#'oh do tell. DO tell. does this apply to all diabetes? to both main and distinct versions of the disease?

[egginfroggin]

I don't mean to sound complainy, but one of my pet peeves is when ads, books, or what-have you talk about diabetes being a reversible condition and utterly refuse to specify what kind of diabetes they're talking about.

For those who may not know (and I don't blame you, diabetes is a very complex issue):

Type 1 diabetes is a condition that results from the body attacking itself by specifically destroying insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. These cells, the islets of Langerhans, do not regenerate or divide, and are permanently gone when they die. Type 1 diabetes cannot be reversed, only treated.

Type 2 diabetes is a condition wherein the body does not metabolize carbohydrates, insulin, or glucagon (a hormone produced and stored in the liver; raises blood sugar when released) properly, causing a rise in blood sugar. It may involve insulin resistance or overutilization of glucagon, among other things. In some cases, type 2 diabetes can be reversed, usually through diet and exercise (however, this is not a certain outcome, and some people may need medication).

To summarize:

Type 1 diabetes: body does not produce enough insulin. Permanent condition. Symptoms managed.

Type 2 diabetes: body does not utilize insulin or carbohydrates properly. May be reversed. Often treated with diet and exercise, in addition to medication, if patient is overweight.

Needless to say, that is a very distinct difference! One may even say crucial! After all, they are two conditions that have similar outcomes, but very different causes.

You do not tell a type 1 diabetic, "oh just exercise and eat better, it'll fix it," because, I am so sorry to disappoint, we do not know pancreatic necromancy. If we did, well, then, type 1 wouldn't be an issue, now would it?

I feel like it really isn't hard to put in the two words, "type 2," before "diabetes" in your advertisement or book, yet I keep seeing it. Yes, I know that most diabetics have type 2, but still -- is it really so hard?

(Yes I'm bitter. Back in my wee days of diabetes, when I was still using syringes and lamenting the sheer number of carbs in cake, I was severely disappointed upon finding that the majority of sources claiming that diabetes wasn't permanent were referring to the type that I specifically did not have. Very disappointed. Rub it in, why don't you.)

So, yes, please specify! It could very much save an already-stressed child, teenager, or even an adult (as type 1 can surface in adults as well) a good two hours of fuming and lamenting their lot in life.

Also you'll have fewer enemies with needles at their disposal.

[mcustorm]

Thoughts on Jamie Johnson 5x06

SPOILERS

Old habits die hard...forgiveness...cancellation. This episode's main theme is how it can be hard to shake who we’ve been, how we have to reconcile that with who we’re trying to be. Zoe and Liam both are having a mirror thrown up in their face, and they unfortunately act pretty much like how I’d expect.

First things first, the show is called Jamie Johnson! Our title character is entering that Hey Arnold!-esque role where we are now fully aware that so much of the show’s strength is because of the ensemble. Anyways, Jamie’s going through it; he’s delusional and just kinda wants to yeet off his cast with a quickness, kinda like how we here in America basically said “Yea, the virus is over.”  As I fear we may find out soon, these things take time. So Jamie finds solace in video games (Let’s discuss how *terrible* I am at FIFA). Which isn’t too bad...for now.

Let’s talk about how Boggy is such a good friend to these people. Episode 1, Boggy could not care less about football. Episode 50, it is basically his entire identity, and he doesn’t even play! Football had an extensive hand in ruining his relationship, ehh nobody cares. I don’t like how Boggy constantly is the biggest cheerleader for various characters in the show (Jamie, Jack, the whole mascot era, this episode he went out of his way for Zoe), but *whenever* he has something of his own to do (which is rare!), they just pat him on the back, say “Oh you’ll be fine,” and head off to the pitch. Justice for Boggy!

