fridale nevile xanthiah
Nga Sagastume
If you've done any reading on productivity and habits, you've probably come across the concept of Keystone Habits. Both Charles Duhigg and James Clear have talked extensively about the power of Keystone habits before.
Both Ben and I have done much reading on the power of habits, including The Power of Habit (Charles Duhigg) and Atomic Habits (James Clear), and we carefully take note and review our individual routines, habits, and rituals. We tend to do this even more toward the end of the year as we look back at what we achieved, and what we want to do as we plan our year ahead.
After yet another argument about the state of the kitchen (very messy after Chef Marie was done with it), Ben and I discovered what we realized was something of a negative keystone habit that was impacting other areas of our lives in a way we didn't like:
Now, in itself this habit might seem innocent enough. Very quickly this became our pattern: one of us would make food (usually myself), and when dinner was ready we would start flipping through shows to watch.
We'd eat our food during our chosen show. One show would often lead to a second show... and a third show... and before long we found ourselves vegged out on the couch, tired, tapped out, and procrastinating on kitchen clean up.
Not only would a dirty kitchen add time to Ben's morning, since he gets up first, but it would add to his anxiety. Nobody enjoys waking up to a dirty kitchen every morning! It starts the day off on a bad note.
If Ben didn't clean the kitchen in the morning, we'd both get lazy about making a proper breakfast or lunch because the kitchen was still messy/dirty. It was more effort to make good, healthy food choices. The impact of this could easily trickle into other days of the week.
We looked at just how much time we were spending consuming media, and it was a lot. As two people who spend almost all of their work hours on the internet, we weren't really leaving much time to unplug.
We were often done with our meal by the time we had chosen a show, and even then we were often watching something that we weren't even that excited to watch (because you know, we'd binged all the good stuff!)
One night after a gathering with friends where everyone was talking about the shows they'd been watching and sharing recommendations, it hit us just how much TV we'd been watching as of late, and we weren't proud of it.
Sewing and other "maker" projects are so rejuvenating, and involve more creative parts of the brain without being draining or tiring. I was less tired when I stayed up until midnight working on a sewing project than I was when I watched an evening of Netflix.
I was prouder of where my time was going, and could feel how much more time I had gained by changing this one habit that was having a negative impact on other parts of my life and daily routines. I actually had something to show for my time!
Sewing and making may not be your form of self-care, but I urge you to look at what creative activities you've been putting on the backburner because you may have fallen into a cycle of consumption that has snatched up your time and motivation.
My friend Mary, who drove us to R-Place Restaurant, took her burger apart, eating meat, then toppings, then buns. The last bit of grease-soaked bread was too much for her, though. I ate mine the traditional way, and only made it through about a quarter.
Certainly, vegans can make a fair and compelling series about veganism. Starting in high school, I was trained as a journalist to believe in a neutral, objective approach to reporting, but have come to understand that is bullshit. It pretends journalists or documentarians alike do not have perspectives and are not making subjective decisions in their work, suggesting they are coming from literally nowhere, and is an idea that plagues journalism.
You Are What You Eat often uses appalling imagery, like chickens and pigs smashed together in cages, turtles caught in nets, large pools of blood, feces spraying in the air, salmon in farms with sores on their bodies.
I was annoyed by the lack of focus on the study. The subjects on the vegan diet losing muscle during the study was glossed over. How many calories were they consuming? What were the macros? How much were they exercising?
As a vegan of 5 years, speaking for myself I would have liked to see more scientific information myself, but as a tv viewer, I can attest that documentaries seldom offer Harvard references throughout to legitimise their claims, nor do other subjects often face the same scrutiny as veganism which triggers many omnivores.
There was elements in the documentary that did seem oversimplified and biased towards a plant based diet, but I would still argue that the environmental reasons outlined throughout are credible in their own right, and the fact that farmed animals outweigh natural wildlife 19x is astonishingly clear.
Supplements are often required to support a healthy vegan diet, and I take those as needed, but one fact ignored by carnivores or omnivores is often that the animals they consume are supplemented themselves. B12 levels in bovine are high because they are fed powder, soya production is predominantly done to feed livestock, and as is mentioned amongst other facts in the documentary, processed red meat consumption is listed as a type 1 carcinogen.
