remember when i went on about antioxidants and i conceded that a lot of them are ruined by your stomach but the ones that aren't do, actually, work?

that is, i conceded that things like orac counts may be misleading, but i insisted that the science underlying oxidation was pretty sound.

so, that was the reason i stuck with tomatoes, but the literature seems to be messy, and it was never really clear what the actual effect was. carotenoids are both impossible for us to synthesize and measurably absorbed into the bloodstream.

so, this tomato/red-pepper mixture is a good idea, for sure - all of that lycopene is of some use, after all, because you can absorb it, it doesn't just get wiped out in your stomach.

and, i'm trying to get a comprehensive list of carotenoids that you can actually absorb...

ok, i'm taking a step back because i clearly missed a lot of phytonutrients.

i'm almost a vegetarian, and may end up cutting out the salami, if i don't think i need it anymore, rendering me an ovo-lacto-vegetarian. if i'm going to be almost entirely vegetarian, i'd might as well work this out, rather than wing it.

we don't need anarchy in consumption.

the linus pauling institute at the university of oregon seems to be an excellent resource and what i'm going to be focusing on in trying to build this correctly.

they have several articles, including this one on understanding how your body converts one type of omega acid into another.

https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/other-nutrients/essential-fatty-acids

what do you find yourself more concerned with?

you might find a little self-reflection in it...

are you constantly concerned about counting calories and making sure you don't over-eat? you might find you're more conservative, deep down, than you think.

are you concerned solely with the the experience of eating, what it tastes like, what it looks like, how it's presented, etc? you're probably really a bourgeois liberal, at your core.

and, are you solely concerned about the use value of food, and have little interest in what it looks or tastes like, or how much you need to consume to meet the scientifically determined requirements? you're a socialist, my friend! grab your sickle, let's re-engineer production for our benefit, not the benefit of the capitalist class, who are siphoning out our brain power and holding it hostage in offshore bank accounts.

there's a lot of food on the shelves that exists solely to generate surplus value and would just simply not exist in a socialist economy.

actually, i guess it would be the conservative wing of the capitalist class that would be concerned about counting calories, and the bourgeois liberals that are concerned about the hedonistic experience of eating, but, at the end of the day, they'd converge anyways, and nobody would be able to tell which is which.

it's actually a good demonstration of the differences in ideologies.

socialists care about the nutritional value of food, and will argue that food production should be designed to meet the full nutritional requirements of the people!

but, capitalists are just counting empty calories, and concerned solely about the hedonistic experience of eating their food, because who gives a fuck, anyways?

if i have to, i'll settle for kale, which should get me a ton of a, at least.

so, i left a few messages about rosehips & broccoli leaves, but i'm going to get to building a diet without them and seeing if there's a point or not.

eating healthy is not bourgeois; this is use-value, it's quite marxist.

it's worrying about calories, or appearance, or taste that is bourgeois.

good.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cambie-surgeries-case-trial-decision-bc-supreme-court-2020-1.5718589

i don't want to ever move to the new blogger, ever.

fuck off.

so, i wasted another day because i couldn't sit here in the filth long enough to make a call - i had to sit in the shower, instead.

it's a little better, but i may have to take another one to really wipe all of this filth off of me. i'm going to lysol the walls and go from there.

i have received a response from one of the five doctors i faxed on monday, but i think it's the same person that denied me several years ago, and i couldn't get through over the phone this late in the day.

so, i guess i'm stuck until tomorrow, and can only hope i can stay awake through the filth for long enough to make the calls.

stupid people everywhere...

"but, i'll sue you."

yeah.

right.

send the bill to the ontario disability support program.

maybe they can pay your lawyer, while they're at it.

yeah, it's not the dehumidifier; it's smoke. more shit off the walls...

i guess the upside is that it's getting a little better.

but, i can spend four-five hours in the shower and go through $100/day worth of gas if that's what he wants.

laundry, it is.

for elderly people, yes - vaccinate. experimentally. get it to them now...

but, what 'safe' means is relative, and the safest vaccine may be more dangerous than the virus, in young kids - because the virus is so harmless for so many people.

and, that may just be the simple mathematical fact.

it's another question that we're going to need to grapple with and that we may very well get completely wrong.

