It’s still in the most basic, basic stages of development, but it should be ready to go fairly soon. Enjoy!

The debate over organic vs. GMO continues today, and it’s not an easy one for either side. Anyone willing to look hard enough can find plenty of arguments for or against the use of genetically modified organisms in the food supply. Including:

Top 5 Reasons FOR GMOs

5) A lot of people don’t actually care

Say what you will about this one – oh, Americans are dumb, we’re stupid, we’re lazy, whatever, but the fact is that most people just don’t care either way about the use of GMOs in their food. Rather, we do our grocery shopping at the grocery store and pick out the reddest, roundest tomatoes, the unbroken eggs and the best looking meat – nearly all of which contain GMOs. This isn’t a knock on anyone – it’s just that our culture has neither the time nor the means to seek out farm fresh food (and there are whole other problems with getting farm fresh foods that we’ll get to in another post).

4) Sometimes GMOs really, really help people

If you think GMOs should be banned outright, you’ve obviously never heard of Golden Rice. Golden Rice is rice that has been fortified with beta-carotene (aka Vitamin A). Remember how your mom always told you to eat carrots for good eyesight? That’s because the absence of beta-carotene in the diet can cause blindness – a serious problem in countries where rice is the staple crop. More than blindness, the beta-carotene in Golden Rice can help prevent against disease susceptibility, infant diarrhea and premature death in small children. This is just one of many examples in which GMOs are helping solve serious problems that here in the US we don’t really ever think about.

3) We can grow more food using less land

Let’s face it – the era of sprawling family farms is coming to an end. With the world’s population swiftly approaching 7 billion people, we simply have to come up with ways to grow more food on less land – in the short term, GMOs are the only way we have to do this.

2) GMOs may soon reduce or eliminate the need for insecticides

We already have GM plants that can withstand insects, weeds and diseases on their own, without needing to be sprayed with insecticides or other chemicals. Scientists are currently developing trees containing a lower content on lingin, a substance found in woody plants that requires the application of various noxious chemicals before it can be turned into things like pulp and paper.

1) We haven’t seen anything negative happen to people so far

GMOs have been used in foods for over 20 years now, and in that time we’ve seen few, if any, negative reactions in humans. It would seem, at least for now, that GMOs are perfectly safe for consumption and, therefore, should not raise any alarm.

Top 5 Reasons AGAINST GMOs

5) Intellectual property rights could slow R+D

We’re seeing it all over the place in the tech world, with patent wars bringing innovation to a screeching halt. Who’s to say this same patent-trolling won’t affect the agriculture industry? As big players seek to gain market ground by snatching up patents for different gene modifications, smaller players who truly seek to innovate may be pushed out of the system.

4) It’s all too easy for modified genes to end up in places you don’t want

While the idea of herbicide resistant plants is compelling to many, the thought of herbicide resistant weeds is pretty frightening. Again, this is largely speculation at this point, but the threat of gene escape is out there and it’s not one to be taken lightly. If upgraded and enhanced genes find their way into wild plants, it could speed up natural selection in ways that nature may never have intended.

3) There’s a real threat of transferring allergenic genes

This hasn’t been a problem yet, but it wasn’t long ago that an allergenic gene from a Brazil nut found its way into a batch of soybean seeds. Fortunately the aberration was spotted before the seeds went out, but there’s no telling what would happen in the future if an allergenic gene escapes from one plant and ends up in others.

2) They give companies way too much control

Even people who firmly believe that GMOs are the way to go will agree that companies like Monsanto might be the evilest company on Earth. Think about it – they control 93% of soybean production and 80% of corn production. Their system forces farmers to pay for new seeds every year – seeds that grow more and more expensive each time. While there has been talk of filing an antitrust case against the chemical giant, the fact is that no politician is going to want to stand up to a company that has such a stranglehold over the nation’s food supply.

