Nutritarian diet in a nut shell

First of all, eat greens and beans.
On top of that, eat fruits and roots.
And last not least, eat nuts and seeds.

Divide your daily caloric intake about 60/35/5% in the first, second, and third group. Remember that the greens have very little calories per volume, so you'll need to eat a lot. Conversely, nuts and seeds are very dense in calories (especially fats), so you'll only need to sprinkle a few on your salad or blend them into a dressing.

Remember, unrefined plant foods (including mushrooms in the first group) are the only foods allowed, so there's no sugar, oil, or flour, or anything made of sugar, oil, or flour anywhere near allowed!

The food pyramid put on its proper base.

As a little kid I did quite well in school. I still remember many things I learned in class while I forgot about other school things which other people remember well. (For instance, I don't recognize old school mates even tho they remember me well.)

I thing I still remember from school is how healthy eating is supposed to be done. Here's the food pyramid as I was taught it in middle school:

Just because I like pretty pictures, here's another one, without the labels:

Because I was so indoctrinated by school I always remembered this when planning my own groceries and meals. Additionally, the idea of having one starchy thing at the base (bread, pasta, or potatoes) was always reinforced by the meals that my family made or that I found in school dining halls, canteens, restaurants, and fast food places everywhere. Even when I went to the far east, the principle was just the same, only using rice at the base. (And of course also noodles, and steamed buns, and the famous bîng 饼.)

But as I grew more conscious about what I eat I found that the really interesting and most important stuff in a meal were really the vegetables. I felt the starches were always kind of the same and boring and what really gives you the most nutrients and also adds most of the flavor and character to a plate.

During the last months I grew more and more dissatisfied, upset, and in the later stages even angry with the fact that virtually all meals that one can buy outside have this huge starchy base and just not enough really nutritious (and delicious) veggies. Just think of a sandwich with just one leave of lettuce and slices from half a tomato. Or a pizza which is just a hot open sandwich that's still much more dough than veggies on top. Each time after having such a meal I would first feel full and tired (at work, this meant I needed coffee to not fall asleep!), then be fine for a short while, and then crash into a huge hunger (even greater than before I had eaten!) and sometimes accompanied with symptoms of low blood sugar; maybe some readers know those shaky legs!

For a while I avoided the problem by eating at the Asian fast food counter, but over time I also felt that there was too much white rice on the plate and also too few veggies. Sometimes I still needed coffee and wouldn't be satiated until the next meal time.

After my recent holidays in Taiwan where I enjoyed lots of great vegan kitchen, I had a big fallout with my Western diet – so bad that I called it my personal food crisis! Currently I am reading Joel Fuhrmans “Eat to Live” and find that my “dream food pyramid” is actually backed by science and medicine:

Something I just learned from the book and appreciated a lot to know is that leaf vegetables (like arugula, spinach, chard, broccoli, and kale) should actually considered a separate group because they are so rich in nutrients, especially micro-nutrients and natural fiber.

If you think that this pyramid seems weird and unnatural, then that's because the old one is just rooted so deeply in our culture. Dr. Fuhrman is not the only person that came up with this new food pyramid. Here are two other respectable sources: the University of Michigan and Dr. Dean Ornish (of TED fame) both promote a plant-based diet to promote health and avoid illness.

I'd like to write a lot more about what I learned from the book, and how it's just what I needed in my current crisis – but first I have to make another salad.

Minimal cooking for good health and meal variety -- a different veggie every day

Pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin spread, marinated pumpkin chunks -- there are over hundred different ways to prepare pumpkin, yet there's little prepared pumpkin available at restaurants and grocery stores. Of the top of my head I could name a few restaurants that have pumpkin soup and I've seem pumpkin puree on supermarket shelves, along with awfully sweet, unhealthy pumpkin pie.

So how do I get my healthy dose of pumpkin without spending too much time cooking?

Just make the simplest of pumpkin recipies (next to raw pumpkin): baked pumpkin parts.