Before we start with Liam, let me preface by saying I like Eric and Freddie. They remind me of younger cousins of mine, warts and all. And the show has really humanized Alba in her episodes. The point is, generally, I like those characters. I do not necessarily like that trio’s dynamic. I said last week I didn’t trust Liam, well I still don’t. One of the scenes that I really liked from seasons prior is after Dillon gets kicked out of Hawkstone Academy, Hansard sits him down and basically tells him, “You lost out big not because they’re jealous, not because of your diabetes, but because you’re a shithead.” Point blank period, “You’re a shithead, Dillon.” Some people just need to be told.

And for me, a large part of what makes Dillon’s character so compelling is because in that moment, he really dashed his chances of becoming as successful as he could be. I mean, it still could happen, but it’ll be a helluva lot harder. Hence why Liam’s “redemption” I’m really cold on. Both Dillon and Liam have to learn the same lesson: How you treat people has substantial impact on how successful you’ll be. But Dillon never had a shot of making it back to the Academy, so he used that lesson to impact his general outlook. That’s why he told Jamie “don’t do it sis” when he started to steal the bikes with Jethro. He was being empathetic.

Liam, on the other hand, is only using that lesson to get back on the pitch. He realized that shit-talking to Alba took him off the field, so he plays nice with Alba to get back on. That easy, right? It’s not genuine. And Alba knows that he’s gonna play nice with her, so she’s fine letting him back on to win. The only people who are as unsympathetic to this character as I am are Eric and Duncan the Snake (Mike keeps shading him about how much of a snake he was, so there ya go). Also, you wanna talk about redemption? Duncan has just about done everything right since the incident.

Is Eric arrogant? Yes! Is he absolutely right to not like Liam and not want him on the team? Yes! Was he wrong in being cold and cautious? Naaaaah. Was he wrong in being openly antagonistic, as well as dumping Liam’s bag when it had certainly already been searched? Okay, fine I’ll give you that. Were Alba and Freddie wrong for saying “Oh Eric, you’re being an angry shithead again. We’re going to hang out with Liam who is totally and completely redeemed because he picked up some trash!” AN EMPHATIC YES! 

Ruby is also here, and this week *she’s* the one to tell Dillon he’s a shithead. The only thing these quick scenes do is 1) tide us over till next week, when this is gonna get gud and 2) inform us that Dillon has already scored a date-but-not-a-date with Elliot?! WHAT? What in the hell is going down in those DM’s?! We DEMAND a Jamie Johnson text app, Andi Mack style.

Finally, Zoe. Oh Zoe. What’s her last name again? Sharapova? I’m gonna be straight up: I am VERY hot and cold on this character. I cannot stand the whole “there can only be one” trope, because it only ever is applied to girls, and of course Zoe is the embodiment of it. Remember when she bent over backwards to avoid having Jack know about the contest, and then got mad when she found out Jack neglected to mention it to her? 

For the record, we don’t know if Jack did this intentionally or not. All we *know* is that Jack told her before the deadline and encouraged her to apply, way more than Zoe ever planned to do for Jack. At worst it was a front-stab, and everybody knows you’d rather be front-stabbed than back-stabbed.

And then of course there was the whole stealing incident that she only did to undermine Jack’s success that day. So yes, Zoe is a hater, and a hypocrite, and a snake. And I forgot all about it after Jack left. I actually was warming up to the character, especially as she pushed to lead the team last season. But then, Jack showed back up and her character reverted back like 1.5 seasons. Haven’t cared for the character since then.

So now, there’s a new girl in town, and Zoe is back on her bullshit. Once again, she is insecure. Once again, she is projecting. Once again, the girl tries to be nice to Zoe and she gives her nothing but grief. Now, in a full circle moment, it’s Dillon’s turn to tell her “Hey, you’re kind of a shithead to these girls.” And just when I’m about to forgive the character and move on, the plot steps in and says “Nah, bruh. We still got like 7 episodes left this season. Maybe later.” The show pulls the ol’ “if she had stayed just 3 seconds longer she would’ve gotten the whole context” trope. So for now, I still can’t stand Zoe and I’m patiently awaiting her redemption. Also, Kat needs to put the damn necklace in a picture frame or a lockbox or sumthin. 