1) We don’t know what they can do

One of the most common reasons people give FOR GMOs is that they’re perfectly safe for human consumption. But the fact is, we have no way of knowing how true this is. In fact, we don’t know any of the long term implications, in terms of nutrition, the environment or farmer’s welfare. Indeed, for years there have been reports that GM pollen has been killing bees, and even though there seem to be no immediate threats to human life, the science just isn’t there yet to definitely prove their safety one way or the other.

No matter what side of the debate you find yourself on, there is plenty of evidence to support your views and plenty of evidence to oppose them. As for conclusions, I think the only thing we can really do at this point is move on with their use carefully while also broadening the search for alternative natural farming methods.

Second of all, it gives a bad name to one of the most essential nutrients your body needs – fat. Fats perform a huge variety of functions in the body, including:

• Providing heat and energy
• Providing padding and insulation for your organs
• Aiding in the absorption of fat soluble vitamins, including A, D, E and K
• Providing the essential fatty acids that your body can’t produce on its own (together referred to as vitamin F)

What happens if you don’t get enough fat? How about:

• Skin disorders
• Gallstones
• Hair loss
• Impaired growth and reproductive functions
• Kidney and prostate disorders
• Menstrual disturbances

Why does fat get such a bad rap?

Like I said above, fats get a bad name because people associate the word with obesity. And to be fair, there is some merit to this. The difference (and I’m sure you’ve all heard this before) is in the types of fats you eat – good fats vs. bad fats.

Real quick – before I start talking about good fats vs. bad fats you should know about the structure of fat molecules. Basically, a fat molecule is like a head (glycerol) with three tails (fatty acid chains). The tails are made up of what are known as hydrocarbon chains, and it’s the tails that separate the good fats from the bad fats.

By the way – don’t be scared of the science-y diagrams that follow. I tried to explain them as clearly as possible.

Good Fats aka Unsaturated Fats

Characteristics: liquid at room temperature
Found in: plant oils, avocados, nuts

Good fats look like this:

See that C=C part on there, right where the whole thing bends? That right there is what makes it a good fat. Basically, when these fat molecules collect, they stay very rigid, which means they can’t easily get compacted. That’s the key, because….

Bad Fats aka Saturated Fats

Characteristics: solid at room temperature

Found in: butter, meat, tropical oils (palm and coconut)

Bad fats look like this:

Notice how there’s no C=C? What this means is that as saturated fat collects, it can fold in on itself, meaning you can fit a lot more of them in a tiny spot. This also means you have to work out a lot harder to get rid of them all. See the problem here?

Worst Fats aka Trans Fats

Characteristics: spreadable at room temperature (think margarine)
Found in: processed foods, fried foods

The worst fats of all look like this:

There’s a whole long history behind trans fats that I won’t get into here, but basically they are unsaturated fats that have been artificially turned into saturated fats (hence the area in the picture where the H is on the wrong side).

Trans fats were invented in the 1920s to serve a double purpose – to make food taste better and to use up a huge supply of soybeans (people started growing them in massive quantities for protein). The problem with trans fats is that your body literally cannot metabolize them, so they stay in your blood stream for a long time and are even harder to get rid of than saturated fats.

Trans fats have fallen under harsh scrutiny over the last couple of years, and now if you look at most food labels you’ll see 0g trans fat. However, leave it to the food industry to outright lie on the one thing most people look at for nutrition information!

Nutritional label standards allow you to write 0g of something if the food contains less than .5 grams of whatever substance, meaning it’s still there, just not on the label. To find out if your food has trans fats, read the ingredients. If it says “partially hydrogenated” anything, put it back on the shelf – it’s got trans fats.

So that’s a basic explanation about why fats are really not that bad for you, if you’re careful. Stick around for Part 2 to find out why, despite a bevy of LOW FAT food options available every which way, America is still the fattest country in the world! (hint – it has to do with our gross misunderstanding of the word fat!)

http://graysonandharper.blogspot.com/2011/02/guest-blogger-how-to-eat-healthy-in.html

It’s a post I’ve been meaning to write for a long time about how to decode menus and eat healthily at restaurants.

