#maybe my dog is fat enough to be considered a cow

[lost-between-letters]

Howdy there! Congrats on the milestone!

Could I get a ship for Stranger Things please?

My favorite song is always changing but is currently between If I Was A Cowboy by Miranda Lambert and Old Flames by Dolly Parton

I’m afab non-binary (they/she) and pansexual so no preference either way as long as it’s an 18+ character ofc. I’m part Cherokee and part white so I’m fairly tan with really long chocolatey brown hair and full bangs, and greyish-green almond shaped eyes. I wear glasses and have my right nostril pierced with a small silver hoop in it currently, my earlobes are pierced as well and I often wear native made beaded earrings. I’m fairly average when considering body type and height (basically not quite skin and bones but not enough weight or body fat to be considered ‘chubby’ beyond my thighs tbh, and I’m 5’4). I don’t really have a specific style of fashion, each day I’m probably in a different aesthetic than the day before, but I prioritize comfort over trends every chance I get. I almost always have my nails painted, usually black but occasionally I like painting them pink.

I’m very passionate, introverted, and sensitive, but I will always stand up for my friends. Basically my anxiety disappears when I have to do something for someone I love and care about, which has me called a mom friend often. I’m a big people pleaser too, which has gotten me into some issues but I’ve been told I’m fairly charming and cunning so I’ve been able to get out of those problems. I was never technically popular in school, I knew a lot of people but didn’t have a lot of friends if that makes sense.

I love animals (I am that bitch to yell ‘cow’ or ‘dog’ when I see them) and the outdoors, even though it seems every time I go outside I end up getting hurt somehow. (I‘ve only fell out of a tree once, let’s get that out of the way lol) I grew up in the backwoods of Kentucky, so I was raised around farm lands and know my way around a shotgun as well as a good old pickup truck. Even with how ‘country’ I am, I am a huge nerd as well, completely obsessed with Star Wars if I’m honest, and can tell you random facts of a variety of things (including, but not limited to, feline body language, the history of rock music, and classic conspiracy theories) because I’m a naturally curious person and research anything that peaks my interest even just a little bit. I don’t think I’m particularly talented at anything; I used to be in band in middle school and can play a few notes in the flute along with a few other instruments, I can make a decent painting of animals, I write little drabbles here and there, but the one think I know I’m good at is looking up things. I never lose an argument because I make sure I get the facts before ever even engaging in debates. I almost blame that on my ADHD, but I really blame it on being a Virgo with a need to be right despite I don’t completely buy into astrology (though I do find it fun and interesting to play with!).

I think that’s all that really matters, thank you! And I’m sorry for how long this ended up, I’m also a big rambler and don’t know how to shut up sometimes 😅

Don't apologize for talking Sweetheart, it was really interesting to read it<3

I ship you with Robin Buckley!

God, that girl could listen to you talk endlessly. Seriously, the moment you two really started talking, she was in love (and maybe a little infatuated before as well - you stood out to her in school, always having your friends' backs even to the assholes no one dared to mess with, Robin was fascinated). And you two match each other in terms of research energy; if one of you finds a topic they're interested in, you make a game out of it who can find the most facts about it and retell them to each other (it was Robin's idea)

She finds it cute how excited you get about animals and finds every dog in a radius of two miles to pet for you. Whenever you stumble over a rock or hit your head on a low hanging branch, she's right there by your side - once in a while making fun of you or calling you clumsy - and helps you.

You swing by the ice cream parlor every chance you get to see her and you love how much her face lights up whenever you seemingly materialise in front of her (once you got Steve in on surprising Robin with a huge bouquet and invitation for a movie date on your anniversary - to this day neither of you knows how you actually pulled it off, usually Robin is observant of everything going on around her).

Join the celebration

[a-million-stories-for-you-blog]

ᴊʏᴜsʜɪᴍᴀᴛsᴜ ᴀᴘᴘʟɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ (ᴀᴄᴄᴇᴘᴛᴇᴅ)

Name/Alias: Maddie
 Preferred Pronouns: She/her
 Age: 17 Time Zone: Eastern Time Zone (Eastern Tennessee)
 Triggers: The N-word and r***rd
 Personal/About Yourself: Hello! My name is Maddie, and I’m a writer that has a dream of writing a bestselling novel. I’ve been writing since I was around twelve. I haven’t roleplayed in around three years, but I’ve always wanted to get back into it. I love the Matsuno brothers with all my heart, but I also love franchises such as Danganronpa, Love Live!, and hopefully others as I branch out. I am very easily entertained by videos of memes and/or dogs that speak (such as a video of a dog saying “cow”; I laughed so hard at that, I cried), and my sense of humor is as simple as a silly word.

Character Name: Jyushimatsu Matsuno
 Headcanon Age: 23


Three Positive Traits:

• Gives Good Advice: Despite his energetic and always-on-the-go lifestyle, Jyushimatsu is great at sitting down with any of his brothers for a minute and giving advice. On a rare occasion, he’ll bring out some Aristotle-level wisdom that blows his other brothers away, but it’s not very common. He knows how to put himself in the shoes of his brothers and/or friends to see all sides of the story and give advice that can make everyone happy. • Loyal: Jyushimatsu would follow any of his brothers or friends to the ends of the earth. If they give him a task, he’ll do it, no questions asked! (Usually no questions asked; sometimes the boy has a ton!) He would do anything if it meant those close to him were happy, even if it meant putting himself in danger. • Good with Children: It’s already been established a few times that Jyushimatsu gets along with children due to his silly personality, but it’s more than that. Children naturally trust him, children always wave to him in public and smile at him and giggle at him. If a child is crying and he appears, they stop, almost like magic. With babies, his magic ability increases, as he can make a face at a baby and leave them a giggling mess, and then he can pick them up and rock them and they will be asleep within minutes.

Three Negative Traits:

• Overly Trusting: Jyushimatsu likes to see the good in every person he meets, so it’s very easy to make him think you’re a good person/have good intentions. He’s too oblivious to their true intentions to the point of someone else having to point out their bad intentions to him. This took a toll on him during high school when he became friends with a bad crowd, who wanted to smoke and rob places and have Jyushimatsu take the blame; he did this for a bit because he thought he was being a good friend. It took all five of his brothers to make him realize the truth. • Hides True Feelings: His identifying feature is his wide, happy smile, and he feels the need to have that smile constantly, even if he doesn’t feel like smiling. This leads to him hiding any negative feelings he has because he doesn’t want anyone to think differently of him because he’s not smiling. It takes a lot of negativity in his life for him to let that smile fade. • Self Conscious: He hides it incredibly well, but he’s actually pretty self conscious about himself and how he acts around other people. He often worries if he’s too annoying or too loud or too obnoxious. He wonders if his brothers even like him from time to time. He doesn’t want to burden the others with his worries, so he acts like everything is normal as best he can. Sometimes, if he thinks that he’s thinking too much about it, he isolates himself from his brothers to get his act together. It’s incredibly unhealthy and puts an emotional barrier between Jyushimatsu and his brothers; he’s trying to overcome it best he can.


Headcanons About Character:

• He thinks about his future a lot—whether or not he’ll get married, getting a career, his baseball potential. He tries not to think about it too often, as it just makes him nervous and a tad sad. • He’s pansexual! He would date anyone that was willing to deal with his wildness! • Despite playing baseball now, he played every sport available in high school—basketball, soccer, even golf! He was good at all of them, but something about baseball drew him in more than the other sports. • His sense of humor is beyond anything comprehensible. He can hear a joke that everyone finds funny and not laugh, yet someone can say a word in a silly voice and he’ll laugh his ass off for ages. It’s hit or miss with him (usually a hit)! • He wants nothing more than to make the people around him happy. It’s one of the many reasons he always has a smile on his face; he’s heard that smiling is contagious, and he stands by that and wants to make everyone happy! • Ever since he saved Homura from killing herself on the beach cliff, Jyushimatsu’s eyes have been opened to the seriousness and suicide and depression. He educated himself on how to recognize symptoms, how to bring it up to someone, and how to be supportive during recovery. He also became certified in CPR in case there was an emergency and he had to step up to save someone. • He can sing. Very well, actually. He sometimes sings with Karamatsu on the guitar, but he doesn’t think he sounds good, so he only does so when he’s in a good mood or he thinks he’s alone. • He can play the ukulele. He’s not very good, not to the point of being able to play a complex song without trying, but with enough practice, he can play almost anything! • He loves flowers, especially yellow or white ones. He loves the smell of them and loves the thought of giving one to a girl he likes—or even getting some himself! They put him at ease and help him relax if he’s ever stressed. • He loves dogs! Big dogs, little dogs, ugly dogs, handsome dogs, fluffy, naked, fat, thin, all dogs. If he sees a dog out and about and has permission from its owner, he is so gonna give them belly rubs and tell them how good they are. • He (as well as the other brothers, considering they’re all identical twins) has very, very faint freckles across the bridge of his nose. You have to use a flashlight and pay close attention to even see, but they’re everywhere once you get a good look.

Example Writing Piece:

It had been raining all day when Jyushimatsu decided it was time to tell her how he felt. His hands shook as he clutched the umbrella. Was it an appropriate time? What if she rejected him?