Yes, some meats are more processed than others, but the more highly processed meat is more affordable, consumed more often and increases risk of heart disease and cholesterol problems substantially compared with a plant based diet.
What I think is often overlooked is that whether an agenda is sewn throughout a documentary, study or whichever, you have to use your common sense to parse truth and not simply conflate intention with manipulation.
Far more money is spent on marketing to maintain the status quo of high animal consumption, ie more money spent on industrialised animal farming propaganda, than vegan propaganda, but when environmental scientists, nutritionists and moral philosophy points towards a clear cut answer, arguing for small details in an overwhelmingly more potent and convincing bigger picture ends up becoming casuistry and confirmation bias.
The fact is, being vegan is a lot harder than being an omnivore as the documentary proves, and I can speak for myself to attest to it too. Doing anything that requires discipline also requires vigilance and arguments and data convincing enough to maintain it.
@Gabz,
My problem is that when someone lies they cant be trusted. They never showed the rest of the results from the studies. What was the testosterone levels for the cheese twins. What was the sexual arousal of the men? they made a big deal about the women. Notice how the meat eating twin gained 7 lb of muscle mass the vegan gained 2.3. They spent five minutes making a big deal about the 2.3 pounds. Then when they showed the graphic they left the 7 lb gain out. Total bullshit. Sorry dude you are either honest and interested in the truth or your dishonest trying to scam. It is obvious this is a scam or they would have included all the facts.
@Pat G, The assumption in this film is that omnivore must mean industrial meat production. If they want to go after that approach, more power to them. But it is simply an outright lie to imply that is how we have to go about providing meat for eating.
If you would have to choose between a plant based diet with highly processed foods or a meat based diet where everything is made from scratch (so where every ingredient is natural, high quality and treated with the respect it deserves), which one would be the healthiest?
Most who eat excess meat, also eat fries cooked in vegetable oil. American diets have very unbalanced omega 3 (fish) to omega 6 (seed oil). The 3rd ingredient (not including water) in Impossible burger is Sunflower oil.
Hi Kim. I appreciate the comment, and the note about the advertising. Just as an FYI, the weird way that Internet advertising works means that I, as a publisher, have absolutely no idea what companies are advertising to you, and you are seeing entirely different ads than other people.
@Isabella, I agree with your points on CAFO and the industrial farming practices. However, in the time it takes to view this series one could easily and accurately demonstrate the case for sustainable regenerative farming that would sup!ant the misguided government industry cabal and save the earth all while empowering and enriching a significant portion of the people to produce the healthiest food.
was excited to watch this. with all the high tech body measurements etc i figured this would be a good way to see exactly what the benefits to a vegan lifestyle would be and how drastic. after the second episode i realized i was not going to get this type of education bit instead another one on how evil it is to eat any kind of animal period. What a joke the title of this documentary is. instead im headed to McDonalds for a quarter pounder with cheese because i may as well enjoy the taste of what i eat if no one can prove eating vegan is beneficial. if it was, they would have spent 4 episodes showing us how huge the difference was between the twins,
@Jimbo, It has been so frustrating to figure out what would be the best process of getting that younger overall age (I am 57).
I do plan on getting that Dex Scan soon to get a diagnostic of where I am at now.
But who can we trust?
My red flag was when a brand name showed up on food.
Sorry. All over the place, but as someone who wants to learn, the airways seem to be filled with scams now.
I will now get off my own lawn now. (grin)
I also noticed radical statements being portrayed as truth
Cashew cheese maker Miyoko Shinner stated it took 800-1000 gallons of water to make 1 lb of cheese and only 0.25-1 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of cashew cheese.
Knowing cashews are notoriously bad for the water consumtion needed to produce the nut i had to take a look
Now Im no researcher but with just a quick google (may be my folly) it showed to produce 1 lb of cashews takes 6450L=1703 gallons of water
Im not sure of the weight of cashews in 1lb of her cashew cheese but can assume or even hope its a fair percentage
So the shw is either not comparing apples with apples or straight up lying
And lets not start on the test result cherry picking