Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Why is there no RDA or DV % for Sugars on food Nutrition Labels?

I made the statement "The recommended daily allowance of sugar is 0%", however, when asked why that was I couldn't knowledgeably answer...

USDA.gov outlines daily nutrient recommendations: (from Dietary Reference Intakes: Recommended Intakes for Individuals)
Men's Age - H2O - Carbs - Fiber - Fats - Linoleic Acid - Linolenic Acid - Protein
14–18 y - 3.3L - 130g - 38g - ND - 16g - 1.6g - 52g
19–30 y - 3.7L - 130g - 38g - ND - 17g - 1.6g - 56g
ND = Not Determined
and 
Dietary cholesterol = As low as possible while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet
Trans fatty Acids = As low as possible while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet
Saturated fatty acids = As low as possible while consuming a nutritionally adequate diet
Added sugars* = Limit to no more than 25 % of total energy
*Not a recommended intake. A daily intake of added sugars that individuals should aim for to achieve a healthful diet was not set
Although the government does not come out a say the daily recommend amount of added sugar is 0% there is no "Daily Value" percentage for Sugars on the Nutrition Labels** required on all food labeled for resale in the US.  That paired with the aforementioned USDA statement, "Not a recommended intake. A daily intake of added sugars that individuals should aim for to achieve a healthful diet was not set" lends to the seemingly wise notion to remove added sugars from one's diet.
**Nutrition Labels are based on the 1960's RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) which has been replaced with DRI (Dietary Reference Intake)

Another interesting tidbit via LiveStrong.com:
Too much sugar can also contribute to heart disease, warns the Cleveland Clinic. A diet high in sugar contributes to weight gain, diabetes and high blood pressure, all of which raise the risk of heart disease. Any sugar consumed, that is not immediately used for energy, is converted into triglycerides. High triglyceride levels can increase the risk of heart disease. To reduce the risk of disease, women should eat no more than 25 grams or 6 teaspoons of sugar a day. Men should limit intake to 37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons a day. Children should also keep sugar intake to 6 grams or less per day. Those with known health problems may need to go even lower.
Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/351487-what-is-the-rda-for-sugar/#ixzz1XFG6sTCy

This lends to the idea that you should eat a large breakfast with a higher % of carbs, a medium sized more balanced lunch, then a smaller more protein rich dinner.

Additionally, one of the most important parts of good diet and exercise is sleep!  Everyone NEEDS 7-9hr of sleep per night (based on age it could be more) and less will lead to obesity, I should know!

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Why would you jump off a building?!

A few years ago (May 18, 2002) I broke my first bone.  It was my collar bone.  Let me tell you how.


Since I was a little kid I've wanted to be a high fall stuntman.  My inspiration was the "father" of high fall, Dar Robinson (Video).  I had been jumping off of everything from chairs to tables to beds.  And I don't mean just standing on the item and jumping down, I mean setting up pads/pillows on the ground and hurling myself off.  I wouldn't say my mother encouraged it but she didn't actively discourage it either, that is, until I broke one of the dinning room chairs.


As I grew older I became more aware of the reason I enjoyed jumping off of things.  It wasn't until I was an adult and saw this part of myself reflected in my nephew that he was able to adequately and succinctly describe why we jump from everything.  From the mouth of babes (in this case a 6yr old), "It makes my hair go up!"


I learned to rock climb and rappel (abseil) falling in love with Aussie Style (Rap Jumping) which was a more controlled way to descend long distances than just jumping.  I then moved to bungee jumping which turned out to be more of a thrill than rap jumping!  The next step was skydiving, however, it turned out to be a step backward.  I had thought if falling was fun then floating would be even more fun.  The thrill is from the sense of falling and skydiving doesn't cut it.  My next thought was to work through skydiving to become a BASE Jumper however, they recommend at least 100+ skydives before attempting BASE Jumping... that's a lot of time and money!


I then moved back to Utah and began Snowboarding for my "fix" and got quite good at jumps, rails, boxes, etc.  I also had a street motorcycle as my primary mode of transport keeping me pumped with adrenaline.  I'm not sure what triggered the need for movie style high fall stunts but I felt I needed the experience.


