to get my car down the driveway without sliding in to the house on one side, the fence on the other side, or the gutter once I hit the road. Twice I found my wheels were spinning fruitlessly and had to get out the spade and dig out the snow that was piling up under the car. Once on the road, things were a little better, as there had been traffic already. However, when I stopped at the first set of lights there was a 'whump' and the snow that I'd been too lazy to clean off the top of the car slid down over the windscreen. This was incredibly amusing to pedestrians and fellow motorists. I had to get out and clear it off with the sleeve of my jacket. Brrrrr.

Today I was making a haul at the little organic shop and the organic butcher. Shopping there is just so much more relaxing. The thought of heading into the mosh pit of wet, frazzled supermarket shoppers just didn't float my boat at all. While browsing, I spied something that health bloggers everywhere seem to be crazy over, Coconut Water:

In order to be a joiner, I thought I'd give it a go. It does promise to provide 'extreme hydration' and you know I'm into adventure food. 

Verdict: Kind of weird. I do not like the way it smells but it tastes ok, in a bland, slightly sweet way. I thought it would be more coconut-y. I am impressed that it's in a glass bottle though - no hormone disrupting BPA's.

Ok, I'm just going to get a mega curry on the stove and then put my nose back in to that pile of research. Or maybe my essay has just sorted itself out while I've been doing essential stuff like blogging? I need one of those elves that do your work at night time. If I'd seen one in Austria I would have kidnapped it, for sure.

Zumba Therapy

Last night I was lying in bed having a little freak out about the coming exams that I haven't even started studying for and the two huge assignments that were both due yesterday (well, one was yesterday and one was last Monday, but let's not be picky...).

This morning, even though my brain was giving me the 'you don't have time for this' BS, I got my dance sneakers on and got into a 20 minute Zumba express. Half way through, I was sweating and grooving and suddenly felt a whole lot better.  Sometimes, the last thing I feel like doing is the very thing I have to do - exercise, dammit.  Move thy arse.  That little hit of endorphins is a much more efficient path to sanity than several hours of stressy planning and re-planning, fretting and stressing some more. I must remember this next time my head starts up with the negativity.

The Programmer and I had something cool to show each other today (er.. not that, dirty, dirty little minds...). I was excited to show him this amazing butter chicken curry from Pitango. There is nothing artificial in it and it's so cute how they put a 'contains chickens' sticker on there, just so that no vegans will get a nasty surprise.

It does have nightshades, so this was strictly a 'for him' dinner. Mine was.. even less photogenic than a bowl of curry.

Then The Programmer showed me his little purchase of the day:

Can't compete really. No more hanging all our clothes around the house, hoping they will dry by the end of the week. He wins.

Shoezies

Last nights Forrest Yoga session, from yogadownload.com, went surprisingly well. I stuck to the 'beginners' version of every asana, paying attention to how my back was responding and avoiding anything painful.  From my limited yoga experience, Forrest Yoga (named after the founder, Ana Forrest) is quite gentle with poses that you hold, rather that a more fast moving yoga like Vinyasa Power-Flow. Believe me, holding certain poses can present as much of a challenge as any other isometric exercise.

Today I started with a coffee date - always an excellent morning kick off. I am making an appearance at university next week and have to present my Photovoice to the class. It contains Māori words and, terrified of dropping a clanger of mispronounciation, I arranged a meeting with my friend Lis who studies Te Reo ('the language'). Thanks to her, I think I'll handle it. 

Then, caff'd up and set free in a shopping mall (wheeee!), it seemed the right time to get some winter shoezies. I found the perfect ones within my price range at 'Hush Puppies'. They were so cute, but unfortunately had some fit issues. I needed a half size, which they didn't have. So I compromised on the ones in the pic. They seemed super comfortable, but after half an hour started pinching in the little toe area on the left.  I think I can stretch them out. I've got a plan that involves hot water and a teatowel. Of course, the shoes I really wanted were at another shop and nearly $400. Maybe next week.... 

Then there was that assignment to finish....

