Noam Chomsky on Sarah Palin

Thinking Out Loud About Fruit and Alcohol

Surely people need to eat more fruit.

Surely.

Maybe.

First a little biology. Sucrose, table sugar, is made up of a combination of glucose and fructose. Fructose is the sugar in fruit. These two carbohydrates are metabolized quite differently by the body. Glucose is turned directly into blood sugar, and its presence in the digestive system causes the body, in a healthy person, to produce insulin. However, fructose is metabolized by the liver and turned directly into fat.

Maybe I am easily amused, but what this means is that someone who thinks they are on a low fat diet, but eats a lot of fruit, is eating a lot more foods that turn to fat than they think. Some vegans eat ten servings of fruit a day. The reason this may work for them is that a high fruit vegan diet metabolically is actually not a low fat diet.

Now this is a beer belly! This phenomenon explains the notorious beer belly. Alcohol is also metabolized by the liver in the same way that fructose is--it is turned into fat. This is why I am suspicious of the claims alcohol is good for you.  Most people who drink, even in moderation, are drinking in addition to their normal daily calories. What this means is that the alcohol they drink is directly changed to fat and is stored in the waistline in men and the posterior in women.

For someone who is balanced metabolically at their individual correct weight, drinking alcohol means that they have substituted alcohol for something else. Which would you rather have, a glass of wine or a serving of fruit?

Hmm, maybe I worded that wrong. Let me try again.

Which food do you think is more healthy, a glass of wine or a grapefruit? A lot of the questions I ask have an obvious answer, at least to me. This is one of those questions.

So should a person drink alcohol or eat fruit since both are turned into fat by the body? The answer is not obvious this time. It depends on the amount of triglycerides in your blood. My triglycerides vary from high to crazy high, thus my reluctance to endorse either alcohol or fruits.

However, since I am losing weight and my body is dumping all kinds of fat into my blood, it is too early for me to say what I will be eating once I lose this last 15 pounds. If my triglycerides are still too high, alcohol and fructose will be something I limit.

Below I have again embedded Dr Lustig's notorious lecture on sugar, "Sugar, the Bitter Truth." While I agree with Lustig philosophically, there is something about his style, his video "bedside manner," that I do not care for. I am trying to read his latest book, but I am having trouble finishing it.

If you want more information on this topic, click here for my last blog post on this lecture.

Star Trek on Miley Cyrus

After the MTV Music Awards, who was the world's most unhappy person? Click here to find out. 

Oh No, Not Civil Religion Again!

My critique of the modern combination of religion and government has not been well received. I am not surprised as the prophets' condemnation of the ancient forms of patriotic religion was not well received either. 

For me the most notorious example is the singing of the Battle Hymn of the Republic in church. Philip Gorski, whom I have mentioned before, had this to say about the Civil War: 

It was the Civil War and its aftermath, however, that transformed Christian nationalism into a popular ideology and gave it its characteristic ritual form: the cult of the fallen known as “Memorial Day” (Stout 2006). Politicians and clergy on both sides of the Mason-Dixon were quick to claim that God was on their side, that theirs was a sacred cause, and that the blood of the fallen was a form of sacrifice to the Almighty. And as the carnage escalated, the rhetoric turned apocalyptic as well.

Consider one of the most famous and familiar texts of the era — the lyrics for "The Battle Hymn of Republic." It contains the archetypical tropes of Christian nationalism American style: God as a God of war who marches, carries a “terrible swift sword” and can be seen “in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps.” A God, too, who demands blood sacrifice on “an altar in the evening dews and damps.” A demonized enemy, a “serpent” whose head must be crushed. An apocalyptic war that will unleash “the grapes of wrath” and set all men free. An empty promise, of course.

Philip Gorski is apparently not a Christian, so he may have several levels to the idea of an empty promise, but I must agree that from my perspective the promise of God's aid to either side in a murderous war was idolatry. The same is still true today. 

What is ironic to me about the desire to compare Modern America to Biblical Israel is the lack of historical context. Have modern Christians forgotten what happened to ancient Israel? If the comparison is valid, and on some level I agree that it is, then the consequences of America's sins will be dire. 

Jeremiah 7 talks about ancient Israel and the natural consequences of their sins. Let me quote the Message version, and make a few changes to make the parallel I am drawing more exact. 

3-7 “‘Clean up your act—the way you live, the things you do—so I can make my home with you in this place. Don’t for a minute believe the lies being spoken here—“This is God’s Country, God’s Country, God’s Country!” Total nonsense! Only if you clean up your act (the way you live, the things you do), only if you do a total spring cleaning on the way you live and treat your neighbors, only if you quit exploiting the street people and orphans and widows, no longer taking advantage of innocent people in this country and no longer destroying your souls by using your Churches as a front for other gods—only then will I move into your neighborhood. Only then will this country I gave your ancestors be my permanent home, my Country. 

Hmm. 

Knowing what happen to Ancient Judah not too long after Jeremiah 7, and knowing the sins of the US, I am not sure I would make the analogy between the US and Israel lightly. 

Obama Needs Your Help!

Will you join me in helping Obama start World War III and win another Peace Prize?