Stuntmen primarily use one of three things to break a fall, either a big brick of foam (PortaPit), cardboard boxes, or a stunt airbag.  I saved a bunch of cardboard boxes from work and tested falling from one story.  It worked like a charm!  I calculated the price for enough boxes to jump from the roof of my apartment building which was a total of 3.5 stories (approximately 35 feet).  The main problem with boxes is the price (considering they are single use).  The next option was a foam brick, however, the cost and storage once used was prohibitive since I lived in a small apartment.  I settled on a stunt airbag because it would store small and be reusable, however, they were still expensive and only sold to certified stuntmen.  I decided to take matters into my own hands and just build one myself!


I went to WalMart's cloth section and bought a small amount of ripstop nylon to build a scale model.  I sewed it together (a simple box) and jumped from my couch... success!  For the full scale version I bought the entire stock of nylon from the same WalMart (50 total yrds) and began a day of sewing.  Once complete I needed some way to fill it with air so I went back to WalMart for the largest fan they sold.  All and all it was about $150 in product and 15 hrs of sewing.


I took my first full scale test jump from the balcony of my 2nd floor apartment.  This sounds dangerous, however, the airbag is 10ft x 12ft square and 6 ft tall so I only fell a few feet to the bag.  With the 1st floor test a success I had nowhere to go but up!


I moved up to the roof of the same building for the next part of the test.  Once on the roof I seemed to be the most entertaining thing going on in the neighborhood because a crowd of about 100 people formed to watch.
One of the onlookers was nice enough to snap a photo of me.


Finally the goal of being able to do a high fall was within my reach!  The next day after some planning I drove with a small group of friends to the building I had selected for the jump.  My old apartment building had no padlock on their roof access door :)


I set the bag based on my feeling of how far from the wall it needed to be... it was right next to a pole which added some anxiety to the jump, however, I was confident that I would miss the pole and hit the bag easily.


When I finally got in place on the roof (approx. 40 ft from the grass to my eyeballs) I started having second thoughts.  At 35+ ft the 10ft x 12ft bag seemed a bit too small, not to mention a bit too close to the building.  I had set the bag based on the distance from the edge of the building as opposed to the edge of the roof... classic rookie mistake.  No time to fix it since I had made my friends all wait for me to set up everything and clime to the roof.  I figured I would be fine simply taking a step back, then jumping up slightly to get myself over the "lip".


As I stood on the edge of the roof I realized there was yet another issue I had not counted on... the rain gutter.  The rain gutter added a possibility of catching my foot causing me to tumble and fall short (onto a cement walkway).  But again, confidence in my ability told me I would be fine.


With the help of my friend on the ground I decided a "faceoff" jump would be the way to keep me closer to the building allowing me to land on the bag.  Moments before I actually jumping my friend yelled, "You have nothing to live for!"


...


When you land on the air bag you hear a distinctive THWACK sound... I did not hear that sound.  I could tell that something was different because instead of being on my back as expected I felt like I was on my face... and it felt like grass was in my mouth and eyes.  Well, I landed off to the edge of the bag, and with the simplistic box design if you don't land right on center you slide off onto the ground.  In fact, this is the primary cause of death when doing high fall stunts.


One of the people watching had called 911 and paramedics were arriving as I regained consciousness.  The emergency room doctors couldn't grasp that I had willfully jumped from the roof of a three story building but that I was not suicidal.

I did make the evening news that night and am currently in search of the video clip.  A friend of mine did find a link to it the story:
JUMPING INJURY -- A 21-year-old man suffered injuries to his ribs, shoulders and right leg while jumping from the roof of an apartment complex Saturday onto an airbag.
The man was jumping for recreational purposes, according to a fire department spokesman, when he missed the airbag and injured himself. The incident happened at about 11 a.m. near 350 North and Belmont Drive in Provo.
The victim was transported to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center by ambulance. No further details on his condition were available.


The accident taught me to take my time, I have a lot to live for, and slow down a bit or else I might do something dumb and miss out on life.  And, use a bigger air bag.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Bedtime

So far we're bad parents... it doesn't seem possible to get to bed before midnight.  Getting the baby to bed before 9p is a joke too.  He either is up to eat or just wants to play... this is problematic because I only see him before or after work (when he's usually asleep) so if he stays up I enjoy holding or playing with him.  Hopefully we will figure this bedtime thing out soon!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Mobile blogging...

This is my first blog from a phone... and this is the first actual "smart" phone that is exclusively mine.  Its not bad, it does have a qwerty keyboard that slides out.  What is that all about!? Who wants that?  Morons, that's who.  Oh well, we will see how this turns out.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Waking up is hard to do...

Disclaimer: This has always been an issue for me, not just now my wife and I have a new baby.