No. He couldn’t think like that. Positive. Positive! Hustle, hustle! Muscle, muscle!

It was everything he was: positivity. He held a smile on his face as they casually spoke in the rain about their day together. He felt his stomach churn as the evening’s end drew closer and closer; he knew he had to say it, before she went away for the night. He couldn’t chicken out. It was then or never. His smile remained, despite his fears.

“I like you!”

Regret. Instant regret. Why was he so nervous? He had never been this nervous.

He saw her jaw drop in shock, and he braced himself for the worst.

Jyushimatsu gripped his umbrella more tightly as she looked at the ground, as she bit her lip, and he knew he was done for. How could he have been hopeful? No one would ever love him. He was a damn NEET, for crying out loud! No one wanted to fall in love with a NEET. It was unheard of. It was… impossible.

Marrying a NEET and being the sole provider and doing everything for someone who was simply too lazy to work was social suicide. Anyone deserved better than that.

Maybe Jyushimatsu was selfish for thinking he could have otherwise. Maybe he was foolish for thinking that he could actually fall in love, that he could actually find a girl that he truly loved with all his heart and that felt the same about him. What was he thinking? Was he an idiot?

Maybe. But anyone is an idiot when they’re madly in love.

Jyushimatsu could only listen as she explained how she had to leave. She had her family across the country to go back to. They missed her. She missed them. She had to go.

He watched as she ran off into the distance, her smile gone. His hands went slack as her feet slid in a puddle of water, and he let his umbrella fall to the ground with a quiet thud. He let himself slouch a little, his eyes getting wet from more than the rain that fell on him.

Love was nothing but pain, Jyushimatsu learned.

Especially for a NEET like him.

[cerastes]

HEY DRIMO it's been a while since you did a big myth post so how about you tell me a cool story about my boi karna

Oh dear me, Hindu mythos, damn, ok, so, first rule of Hindu mythos is that you all have to wear your seat belts while reading this. If you don’t, you are susceptible to immense physical and spiritual damage, enough that it might kick you right out of the cycle of reincarnation, and then the Mythos Retelling Collective (MRC) will revoke my license due to Irresponsible Sharing of Intense Tales (art. 23847). Are you all strapped in? Y’all got your helmets? Alright alright, let’s get this show on the road.

SO, KARNA. I assume most of you are familiar with Karna having Big Strength and being god damn unkillable. Ok, so, it goes beyond that. It goes at least three Milky Ways in width beyond that. Originally known by his other name, Vasusena (and this dude has like 14 different names), Karna is the main protagonist of the Hindu epic, Mahabharata, and–

Oh, right, before I can tell you anything about the Mahabharata, or about Hindu mythos in general, I need to explain power levels. So you know how in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Vegeta and Nappa use “Raditz” as a unit of measure for power levels and ki? “My power level is 500 Raditz.” “My power level is 23000 Raditz”, the joke being that Raditz was such a weak grunt that his meager total power can be used as a unit as you would with centimeters? Ok, this is actually canon in Hindu mythos. They have a scale of power levels, referred to as “Levels of Warrior Excellence”. The levels are:

Ardha-rathi: The lowest level, meaning literally “Half of a Rathi”. Read the next section for a more elaborate explanation, but this is Yamcha-tier, basically, the weakest of the badasses.

Rathi: It almost sounds like Raditz, doesn’t it? Well, Rathi is the unit by which all the other levels of Warrior Excellence are measured, as well as a rank by itself. A Rathi is an individual so powerful and skilled, that they can do battle with 1000 regular warriors simultaneously. This is the “Dynasty Warriors Playable Character” tier: Strong, but still susceptible to frames per seconds drops and getting stunlocked by arrows.

Atirathi: HERE is where things get spicy. An Atirathi is a warrior that can fight with six Rathi simultaneously. This is the level of strength possessed by Kevin by the time of Home Alone 2.

Ekarathi: You thought six was impressive? TRY EIGHT RATHI SIMULTANEOUSLY. We are entering Popeye-with-spinach levels of world-ending strength now.

Maharathi: The top level, the cream of the crop, the true definition of “Fuckhouse”. Those who reach this level are immensely powerful, and can do battle with 12 or more Rathi simultaneously. That is 12000 asses worth of whoopings. This is where you favorite Touhou is, obviously, and fuck what everyone else says.

Their measure of unit is basically “How many thousands of dudes can this person fight, or how many people that can fight a thousand people at once can this person fight?”, which, in other words, means that India has not fucked around a single day in it history.

So you might be wondering, “where’s Karna in all of this?”. Well, Chili Con Karna is SO MINDBOGGLINGLY STRONG AND SPICY that he is, literally, a Double Maharathi. Karna is stated to be “in terms of strength and skill, equal to two Maharathi warriors”. These peak jokers made this elaborate power level chart just so they could say “AND KARNA IS DOUBLE AS STRONG AS THE STRONGEST”. He is Two Gokus. Karna could literally look at you, without the laser, and you would just be atomized, restructured, and atomized again in the span of minus three seconds, and you would thank him for it. And damn RIGHT you would thank him for it, because he probably didn’t mean to do that to you. That’s because Karna, despite having more powers than Superman and God combined, is the Ultimate Good Boy. This dude is Puppy Kiss Central, this dude chips in on Pizza Thursday every week, and makes up for those who didn’t chip in. Karna lets you take the last chicken nugget. Karna lets you use Player 1 when you hang out at his place. Karna tells you to text him or call him once you get home after hanging out and he gets worried if you don’t. That dashing guy you saw doing volunteer work at the homeless shelter the other day? Probably Karna. The owner of Old Friends Dog Sanctuary? Definitely Karna.

He’s GOOD.

And that’s why the Mahabharata is so painful: I don’t speak Hindi, but I am pretty sure “mahabharata” translates directly to “Karna Has Bad Day :(”. Today, we’ll be talking about Karna’s Three Curses, with a little bit of his childhood for context on the first one, and because I just want to talk about his dumbass mom. Also that one time he clowned Arjuna and Planet Fucking Earth got mad at him.

SO, there was this lady named Kunti, princess of the Kunti Kingdom (yeah), and this one time she was the host to a sage named Durvasa, who was visiting. She is a most Excellent Host, and provided Durvasa with the best of services, the most delicious food, the most luxurious of drinks, and every volume of Detective Conan, and Durvasa was so stoked at this 10/10 Would Come Again service, that he gave Kunti a special boon: With a mantra he taught her, she now had the amazing power to get knocked up by any deity of her selection. Kunti was really happy with her new pregnancy powers, and couldn’t wait to try them out, so she did to call upon the Sun God Surya, and guess what fucking happened: That’s right, fucking happened. It was a violent and intense cyclone of sex so kinky that the baby was born with armor and earrings (in some versions, Surya “handed” the child to Kunti, but in others, which I opt to believe, Kunti bore his child, and his fat solar load was so powerful that the fetus was armored). And then Kunti was like “oh fuck it worked lol but I am not wed” and since she didn’t want to be an unmarried mother (refer to Hindu tradition for this one), so she did like many other Mothers In Mythology and she put Armor Baby on a basket and set him afloat on the rivER LIKE A REAL KUNT, IT WAS IN HER NAME ALL ALONG, WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES KEEP DOING THIS.

THE REST IS UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE THIS IS TURNING LONG.

Like many other Babies In Mythology, Armor Baby was found by someone, this someone being a charioteer named Adhiratha, but not just ANY charioteer, this was the chief charioteer of King Dhritarashtra, who I hope will forgive me if I wrote his name wrong, and was adopted by the charioteer and his wife, Radha. Armor Baby was given a name, Vasusena, and his pet name was Radheya among the locals. Being born an armored baby, it should come as no surprise Vasusena was interested in the military arts, and so he approached this really cool dude named Dronacharya who taught princes about warfare, BUT Drone told the armor kid to fuck the off because he only taught Kshatriyas (the military social caste in Hindu culture), but he was very impressed by Vasusena’s guts because this shit ass kid more or less just strolled into his house and said “HEY TEACH ME HOW TO BE A BADASS”, so he suggested to his father to change his name to Karna, which means “one who peels his own skin”, as a reference to his guts and totally not any sort of foreshadowing to anything NO SIR WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT.

