This is a great synopsis of the Ominivore’s Dilemma reblogged from the informative Paleo Diet Online:

“Michael Pollan’s 2006 New York Time’s best seller is a 400 page, eloquently written novel based around 4 meals followed from sunlight to stomach. “The pleasures of the one [meal] are based on a nearly perfect knowledge; the pleasures of the other on an equally perfect ignorance.” (p410) The third and fourth meals, lost in this quote, were equally steeped in knowledge as the former.

To start, Pollan acknowledges the current abysmal state of American health. The prevalence of heart disease, diabetes, and new disorders popping up overnight. This is what spurred him to entrench himself in this research, why was this happening? In the first section, he starts on the farm of Iowa corn grower George Naylor, whose family farm has transformed from multi-organism just 100 years ago into the modern day monoculture of corn. From here, Pollan asks the question, have we domesticated corn or has corn domesticated us? After reading Pollan’s description of the history of corn, you’d start to believe that the plant has a mind of its own. In this section, Pollan uncovers the simplicity of farming corn: “driving and spraying” as Naylor says, and how it has changed from what used to be a very cerebral occupation to one relying on mega corporations and petroleum. For example, corn may be planted every year due to the involvement of pesticides and fertilizer (thank you Haber-Bosch process…turning nitrogen and hydrogen captured from the air into ammonia and eventually ammonium nitrate). Before this, nitrogen consuming corn had to be cycled with nitrogen providing soy year after year. After the corn had been grown and harvested, with a long summary of the political nuances (or atrocities if you asked Naylor) thrown in, Pollan follows the corn to the local grain elevator and onto the processing plant, although the processing plant only sees a fraction of the corn output. In the processing plant, each corn kernel is broken down and about 30 different basic food components are made, including the now infamous High Fructose Corn Syrup. HFCS is made by treating the corn-based glucose with the enzyme glucose isomerase. (Isomers: 2 compounds having the same chemical formula yet a different structure. In this case, glucose being a 6-carbon ring and fructose being a 5-carbon ring.) Fructose is sweeter than glucose, meaning less of it needs to be used and hence less money spent. Pollan also tells the story of corn through a steer he bought named #534, who grew up in a feed lot and was eventually slaughtered in a place Pollan was denied access. Reading about Pollan’s trip to the feedlot (classified as a CAFO-concentrated animal feeding operation) will make you want to turn vegetarian, or at least avoid all commercially made meat. #534′s diet consisted of corn flakes (more easily digested by the cow who is not supposed to digest corn), liquefied fat, molasses, and urea, along with the cocktail of antibiotics and growth-hormones. All the components needed to supply a cow with each element necessary to build protein. Remember though, cows are ruminants whose stomachs are set up to eat grass and allow the bacteria which colonize its stomachs to ferment it, making it digestible. Two of the best statements made during this section included “another vet told me the diet [fed to the cow] would eventually ‘blow out their livers’ and kill them. The other was that “I don’t know enough about the emotional life of a steer to say with confidence that 534 was miserable, bored, or indifferent, but I would not say he looked happy.” The entire experience of corn was summed up by the essential corn meal, McDonald’s, eaten at 65 mph.

The second section starts on the lush hills of Polyface farms where Joel Salatin considers himself a grass farmer. His farm is a tightly wound system made to intertwine many different organisms. Sun feeds grass, grass feeds cows, manure grows grubs, grubs feed chickens, chicken poop feeds grass, and the cycle starts over again. Salatin has many of these circles of holons (holon is a term coined by this particular industry to mean a part of the whole) which keep his farm as self-sustaining and healthy. In this section, Pollan takes a foray into the organic industry and how it has grown from underground political movement into money making government run industry. After describing his week of working on Polyface farms, Pollan describes in depth the slaughtering of chickens which occurs on the farm in a open-air slaughterhouse, which allows patrons to watch the actual killing and cleaning of the product, a statement about the cleanliness of the whole farming process, which of course has very little waste as everything is recycled and reused in some way to grow another food. This section leaves you yearning to go into the garden and start your own little circle of holons. Of course Pollan ends it with an organic meal made with fresh slaughtered Polyface farms chicken.