We've all been there: Wake-up glad to have slept in till 10am on a Saturday only to realize it's Tuesday and you're late!  Or, after waking up, showering, eating, and commuting to work you wake-up and realize you have over slept and are not only late but now have to do all that stuff for real!  All this despite your alarm diligently blaring for the past half hour!

Why can't I hear my alarm?  Do any of you have these problems too?  If my Sis-in-Law is able to wake up without an alarm at 4-5am then why can't I hear my alarm at 7-8am?!?!  My wife will tell you its cuz I'm such a deep sleeper, she has had to kick me sometimes to wake me up...

Here is the paradox: Bedtime is such a dirty word however, sleeping feels soooo good.  Is this nature or nurture?  Is this an effect of being told to go to bed as a child, being forced into a dark empty lonely room expected to lay quietly until sleep overtakes us?  I've stayed up for hours on end, dorking around on the internet, writing something to get it out of my head, or even just stayed up to watch my fish swim around in their fish tank.  I was tired, yet I still fought sleeping... On the flip side, I've gone on vacation (Disney Cruse) and basically slept, ate, and slept.  Besides being one of the most expensive vacations I've ever been on this vacation taught me something important about myself, it taught me that I LOVE to sleep.  Knowing I love to sleep enough to "squander" my vacation sleeping why then do I stay up until 2am just to sleep for a few hours, wake up, and face the grind five days a week?  I've analyzed this time and time again, still, nothing solid.

Probably the most assured way to get a good night sleep is to exercise and burn up more than your daily intake of calories.  Think about how good it feels to sleep after a hard days work, and more importantly, how much better you feel in the morning.  It can be argued that this effect is caused by the contrast of pain to joy, in other words, you feel so beat before you fall asleep that almost any amount of recharge makes you feel better than you did before.  Not sure if this is the real reason it works but shoot, who cares why as long as it works, right?  Oh, and another side effect is you lose weight which is important if you're an American.

I'm willing to bet there are a lot of people who, like my Sis-in-Law, can wake up before their alarm, do those people sleep a "full" night sleep of 8-10hrs?  8-10hrs being a "full nights sleep" has always seemed odd since I've read sleep cycles are approx 1.5hrs in length... If that's true then it should be 6hrs/7.5hrs/9hrs/10.5hrs not just 8-10hrs.  I assume it is just a general rule, after all 8-10 has some multiples of 1.5.  I've also seen a watch (Sleeptracker Wake Up Monitor) and iOS (iPod/iPad/iPhone) apps designed to track one's sleep cycle and wake you up at the end of a cycle when you'll feel most rested.

What about drugs to get or stay asleep?  Most people have a favorable reaction to Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) as either an allergy medicine or a sleep aid.  As with any sleep aid, you should only use it if you know how you will react to it and when you can devote a good 10hrs to sleep.  If you don't get enough sleep while using a sleep drug you will have to fight the chemical induced sleepiness, and guess what, the drugs will win and you'll drive off a cliff or into an oncoming car.

So what if you don't get enough sleep... then what?  Well the usual suspect Caffeine will become your new friend.  Some people go for "energy" drinks which are a cornucopia of chemicals that can stress out your body, liver, and heart.  Caffeine is a goto since it has been around for so long in coffee and green tea.  Caffeine has been found to artificially prolong the life cycle of cells which could propagate the development or spread of cancer.  Don't like coffee, caffeinated sodas, or other "ingestables" but still need your fix... "wake up" while you bathe with Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap or Caffeinated Soap Peppermint Scent 4.5oz letting the drug absorb into the skin... Think of it as two birds with one stone.

No matter how you slice it there is no replacement for good old fashioned sleep.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Teva = Teh-vah

Long ago I fell in love with a brand of sandal called Teva.  Most everyone I knew in Utah thought it was pronounced Tee-vah, however, I met a person who said he had met the founder of the company who told him it was pronounced Teh-vah.  Years later I was working as a security guard at a Jewish kids camp and saw the word written on the wall... one of the camp counselors told me it was the Hebrew word for nature, makes sense, and that the correct pronunciation of Teva is Teh-vah.

Years later (last night) A friend and I worked hard at finding the answer to the question of what the correct pronunciation of Teva the footwear company was.  However, it seems so few people care nowadays that it was quite difficult to find the answers.  In all of google's great info nowhere did a quick search for "Pronunciation of teva" garner a concise response.  So I decided to aid anyone else on this quest...