So ok he got a cool name and whatever, bUT SEE, he still got told to fuck off, which he DIDN’T LIKE, so Cartman, not one to be daunted, sought out Dron’s own teacher instead, because fuck you, that’s why. So Kane finds him, name of Parashurama, and asks him BUT FIRST he disguises himself as a Brahmin, because Futurama only teaches Brahmins, and Karlos was not gonna make THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE. Panasonic agrees, seeing potential in this Double Goku kid and so begins the training arc. Result: Parashurama proudly announces that Karna is his equal in the art of warfare and archery. All this heaving and hoing gets my man Parmesan tired, though, so Karna, ever the good boy, offers his sensei his lap so he can sleep, sensei says fuck yeah and he uses his lap pillow. While he is sleeping, however, a very angry bee goes and stings the hell out of Karna’s thigh, but he’s got his sensei on his lap, which is like when you have a cat or a puppy on your lap and it falls asleep and you do not DARE move. So he didn’t, and this leads to a very important lesson to be learned in the Mahabharata: NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED. When he woke up, Parashurama saw the wound and the blood that flowed from it (and from this, I take bees in India are Cazadores from Fallout New Vegas) and immediately realized that Kane was NOT a Brahmin. This lie meant he had ILLEGALLY STOLEN INFORMATION, and so he cast a curse on Karna that made him forget everything about how to wield the divine weapon Brahmandra-astra, an immensely powerful divine weapon he learned to use, but Karna pleaded to please be reasonable, at which point Par realized, hey, maybe this is kinda excessive and impulsive, so he reduced the curse to make it so Karna would only forget it when he needed it the most against an equally powerful warrior, which IS NOT ANY FUCKING BETTER, and then he felt EVEN WORSE because Karna had basically been his best student ever and is a Good Person, so he gave him his own divine weapon, the Bhagavastra, as well as his bow, Vijaya. I mean, you could’ve just. Undone the curse. But hey. New weapons!

So Karna, a dedicated and excellent archer, was VERY HYPED to try out this new legendary bow he had come to own! There’s a thing in Hindu martial arts called “Shabdavedi Vidhya”, the art of hitting a target by detecting the source of the sound. What Karna didn’t consider is that shooting things by just detecting their sound, you know, means you are not REALLY LOOKING AT WHAT YOU ARE SHOOTING, but hey, like eager-to-try-new-toys mother, like eager-to-try-new-toys son. Three guesses as to what happened. You are RIGHT, HE SHOT A FUCKING COW. And it’s not with a little arrow or a harmless stick, this was with the Vijaya, which means that cow was obliterated off the face of this god damn planet. My dude was practicing “shooting at sounds” with a tactical nuke launcher. What the tits did he expect to happen. SEE, I’m sure you know, but shooting cows in India is not exactly something you just apologize about. But Karna, albeit not the brightest crayon in the box, was still Ultimate Good Boy, so he went to apologize to the owner of the cow, who happened to be an actual Brahmin who had performed the Agnihotra rite daily, which made him extra holy. Brahmin, of course, was pissed, and since apparently people in India just have a full moveset of curses ready to sling at a moment’s noticed, cursed Karna AGAIN, with this curse being “fated to die a helpless and callous death”. Not the best series of days for Karna. He could’ve just walked away, but he’s a Good Boy, so he had to take responsibility. NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

So I want to call attention to this bitch of a life for a second: Baby is born because some cunt used her super pregnancy powers to see if they worked without considering the consequences of, you know, getting super pregnant, Baby is chucked into a basket and sent to fuck off on the rapids, is picked up, immediately tries to enroll with a fighting master, instead enrolls with a SUPER fighting master that taught the previous fighting master, and gets double cursed for being a good boy and having bad trigger discipline.

Now, let’s skip a couple of chapters, and we arrive at the moment where the Pandava princes, all demi-gods, hosted a “tournament” of sorts to show off their skills to the people and to their guru, Drona. They were all having a good time, being badass and superpowered WHEN SUDDENLY Karna shows up and arrogantly challenges them because he knows he can do better, from what he has seen. One of the princes, Arjuna (kept you waiting, huh?), who was regarded by Drona to be the most powerful and skilled on the Pandava, told him to maybe fuck off, and that they couldn’t compete because they were above him, as his caste was no doubt lower than theirs. A certain pair of ears DID NOT LIKE THIS and jumped to Karna’s defense: Duryodhana is the name of the owner of said ears, and he’s got Authority. How much of it? Well, he just up and named Karna King of Anga then and there, just so he could compete. Holy SHIT. Now, see, Duryo hates the Pandava. Duryo REALLY, REALLY HATES the Pandava, and he was 100% behind supporting this random stranger if it meant he could possibly maybe humiliate these ugly sumbitches. Maybe. Ok, see, here’s where it gets a bit weird, but depending on who tells the tale, Duryo and Karna actually already knew each other and were childhood friends, but most tellings make this their first meeting, and I am absolutely on board with that, because it only goes on to show how much Duryo hated the Pandava, and divine people in general. He just fucking HATED gods, man. Can relate. So Karna goes and UTTERLY OUTDOES AND UPSTAGES the Pandava princes. Outright beats all their highscores and writes “ASS” in the 1st Place billboard on each entry as his name. They are all FURIOUS at him, especially Arjuna, who had aced every single event, and now had to wear a nice 2nd place on all of them because this absolutely nobody (no one knew Karna was the sun’s son yet) showed up and utterly pulverized them. This also starts his relationship with Duryo, with whom he’d become fast, and eventually, best friends.

BUT, SEE, HE KINDA GOT MADE A KING, SO HEY, HE HAD TO GO, UH, TEND TO THAT. He was checking his brand new sudden kingdom, when he came across a WEEPING CHILD. If there is one thing Ultimate Good Boy can’t stand, that’s the tears of children, so he approached the girl and asked what’s wrong. See, the girl had accidentally dropped her ghee (kinda like butter but less dense) and she was going to get her ass whooped by her step mother. Karna kindly offered to buy her new ghee, but she said it had to be THAT SPECIFIC ghee with the dirt on it, and that she didn’t want any other. Karna, in his infinite kindness, said “oh, sure, lol”, so he grabbed the dirt and squeezed it with all of his extremely godly might, extracting the ghee back into the jar as if squeezing water out of a sponge, because that’s just the kind of solution you come up with when you are the strongest person in Ever.

hey

hey

you guys remember what I said a while ago?

WHY YES

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

Guess what happened. Guess whose anger he incurred. He got Bhumi Devi/Mother Earth herself pissed at him. And what was her beef, you ask? Well, see, Karna squeezed that soil SO DAMN HARD that she took offense. Yes. Really. And guess whSHE FUCKING CURSED HIM TOO, OH MY GOD, CEASE THIS, YOU CAN’T JUST HEX A DUDE FOR SQUEEZING DIRTY, COME ON. The curse this time was that she would one day trap his chariot’s wheel during a crucial moment in his life. All because that little girl wouldn’t make do with a new jar of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

WORST. WORLD. EVER.

And guess how Karna dies.

Yes.

His chariot’s wheel gets trapped on the earth (third curse) during a crucial confrontation with Arjuna, he attempts to defend himself with his astral weapon, but forgets how to conjure it (first curse), and is decapitated by a shot of Arjuna’s Gandiva as he helplessly leans against the chariot’s wheel, unable to free it (second curse).

The moral of the story is don’t fucking help anyone, ever, and don’t own up to your mistakes, because if you do, you’ll be triple cursed.

                                                                                       Karna deserved better.

[ramblinganthropologist]

Inkjournal Day 1

I found some prompts and lord I’m back on my bullshit.

Prompt: Hello there Summary: Avery Hawke’s quiet day turns out to be not so quiet at all. Chewy leads her to a welcome surprise amidst the green grasses and hills, though it leaves her more than a little sore. Oh well, she doesn’t mind that. Word count: 1343

---

It started out as a normal day. Maybe that's why she was caught off guard.

Avery had never been good at waking up on time. That morning was no different as she slid from her bed, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Next to her, Chewy had barely stirred as she continued her dog dreams, whatever they might be. Maybe she was biting Templars; that's what her owner would have done.

“Should probably get Anders to look at my shoulder when I have time.” It was stiff through getting dressed and having a quick meal in the early afternoon Hightown sun. If she left it, it probably wouldn't bother her for most things. However, there was always the chance somebody needed killing, and then she'd be up the shit creek.

The streets of Kirkwall were quiet for once as she walked them, heading nowhere in particular with Chewy at her side. All things considered, it was a decent day. The sun had even managed to burn off most of the fog that plagued Lowtown, though it had done little for the smell. After so many years, though, she was pretty much used to it.

“So, what do you want to do today, girl?” Her gaze lingered on the Mabari keeping pace with her. “Annoy Aveline, or see if Merrill needs help with her roof again?”

Chewy, however, didn't answer. Instead, her ears perked up and her tail began to wag so hard it nearly broke her owner's leg. Without warning, she took off like a shot down the street, barely dodging day laborers and merchants alike.

Usually, when she ran like that somebody was going to start bleeding.

It took Avery a moment to realize her dog was gone. However, when her mind cleared enough she headed after her, threading through the crowds that were only beginning to fill in the swath the Mabari had cut through it. Luckily, she was pretty quick on her feet, so the only person that wound up on their ass was a Templar recruit who should've been in the Gallows.

“Where the hell is she going?”

It wasn't the Hanged Man – they passed that in the blink of an eye. Nor was the entrance to the Alienage, given they had breezed past it long ago. Chewy wasn't even interested in their familiar route to Darktown; her paws were taking her out of the city, to the surrounding common lands that were a little greener than the shit stain that was her beloved city.

The air got a little sweeter as they left the Kirkwall gates behind. A little further, and actual grass was growing. Still, the massive dog kept running and forcing her owner to chase after her. At least with leaving the city, the chances of stepping into a puddle of piss were lessened.

Of course, that was exchanged with animal shit, so it wasn't exactly perfect.