The third section focuses on a meal made with ingredients, all of which have been hunted or gathered. Before going into the details, Pollan spend many pages describing the mental intricacies needed to be overcome before one will go hunting or even eat meat, basically answering the question of why eat meat? Why not be a vegetarian? Backed up with the stories of the pig he hunted, the mushrooms he collected, and the vegetables he gardened, Pollan prepares an exquisite meal, shared with his family and the people who helped him gather all the ingredients.

If you have stumbled upon this website or are a dedicated reader, you need to read this book. It will change the way you think about food at its most basic level as well as help you decide if you want to have the composition of a human being or of a corn chip with legs.”

The second Fascia Congress will be occuring in Amsterdam on October 27-30 2009. The first Congress at Harvard Medical School in 2007 was an amazing experience and I am still talking about some of the lectures I saw. Just fascia-nating stuff. Join me in Amsterdam this year as we are led by the Scientific Chair of the conference, Peter Huijing, PhD, a physiologist and keynote presenter from the first fascia research conference who is the recipient of the prestigious Muybridge Award for his work on fascial connections and force transmission within muscle tissue. The Administrative Chair is Peter Hollander, PhD who was dean of the School of Movement Sciences from 1998 to 2007 and has been active in sports related exercise physiology with an emphasis on swimming.

Rey Allen’s inside notes from his last trip to Viva Mayr. Definitely worth the read.

Lesson 1: We struggle with our weight because we don’t chew, take enough time or stay calm during our meals. This bears repeating because it is the most important thing to get into our heads.

The part of our brain that relays back to us the message that we are full does not measure how much we actually have eaten but rather for how long we’ve been eating. This means if you have 2 lbs. of potato salad in front of you, you have a choice of how much you want in your belly by the time the 30 minute bell rings. Do you want 2 lbs. or maybe 0.5 lbs. of potato salad, because the feeling is going to be all the same in 30 minutes.

So, if we take our time eating, chewing our food as slowly as possible, buying our time, all we have to worry about is getting to that 30 minute mark. Then the brain says, “Arghh, I’m full you fool, and if you keep stuffing your face you’re going to regret it”.

The other very important reason for chewing 30-40 times per bite is that the first necessary phase of digestion takes place in the mouth, not because of breaking the food apart through chewing but because the excretion of the necessary enzymes for the digestion process is activated through the act of chewing. Phase 2: Stomach. If we are inhaling our bites then the food doesn’t break down well enough, causing unassimilated food to enter into our digestive system causing our bile, pancreatic juices, small and large intestines to strain to process. Not a good thing in the long haul. Your intestines will be in knots in 15-20 years.

Lesson 2: Burning Fat

Due to the complexity of the metabolism, this is the the short of it.

To actually burn fat from exercise you must avoid eating before or after your workout. You want to begin your workout with your blood sugar on the low. I know what you are thinking, you need stored energy to not pass-out on the treadmill. This is a myth. Yes you will feel low on juice but trust yourself and start-a kickin. If you are trying to burn fat then exercise on the stored energy (fat) you already have.

Second, don’t eat for 60 minutes after working out. You see, you don’t actually burn fat during the time you are sweating like a pig while running your ass off, but only after you have stopped. For some strange reason or sick joke nature has played on us we burn fat during the 60 min after we stopped our workout. Sadly, this is the fact about our metabolism. If you make the mistake and go for a beer with your gym buddies or grab a bite to eat right afterwards then you actually interrupt the fat-burn metabolic process and all your efforts will have been for naught. Again, when you eat right after your workout the body no longer needs to take energy from the fat you already have stored but will just take it from the newly ingested energy. This means no protein shakes or power bars. So the moral of the story is you have a very delicate window of opportunity to burn fat so don’t go throwing a ham sandwich through it.

