A recent study revealed that Americans live shorter, less healthy lives than those in other developed countries. Between the higher infant mortality rates and violence-mostly guns and drugs, not to mention diabetes, heart disease and other obesity and/or poverty related illnesses, it wouldn't surprise me if Americans as a sub-species slowly go the way of the dinosaur unless something is done to rectify the major inequalities in the US system that leaves so many vulnerable on so many levels.
But now is not the time to discuss economics and social policy. It's time to delve deeper into the idea of dinosaur health and fitness. Is it possible that, barring that pesky asteroid that probably is the cause of dino disappearance, if they had taken better care of themselves the world would be a very different place? How would they incorporate contemporary health advice into their daily routine?
Take dental care, for example. We all know that caring for our teeth and gums is crucial to heart health (though a very small percentage of humans floss every day). Bum infections are no laughing matter. Teeth that hurt can also really impact your nutritional health. Both the Tyrannosaurus and the Brontosaurus could certainly have benefited from a good flossing. There is nothing worse than a chunk of Demandasaurus stuck between your teeth. It just sits there, rotting, promoting tooth decay. Heaven help you if your gums recede and you are reduced to drinking Stegasaurus smoothies. Do you know how hard it is to hold a glass when your arm are that short? Let alone trying to lift it to you now toothless mouth? You should have listened to your dentist, Mr. Rex. Eating him only solved your short-term needs.
Exercise seems harder to advocate in the dinosaur community. Their entire days were devoted to moving around. No couch potatoes or remote control there. Hunt and gather. Forage, forage, forage. The calories burned just out looking for the right palm tree to snack on outweigh any extra snacks you binged on along the way. However, repetitive motion breeds injury. Take the Pterodactyl. Flying around all day is totally cool. Those wings are heavy! Are you sure you are using the right muscles when flying? Your mother was always bugging you about slouching. The wings are compensating, yes, but just think about how much better you'd feel if you didn't ache at the end of the day? Free weights for you Pterry! Not only would the right series of moves strengthen your back and release all that tension you are carrying in your shoulders, you would be strengthening your bones too - reducing the chances of a life ending wing break. It's never too late to get started!
Back to Mr. Rex and other carnivores of similar build. Your little arms are so silly! Great teeth. Stupid short arms. If you just had better strength and flexibility in your hamstrings, you could bend over and pick the smaller critters off the ground. A Microceratops makes a tasty afternoon snack if you can catch one! Maybe supplement your diet with a tasty nest of Apatasaurus eggs? Alas, you haven't been to pilates. A couple of sessions on the reformer and you'll be amazed a the difference.
Luckily for all the dinosaurs, Spicy Hot Cheetos and the Carl's Jr. Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger didn't exist back then, so they didn't have to watch their sodium intake, and far be it from me to know what made a dino-stomach tick, but I'm guessing a little more fiber wouldn't have hurt the carnivores, and even the herbivores could have used some more omega-3 fatty acids in their diet. Munch on some flax Bronty! The occasional bee hive binge would certainly have elevated their sugar levels briefly, but we should let that slide. Everyone needs dessert once in a while.
And we should all focus more on our core. Whether standing on two feet or four, supporting our spines supports everything. Catch a few sit-ups when nobody's watching. You'll be better prepared for a race through the rain forest in pursuit of (or avoiding becoming) dinner.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Consider the Banana
Like most things in life, peeling and dicing a banana is much easier and more elegantly done once someone shows you the 'secret.' Once revealed, this 'secret' feels so obvious it is hard to imagine how you ever did it any other way. Embarrassment can rear its ugly head as hindsight proves once again that it is 20/20.
Back to the banana, yes? Bananas have always been a sort of step-child fruit.The almost instant browning once cut, the delicate nature of the skin-so easily bruised. The. Worst. Fruit. Ever. for lunch bags, becoming brown and slimy under the pressure of backpacks and ethylene off-gassing. Even in a banana split, bananas play second fiddle to the strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, whip and cherries. Often either too hard-leaving a chalky taste and unpleasant mouth feel, or too soft-treacle sweet and slimy, bananas can be hard to love. Even as age convinces us that the potassium load of the banana will help with aging and leg cramps, there are those who can only abide them in smoothies, ground beyond recognition and masked by blueberries or blended into banana bread, greatly enhanced by butter and walnuts.
If you are an environmentalist the 'carbon footprint' of the banana is almost as hard to stomach as an unripe banana. Tropical by nature, banana crops are ripped from the rain forests and travel by cargo ship, train and diesel truck to your local Winn-Dixie. The distribution process is nuts! Harvested hard as a rock, they travel many a mile from their roots to end up in your cereal bowl. The incredible variety of bananas around the world (not all of them super tasty, and many with gigantic seeds) have been poked, prodded and modified to create the incredibly boring, relatively tasteless and generally more sturdy Cavendish. So perfect, in fact, that it is on the verge of extinction. Fungus is destroying crops so genetically identical, not a single plant has an idea of how to fight back. Is it worth it? Can't we just live and let grow? They have passed beyond the curiosity they once were and the colonialism of the 'banana republic' and into the international world market, only to be available at your local gas station counter for $0.99 each? Food for thought.