It was on the top of a hill that Chewy finally stopped, panting as she laid down in a sunny spot. Avery collapsed at her side, sweat trickling down her face as she leaned into the soft brown fur that was her pillow. A cool breeze blew by, drying the sweat a little bit and causing the grass to rustle around her. For being so close to Kirkwall, it was strangely peaceful.

“Did you just want a change of scenery, girl?”

She at least had the energy to reach up and scratch the dog behind her massive ear. It earned her a slobber covered hand, but that wasn't so bad either. It at least made her chuckle as she closed her eyes, enjoying the sun.

They weren't alone, of course. Green land like that was perfect for grazing animals on good days, so the flocks were out in full force. Sheep and cows alike created a bucolic backdrop to her afternoon nap, for the briefest of moments reminding her of Lothering in better times. Without the darkspawn, it had been a pretty decent place. Not decent enough to want to go back, but alright all the same.

Off in the distance, a dog barked to gather its flock. When it barked again, however, Chewy's head picked up. Suddenly, Avery was hard on the ground and holding the back of her head. When her vision cleared, she sat up and glared.

“What the hell was that for?”

Her dog was running again, down the hill and towards a flock of nearby sheep. Groaning, the warrior started to head down the hill as well to make sure a terrified shepherd didn't try to fend off a wolf attack from a giant ball of sentient fluff.

She really didn't want to take a crook to the head. They kind of hurt.

“Chewy, slow down! Don't bother the nice sheep!” The shepherd – or at least she figured that was who it had to be – was standing by a rather large dog. With her hands on her knees, she didn't get much more details than their feet. “Sorry about that, my dog didn't mean to bother yours.”

“No, I'm pretty sure she did.”

A deep voice caused her eyes to widen and her neck to snap towards the heavens. The shepherd kept going and going until it seemed like his shining head was among the clouds. His face might have been blank, but she knew cheer in those eyes anywhere.

“Shit!”

Her body acted without thinking about it: she was running, and then she jumped. Strong arms caught her and pulled her into a hug some feet off the ground, though she knew she was safe. He would never drop her.

Moses was stronger than that.

“Hello there to you too, Avery.” His tone was light as he held her at arm's length, inspecting her. “I see you ignored everything I said about fashion.”

That caused her to laugh, though it was hard to deny there were tears in her eyes. “You never said you would be coming back, you asshole.”

Indeed, last time she had seen him had been months ago. Moses had left with only a few parting words, heading off into the unknown with his small flock of sheep. He had never written, not even to let them know how he was doing. It would have been logical to assume something had happened, but he was stronger than that.

Well, maybe something had happened. His flock had grown in size and now included a lot more fuzzy lambs staying close to their mothers. They were well fed, maybe even lingering on fat, and soon their wool would be ready for shearing. With such a large number, there was no telling what he was going to do with it all.

“Don't tell me you went off to buy more sheep.”

“I won't then.” Without another word, he unceremoniously dropped her to the ground and whistled. Off in the distance, his Dog – Dog – began to round up the sheep to head for where he kept them. Their grazing was done for the day.

For the briefest of moments, their eyes met. His twinkled in a way she had missed so dearly, but there was mischief there as she slowly rose to her feet after the the nearly meter drop. He was lucky she was so acrobatic, or that might have hurt.

“Find somewhere else to stay for the week. You've had Anders and Fenris to yourself for way too long.”

And then he was gone, heading back towards Kirkwall as Dog finished up. Avery was left sitting in the dust, Chewy barking behind her as she lent a hand to her canine companion. Despite everything, she was smiling.

“Welcome back, you horny asshole.”

Shaking her head, she stood and walked back to where the sheep were. Hopefully, Varric wouldn't mind her sleeping on the couch while Moses worked out some tension with his lovers. If not, well, she'd figure it out. She was good at that.

[dearoldblighty-blog1]

Composting - The Definite Guide

Hello everyone, let’s see today, what really is composting?

Composting is taking your own own kitchen scraps and waste materials, and helping them break up into soil that extremely great for your garden. It is essentially controlling and boosting along nature’s decomposition procedure by recycling natural and natural issue and transforming it directly into a nutrient rich dirt amendment. It is a type of “reincarnation, ” when you think about this. Think about the following points, and will also be well upon your method to producing composting a part associated with your normal life.

Area

Whenever you are planning a backyard compost system, pick the area with access in order to a water source, within an area that gets moderate sunlight. You may not need to completely dry aside the composting material, yet the added heat through sunlight does speed together the process.

Everything you May Put In Your Compost Bin

Add both nitrogen-based (or green) and carbon-based (or brown) items into the compost bin.To obtain the breakdown process began and keep it heading, maintain a ratio associated with green to brown from about 1: 2.

Eco-friendly

Green

Vegetable and fruit leftovers

Fresh grass clippings

Ovum and nut shells

Espresso reasons

Tea hand luggage

Bread products

Manure (from cows, sheep, chicken, or even rabbits)

Flat beer

Brown

Cardboard products

Dead simply leaves, branches, pine cones plus needles

Paper egg cartons

Sawdust and hay

Without treatment wood

Tissues and papers

Lint

Shredded junk e-mail

Wine corks (I happen to have a lot associated with these within the compost heap! )

Everything you Shouldn’t Place in Your Compost Rubbish bin

The majority of compost systems do not achieve the necessary internal temperature to completely kill any kind of bacteria present in the particular next items, so this is often best to keep all of them away. Adding synthetic pieces can actually destroy the particular microorganisms necessary for the particular composting process.

 Bones plus meats

 Fats and meals preparation natural oils

 Dairy products

 Waste materials from dogs or felines

 Treated wooden

 Weeds or even diseased plant life

 Yard clippings with pesticides or herbicides on them

Size plus Style

Here is precisely where some innovative imagination comes within to try away. If you stay in a smaller apartment, consider vermicomposting, a tabletop composter, or even a smaller bin that matches onto a balcony. Regarding small-scale composting, a individual bin or tumbler-style rubbish bin will be perfect. If a person possess a good amount connected with yard and garden issue to work with, I actually recommend a two- or even three-bin system, like I really am using (pictured above). The benefits here? You can always have an positively composting bin and 1 more which is already cured plus ready to use. Such as a less-structured, freestyle method? In case you are not really concerned with aesthetics, use a “no-bin” style: look for a good out-of-the way room inside your yard plus just create a heap. Layer the particular “green” and “brown” elements, provide a good sprinkling, plus till. In the drop, cover with a tarp, and then let the compost continue establishing within the winter. You may actually bury kitchen plus garden scraps straight into the particular soil between rows associated with vegetables and within beds. Composting can be that simple!

The Necessary Steps

The particular basic steps for composting are:  Layering

Sprinkling

Switching

Repeating

Begin by constructing your compost bin upon well-drained soil. I put a layer of flagstone patio and gravel within our bin, to aid along with drainage. Fill your garden compost bin with the 6-inch coating of “brown” matter together with a 2- in order to 3-inch coating of “green” matter. Water until damp, but not soggy, similar to the feel of a moist sponge. Replicate the layering process and turn. The more regularly you change, the faster the natural and natural material will break straight down. The compost is ready when it resembles the color of healthy ground, has a loamy regularity, and wafts a pleasing, earthy fragrance your way. The finished compost will become ready anywhere among about two months and a 12 months, depending after what goes into your compost, your ratio, and precisely exactly how often you turn.

Common Problems and How to Fix Them

Compost will certainly be smelly – You may be the majority of likely not tilling enough enabling correct air blood flow, or maybe you could have watered an excessive amount of. Just add dried out “brown” material and alter. Compost has stalled – Your compost could end up being too dry. Add a lot more “green” material, water, plus turn. Compost is slimy – Presently there can be an excessive amount of dampness within the mix. Add a lot more “brown” material, back away upon watering, and turn.

Tips to Effective Composting

Take the time to break larger pieces into smaller sizes to speed up the process. End up being aware about the 1: 2 ratio of “greens” within order to “browns. ” Activate a brand brand new compost bin employing the shovelful of soil through your own garden, so as in order to bring in beneficial microorganisms, or also opt to acquire the compost activator at your own nursery.

Composting for Anybody

Nevertheless feel overwhelmed, or even usually are you short upon period or space? Whenever i described earlier, try out indoor composting. I furthermore recommend looking at nearby community gardens inside your region. Many delightful your cooking area and backyard waste within their very own composting programs. Perhaps your personal city has a bio-waste pickup program, so a person can simply positioned your personal compostable material with the road. Regardless of your restrictions, you will find options in order to take part in this exciting process! Once you begin composting, your own garden will certainly rejoice. Your own buddies might even enjoy your new hobby plus send their own unnecessary cooking area scraps. 1 of our girlfriends means the remaining pulp from her every day juicing. She is unquestionably obtaining a few of my tomato vegetables later in the time of year in return! Possess a person had success with composting, or are you currently giving this a shot this time of year? Exactly what are or were your own biggest hurdles to conquer?