So all in all, a delightfully frustrating episode that does exactly what it’s supposed to do: set us up for some juicier content down the road. The first stop on that road being next week -- *the* episode of the season so far and Love, Victor (early!). Yall already know what time it is.

[shogunjapsteaksushi-blog]

What's so healthy about Japanese food?

The bad news first: what's not that healthy about Japanese food

The biggest health issue with Japanese cuisine may be that it's centered around refined carbohydates, in the form of white rice, noodles made white flour, and bread - most of the bread consumed in Japan is as white as snow. Some people think soba noodles are healthier than other types of noodles, and while buckwheat (soba) may have some beneficial qualities, most of the soba you can get, especially the dried kind, contains a lot of white wheat flour (buckwheat on its own is pretty hard to form into thin noodles).

Japanese cuisine is quite high in salt. Condiments like soy sauce are quite salty of course, but there are lots of salt-preserved foods like umeboshi, pickled, salt-cured vegetables and fish. Salt was very important as a preservative before the widespread adoption of canning and refrigeration, as were drying/dehydrating, smoking and sugar. Until fairly recently the leading cause of death in Japan was by diseases related to high blood pressure, such as stroke. (Both my maternal grandparents died of stroke-related complications.) If you don't have blood pressure problems you don't have to worry too much about salt probably, but if you do it is an issue.

Modern Japanese cuisine, from the Meiji period on, has quite a lot of battered, breaded and deep fried foods. Tempura has been around for a while, and it's been joined by things like tonkatsu, ebifurai (breaded deep fried shrimp), korokke (Japanese croquettes), menchikatsu and more.

Sugar is used quite a lot in savory dishes. Mostly it's used in tiny amounts, but some dishes are quite sugary even if they are savory. (One reason for could be that traditionally, Japanese meals did not have a dessert course; sweet things were eaten as in-between meal snacks.) Although a spoonful at a time of budo mame will not hurt me too much, I do have to limit my intake of it severely.

Some of the most popular Japanese dishes around the world are sadly not that healthy. Besides the issues with sushi, ramen for example is wheat noodles in a fairly fatty (but oh so tasty) broth; tonkatsu is, as mentioned above, breaded and deep-fried; and Japanese curry is basically a hearty European style stew served over a big mound of white rice.

The slightly dubious news: things that may not be as healthy as claimed

Two foods that are integral part of Japanese cooking are tofu and green tea. Tofu is a great source of vegetable based protein, that has been eaten for hundreds if not thousands of years in East Asian countries. However, when people take the idea behind tofu and consume massive amounts of it, in the form of soy protein isolate and so on, it may or may not cause some problems. I do feel there's quite a lot of bad science around this issue, too. Western anti-soy/tofu advocates tend to underreport the typical amounts of tofu that Japanese or Chinese people traditionally eat (it's not that uncommon to eat a whole block of it at a meal by yourself for example), but it's really hard to over-eat plain tofu the way you can over-dose perhaps on protein shakes and the like.

Green tea has also been consumed in East Asia for quite a long time. Green tea has been given all kinds of amazing health benefits - mainly in the West. In the countries where drinking green tea is part of the culture, people don't really think about the health benefits; they just drink it because it's enjoyable. I'm always rather suspicious about things that are purported to have amazing health benefits, because it seems to me that the more exotic and foreign or just plain odd something is, the most miraculous it's supposed to be. This applies to almost any place. For instance, in Japan green tea it too common to be miraculous, but pu-erh tea is supposed to lower your cholesterol, make you lose weight, and grow hair on your head. (I just made the last part up, but you get the point.) Green tea probably does have some health benefits, but drinking green tea while maintaining an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle is not going to make you healthy. And again, there's really no telling what will happen to your body if you take massive amounts of any food, no matter how 'natural' it is.