if the vaccine has a 0.001% kill rate, and mortality is 0.0005% in people under 30, do you vaccinate them?

i'd suggest you shouldn't.

we probably will, though.

it's an epsilon.

but, there is always an epsilon.

always.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4599698/#S4title

yeah, the media will no doubt blow this up and scare people for clicks, like they always do, but all vaccines carry minimal risk, and it is a part of taking a vaccine. you have to realize there's an epsilon that will be killed by any vaccine. it's just a part of the process.

if you were to avoid all risk completely, you'd have to avoid all vaccines. none of them are 100% safe.

so, it stands to reason that if you vaccinate 10,000 people in a trial then a couple of them will die from it. that's not a reason to stop the trials, and not a reason to avoid the vaccine. it's just bad luck.

as an individual, you need to weigh those risks yourself and determine what you think is the best choice. but, the numbers are clear enough - if you're older, it's worth the risk. if you're younger, it's probably not. if you're a child, it's absolutely not.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/patient-who-prompted-vaccine-trial-pause-developed-severe-neurological-symptoms-1.5099757

we are all swedish now.

so, sell me some fucking rose hips.

right.

so, the problem isn't that masks don't work, which is what science has said for decades.

rather, the problem is that people aren't wearing masks.

because legault has a hunch, i suppose.

it's the cliched definition of insanity.

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/those-who-don-t-follow-mask-guidelines-in-quebec-will-be-fined-as-of-saturday-premier-1.5099115

if the flu was this easily contained, we'd have gotten rid of it by now, eh?

we just all took six months of our lives and flushed them down the toilet.

in the mean time, i'm left wondering why we did all of this when we could have just let the thing spread and build immunity in young people in the first place, as that is what is happening now, anyways.

and, the only answer i can come up with is abject stupidity.

and, the idiots thought they could stop the flu, and called us names when we told them they couldn't.

it's a perfect example of the irony underneath what was called "the smug style of liberalism" four years ago, and which i would prefer to called "elitist conservatism", because the people expressing these views are not liberals - the people they are attacking as "covidiots" are the actual liberals. it's the people that are trying to shut society down to protect the elderly, instead of telling them to stay home, that are the conservatives, here.

and, as usual, the data is on the liberals' side.

the only way to protect the elderly is to tell them to stay home. thankfully, people seem to have mostly figured that out themselves, whether the state has, or not.

but, my point is how this is topical - you sit there and call people names. but, you're the idiot, if you thought you could stop this. and, it's the perfect example of the dunning-kruger effect at work, that you're out there attacking people for existing, instead of using your brain and working through the realities in front of you.

there's two ways to stop a pathogen: let it burn itself out by killing everybody off and enforcing vicious quarantine (which is what they had to do with the plague. there are stories of people being locked in towers and stuff, after exposure. they had no choice - they'd lock you in a room by yourself until your fingers fell off, or you starved to death.), or getting a vaccine.

there's no middle point.

you'll have to deal with that.

...you idiots.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-coronavirus-ontario-september-10-update-1.5718641

dr. day is really just trying to bullshit his way into maximizing profit at the expense of access to care.

let's hope the courts see through his charade and deny his claim.

i hope they don't make a stupid decision around this.

basically, the facts are this: while access to care may need improvement, private health care will not provide for that. so, it's an answer that doesn't solve the problem.

the courts in the past have produced rulings that have attempted to carefully nudge governments in the direction of increasing expenditures, and at times seen those rulings backfire. we at least have some data from quebec at this point that indicated that "market liberalization" had the opposite effect - while some wealthy people may now be able to buy their way to the front of line, wait times in quebec are the highest in the country.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cambie-surgeries-case-trial-decision-bc-supreme-court-2020-1.5718589

again: i agree with this, but trump seems a little less senile, over all.

if i were to put odds down, i'd say there's a 75% chance that biden gets dementia in the next four years and a 100% chance that he gets it in the next eight, if he survives that long, whereas i'd say there's a 49% chance that trump doesn't get through the next four years.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/10/2020-election-news-voters-see-trump-biden-as-mentally-unfit-to-be-president.html

it was absolutely beautiful in here this morning, for a few hours, but i woke up to dry air again.

i think it's the dehumidifier, and not smoke, but i basically can't tell the difference between a smoker and a dehumidifier with my bodily senses, alone.

so, i'm just going to try to replace the humidity in the air and move on.

i need to make some calls this afternoon.

https://ginaconkle.com/how-to-eat-like-a-viking-the-magic-of-mead-by-gina-conkle/

we've been so viciously colonized...and we don't even realize it....

we eat potatoes, right?

and hamburgers. from hamburg. right.