[robertkwatson2-blog]

A Vegan Dietitian Reviews What the Health

By Virginia Messina, MPH, RD

As a vegan health professional, I am sometimes mortified to be associated with the junk science that permeates our community. And as an animal rights activist, I'm disheartened by advocacy efforts that can make us look scientifically illiterate, dishonest, and occasionally like a cult of conspiracy theorists.

There is a growing movement to create a more honest and evidence-based approach to vegan nutrition, though. And those of us who value this effort need to be a more visible presence in the animal rights community. We can't allow our voices to be drowned out by the pseudoscientific noise. We need the non-vegan world to know that it is possible to stand in support of animal rights while embracing scientific integrity.

It is in this spirit that I venture into the discussion about the newest plant-based documentary What the Health.

The duo behind the film are Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn, who are animal rights activists. They also made the movie Cowspiracy (which I have not seen) and I admire their passion for animal advocacy.

I also appreciate that this newest film addresses a number of issues that deserve attention. It is indeed disturbing that non-profit organizations like the American Heart Association accept money from the beef industry. And yes, it's true that eating a healthy diet that emphasizes plant foods can be a powerful way to counter chronic diseases. I also appreciated that the film addresses social justice issues like the pollution from pig farms which are disproportionately located near low-income communities of people of color.

I wish What the Health had stuck to these kinds of observations and supported them with an informed discussion of the evidence. Instead, it cherry-picked the research, misinterpreted and over-stated the data, highlighted dubious stories of miraculous healing, and focused on faulty observations about nutrition science. The themes of What the Health are that:

a vegan diet is the answer to preventing and treating all chronic disease

meat, dairy and eggs (and fat) are the cause of all these diseases

and non-profit organizations don't want you to know this because they are funded by Big Food.

Most of the misinformation in the film is due simply to a poor understanding of nutrition science and research. But some moments struck me as overtly dishonest. While he doesn't directly say it, filmmaker Kip Andersen gives the impression that he is exploring a vegan diet for the first time. He says Like so many people, I was looking for an excuse not to change my diet. I found it hard to believe that he was not a vegan while making this film. And the other half of the filmmaking duo, Keegan Kuhn, has stated that he's been a vegan for decades. So this all felt pretty disingenuous.

The film also employs an obvious double standard. It points to conflicts of interest among national non-profit organizations without acknowledging that most of the doctors interviewed in the film also have conflicts of interest. Some are animal rights activists and some have built their reputations and livelihoods around vegan nutrition. While that is certainly not reason to discredit everything they say, bias is bias and objectivity cuts both ways. These doctors should be held to the same level of scrutiny as the organizations taking money from the food industry.

Research is Complex and Conflicting

When Kip approaches non-profit health organizations for interviews, he finds that no one wants to talk with him. The first people answering the phone can't respond to his questions about diet and health. I'm not sure why he finds this surprising. They are administrative assistants, not health professionals.

But executives at most of these organizations wouldn't grant him an interview, either. This was understood to be evasiveness in response to Kip's effort to have a meaningful discussion about diet and health. And maybe even some kind of conspiracy. Why would an American Cancer Society rep not want to talk about this? he wonders.

Well, I can tell him why. These busy professionals don't have the time or patience to engage in a debate about nutrition with someone who doesn't understand how extensive, complex, conflicting, and confusing the research is. There have been many times when I've not responded to people who want to wave a copy of The China Study in my face as they challenge my statements on oil or protein or vitamin B12. I can sense pretty quickly when a discussion will only waste my time, and when an inquisitor is hostile to fairly considering other points of view. I'm guessing that the director of the American Cancer Society recognizes this, too.

Furthermore, when journalists schedule interviews to discuss nutrition research, they typically provide information about which studies they want to discuss ahead of time. That's why I sympathized with the Chief Medical Officer of the American Diabetes Association who didn't want to debate diet research. It's why I understood why no one from the Susan G. Komen organization wanted to defend the fact that there is no warning about dairy and breast cancer on their website.

The folks at Susan G Komen are not ignorant about the relationship of dairy foods to breast cancer. Their website notes that high-fat, but not low-fat dairy foods may increase risk and that the research is conflicting. The resources listed on the What the Health website say pretty much the same thing. For example, they cite a paper that says this: On the whole, evidence for an increase in risk for breast cancer through consumption of cow's milk and dairy products is blurry and partially contradictory and equivocal.

This is also the conclusion of the report from the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) a leading authority on diet and cancer (and a group that promotes a plant-based diet). In their review of all of the research on the subject, they were unable to conclude that dairy foods raise risk for breast cancer. They did say that it is probable (but not convincing) that dairy raises prostate cancer risk but that dairy consumption probably offers protection against colon cancer. That's where the science stands right now, and it can't be negated by one study accompanied by interviews with people who are not experts on the current state of diet and cancer research.

The filmmakers also run into trouble when they try to decipher individual studies. For example, they mistakenly assert that the World Health Organization's analysis of processed meat and cancer risk is based on 800 studies. But this was a meta-analysis which means it began by identifying potentially relevant studies through a keyword search. In this case, it found 800 of them. But only seven of the studies actually qualified for and were included in the meta-analysis. So their conclusions are based on seven studies, not 800 a big difference, and a big blunder by the filmmakers.

And while processed meat isn't exactly a health food (and the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen Foundation and the AICR all advise people to limit its consumption) eating hot dogs is not as dangerous as smoking. The filmmakers contend that they are equally dangerous because both are type 1 carcinogens. That's not what this type of ranking means, though. It has nothing to do with the degree of risk. It's this sort of consistent lack understanding that fuels so much of the hyperbole in the film.

Everybody Gets Enough Protein and Other Vegan Nutrition Myths

What the Health includes extensive interviews with the usual cast of celebrity vegan doctors (and why, by the way, do the same doctors appear over and over again in vegan-oriented health movies? It can't possibly be true that there are only ten health professionals in the entire world who understand the relationship of diet to chronic disease). This results in a hodgepodge of information including some that is flat out wrong. We're told, for example, that carbohydrates can't be turned into fat (not true) and that only plants can make protein (this is half-true; the human body makes proteins all day long, but some of the raw materials for this originate in plants.)

There is also the obligatory observation from a physician who has never seen a patient with a protein deficiency. This refers, of course, to an acute protein deficiency like kwashiorkor. It's a distraction (and an irresponsible one) from the fact that some people, especially older people, get too little protein for optimal health, and that vegans may have higher protein needs than meat-eaters. This same doctor then suggests that you could get all of the protein and essential amino acids you need from 2000 calories worth of rice. This might bring you fairly close to meeting total protein needs, but it falls far short of requirements for the essential amino acid lysine. This is the kind of casual disregard for real issues in nutrition that can set vegans up to fail.

Also obligatory in any plant-based film is the graph showing that populations who consume the most dairy worldwide have the highest rates of hip fracture. This may be true. But you know how Dr. Neal Barnard rolls his eyes in this film when he's asked about sugar and diabetes? That's me when people start talking about the link between hip fracture rates and dairy or protein intake among countries. Among nutrition experts, these kinds of comparisons carry almost no weight. This is because there are so many confounding factors that affect the comparisons. For example, countries with high dairy consumption also tend to have icier winters. This significantly increases risk of falling, which in turn increases risk of a hip fracture. In fact, the article that What the Health cites to support the dairy connection to hip fracture doesn't even mention dairy. It says that the factors responsible for the differences in fracture rates are population demographics (with more elderly living in countries with higher incidence rates) and the influence of ethnicity, latitude, and environmental factors.

So What the Health leaves us with a faulty perspective on nutrition research that downplays the importance of both protein and calcium for bone health. This denies vegans and potential vegans the kind of information they need to actually stay healthy.

The Miracle of a Plant-Based Diet

The exaggerated and misleading statements about animal foods and health are meant to build the case that you must be vegan if you want to be healthy. We hear, for example, that there is no evidence that consuming animal foods in moderation can turn heart disease around. Yes, there is. There is at least as much evidence that plant-based (but not vegan) diets can reverse heart disease as there is evidence indicating vegan diets can reverse heart disease.

And finally, there are the miraculous healings. The film tells us that a plant-based diet can treat lupus, multiple sclerosis and osteoporosis. (I'd love to see actual evidence for any of this.) Then we're shown real-life examples of astonishing recoveries from illness. One woman has been diagnosed with bilateral osteoarthritis and is scheduled for two hip replacements because, as she describes it, bone is rubbing on bone. This means that the cartilage that cushions the hip joints has worn away. You can't just grow back a bunch of cartilage in two weeks by changing your diet. Nor is there evidence that a healthy vegan diet will reverse thyroid cancer as is claimed in the film. And I hope that the woman who stopped taking antidepressants in just two weeks did so under strict medical supervision. That is not enough time to taper off of these drugs (which kind of makes me doubt her story). And to imply that people can abruptly stop taking their antidepressants when they go vegan is irresponsible and dangerous.

Kip himself says that after he changed his diet, within a few days I could feel my blood running through my veins with a new vitality. It immediately brought to mind Lierre Keith, ex-vegan and author of The Vegetarian Myth. She says this when she eats a bite of tuna fish after many years of veganism: I could feel every cell in my body-literally every cell-pulsing. And finally, finally being fed.