I just took the seeds out and removed the fleshy parts, then they went into the oven on the same pan. The seeds  will be crisps after five to ten minutes, much earlier than the pumpkin flesh, so they serve as a delicious appetizer while waiting for the main course. :-)

While eating, I found that the pumpkin flesh that was closer to the pan was much more moist and had more taste. While the upper part was good, too, I found it quite dry in comparison. So my plan for next time is to steam the pumpkin parts instead of frying them. I am already looking forward to trying that!

Smartphone Prices Today

Just as a snapshot of history:

• Samsung Galaxy 3 i5800 - Android 2.1 - 165 €
• Samsung Galaxy S i9000 - Android 2.2 - 313 € (was 419 € when I bought it in Feb 2011)
• Samsung Galaxy S Plus i9001 - Android 2.3 - 277 €
• Samsung Galaxy SII i9100 - Android 2.3 - 419 €
• Samsung Galaxy Nexus i9250 - Android 4.0 - 529 €

• iPhone 3 - 390 €
• iPhone 4 - 644 €
• iPhone 4S - 715 €

(Prices from Amazon. Of course they might differ widely in other shops...)

creative endeavors

It recently occurred to me that all of my life can be broken up in moments of consumption, moments of creation, and moments of doing just plain nothing. I think that usually people create and produce for work and consume and relax for fun.

What's special about me is that I need to create to really feel alive, that I have a small limit of how much I can consume. I shop only for necessities; I don't watch TV, rarely read novels and watch only hand-picked movies. Most of my information-consumption is studying specific subjects (favorite reading source: Wikipedia). This often inspires my own creations. Well, mostly it rather inspires ideas, most of which I'll never execute.

It's really hard to relax without consuming anything. Sometimes (especially at night) I eat although I'm not very hungry; just for relaxing. Sometimes I read stuff (especially links on Facebook) that I won't even remember a second later, that's more relaxation than consumption. Doing sports or taking a walk seem to be the least consumtive ways to relax. Cooking can be a good creative/productive way to relax, but it requires that I am not too exhausted in the first place. Talking to a close friend is also a great way to relax and to clear my mind of a lot of things going around in there.

Here are some ways in which I could be creative for my own pleasure:

• programming stuff
• making music
• drawing (architecture and inventions)
• inventing stuff
• building bicycles
• 3D modeling stuff (again, architecture and inventions)
• writing movie scripts
• writing religious books
• writing technical books 
• doing stuff with languages

Last year, I took a basic class in hand drumming (Djembe playing) and that was fun (I also met great people there), but I didn't find it creative enuf. I thought that after having a basic sense of rhythm, I could experiment with tunes. A very kind person gave me a guitar, but I soon found that the level of practice required before any creativity can take place is way more that I'm willing to invest. In any case I feel that I now have made up for the lack of "trying out music" in my childhood and can move on to other topics now.

Since the first anniversary of me being in Berlin which coincided with my first paid vacation since graduating from UofT I have been thinking what I want to do with the next year of my life. But since all my vacation was filled with busy trips, I didn't really have time to think about it. At least I took note of the past year's highlights and lowlights and then came this week: spontaneous vacation without a planned trip! In the first days I did some remaining home improvements following my move (also this summer after just a little more than a year in my first place in Berlin). But then I quickly started looking for long-term projects in which to put my precious vacation time.

The result of my deliberations is that I want to start both drawing by hand and 3D modeling with SketchUp (see previous post). I have also decided that the realm of Architecture shall stay a topic of consumption, while my first drawings and 3D models shall be related to the planetary gear adventures. I would also really like to finish a first (or rather zeroth) version of my planetary gear calculator program, but since I find programming so hard, I am shying away from any further work until I find myself with a really large block of uninterrupted-by-work time to concentrate on this.

In the language department, I have decided to learn Dutch, just because it is so easy. In the consumption and inspiration department, I am planning a trip to Asia next fall, but I am uncertain, if I will use the chance to study more of the Chinese language. Practice a bit, certainly yes, but learning new words, it's oh-so-hard...