& pizza.

ugh.

you wouldn't recognize the food your own ancestral culture ate if it was put right in front of you...

we talk about acai berries like they're this exotic thing that could save the world.

we have our own acai berries, and we plant the flowers in our gardens and don't even realize it.

your fucking ancestors ate rosehips, and they grow on the side of the road, and you don't even know what they are.

why is the food available at the grocery store so low in nutrition, anyways?

i mean, i get that a big mac is delicious, and you're not worried about vitamins just right that minute.

but, why is there a stack of fucking lettuce at the grocery store? the shit's useless. really. out of all the things we could eat, we seem to have picked some of the worst options.

rose hips are a weed - they grow on the side of the road. but, it's something that europeans eat in their diet, on top of being a native american staple.

why wouldn't they be at your average store? you can get hummus everywhere, but you can't get rose hips; it's weird, really.

it seems like broccoli leaves are likely to be difficult to locate...

what about seeds?

don't eat the seeds. they're poisonous!

but, the sprouts are even better than the leaves...

so, could i find myself buying seeds and letting them sprout?

let's see if i think it's necessary, first. the thing i was concerned about was the e, and if the hemp seeds fix that, then great. plus, e is one of the few things that i should be careful about overdoing, apparently.

sound good?

fruit bowl:
- strawberries
- bananas
- kiwis
- blueberries?
- raspberries?
- rosehips
- ice cream
- soy milk

salad bowl:
- red pepper
- tomato?
- carrot?
- chopped broccoli
- broccoli leaves
- hemp seeds
- oregano & pepper
- kalamata olives
- chopped cheese
- caesar dressing

eggs:

- fried eggs

- cheese

- whole wheat bread

- salami?

- olive oil margarine

let's see if it's good enough.

well, there's no concerts to go to, so why not eat better?

so, how the fuck do you get vitamin e in decent dosages without swallowing a pill, anyways?

it's hard, as far as i can tell.

you can eat very large amounts of fish, and then get sick from the mercury.

....or you can eat nuts or seeds by the spoonful and get a heart attack from it.

but, i've found a few interesting sources.

first, the obvious stuff, that i'm already eating:

1) if you use a little margarine, you can get a lot of e (and a lot of d) fairly easily. but, careful with the 6s. this is probably where i currently get most of my e, as my margarine (irresistible canola & olive oil) has a whopping 10% per tsp and i'm averaging out to about 3 tsp/day (which is 1 tablespoon). i'm also getting about 15%/tsp of the d i need from that at a relatively low 3:1 omega-6:omega-3 ratio. that's low in absolute terms, too - 1 g/tsp. so, i'm at 30% from the margarine to start.
2) cereals have a lot of e and a lot of 6. that doesn't make sense to me.
3) kiwis are probably the single easiest way to get a shot of e, but you're looking at around 10% of the rdi, 15% max. this is better than a serving of tuna, for e. if there's a better source, besides nuts, i don't know it. kiwis are low in total fat, if not great on the 3:6 ratio.
4) red peppers can get you another 10%, and are actually relatively good on the 3:6 ratio, on top of being low fat in total.
5) are tomatoes worth it? you can get another 5% of the e, at least. but, the 3:6 ratio is pretty bad, despite being low fat overall.
6) you get another 3-4%/egg, so at an average of two eggs/day, that's another 6-8.

so, i'm starting with 30 + 15 + 5 + 2.5 + 7.5 = 60%. there's little bits of e in the other things i eat as well, but it's really in the <5% range of the rdi, so while it may all add up, it's still on the low side. i need a major source.

so, this is what i've found that is interesting:

1) broccoli leaves apparently have 130x the e per mg as stems or flowers and a positive 3:6 ratio to boot. they are clearly the superior choice to lettuce or spinach, or dandelions, for salads; if you dump 200-300 g of broccoli that's 40-60% of your e (as well as tons of a & k). can i find them anywhere, though?
2) another apparent source of vitamin e that seems to be overlooked is rosehips, which seem to have almost no fat. a serving of of rosehips will give you 500+% of your c requirements, 100% of your a requirements and 30% of your e requirements. they're also unusually high in both calcium and iron, and have a low glycemic index. great, right? the problem is apparently that the seeds can cause problems on the way out because they're surround in a hairy substance, so you just want to avoid those. but, rosehips are eaten widely by both native americans and indigenous europeans, so i should really be all over them - this is forest people food!
3) the next best thing would appear to be to try to find seeds or nuts with low 3:6 ratios and i've come up with two answers. hemp seeds are relatively high in fat, but an ounce of seeds (not the ounce you wanted?) will get you 75% of your needed vitamin e at a relatively low omega cost, which is 3x as many 6s. they're carrying some saturated fats, unfortunately, but it seems roughly comparable to margarine, so maybe it's not so bad. they also seem to have all 9 amino acids, and at a lower saturated fat cost than eggs. hrmmn. the trade-offs here seem better than my existing staples, so i should probably not freak out - this seems like a good answer. you can get them at bulk barn...
4) the other thing i'm looking at is black walnuts, which have a slightly higher 4:1 ratio, and a sneaky trick with the vitamin e, in that it is high in the gamma version rather than the alpha version. i can't quite figure out if that's good enough, or even desirable in it's own right. but, they come with the caveats attached to all nuts - they're very fattening.

so, that's what i've got, and i think it's a good enough answer, so long as i can find it.

and, now let me try to redesign this properly from the bottom up with my daily fruit/salad bowls to try to offset some of the lost calories from dropping the pasta, and to really flesh out the vitamins.

so, an unexpected result of this move to total eggs is actually that i'm hungrier than expected, which.....

you'd think it would be predictable, actually, except i kind of tricked myself into under-estimating the fullness effect of carbs. but, we'll see how long that lasts. i don't mind being hungry for the next three weeks if it balances itself in the end.

i was previously eating about the following in terms of pasta, daily, in theory:

1/2 of a large green pepper
1/2 medium sized tomato
50 g of pasta
150 ml of caesar as sauce
50 g of salami
100 g of block marble cheese (melted)

that ^ is a half plate of pasta, which is what i was supposed to be eating. i'd put the other half away for the next day.

however, i rarely actually did that. instead, i'd go two or three days without eating, then eat a quarter of the plate, then pick at it for a few days. so, i moved to that diet to boost my calorie count, and in truth it seems to have probably come down - i just got less vitamins, instead.

this is why i'm switching to full eggs. so, i've replaced that with the following, every second day:

1 small red pepper
1 small tomato
2 tablespoons of olive oil margarine
four large scrambled eggs (scrambled in margarine, hot sauce & the tomato & pepper)
50 g of salami
100 g of block marble cheese, chopped
two slices of whole wheat bread

to compare these two meals, i'd have to cut the second in half:

1/2 small red pepper   < 1/2 of a large green pepper
1/2 small tomato        <  1/2 medium sized tomato
1 tablespoon of olive oil margarine   < 150 ml of caesar
25 g of salami  < 50 g salami
50 g of block marble cheese, chopped   < 100 g of same
once slice (35 g) of whole wheat bread  < 50 g of pasta
+ two large scrambled eggs

so, i just nearly cut my diet in half, and i knew i was doing it, but it was under the assumption that i wasn't really eating nearly as much, anyways, and the balance of the extra eggs would be enough.

i'm actually holding to that. for a few days. i think that's right, still.

the difference is probably more that 50 g of pasta, eaten daily, fills you up for way, way longer than 70 g of whole wheat bread, eaten every second day, does - & the eggs just aren't going to compensate.

so, what's next, then?

i could move to two eggs daily, instead of four eggs every day and split everything in half.

i'm going to wait it out, and see if bringing in the salads helps a bit. but, i'm inevitably going to be introducing fibre if i do that, and you know what that means.

hey, i have a math degree, but i'm not a nutritionist. i'm thinking out loud. i may make some mistakes...

what i'm saying about bonnie henry is that, because she never learned to fail, she's going to behave like a sore loser, and should be removed before she lashes out too absurdly.