I'm quite sure that you can't feel every single one of your cells pulsing and I don't believe you can feel your blood running through your veins, either. These are the meaningless testimonials that people offer about every diet under the sun. (Can we not even hold ourselves to a higher standard than the preposterous claims of ex-vegans?)

There is so much more to deplore about this film. The fear-mongering about GMOs and about diet and autism. The body shaming. And of course, the outdated (by about 40 years) insistence that dietary fat is bad.

Is this Film Good Animal Advocacy?

Despite all of the problems with What the Health, I liked what Kip said at the endthat he knew that eating a little bit of animal food was not going to damage his health (which conflicts with what the doctors in the film say, by the way), but that he couldn't eat even a little animal-based food in good conscience.

Knowing the agonies suffered by farmed animals, and the damage livestock do to the environment, means that the most responsible decision is to avoid these foods completely. That's my perspective, too. Most public health experts recommend a diet that emphasizes plant foods and limits animal foods. But unless you bring in concerns about animals, the environment, and social justice, you can't make the case for a vegan diet as the only sensible way to eat. That's why the scientific basis of What the Health was doomed from the start. Instead of focusing on unassailable reasons for being vegan, it focused on the ones that are most easily refuted.

I realize that some activists believe that using any means necessary to get people to stop eating meat represents a win for animals. But putting aside the philosophical issue of whether the ends justify the meansthat is, whether it's okay to be dishonest if it saves animalsI think there are a number of problems with this argument.

First, people most likely to be swayed by this film are pretty likely to be swayed later on in the opposite direction by competing dietary philosophies. I am not convinced that this film will produce some big population of long-term committed vegans, especially when people find out that going vegan doesn't necessarily deliver on all the promises What the Health makes.

Second, the vegan movement's credibility is undermined when we make claims that are so easily refuted. If we get caught lying or exaggerating about the health aspects of veganism, why should anyone believe us when we try to tell them about the treatment of animals on farms, in zoos, and in research labs?

I would guess that this film might also turn off a sizable segment of the population who recognize the hype, the over-the-top conspiracy mongering, and the shoddy science. For many, it's likely to reinforce any negative view they may already have of vegans. With all this in mind, why would we want to promote a film that makes our community look like an unreliable source of information? Getting people to take animal rights seriously is a huge challenge. I cannot imagine that it does our efforts for animals any good when we build advocacy around hyperbole, junk science, conspiracy theories, and transparent dishonesty.

On the surface, What the Health may seem like good advocacy for animals. I suspect that in the long run, though, this kind of outreach sets our efforts back and slows our progress on behalf of animal rights.

Ginny Messina MPH, RD publishes TheVeganRD.com. She has co-authored a number of vegan-oriented books including Vegan For Life, Vegan For Her, Never Too Late to Go Vegan, Even Vegans Die, and The Dietitian's Guide to Vegetarian Diets.

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[watsonrodriquezie]

9 Trends of Primal Interest

I get a lot of industry news. I eat out a fair bit. I talk to people whose job it is to spot and track health trends. I’m privy to some of the greatest, most innovative minds in the alternative health community—my readers. And you guys are always sending me interesting links. Today, I’m going to discuss some trends of Primal interest. I might poke fun at some of them, and others might be relatively small-scale, but even the silly or minor ones point to interesting movements in the health and fitness zeitgeist.

So, what are the 9 I’m highlighting today?

Experiences over Things

In 2015, I wrote about the dichotomy of value between experiences and things, pointing to research suggesting that buying experiences brings more joy and meaning to a person’s life than buying material objects. I explained how our hunter-gatherer evolution probably wired us to get more out of experiences, and I dug a bit into my own opinion on the matter.

People appear to be agreeing with me. Millennials in particular are choosing things like travel and dining out over gear and gadgets. And the material objects people are consuming enable experiential living—smartphones, fitness trackers, and such. Even media consumption is shifting away from ownership of music and movies to on-demand services like Spotify and Netflix.

Eating Root-to-Leaf

Nose-to-tail eating has taken off. Previously arcane bits like sweetbreads, liver, tripe, marrow, and kidney are on menus everywhere, and few people bat an eye anymore. It’s normal.

Eating root-to-leaf means considering the edibility of the entire plant. More often than not, we’re throwing away a large amount of digestible, nutrient-dense flora.

Broccoli crowns are amazing, but did you know you can eat the leaves? Broccoli leaves are some of my favorite. This also works for Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and celery.

It means eating roots and their greens, whether it’s a carrot, a beet, a rutabaga, or a turnip. When the guy at the farmer’s market asks if you want him to “twist off the leaves,” say “absolutely not.”

Even things like lemon, orange, or grapefruit rinds can be grated, pickled, or processed to extract the flavonoids.

Artisanal Wilderness Retreats

Outfits are taking young professionals on carefully curated excursions into the wild. Check out this video from Wilderness Collective documenting their maiden trip. Yes, it’s overwrought. Yes, it’s a bit silly and a little too perfect. But it’s satisfying a real need people have: spending unbroken days immersed in natural settings.

Walking the dog in the park before work is better than nothing. Putting up a Yosemite wallpaper on your laptop is nice (and may even have an effect). Actually spending 5 nights camping out and trekking through Yosemite is nicer and far more real, even if you’ve got a Michelin-starred chef flambéing flat iron steaks for you at dinnertime.

Movement, Not Just Exercise

There’s growing awareness of the importance and primacy of frequent—constant, if you can—low-level movement. Developments like fitness trackers, walking clubs at the workplace, the rise of standing workstations (pun intended), the bi-monthly article railing against the dangers of sitting too much, the concept of “exercise snacks,” (mini workouts done throughout the day) and the constant recommendations that people walk at least 10,000 steps a day suggest that the word has gotten out. Folks like Katy Bowman (of Don’t Just Sit There fame) have played a huge role in furthering, explicating, and refining the message.

Formal, dedicated training isn’t going anywhere. Nor should it. The stuff plain works. But it works better atop a foundation of constant low-level movement.

Health and Wellness Tourism

I’m not talking about jetting off to Costa Rica for dental work, or Thailand for a sex change operation. I’m talking about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, or maybe the Appalachian Trail, or even flying to Spain to hike the Camino de Santiago, or to Turkey to do the Lycian Way. Kickboxing camps in Chiang Mai, Inca Trail maintenance at Machu Picchu, WWOOFing.

Nutrigenomics

Right now, we know a few things about the interactions between specific genetic variants and certain foods, activities, and environmental inputs. But biology is probably the most complex system in the universe. We’re missing a ton.

It’s also getting better. Scientists continue to unmask, identify, and catalogue new variants and their effects—and how what you eat and how you train affects them. A product I used and enjoyed, DNA Fit, and similar ones will only get better, more accurate, and more comprehensive.

Monetization of Recovery Days

With all the CrossFitting, Tough Muddering, Olympic lifting, and other training people are doing, they’re finally beginning to wise up to the role recovery days play in fitness. But rather than only rely on time off and sleep, they’re spending big bucks on the best recovery money can buy. Float tanks (rich in magnesium sulfate epsom salts; the sensory deprivation activates but ultimately helps you tame the monkey mind), cryotherapy chambers (ultra-cold therapy), mobility tools that help you stretch and perform self-myofascial release.

Yes, this can get expensive. This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve always argued for more rest and relaxation and recovery, and the consensual exchange of money for services indicates that consumers of cryotherapy, float tanks, mobility/self-myofascial-release products are clearly getting something out of the exchange.

The Rise of Purple Food

Used to be you could only get a big whack of the all-important purple anthocyanins from a cup of blueberries. That’s changing. There’s purple carrots, purple cauliflower, purple sweet potatoes, purple regular potato, purple asparagus, purple corn, black rice. These aren’t recent creations. Purple/black varieties of produce have been around for decades. They’re becoming more prominent though. All that purple doesn’t make up for the loss of Prince, but it’s probably good for our insulin sensitivity and cognitive function.

Cellular Agriculture

Tech companies’ recent forays into food haven’t gone very well, but cellular agriculture could be a game changer. To grow a piece of beef in the lab, they culture stem cells taken from a piece of beef off an actual living cow. Tender cuts (filets) are harvested earlier, tougher cuts (chuck) are harvested later.

The most prominent cellular agriculture company, Memphis Meats, hopes to have its stem cell-grown “clean” chicken and pork on store shelves by 2021. They’ve already got a working meatball for people to taste.

Will it save us?

That remains to be seen. The “cultured meat” evangelists who decry the climactic impact of ruminants always overlook the vital role holistically-grazed livestock play in maintaining soil health, re-greening land, and building carbon sinks. What other “alternative” benefits of eating and raising traditional will they miss? If they try to “optimize” the fatty acid content of a stem-cell ribeye by excising the saturated fat and bumping up the linoleic acid, I will be very upset (but not very surprised).

If the technology gets cheap enough, we’ll probably be able to grow our own at home to whichever specifications we like. Bump up the vitamin K2, omega-3, collagen, zinc, and so on. That could be cool. Whatever the supposed benefits, if it doesn’t taste and behave just like good meat I’m not interested.

That’s it for me, folks. What about you? What are the trends you’re watching for? Which are the trends you’ve adopted? Let me know down below, and thanks for reading!