Barring banana apocalypse, let's discuss consumption methods. Kids and athletes often just peel and eat in the skin, bruising the fruit while bending the stem back and forth for the big reveal. Peeling down the sides, always wary of hidden bruises and nasty stringy bits. This method can be almost as unpleasant as drinking milk straight from the paper carton. Moms often slice through the stem, efficiently peeling the whole thing back before cutting mismatched circles to put on morning cereal. The nice moms cut out the slimy bruises. Problem is, those circles of banana are often much to big, taking up so much room on the spoon that you can never really get the optimum cereal/banana ratio. What to do?
And here lies the 'secret' you've been holding out for. That thing both so obvious and such a miracle that you want to shout it from the rooftops. Oh-and no pictures because the beauty is in the doing, not the watching.
Step One-useful for kids and athletes as well as those searching for the perfect cereal topping
Instead of trying to open the banana from the the stem end, bruising the fruit (sometimes to complete mush), use your thumbnail (or a knife, I suppose) to open from the bottom/flower end. No muss, no fuss. Peel as usual, but backwards.
-respectful pause to ponder the simplicity of this life altering suggesting-
Step Two- If you look closely at a cross-section of a banana, those tiny little seeds form a little star shape. It turns out that a banana is sectional! Kind of like an orange, but totally different. Take your pointer finger and gently push it into the end of the banana. Follow the curve of the banana with your finger. If it cooperates like it should, the fruit will split into thirds, making little triangle ribbons. If you want a larger target, simply cut the banana in half to reveal a nice circular target for your finger. Slice into delicate little triangles and voila! bite size bits that should make everyone happy. You might never want to eat a banana any other way, except maybe at the bottom of a split.
Back to the banana, yes? Bananas have always been a sort of step-child fruit.The almost instant browning once cut, the delicate nature of the skin-so easily bruised. The. Worst. Fruit. Ever. for lunch bags, becoming brown and slimy under the pressure of backpacks and ethylene off-gassing. Even in a banana split, bananas play second fiddle to the strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, whip and cherries. Often either too hard-leaving a chalky taste and unpleasant mouth feel, or too soft-treacle sweet and slimy, bananas can be hard to love. Even as age convinces us that the potassium load of the banana will help with aging and leg cramps, there are those who can only abide them in smoothies, ground beyond recognition and masked by blueberries or blended into banana bread, greatly enhanced by butter and walnuts.
If you are an environmentalist the 'carbon footprint' of the banana is almost as hard to stomach as an unripe banana. Tropical by nature, banana crops are ripped from the rain forests and travel by cargo ship, train and diesel truck to your local Winn-Dixie. The distribution process is nuts! Harvested hard as a rock, they travel many a mile from their roots to end up in your cereal bowl. The incredible variety of bananas around the world (not all of them super tasty, and many with gigantic seeds) have been poked, prodded and modified to create the incredibly boring, relatively tasteless and generally more sturdy Cavendish. So perfect, in fact, that it is on the verge of extinction. Fungus is destroying crops so genetically identical, not a single plant has an idea of how to fight back. Is it worth it? Can't we just live and let grow? They have passed beyond the curiosity they once were and the colonialism of the 'banana republic' and into the international world market, only to be available at your local gas station counter for $0.99 each? Food for thought.
Barring banana apocalypse, let's discuss consumption methods. Kids and athletes often just peel and eat in the skin, bruising the fruit while bending the stem back and forth for the big reveal. Peeling down the sides, always wary of hidden bruises and nasty stringy bits. This method can be almost as unpleasant as drinking milk straight from the paper carton. Moms often slice through the stem, efficiently peeling the whole thing back before cutting mismatched circles to put on morning cereal. The nice moms cut out the slimy bruises. Problem is, those circles of banana are often much to big, taking up so much room on the spoon that you can never really get the optimum cereal/banana ratio. What to do?
And here lies the 'secret' you've been holding out for. That thing both so obvious and such a miracle that you want to shout it from the rooftops. Oh-and no pictures because the beauty is in the doing, not the watching.
Step One-useful for kids and athletes as well as those searching for the perfect cereal topping
Instead of trying to open the banana from the the stem end, bruising the fruit (sometimes to complete mush), use your thumbnail (or a knife, I suppose) to open from the bottom/flower end. No muss, no fuss. Peel as usual, but backwards.
-respectful pause to ponder the simplicity of this life altering suggesting-
Step Two- If you look closely at a cross-section of a banana, those tiny little seeds form a little star shape. It turns out that a banana is sectional! Kind of like an orange, but totally different. Take your pointer finger and gently push it into the end of the banana. Follow the curve of the banana with your finger. If it cooperates like it should, the fruit will split into thirds, making little triangle ribbons. If you want a larger target, simply cut the banana in half to reveal a nice circular target for your finger. Slice into delicate little triangles and voila! bite size bits that should make everyone happy. You might never want to eat a banana any other way, except maybe at the bottom of a split.
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