The problem: times are tough, and eating a lot of good calories is not easy to do on a tight budget.  Most people agree that the ideal nutrition plan for people looking to bulk up is to eat six 4-500 calorie meals a day for a total of 2400 – 3000 calories. You can do this one of two ways – stock up on Lean Cuisines and other frozen instant dinners when they go on sale, or you can create balanced meals using just the bare essentials.

Note: if you want to eat a lot for cheap, be prepared to sacrifice taste. The staple foods you’ll need to eat are going to be things like brown rice, oatmeal and beans – it’s not exciting, but it’ll work.

1)   Buy in bulk – as often as possible, buy your staples in bulk. When you want to buy things like chicken, do so infrequently and only when it goes on sale – any type of meat is likely to be the most expensive thing you buy. Do the same with your protein powder, buying unflavored if you have to (I know that sounds gross, but hey – we’re trying to save money here).

2)   Buy store brands – do you really need the Tropicana orange juice (maybe that’s a bad example, since you should just be drinking water!)? Buy as many store brands as possible. Think about it – even if you only save 50 cents per item, you’ll slash your spending over time.

3)   Avoid eating out – this one is a given for anyone serious about losing weight and getting fit, but it bears repeating here to: eat out as infrequently as possible. The average trip to a restaurant is going to cost you between $10 – 12 every single time – the average meal cooked at home will cost around $2 (assuming you’re following the above advice). Its more economical, its healthier and it keeps occasional trips to Chipotle exciting.

4)   KISS – you’ll hear this in everything you do, and now I’m going to tell you it again – Keep it simple, stupid! You don’t need the latest diet weight loss hundred-calorie pack BS – all you need is your basic fruits, veggies, grains and proteins. Minimize your food costs (and the amount of packaging you throw away) by sticking to the essentials as much as humanly possible. Like Michael Pollan says: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

5)   Avoid supplements – going along with the last one, stay away from dietary supplements. Like, completely. They’re not going to get you any real results, they’re going to probably more than double your food costs each month, and if you’re eating all the right stuff you shouldn’t need them anyway.

Alright…I’ve hemmed and hawed enough. Those are my tips for how to eat well on a budget, but what can you actually eat? For the sake of brevity, I’ll tell you one meal you can make on an extremely limited budget that won’t taste horrible:

1 cup black beans
1 cup brown rice
1 cup shredded green leaf lettuce
1 tbsp Olive Oil (for the salad…er…lettuce)

Setting up and sticking to a solid exercise regiment flies right in the face of everything humans normally do. For one thing, seeing results from working out is a very slow process. For most people, it can take weeks of regimenting before any changes are visible. Second, working out HURTS. Usually you want to AVOID pain, but if you’re hoping to change your body, you’ll have to change that mindset.

But fear not: you don’t have to be stuck where you are. You don’t need a strict “workout” plan to get yourself healthier. In fact, you’d be surprised about how many little changes you can make that will really start to add up.

Go easy on the meat

America is a meat addicted society. No question about it. For most people, a meal is not complete without some sort of meat. But studies have shown that going without for just one day a week can reduce your saturated fat consumption by about 15%! In addition, numerous studies have shown that if every American adopted one meatless day a week, it could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% over time. That’s more than if everyone started driving hybrid cars!

Don’t know what to cook? Check out www.meatlessmondays.com for recipes so tasty you won’t even realize something’s missing.

Walk more

Looking for a primo parking spot at the mall? Pick the one that’s farthest from the door. One minute of walking burns 5 calories, and that spot is pretty much guaranteed to be free. At home, take 30 minutes out of your TV time for a walk around the block – the fresh air will feel much better than watching that rerun again.