[fishermariawo]

9 Trends of Primal Interest

I get a lot of industry news. I eat out a fair bit. I talk to people whose job it is to spot and track health trends. I’m privy to some of the greatest, most innovative minds in the alternative health community—my readers. And you guys are always sending me interesting links. Today, I’m going to discuss some trends of Primal interest. I might poke fun at some of them, and others might be relatively small-scale, but even the silly or minor ones point to interesting movements in the health and fitness zeitgeist.

So, what are the 9 I’m highlighting today?

Experiences over Things

In 2015, I wrote about the dichotomy of value between experiences and things, pointing to research suggesting that buying experiences brings more joy and meaning to a person’s life than buying material objects. I explained how our hunter-gatherer evolution probably wired us to get more out of experiences, and I dug a bit into my own opinion on the matter.

People appear to be agreeing with me. Millennials in particular are choosing things like travel and dining out over gear and gadgets. And the material objects people are consuming enable experiential living—smartphones, fitness trackers, and such. Even media consumption is shifting away from ownership of music and movies to on-demand services like Spotify and Netflix.

Eating Root-to-Leaf

Nose-to-tail eating has taken off. Previously arcane bits like sweetbreads, liver, tripe, marrow, and kidney are on menus everywhere, and few people bat an eye anymore. It’s normal.

Eating root-to-leaf means considering the edibility of the entire plant. More often than not, we’re throwing away a large amount of digestible, nutrient-dense flora.

Broccoli crowns are amazing, but did you know you can eat the leaves? Broccoli leaves are some of my favorite. This also works for Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and celery.

It means eating roots and their greens, whether it’s a carrot, a beet, a rutabaga, or a turnip. When the guy at the farmer’s market asks if you want him to “twist off the leaves,” say “absolutely not.”

Even things like lemon, orange, or grapefruit rinds can be grated, pickled, or processed to extract the flavonoids.

Artisanal Wilderness Retreats

Outfits are taking young professionals on carefully curated excursions into the wild. Check out this video from Wilderness Collective documenting their maiden trip. Yes, it’s overwrought. Yes, it’s a bit silly and a little too perfect. But it’s satisfying a real need people have: spending unbroken days immersed in natural settings.

Walking the dog in the park before work is better than nothing. Putting up a Yosemite wallpaper on your laptop is nice (and may even have an effect). Actually spending 5 nights camping out and trekking through Yosemite is nicer and far more real, even if you’ve got a Michelin-starred chef flambéing flat iron steaks for you at dinnertime.

Movement, Not Just Exercise

There’s growing awareness of the importance and primacy of frequent—constant, if you can—low-level movement. Developments like fitness trackers, walking clubs at the workplace, the rise of standing workstations (pun intended), the bi-monthly article railing against the dangers of sitting too much, the concept of “exercise snacks,” (mini workouts done throughout the day) and the constant recommendations that people walk at least 10,000 steps a day suggest that the word has gotten out. Folks like Katy Bowman (of Don’t Just Sit There fame) have played a huge role in furthering, explicating, and refining the message.

Formal, dedicated training isn’t going anywhere. Nor should it. The stuff plain works. But it works better atop a foundation of constant low-level movement.

Health and Wellness Tourism

I’m not talking about jetting off to Costa Rica for dental work, or Thailand for a sex change operation. I’m talking about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, or maybe the Appalachian Trail, or even flying to Spain to hike the Camino de Santiago, or to Turkey to do the Lycian Way. Kickboxing camps in Chiang Mai, Inca Trail maintenance at Machu Picchu, WWOOFing.

Nutrigenomics

Right now, we know a few things about the interactions between specific genetic variants and certain foods, activities, and environmental inputs. But biology is probably the most complex system in the universe. We’re missing a ton.

It’s also getting better. Scientists continue to unmask, identify, and catalogue new variants and their effects—and how what you eat and how you train affects them. A product I used and enjoyed, DNA Fit, and similar ones will only get better, more accurate, and more comprehensive.

Monetization of Recovery Days

With all the CrossFitting, Tough Muddering, Olympic lifting, and other training people are doing, they’re finally beginning to wise up to the role recovery days play in fitness. But rather than only rely on time off and sleep, they’re spending big bucks on the best recovery money can buy. Float tanks (rich in magnesium sulfate epsom salts; the sensory deprivation activates but ultimately helps you tame the monkey mind), cryotherapy chambers (ultra-cold therapy), mobility tools that help you stretch and perform self-myofascial release.

Yes, this can get expensive. This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve always argued for more rest and relaxation and recovery, and the consensual exchange of money for services indicates that consumers of cryotherapy, float tanks, mobility/self-myofascial-release products are clearly getting something out of the exchange.

The Rise of Purple Food

Used to be you could only get a big whack of the all-important purple anthocyanins from a cup of blueberries. That’s changing. There’s purple carrots, purple cauliflower, purple sweet potatoes, purple regular potato, purple asparagus, purple corn, black rice. These aren’t recent creations. Purple/black varieties of produce have been around for decades. They’re becoming more prominent though. All that purple doesn’t make up for the loss of Prince, but it’s probably good for our insulin sensitivity and cognitive function.

Cellular Agriculture

Tech companies’ recent forays into food haven’t gone very well, but cellular agriculture could be a game changer. To grow a piece of beef in the lab, they culture stem cells taken from a piece of beef off an actual living cow. Tender cuts (filets) are harvested earlier, tougher cuts (chuck) are harvested later.

The most prominent cellular agriculture company, Memphis Meats, hopes to have its stem cell-grown “clean” chicken and pork on store shelves by 2021. They’ve already got a working meatball for people to taste.

Will it save us?

That remains to be seen. The “cultured meat” evangelists who decry the climactic impact of ruminants always overlook the vital role holistically-grazed livestock play in maintaining soil health, re-greening land, and building carbon sinks. What other “alternative” benefits of eating and raising traditional will they miss? If they try to “optimize” the fatty acid content of a stem-cell ribeye by excising the saturated fat and bumping up the linoleic acid, I will be very upset (but not very surprised).

If the technology gets cheap enough, we’ll probably be able to grow our own at home to whichever specifications we like. Bump up the vitamin K2, omega-3, collagen, zinc, and so on. That could be cool. Whatever the supposed benefits, if it doesn’t taste and behave just like good meat I’m not interested.

That’s it for me, folks. What about you? What are the trends you’re watching for? Which are the trends you’ve adopted? Let me know down below, and thanks for reading!

[cristinajourdanqp]

9 Trends of Primal Interest

I get a lot of industry news. I eat out a fair bit. I talk to people whose job it is to spot and track health trends. I’m privy to some of the greatest, most innovative minds in the alternative health community—my readers. And you guys are always sending me interesting links. Today, I’m going to discuss some trends of Primal interest. I might poke fun at some of them, and others might be relatively small-scale, but even the silly or minor ones point to interesting movements in the health and fitness zeitgeist.

So, what are the 9 I’m highlighting today?

Experiences over Things

In 2015, I wrote about the dichotomy of value between experiences and things, pointing to research suggesting that buying experiences brings more joy and meaning to a person’s life than buying material objects. I explained how our hunter-gatherer evolution probably wired us to get more out of experiences, and I dug a bit into my own opinion on the matter.

People appear to be agreeing with me. Millennials in particular are choosing things like travel and dining out over gear and gadgets. And the material objects people are consuming enable experiential living—smartphones, fitness trackers, and such. Even media consumption is shifting away from ownership of music and movies to on-demand services like Spotify and Netflix.

Eating Root-to-Leaf

Nose-to-tail eating has taken off. Previously arcane bits like sweetbreads, liver, tripe, marrow, and kidney are on menus everywhere, and few people bat an eye anymore. It’s normal.

Eating root-to-leaf means considering the edibility of the entire plant. More often than not, we’re throwing away a large amount of digestible, nutrient-dense flora.

Broccoli crowns are amazing, but did you know you can eat the leaves? Broccoli leaves are some of my favorite. This also works for Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and celery.

It means eating roots and their greens, whether it’s a carrot, a beet, a rutabaga, or a turnip. When the guy at the farmer’s market asks if you want him to “twist off the leaves,” say “absolutely not.”

Even things like lemon, orange, or grapefruit rinds can be grated, pickled, or processed to extract the flavonoids.

Artisanal Wilderness Retreats

Outfits are taking young professionals on carefully curated excursions into the wild. Check out this video from Wilderness Collective documenting their maiden trip. Yes, it’s overwrought. Yes, it’s a bit silly and a little too perfect. But it’s satisfying a real need people have: spending unbroken days immersed in natural settings.

Walking the dog in the park before work is better than nothing. Putting up a Yosemite wallpaper on your laptop is nice (and may even have an effect). Actually spending 5 nights camping out and trekking through Yosemite is nicer and far more real, even if you’ve got a Michelin-starred chef flambéing flat iron steaks for you at dinnertime.