In the end I just handed it over to my lucky lizard and he finished it for me. I hope it's good.

Dinner tonight is in the oven, but I'm going to talk about that tomorrow. It's a bit special and deserves a post of its own.  Yesterdays effort was fish and prawns in a turmeric cream sauce. Anything turmeric is fine by me.  Turmeric has native anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties through it's active ingredient curcumin (not to be confused with cumin, which is a different plant). Turmeric is also one of the few spices that has quite a weight of hard science behind its health claims.

I know.. the pasta plate again...  let's just say it's Italian revision with dinner on it. :D

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.

Photovoicing

Today, having fulfilled the task of getting Vanilla-y by helping mix WPC flavouring, I am scooting around taking pics for my Photovoice powerpoint which is currently running about 30 kinds of late. The university has, fortunately, been very accommodating toward students that have been quake affected. I'm also lucky in that my main campus is 'up North'. The local university is not even open yet and has been farming out their students to whomever can take them.

Me taking pics in Dunedin, 2009

I did take a break to go pick up some fab gear from Kiwistuff. I will be linking to their factory shop, which is currently their only local outlet,  from the Sana site. I hadn't thought much about the difficulties faced by manufacturers that sell through retail outlets. They have stock in damaged shops that has not been paid for, and that they can't get back. As the central city is still off-limits, even to business owners, nobody really knows the situation there and suppliers are well down the food-chain in terms of getting either information or compensation. Kiwistuff have done what seemed like the best option and turned part of their warehouse in Dalziel Place into an outlet shop. I was mooning over the cute kids gear (nothing quite as huggable as a little girl in a pink fleecy top), but my mission was warm tops:

I may lack modelling skills, but you'll have to believe me that it's the warmest thing ever and actually kind of cute, if I wasn't doing it so much injustice with my lack of posing.  Plus, new stuff is always good. Ps. FAUX fur cover on the couch, so don't be turning up with buckets of red paint. The kitties love it.

Well, seeing as you asked..

Today was about protein structure. Specifically, I had to turn my kitchen into a lab. It was a CSI to discover which fruits contain enzymes that murder proteins (proteases).

That was stage 1, in which suspicion has been cast on pineapple and, perhaps, kiwifruit. I really wanted to test mango, which I know has a protease enzyme in it, but they are scarce right now. Stage 2 involves further investigation, using heat treatment.

I have to say, while not quite as exciting as a Patricia Cornwell novel, at least it proves I am finally capable of applying myself ** to my Nutritional Bioscience paper. Although we had a fairly substantial aftershock **just then**, they have been quite few and far between today, which helps; as does the fact that I was out of bed and pressing the button on my coffee machine this morning before I felt a back twinge. In a few more days I should be game to try a down dog. If that turns out badly, you'll be the first to know, from my position on the floor.

This weekend I'm working hard on getting a Toxicology assignment out of the way because next week involves some major Sana manufacturing activity. I had a reminder of that at some ridiculous hour this morning, when the doorbell rang and, upon investigation, I discovered a Hadrians Wall of fresh Omega 3 capsules in boxes sitting on my porch. It was a bit twilight zone because, firstly, it's a Saturday and, secondly, does my house look like a factory? (maybe it does.. I don't know). I can't even think how the truck navigated the broken roads around here, but I'm not whinging. I'm just very pleased that they somehow found a way to get the product to me under unusual circumstances. They probably tried to deliver to the factory yesterday, but of course it was closed due to the impromptu public holiday.

So next week we have hot-off-the press Omega's being bagged up (on Thursday they were still drying), WPC hopefully turning up and going into production, Psyllium and Maca. That's all pretty easy once the guys in the factory take over because they are genius. I've just got to make sure they have everything, like the raw materials, the flavourings, silica gels, scoops, bags and labels. You'd be suprised at the logistics of synchronising everything to the right place at the right time. I know I was when I first took responsibility for it. For example, if your gum arabic turns up a week later than everything else because someone put the wrong courier ticket on it, then the whole factory grinds to a halt and people get antsy. It's not ideal.