Lesson 3: When Exercising

Our breathing rate, heart beat, and walking or running pace all have a rhythm that will fall in line together. For example: if you walk at a brisk pace you might take 3 steps for every breath, if you jog slowly you will then take 2 steps for every breath, and when sprinting you will take a breath for every step you take. That said, you don’t want to interrupt this rhythm as this is the coordinated process behind your metabolism.

Note: If you’re planning to hydrate while you are working-out it is suggested that you take 1 sip (swallow) of water every 5 minutes so to not interrupt our body’s coordination. Don’t on the other hand take in 3 sips back to back when walking or running. This will cause your breathing to pause to swallow resulting in an increase in heart rate. As a result, you will produce more lactic acid faster, causing your legs to feel heavier and slow you down. If you do take more then 1 sip then it must take another 5 min for your system to settle down, slowing your aerobic state (fat burning process). So, keeping your pace and the coordination of your breath and heart rate are essential for keeping the metabolism efficient.

Now, there is also the important information about exercising at your ‘maximum target heart rate’, you can only find this out through a fitness test. It has to do with your anaerobic vs. aerobic rates and how you burn through your glucose and oxygen, which depends on your current fitness level. It would be wise to know this information about yourself to track your progress and know how hard to push yourself.

Lesson 4: Cravings

When we pass by a hamburger stand or ice-cream shop our body is not craving what it wants but what it needs. There is a difference. Our body is craving that supply of energy or food because we don’t have it and our body feels that it needs it. If there are 700 calories in that ice-cream cone, your craving is to acquire 700 calories your body feels that it needs. Same goes with a snack, your body needs 200 calories. This is all because we don’t have the energy to begin with. This will always be the case when we don’t have sustained energy due to our out-of-shape-selves. So, if you aren’t feeling or looking your best then just remember this, your body is playing games with you!

I’m reblogging this for the SI community because it is of prime importance that all of us take this exam. It is a tough exam but it needs to be that way so professions unrelated to Structural Integration cannot pass it. Myself and everyone I know passed it on the first try.

By: Shonnie Carson CAR, CSI, CBSI

As of today, 156 Professional Structural Integrators have taken the Certification Exam for
Structural Integrators. One hundred and thirty-six have passed the exam and have become the first Exam-Certified Structural Integrators in the world. As you can see, nearly everyone who’s taken the exam has passed. Confusions and questions are continuing to surface and we would like to take this opportunity to clear them up.

Why is the certification exam important?
A psychometrically-valid exam is developed using statistically valid methods and is
accredited by the National Organization for Competency Assurance, (NOCA). Such an exam is the primary legal tool that helps define the boundaries of a profession. Without a certification exam there is no legal way to protect our profession from untrained or badly trained practitioners claiming competence as Structural Integrators. This type of exam is recognized as valid by licensing agencies, legislatures, insurance agencies and other professionals. The certification exam is developed according to the standards required by the National Organization for Competency Assurance, (NOCA) and the American National Standards Institute, (ANSI) the national and international accrediting agencies for these exams. Certification makes the exam legally useful in every country, province and state. As the exam becomes more widely known throughout the bodywork professions, it will notify bodywork schools, faculties and practitioners that SI is a distinct profession requiring specific training and skills. Creating the exam was the crucial first requirement. Taking the exam is the second step. This validates the exam. The more SI practitioners that take it, the more important the exam becomes, and the more we become able to define ourselves and maintain our integrity as a separate profession.

What is the exam like?
The exam is a multiple choice test consisting of 120 questions. The passing score is 84.
The questions on the exam were deliberately designed to have more than one correct response, which is how certification exams are required to be written. This aspect is commented on frequently by frustrated candidates. The candidate is asked for the “most appropriate” or “best” choice, which tests for a deeper, analytical understanding of the knowledge base. These types of questions present you with choices that require some thinking and judgment in addition to basic knowledge.

Continue reading The Real Truth about the Certification Exam for Structural Integrators