The good news: The healthy parts of Japanese cuisine

I'll get to what I think is the healthiest aspect of Japanese cuisine in a minute, but to go over some individual things:

The wide variety of vegetables and legumes (beans) consumed is a good thing. The Japanese diet includes quite a few land and sea vegetables (seaweed). Not that many cuisines are into sea vegetables, but they are very low in calories, pretty high in fiber and packed with minerals. Beans are a big part of Japanese cooking too.

Seafood is mostly good too. Fish is lower in calories generally speaking than meat, and the fats it contains are of the 'good' kind. (The biggest things we have to be concerned about regarding fish consumption these days are the near-extinction of some species, and the amount of mercury.)

Fermented products add various kinds of beneficial flora to our digestive systems, which are critical to their er, smooth functioning. Miso is the best known fermented food in Japan, but there are also a wide variety of fermented preserved foods, as well as rice malt or koji, both sweet and salty. Salt-cured rice malt or shio-kōji has become very popular in Japan in recent years, and I see it slowly making its way onto the shelves of Japanese grocery stores in other countries too. I hope it becomes as commonly available as miso because it's really versatile. People have been using sakekasu or sake lees in cooking for a long time too. I don't count the use of sake and mirin, two alcoholic products, as part of the 'healthy fermented foods' mix, but the lees or mash left over after sake production are pretty low in alcohol and full of that beneficial flora. (Soy sauce is too salty to be taken in amounts big enough to take advantage of its fermented nature.)

Japanese cuisine also uses quite a few things that are naturally high in fiber and low in calories. Shirataki noodles is the best known of these: it seems to be trendy all around the world, or at least in North America and Europe, as a 'guilt-free' alternative to pasta. There are other foods like that too, such as konnyaku which is made from the same substance as shirataki. I described some of these foods in a mini-series a while back: seaweed or sea vegetables, dried vegetables, and of course konnyaku and shirataki.

The healthiest aspects of Japanese food culture

The best, healthiest parts of Japanese cuisine have little to do with individual food items. It has to do with the way food is consumed: in moderation, and with lots of variety. During a typical day, a Japanese person consumes about 15 to 20 types of food if not more; nutritionists in Japan urge everyone to eat at least 30 different types of food a day. This may seem impossibly daunting if you come from a meat-and-two-veg food culture, but it's not a big stretch in Japanese food culture. If you eat a lot of different foods, you are much more inclined to eat a healthy balanced diet. Of course you can cheat and choose 30 types of snack foods and candies, but that would be silly. As I explained during the Japanese Cooking 101 course, a typical Japanese meal has '1 soup, 3 dishes" besides the main carbohydrate. Even if you don't cook Japanese style a lot, trying to add more variety to your meals may make your everyday meals just a bit healthier.

And the other part of Japanese cuisine, or Japanese food culture, that makes it relatively healthy is small portions and moderation. If you go to Japan you will see that the streets of its cities, especially Tokyo, are just filled with restaurants and various food related establishments. People enjoy a huge variety of cuisines and foods, some of them not at all inherently 'healthy'. French pastries for example are tremendously popular, despite reports to the contrary. All kinds of junk food abound in stores. Yet, most Japanese people manage to stay pretty slim. It's all about portion size and moderation. You can eat your cake and your ramen and your tonkatsu, as long as you don't eat it all the time or in huge portions and you balance it out with other foods. It's not a sexy quick-fix kind of characteristic that grabs headlines. But I'm convinced it's the most important one.

Bonus: Maki's basic rules for healthy eating

This is not nearly as concise as Michael Pollan's rule of "eat food, not too much, mostly plants", and I sort of disagree with him on some things...but anyway here's a list I came up  with yesterday when answering this question on Quora.

eat a lot of vegetables

a decent amount of fruit

a moderate amount of protein and carbohydrates

monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats over saturated or trans fats

don't forget fiber

as well as getting some beneficial flora into your system via fermented foods

watch out for sugar and refined carbohydrate overload (critical if you're a diabetic; still important if you don't)

some people need to watch their salt intake

variety is good

And above all, MODERATION.