As for that Toxicology assignment, I had an amusing time today trying to find the website for the American Institute for Cancer Research (www.aicr.org), which the textbook had incorrectly noted as www.airc.org - the American Indian Relief Council. Thinking that it must be some combination of a.i.r & c, I tried a few combinations in the browser and happened across: The American Civil Rights Institute (www.acri.org), The International Association for Cryptologic Research (www.iacr.org), the Israel Amateur Radio Club (www.iarc.org) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (www.iarc.fr), which at least was close.

Tomorrow I intend to get back to something approximating health blogging. I did jump on the scales today just to make sure I hadn't blimped out due to excess comfort eating, stress and backpain induced laziness. I haven't. Still mid 57's, which is at least in my comfort zone. Earthquakes may be many undesirable things, but at least they aren't fattening.

Eat Stop Eat

Today is a study and Eat-Stop-Eat day. I've been getting a few emails and comments asking if I'm still Eat-Stop-Eat-ing. Yes, I am, in a sort of random manner, maybe once a week, or once every two weeks depending on how I feel. For me it does work, much as a standard calorie deficit works and usually I'll throw in an ESE day if I've eaten a lot that week. Today I'm fasting until 6pm which won't kill me and also allows me to focus on my studies. I'm writing an assignment on .. er.. it's a bit hard to explain. It's to do with the 'Reification' of health care. Sort of.. how 'health' became a 'thing' or a commodity that is essentially owned by doctors and must be bought with money. It also touches on the attitude of the medical machine towards the 'person' vs. 'a thing with a (possibly interesting) disease'.

For those of you interested in Eat Stop Eat, Mr Brad P has had some TV time. I'm pretty sure this program isn't on any of my Sky channels, but thanks to the internet, we can see him in action anyway. Here.

Of course, the snippet is a little bit 'one sided' given that the contrasting experts study eating, not fasting. It is worth having a look over on Brads blog for a more detailed idea about the level of research that goes into his work. Now there is some light reading, should anyone have a spare moment!

In a flap

Ok, so later today a nicely dressed man will take a surgical implement and lift up the front surface of my eyeball -my already made corneal flaps - so that I can have yet more of my corneal surface lasered off (and doesn't that smell lovely). Apparently it's not so big a deal as the first time and there is no eyeball suction involved, yay....

I normally should be freaking out about this event, but I'm too fully involved with a completely different freak out, which is that I now have approximately four hours to complete and send my assignmnent, which I know is far from a gorgeous effort. It's un-gorgeous, and at the moment I'm just thinking.. well, if I can scrape out a C by sending an unfinished effort, at least I'll still pass the paper. If I send a big, fat nothing then that's an instant fail.

So, I'll be offline for a few days, resting up my new super-vision, but when I get back I'll no doubt be able to see through walls. It had better be at least that good, I mean, who has to have Lasik TWICE? Only me, with my special eyeballs.

Liking it, not liking it..

At the moment I am really liking:

Alexis Fox

Project Runway Australia

My new spam filter. It's some sort of spambot that is brainy enough to learn what is spam and what is not through correction when it gets it wrong. Loving it.

I am not liking:

Hairpins that you can only use once before they lose their pinning ability (pinnability?). My Grandma has some from 1950 that still work, why are hairpins so cheap-ass nasty these days?

Plastic shopping bags that break, again with the cheap ass and nasty.

The fact that I've got about 20 pages of notes for my assignment and I still feel like I'm missing the central point (??). Maybe I spent too much time watching Project Runway on Youtube and not enough time getting jiggy with the reference materials....

The weird food files

I really must make time for a proper catch up, but I'm still deep in the study bubble and won't be coming up for air in the next week. Yesterday I was panicking, but then, ten minutes after my freak out I finally managed to get some order into my thoughts and constructed the essay outline. The structure is the most important thing, everything else just hangs off it, like your face hangs off your cheekbones. It's all about having a good structure.

Once the assignment is written I must get back to blabbing on about my training, how I did in the Breakthrough Challenge, what I'm doing with Eat Stop Eat and what's happening to my corneal flaps on August 29th.