Here is the correct pronunciation of the word Teva from Teva's parent company: (link)
It's been 25 years since we took our first step into the Grand Canyon, and not a moment has gone by that Teva® (that's "teh'-vah," not "tee-vah") hasn't been hard at work developing products that enable and encourage your adventure.
The same information is found on their own website:
It's been 25 years since we took our first step into the Grand Canyon, and not a moment has gone by that Teva® (that's "teh'-vah," not "tee-vah") hasn't been hard at work developing products that enable and encourage your adventure.
 So now you know, may the war be settled!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

iPad huh

The iPad has always seemed cool, back when tablet computer were just coming out they seemed like a great idea. In Si-Fi TV you can find iPad type pads used for just about anything. So it seems like this iPad and it's successor the iPad2 is so hot?
First let's talk about usability. I'm using an iPad1 to write this blog entry... It has taken about three times longer than it would to just use a laptop. If I want to add a link to a post here or maybe on FaceBook I have to hope that the all powerful iPid will allow the text I'm trying to copy to be highlighted, instead of select + copy + paste you have to jump through major hopes!

Wow... I had to ditch the iPad and just go for the good old fashion laptop.  BTW, how the hell old am I when a laptop is "old fasion", but I digress.  Heres the thing, almost nothing is formatted the same on an iPad as it is on just about any computer/web browser combo I've used.  Almost all websites are somehow messed up.  If you are typing just about any acronym the iPad auto corrects the spelling to what it thinks you might have meant (ex: "DIY" becomes "dig").  This can be a blessing for spell auto correct but it can also be a curse (see damnyouautocorrect.com).  I see the commercials where they show what a iPad can do... I just have to laugh because I have not had the experience depicted in those commercials.
Will I get the new iPad2, I doubt it.  Don't get me wrong, if it was free I wouldn't turn it away but I would NOT go spend my hard earned dough on it.  I went to Apple's website to see the cool videos or info about the new iPad and guess what, the iPad1 would not play the videos!  Sure "#2" might be faster, yes it might be cooler cuz it can video chat and stuff but that was all cool when they put it in the iPhone... thats all you need.
If the iPad would give me a full keyboard (with control, command, and alt keys) letting me use the keyboard shortcuts I'm use to.  It would also allow me the ability to use it as a wireless keyboard/mouse for my actual computer (not just an Apple TV).  I'm glad that the iPad has helped us take another look at tablet computers but we still have a LONG way to go before they replace laptops.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Long time...

I'm working on making this a daily affair. I never really liked to write in my actual journal daily, but I would do "catch up" entries that would be pages... pages of illegible crap about the girl that I liked or the dumb crap happening at school. I regret not writing about my feelings. I will attempt a more emotionally charged approach.

I'm told I am quite opinionated, I suppose that's a good thing. My wife thinks I'm gonna die an early death thanks to how excited I can get at little things. For example, Shakespeare, I HATE Shakespeare! What a tiring form of entertainment. Iambic pentameter... really!?! The constant back and forth of love triangles that are hard to identify with because they go on for years! Maybe it was harder to "hook up" back then so if you found someone with all their own teeth maybe you would want to invest a large portion of your life (2yrs = 10% of the average life span for some of those people) trying to land that catch.

As for his popularity, I blame the plague. Think about it, would you go stand in the mud next to a urinating goat or whatever to watch some people prance around a stage speaking lines you might not be able to hear over the rest of the crowd... I would, but only if the alternative was sitting at home in my filthy shack awaiting death by consumption or the like.

Lastly, Shakespeare being "timeless" in the sense that his plays can be performed in any time period (my High School did The Two Gentlemen of Verona, or maybe The Merchant of Venice in 70's disco style) doesn't showcase his talent, I would say it points out his lack of talent! Now, it was a clever twist to **Spoiler alert** leave Shylock with the conundrum of only being able to take a pound of flesh if he did not also spill blood (which could be done mind you). Sorry, where was I... Oh, talentless, he doesn't bother with a time setting like "long ago" or "in the year..." but does that mean any story that lacks a time setting is timeless... I think not.

This rant is one that reared its ugly head while my wife was trying to peacefully watch A Midsummer Night's Dream. There is a scene where some Nymph is telling how she got to where she was or how tired she was (that part of my brain instantly died for having listened) by giving a long list of the things she had traveled over, or under, or across, or around, or through, and the list just kept going on and on and on... How about, "dang I'm tired" done, move on!

Remember, just because these are my opinions do not make them correct, however, in this case they ARE correct.