Convert your dessert

Can’t finish dinner without a treat? That’s fine – provided you make good choices. Swap out your next ice cream cone with some frozen berries mixed in with non-fat yogurt. It’ll satisfy your craving for sweet deliciously without expanding your waistline.

Try to shop local

Even though it can be hard. This economy has been tough on everyone, and the one who’s feeling it the most is your local farmer. After all, why buy your apples at $2 a pound when you can get them for $.69? But ask yourself – what are you really getting? Are a few bucks worth the pesticides, herbicides, packaging, shipping, storing, and other hidden costs? Or would you rather find a guy selling you the fruit he picked this morning? The cost does add up, but if everyone helped out their local farmer out once or twice a month and you can bet the community will improve.

Involve the whole family in making dinner

Cooking for a family every night can be tough. But if once in a while you make it a group event that everyone can have fun with, you’ll see creativity flying off the walls and healthy meals flying off the stove.

No seriously, look at the guy (Belle).

After the incident, Hebert developed a training regiment for his men that Tarzan would have been perfectly at home with. Realizing that you would never do push-ups during an emergency, he based his routine on moves that mattered, being “strong to be useful” as he put it. He focused on 10 basic skills: climbing, swimming, walking, running, jumping, balancing, throwing, lifting, walking on all fours, and self defense. Hebert’s work is being carried on in the jungles of Brazil by his protégé, Erwen LeCorre, who has developed it into a system called Natural Movement, or “MovNat.”

Unfortunately, most of us don’t have access to vast training facilities located on the shores of the rainforest, nor a cadre of Brazilian jiu jitsu masters to train with. But if you have a medicine ball, a bag full of heavy things (rocks, sand, textbooks), you can do just about everything they can do. Start by marking the spot where you are standing, then throwing your ball as hard as you can (use one hand). When it comes to rest, sprint after it, grab it, and sprint back to your spot, changing directions as fast as you can. Next, throw it in a different direction with the other hand.

When you’ve tired yourself out doing that, take your bag of heavy things and do literally whatever you want with it. Throw it up in the air as high as you can (just don’t let it land on you), hoist it up on your shoulders and run with it, swing it around and throw it. Or, you can refer to my playground workout post for some inspiration. There is no real routine here – the best thing about MovNat is that it employs the principle of muscle confusion, an important concept for maximum muscle growth that requires your muscles to constantly adapt to new challenges. If you do the same routine week in and week out, your muscles develop for that exact routine, which is great if the extent of your daily muscle demands are lifting a stable weight straight up and down multiple times. But by forcing them to do a variety of different movements, you build the all around functional strength that Georges Hebert and Erwen LeCorre found so important.

Burpees – ok follow me on this one: Start out by jumping as high as you can. Land gently and crouch down, touching the ground with your palms. From here, extend your legs as far back as you can. Then bring them back to your crouched position, then jump up again. Do this fast, but don’t kill yourself – you’re not done yet. Start with 15 of these, or 20 if you’re not breathing hard yet.

Frog Push ups – after you finish your burpees, get into push up position for some frog push ups. These are tough to describe in words, so I’ll let this guy explain it to you:

Yeah yeah it looks super awkward, but you’re in your room, right? No one can see you. 10 of these.

Shadowboxing – pretty self-explanatory. Punch the air fast, and make sure you get your legs around by hopping and switching up your stance. Go as fast as you can for about 30 seconds. Just make sure you don’t punch so hard that you hurt your elbows.

Bicycles – Lie on your back with your head raised slightly above your shoulders, and your hand behind your head. Now, raise your legs and spin them around fast as if you were pedaling a bicycle (get it?). Do this for 30 seconds.

Squat jumps – lower yourself down into squat position (knees bent, back as straight as you can get) and then jump as high as you can get. I know this sounds like a burpee without the back jump, but the idea here isn’t speed so much as force – you want to get as much strength into each jump as you can. 10 -15 of these.