I've started to collect pics of weird food. It may be my new thing, except that it's a pretty pathetic collection so far. Feel free to email me any worthy additions.

1. Chocolate potato chips. I have to admit that I do want to try them. I don't even know why. Perhaps they are so wrong that they have to be right?

2. Horsemeat icecream. No elaboration necessary. 3. Marmite Guinness. I swiped this one from Dietgirl. She actually has these in her fridge. I guess that living in Scotland will do that to you.. ;)

Bananas are the new eggs

The man who travels furthest never leaves his room. The sage who strives for nothing achieves the most.... these are the kind of paradoxical ideas that I'm trying to wrap my western brain around as I attempt to organise my thoughts on Chinese medicine and Chinese philosophy. I sort of get it, but then that's not the point. One thing I'm loosely understanding is that the Western habit of nailing everything down to a defined, unambiguous, system of thought is not the Chinese way. The Chinese have made little attempt to resolve the apparent conflicts in their medical system. It's called syncretism - the co-existence of seemingly incompatible systems, without any attempt to do the western thing of finding out who is right and who is wrong. My brain resists. This must be good for me.

Thankfully, right at the point where my study Yang was beginning to Yin out, I took a break to watch the perfectly balanced Earth, Air, Fire and Water of the Olympics opening ceremony and , while I was letting my brain figure out how to work that into my assignment, I took a foodcam pic of my breakfast.

I used to have this crazy thing with eggs. I always had to have an oversupply of eggs in the house so that I would never run out of them. Lately, my egg paranoia has relaxed, but I'm now all about bananas. Every morning I check my banana supply and make an emergency run to the organic shop if my fruit bowl is looking deficient, even though I'm sure those organic bananas must be just packed full of environmentally unfriendly food miles. This morning I made a very delicious thing with my globe-trotting bananas. I assembled a sweet potato pancake and then sizzled some banana slices in the pan while spinkling them with erythritol. The smoking erythritol did set off the fire alarm, but the end result of sweet, slightly crispy bananas was worth the assault on my eardrums, plus I got in some plyometrics while jumping around and flapping a tea towel at the smoke alarm. Given my history with creating pyrotechnics in the kitchen I don't think it was one of our more brilliant ideas to install that thing just a few feet from the stove...

Systematic what????

My life for the last week, and stretching forward for a number of weeks to come, has involved and will continue to involve trying to take myself from 0 to 100 in my knowledge of all things Confucian and Ayurvedic. It's very interesting but the volume of reading material is equal, I'm sure, to a small library and there aren't many pictures. I'm going to have to ramp up my speed reading skills and switch on that awesome brain filter thing that picks up the relevant info and skims over the rest, especially since most of the text has been translated from Sanskrit or Chinese and isn't exactly a smooth and entertaining read. At least I have Mog to help me. Sometimes I find it improves my retention if I read parts of the text out loud and Mog usually listens and looks at me with an 'uh huh, that's very profound and I'm deeply interested and you are a genius and how about a snack?' look. Today I must have reached the limit of his/her concentration.

For a cat that was a stray just a few months ago, Mog has wasted no time at all in developing the essential skills of a domesticated cat of means. Things like sleeping on the bed and making happy with the furry blanket in front of a roaring fire just come naturally to him/her now. No, I have not bothered to look under his/her tail to check if we have a him or a her. I think Mog is probably a neutered male judging by size and personality, but do I really care? I'm sure that Mog is comfortable with his gender-ambiguous status and who am I to pry?

Breakfast cam

Quite often I like to have a mushroom omlette for breakfast. This morning I just did the eggs and the mushrooms separately, and it was a nice change. I didn't realise how much more you get the flavour of the mushrooms and then the flavour of the eggs as distinct experiences when they are not just 'omlette'. I put some thyme with the eggs for another angle and then sliced up some avocado on the top. Yummy. Michael Pollan would approve, except maybe about the avocado because I think it has the hidden ingredient of food miles. Everything else is very local, even the olive oil.