Miscellaneous collection of observations and thoughts. Will update as I have more of them that aren’t long enough for their own article.
On Spoons
No, it’s not about rich people born with a golden spoon in the mouth due to coming from a good family.
A long spoon in the Korean style is preferable as the longer lever makes it easier to bring food to your mouth. Some people bring their face to the bowl or the bowl to their face or awkwardly try to use a short length spoon to get the food to their mouth and lean their head forwards. Just use a long spoon.
However, I am not a fan of thin Korean chopsticks, which are stainless steel due to the materiel available after the war. It’s like eating pomegranates. I do not think they are worth it. Struggle interspersed with eating seems like one giant struggle. Maybe just put all the work up front instead.
On Soft Potatoes and Ginger
Putting them in a place that is too cold. It causes a ring to form on the inside where the outside ring is the part that has been exposed to cold and damaged. It causes the potato to be less firm. Ginger is the same way.
This outside-inside pattern is common in cooking. The outside burns before the inside cooks. Sous vide is meant to address this problem.
On Jaw Chewers (Mastic Gum)
I wonder if it’s better fresh. The Amazon type is really dry and you rehydrate it in your mouth. It works well, but there’s a bitter taste that you have to spit out after chewing it a few times. I also don’t think chewing plant parts (tobacco, etc.) is good for your mouth long-term. Plants have defense chemicals, hence yerba mate is full of chemicals. It’s bitter and not good for you.
I’m currently looking into alternatives such as dehydrated jerky. The store branded ones are all too soft and sweet.
Anxiety and Muscle Stress
A constantly spastic muscle is one that is low in energy, not high in energy. Animals kept in the rain before slaughter deplete glycogen, causing high pH meat. Think about shivering in the rain.
It got me thinking. Old people often have muscule tremors. Is anxiety a lack of energy in the brain, and what can prevent that? carbonated water? coconut oil? baking soda?
On Green Onions
Green onions may not need to be stored in the fridge. I discovered that leaving them out to dry causes them to create a protective covering, which can be peeled as needed.
Milk in the Winter Tastes Bad
Summer milk has this nice sweet taste. Weston Price noted how summer milk supported growth much better. There was a study in the past that noticed eye lesions in growing children occured in the spring, though I forget which one.
Supermarkets make us unaware of this seasonality in food. Winter milk might have much less nutrition, so the natural answer is to see if we can freeze spring milks without damage for consumption in winter.
If you pay attention the supermarket shelves they get quite empty in the spring.
Maybe we should bring back canning for fruits too.
https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/124680/dairy-suddenly-has-an-odd-taste
Cars and Soy Milk Cause Vomiting
I used to think the problem was me, but it isn’t. cars are full of toxic chemicals on the inside and I would always want to vomit as a kid, but opening the window helped. I still do to some extent, but it’s less. maybe cause I’m the driver? or the sense of balance is more developed? idk, I haven’t been a passenger in a car for a while. and sometimes it happens because I’m reading while being a passenger.
soy milk also made me want to puke. I thought it was me, but the fact is that making “milk” from nuts and beans is full of antinutrients. it’s my body instinctively rejecting what is bad for me. it might also be oral allergy syndrome where birch cross-reacts.
On Allergies
Melons: Ragweed Birch Pollen: Apples, lots of nuts.
I have a list somewhere I can post if needed
Recommend anti-allergy treatment pack:
- 2x 25 mg Benadyl
- 1 Zyrtec (oral allergy)
- 40mg Pepsid (20mg 20mg) IF people went to emergency room with anaphylaxis, they give benadryl, pepsid, and then maybe steroids (no help acute anaphylaxis), then sometimes zyrtec
Skin test severe reaction -> give the above 3 as necessary
Flonase could be fine for congestion
Fat-soluble Compounds
I think capsaicin concentrates in the sebaceous glands as a detox mechanism because it literally is a defense compound made by plants, hence a toxin to humans. I notice the tingling when I eat it or black pepper. This doesn’t happen when I use a sauna.
Which means that fat-soluble compounds excrete through your skin. So if you eat butter, you literally smell like butter. I’ve personally noticed this.
On Science and Medicine
Not always right
Both Lee Kuan Yew and Jimmy Carter wrote that one should avoid saturated fats in their memoirs. Admittedly, both lived a long time, but could they have been healthier in their old age? I think what’s important to know is that science is a political and historical process, hence it might be wrong. If these respected world leaders were blindsided to this possibility, then it tells you how novel this thinking is. If you have faith in the wrong people, the result is death. I have seen too many people around me killed by the medical system.
Do not do clinical studies
Do not do any surgeries if necessary. Sometimes doctors go to developing countries just to practice surgeries.
Do not donate organs.
Do not do clinical studies because it’s likely that they’re testing some random poisonous substance on you.
Keep body integrity at the highest level.
Voluntarily donating your kidney randomly (not to anyone you know) to me seems logically and mentally insane. I’m not going to justify my reasoning with statistics. It intuitively feels wrong, has no benefit, and you shouldn’t spread bad and harmful ideas in society.
I think he thinks it seems normal because he’s in a cult, and not of the good type:
We were giving them a lot of free kidneys. When I talked to my family and non-EA friends about wanting to donate, the usual reaction was “You want to what?!” and then trying to convince me this was unfair to my wife or my potential future children or whatever. When I talked to my EA friends, the reaction was at least “Cool!”. But pretty often it was “Oh yeah, I donated two years ago, want to see my scar?” Most people don’t do interesting things unless they’re in a community where those things have been normalized. I was blessed with a community where this was so normal that I could read a Vox article about it and not vomit it back out.
These ideas are bad and harmful. Benefits accrue based on group feeling, otherwise there is no surplus. If you donate to a random with no group feeling, you are essentially being exploited. I mean, I could see some sort of quasi-argument based on the state bumping you on a kidney waitlist. But the group feeling for the majority of people is higher for their direct family than the a country, even if is an ethnostate.
Scars. Bodies are a summation.
If a guy has done serious martial arts or boxing, you might notice a slightly pronounced bump on the outside of the wrist. In boxing, that comes from the force transferring from the 4th and 5th finger through the wrist and concentrating in that area, even if you wear wraps and gloves. I did boxing for a semester and that part of my wrist is noticeably harder.
likewise, a dancer is always gonna have messed up feet even if you have floating floors. or calluses in weightlifting
there are certain inescapable things. you’ll notice if you pay attention.
this post is in a similar vein: https://bowtiedbull.io/p/evaluating-your-own-genetics-and
Pressure Cooked Potatoes
Like the smell after a fresh snowfall, pressure cooked potatoes have a certain atmosphere about them that boiled potatoes don’t, in the same way that a rice cooker fills up the room.