Clap Push ups – tired yet? One more. This one’s a classic: do a regular push up going down, but push up as explosively as possible, so that your hands come up off the floor. Clap them together, then get then back in position and do it again. Do as many of these as you can, shooting for around 8 – 10.

Explosive moves, like the ones above, are great for activating your fast-twitch muscles, which will help make your more agile in sports and other activities that require quick responses. Up the intensity as you get in better and better shape, and you’ll start seeing improvements in no time.

*natural statute of limitations applies here. We don’t want you busting out moves in line at Best Buy.

Studies have shown that the reason games like World of Warcraft are so popular is because they operate on a deeply psychological effort-reward system. The more you play, the more powerful your character becomes and the more you are able to do. To keep people coming back, they make each level harder to attain than the last, creating even more of a sense of accomplishment per level.

Randall Munroe had it exactly right.

Honestly, exercising is almost the exact same thing. You start out at level one, and after a couple weeks of grinding, you start to notice your first improvements – level two. Before long you’ll gain new capabilities, like increased speed and endurance, muscle strength, and, most importantly, confidence.

Quite often the thing that prevents many people from going to the gym is the fear that the more in shape people will judge them. And this is a common fear – even I tend to steer clear of people who are lifting noticeably more weight then me, because I think they will look down on me. The important thing to remember is that this idea is entirely in your head. No one goes to the gym to pwn noobs; in fact, most of the people lifting the heavier weights won’t even notice you because they are too absorbed in their workouts. If it bothers you that much, pop in your MP3 player and tune them out completely (by the way, if you’re into it, the Black Mages are great to work out to).

It’s difficult to start a routine if you’re worried that you’re not already in shape. And unfortunately, the first few weeks are always the toughest, but immediately after that (give it 4 – 6 weeks) you’ll start seeing the biggest gains. Just remember: +2 to STR, +5 to END. If you make it a game, working out becomes just as exciting as level grinding.

Just don’t expect your body to erupt into a golden light. That’s called the Rapture and at that point you probably don’t need to work out anymore.

Won't be long before you look like this guy

Jogging around your neighborhood is a great way to keep fit and build up cardio endurance. It’s also a great exercise for beginners, since it’s easy to see improvements in endurance really quickly. The problem with jogging is that fat burning during jogging really doesn’t start until about a half hour into your workout. So when you’re ready to amp up your cardio routine, try working out the HIIT way.

HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. It involves training in short bursts (like, 30 seconds short) at maximum effort followed by longish periods of rest. Studies have shown that this method of training so depletes the muscle’s oxygen supply that for up to 24 hours afterward the body’s resting metabolic rate is increased. While the actual rates of RMR increase are still being studied, what this basically means is that for hours after a sprint session your body is still burning fat to try and repair the muscles.

Before you start an HIIT workout, be sure that you are properly stretched out and warmed up – tripping while running at high speeds can seriously hurt. The type of exercise you are doing should determine the length of each set. Runners should run about 80 – 100 yards absolutely as fast as possible and then take a break for about 90 seconds. Swimmers should finish 2 laps across a standard 25-yard pool, then rest. People doing things that don’t involve traveling, such as boxing or tire-hammering (more info on those to come) should shoot for 20 – 30 seconds at maximum effort. As you improve, try decreasing your rest periods and increasing your number of sets.

When you feel like you’re ready, try running hill sprints instead of flat. These will get your leg muscles shredded and prime them for the explosive strength you’ll need for sports like basketball. And if you’re looking for the ultimate challenge, try dune sprints next time you’re at the beach – just like hill sprints, except the ground is actively working to impede your progress, and each step is literally a fight against gravity.

If you’re new to working out, jogging is an excellent way to stay in shape. It’s also a good social activity for people who are primarily interested in having a good time. But if you want to get serious about your fitness, give HIIT a try. It can’t hurt…at least not until the next morning.