Dr. Gardner mentions in the above clip a number of resources for the average person to get nutrition with a perspective. Perspective, looking at nutrition in the long lens, is one of big takeaways from the evening.
Nutrition Studies @ Stanford
This is how I got involved in the Dr. Gardner’s Omega-3 Trial. There are two active studies ongoing:
- Potential Health Benefits of Plant vs. Marine Omega-3 Fatty Acids
- Potential Health Benefits of Dietary Antioxidants from Supplements vs. Foods
There is an online questionnaire, followed by a quick blood screen before qualification is determined.
Berkeley Wellness Letter
This newsletter is run by the School of Public Health and Researchers from UC Berkeley. It was started in 1984 and now boasts more than 350,000 subscribers. The newsletter is completely focused on putting nutrition news in perspective, including historical results in their evaluation. Subscriptions cost $24 for 12 issues (one year).
Center for Science & Public Interest: Nutrition Action Healthletter
Dr. Gardner especially recommended their Food Porn section. This month they give the thumbs up to Barilla Whole Grain Pasta for being forthright about its ingredient. Thumbs down to Rice Dream’s “Chocolate Pie” for hiding a lot of white flour and processed sugar in their natural goodness filling.
The Nutrition Action Newsletter is run by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. CSPI was founded in 1971 by Michael Jacobson. This is the man that coined the phrase “junk food” and “empty calorie”. He is known for aggressive stance against processed food, pushing for increasing transparency of whats in your food.
Dr. Clyde Wilson
Dr. Wilson is an active UCSF researcher who maintains a personal website dedicated to enhancing nutrition education for the masses. His site is filled with motivational stories.
He trains elite athletes at UCSF and Stanford and provides recommendations for elite athletes. From Gatorade to chocolate milk, he holds the answers for you.
One of my chief takeaways from last night’s event: there are so many motivations to made the food choices we do. Health, Disease Prevention, Pleasure, Culture, Environmental to name a few. It was mildly shocking to hear Christopher mention that under current research conditions, nutritional science will never answer what foods are better for you long term (i.e. broccoli vs meat). It make sense when you consider no people will enter a 40 year trial eating only broccoli or meat.
He did say thinking about the environmental choices is increasingly a good way to choose what to eat.
Here’s what I ate yesterday:
2 Diet Cokes
1 Grapefruit
1 English Muffin
Chicken & Cheese Burrito
Half Smoked Turkey Sandwich
3 Lost Coast Downtown Brown Beers
Hey, it’s certainly not the healthiest, but that’s how I did traveling. According to the Carbon Foodprint Calculator (they didnt have options for my beer or diet coke), I had about 2500 CO2e points. That translates to 5.5 lbs of CO2 per year. According to their figures, I did alright (just below average).
KQED QUEST just ran a radio piece on eating a low carbon diet. Listen to the report below:
The piece has spawned a few choice comments from vegan/vegetarian listeners. Check out their comments here.
Here is a quick excerpt of a book review via another science blog, “Drugs & Poisons”
The remainder of the book is largely a series of case studies on a wide range of products that can make you sick. Things like glues, plastics, rayon, rubber, and brass. There’s an entire chapter dedicated to the discovery, industrial use, and toxicity of chlorine. Emphasis is placed on both worker exposure during product manufacturing and consumer exposure via product use and environmental pollution. It’s genuinely neat stuff; It’s not too dry, and it’s never too scientifically dense. Dr. Blanc seamlessly incorporates interesting personal anecdotes and apt references to pop culture (lots of song lyrics), while effectively utilizing quotations from historical writings (scientific, descriptive, and fictitious) to illustrate his points. It’s very well written, and it makes me happy.
Monday, August 18th, 2008 7-9 PM Where:Atlas Cafe What: Power to the People: Robots and Representational Democracy Who: Dr. Ken Goldberg, UC Berkeley The Deets: Is there decision-making strength in numbers? Professor Goldberg and his students are looking into questions raised by robots and social networks -- and working on a new class of interfaces and games based on networked robots and cameras that quantify a measure of "leadership" to bring about group discovery and decision-making based on the power of crowds.
Ken will report on experiments and questions raised by robots and social networks, ranging from Ouija boards to human "tele-actors,"and tell a true story about how invasions of privacy led him and his students to study how robots can assist in monitoring the natural environment. Ken will describe a robotic system they've deployed to assist the search for the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, a bird of extreme interest to birdwatchers, ornithologists, and conservationists whose last confirmed sighting was in 1944. Ken will also describe the Berkeley Center for New Media, a highly cross-disciplinary center with over 110 affiliated faculty from 30 Cal Departments.
Monday, September 15th, 2008 7-9 PM Where:Atlas Cafe What: Water Wars: Bottled vs. Tap Who: Kishore Hari - that's me! The Deets: $6 a gallon. That’s not the cost of gas, but the cost per gallon when you buy a 20 oz bottled water at the store. Last year alone, Americans chugged 8 billion gallons of bottled water and that number continues to rise. We’re constantly inundated with hundreds of water choices: artesian water from Fiji, vapor distilled with added electrolytes, spring water from the top of Mt. Shasta, carbon-neutral mineral water from Scotland, and of course good ol’ tap water.
So which is best for me? We’ll examine the safety, health, environmental, and personal factors that go into that choice so we can finally answer: Is bottled water better than tap?
Science in Action Events Science in Action is a series of tours, trips, and hikes intended to put you in the middle of active science in the Bay Area.
If you're interested in attending, send me an email.
Details:
We'll spend about an hour and change touring the brewery, gets up close and personal with the brewmaster, and talking the art and science of a good brew. This is a true DIY experience, you'll get closer to the equipment on this tour than any other.
After the tour is over, we'll move into the bar where pints are $2.50. The entire selection of Speakeasy beers will be available, plus a couple extras you'll only get at the brewery. You're welcome to stay until 8. (And there's a chance of some live music as well)
The brewery is served by the T muni line, 19 and 44 bus, so don't worry about driving after the event.