Movement, Not Just Exercise

There’s growing awareness of the importance and primacy of frequent—constant, if you can—low-level movement. Developments like fitness trackers, walking clubs at the workplace, the rise of standing workstations (pun intended), the bi-monthly article railing against the dangers of sitting too much, the concept of “exercise snacks,” (mini workouts done throughout the day) and the constant recommendations that people walk at least 10,000 steps a day suggest that the word has gotten out. Folks like Katy Bowman (of Don’t Just Sit There fame) have played a huge role in furthering, explicating, and refining the message.

Formal, dedicated training isn’t going anywhere. Nor should it. The stuff plain works. But it works better atop a foundation of constant low-level movement.

Health and Wellness Tourism

I’m not talking about jetting off to Costa Rica for dental work, or Thailand for a sex change operation. I’m talking about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, or maybe the Appalachian Trail, or even flying to Spain to hike the Camino de Santiago, or to Turkey to do the Lycian Way. Kickboxing camps in Chiang Mai, Inca Trail maintenance at Machu Picchu, WWOOFing.

Nutrigenomics

Right now, we know a few things about the interactions between specific genetic variants and certain foods, activities, and environmental inputs. But biology is probably the most complex system in the universe. We’re missing a ton.

It’s also getting better. Scientists continue to unmask, identify, and catalogue new variants and their effects—and how what you eat and how you train affects them. A product I used and enjoyed, DNA Fit, and similar ones will only get better, more accurate, and more comprehensive.

Monetization of Recovery Days

With all the CrossFitting, Tough Muddering, Olympic lifting, and other training people are doing, they’re finally beginning to wise up to the role recovery days play in fitness. But rather than only rely on time off and sleep, they’re spending big bucks on the best recovery money can buy. Float tanks (rich in magnesium sulfate epsom salts; the sensory deprivation activates but ultimately helps you tame the monkey mind), cryotherapy chambers (ultra-cold therapy), mobility tools that help you stretch and perform self-myofascial release.

Yes, this can get expensive. This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve always argued for more rest and relaxation and recovery, and the consensual exchange of money for services indicates that consumers of cryotherapy, float tanks, mobility/self-myofascial-release products are clearly getting something out of the exchange.

The Rise of Purple Food

Used to be you could only get a big whack of the all-important purple anthocyanins from a cup of blueberries. That’s changing. There’s purple carrots, purple cauliflower, purple sweet potatoes, purple regular potato, purple asparagus, purple corn, black rice. These aren’t recent creations. Purple/black varieties of produce have been around for decades. They’re becoming more prominent though. All that purple doesn’t make up for the loss of Prince, but it’s probably good for our insulin sensitivity and cognitive function.

Cellular Agriculture

Tech companies’ recent forays into food haven’t gone very well, but cellular agriculture could be a game changer. To grow a piece of beef in the lab, they culture stem cells taken from a piece of beef off an actual living cow. Tender cuts (filets) are harvested earlier, tougher cuts (chuck) are harvested later.

The most prominent cellular agriculture company, Memphis Meats, hopes to have its stem cell-grown “clean” chicken and pork on store shelves by 2021. They’ve already got a working meatball for people to taste.

Will it save us?

That remains to be seen. The “cultured meat” evangelists who decry the climactic impact of ruminants always overlook the vital role holistically-grazed livestock play in maintaining soil health, re-greening land, and building carbon sinks. What other “alternative” benefits of eating and raising traditional will they miss? If they try to “optimize” the fatty acid content of a stem-cell ribeye by excising the saturated fat and bumping up the linoleic acid, I will be very upset (but not very surprised).

If the technology gets cheap enough, we’ll probably be able to grow our own at home to whichever specifications we like. Bump up the vitamin K2, omega-3, collagen, zinc, and so on. That could be cool. Whatever the supposed benefits, if it doesn’t taste and behave just like good meat I’m not interested.

That’s it for me, folks. What about you? What are the trends you’re watching for? Which are the trends you’ve adopted? Let me know down below, and thanks for reading!

[milenasanchezmk]

9 Trends of Primal Interest

I get a lot of industry news. I eat out a fair bit. I talk to people whose job it is to spot and track health trends. I’m privy to some of the greatest, most innovative minds in the alternative health community—my readers. And you guys are always sending me interesting links. Today, I’m going to discuss some trends of Primal interest. I might poke fun at some of them, and others might be relatively small-scale, but even the silly or minor ones point to interesting movements in the health and fitness zeitgeist.

So, what are the 9 I’m highlighting today?

Experiences over Things

In 2015, I wrote about the dichotomy of value between experiences and things, pointing to research suggesting that buying experiences brings more joy and meaning to a person’s life than buying material objects. I explained how our hunter-gatherer evolution probably wired us to get more out of experiences, and I dug a bit into my own opinion on the matter.

People appear to be agreeing with me. Millennials in particular are choosing things like travel and dining out over gear and gadgets. And the material objects people are consuming enable experiential living—smartphones, fitness trackers, and such. Even media consumption is shifting away from ownership of music and movies to on-demand services like Spotify and Netflix.

Eating Root-to-Leaf

Nose-to-tail eating has taken off. Previously arcane bits like sweetbreads, liver, tripe, marrow, and kidney are on menus everywhere, and few people bat an eye anymore. It’s normal.

Eating root-to-leaf means considering the edibility of the entire plant. More often than not, we’re throwing away a large amount of digestible, nutrient-dense flora.

Broccoli crowns are amazing, but did you know you can eat the leaves? Broccoli leaves are some of my favorite. This also works for Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and celery.

It means eating roots and their greens, whether it’s a carrot, a beet, a rutabaga, or a turnip. When the guy at the farmer’s market asks if you want him to “twist off the leaves,” say “absolutely not.”

Even things like lemon, orange, or grapefruit rinds can be grated, pickled, or processed to extract the flavonoids.

Artisanal Wilderness Retreats

Outfits are taking young professionals on carefully curated excursions into the wild. Check out this video from Wilderness Collective documenting their maiden trip. Yes, it’s overwrought. Yes, it’s a bit silly and a little too perfect. But it’s satisfying a real need people have: spending unbroken days immersed in natural settings.

Walking the dog in the park before work is better than nothing. Putting up a Yosemite wallpaper on your laptop is nice (and may even have an effect). Actually spending 5 nights camping out and trekking through Yosemite is nicer and far more real, even if you’ve got a Michelin-starred chef flambéing flat iron steaks for you at dinnertime.

Movement, Not Just Exercise

There’s growing awareness of the importance and primacy of frequent—constant, if you can—low-level movement. Developments like fitness trackers, walking clubs at the workplace, the rise of standing workstations (pun intended), the bi-monthly article railing against the dangers of sitting too much, the concept of “exercise snacks,” (mini workouts done throughout the day) and the constant recommendations that people walk at least 10,000 steps a day suggest that the word has gotten out. Folks like Katy Bowman (of Don’t Just Sit There fame) have played a huge role in furthering, explicating, and refining the message.

Formal, dedicated training isn’t going anywhere. Nor should it. The stuff plain works. But it works better atop a foundation of constant low-level movement.

Health and Wellness Tourism

I’m not talking about jetting off to Costa Rica for dental work, or Thailand for a sex change operation. I’m talking about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, or maybe the Appalachian Trail, or even flying to Spain to hike the Camino de Santiago, or to Turkey to do the Lycian Way. Kickboxing camps in Chiang Mai, Inca Trail maintenance at Machu Picchu, WWOOFing.

Nutrigenomics

Right now, we know a few things about the interactions between specific genetic variants and certain foods, activities, and environmental inputs. But biology is probably the most complex system in the universe. We’re missing a ton.

It’s also getting better. Scientists continue to unmask, identify, and catalogue new variants and their effects—and how what you eat and how you train affects them. A product I used and enjoyed, DNA Fit, and similar ones will only get better, more accurate, and more comprehensive.

Monetization of Recovery Days

With all the CrossFitting, Tough Muddering, Olympic lifting, and other training people are doing, they’re finally beginning to wise up to the role recovery days play in fitness. But rather than only rely on time off and sleep, they’re spending big bucks on the best recovery money can buy. Float tanks (rich in magnesium sulfate epsom salts; the sensory deprivation activates but ultimately helps you tame the monkey mind), cryotherapy chambers (ultra-cold therapy), mobility tools that help you stretch and perform self-myofascial release.

Yes, this can get expensive. This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve always argued for more rest and relaxation and recovery, and the consensual exchange of money for services indicates that consumers of cryotherapy, float tanks, mobility/self-myofascial-release products are clearly getting something out of the exchange.

The Rise of Purple Food

Used to be you could only get a big whack of the all-important purple anthocyanins from a cup of blueberries. That’s changing. There’s purple carrots, purple cauliflower, purple sweet potatoes, purple regular potato, purple asparagus, purple corn, black rice. These aren’t recent creations. Purple/black varieties of produce have been around for decades. They’re becoming more prominent though. All that purple doesn’t make up for the loss of Prince, but it’s probably good for our insulin sensitivity and cognitive function.

Cellular Agriculture

Tech companies’ recent forays into food haven’t gone very well, but cellular agriculture could be a game changer. To grow a piece of beef in the lab, they culture stem cells taken from a piece of beef off an actual living cow. Tender cuts (filets) are harvested earlier, tougher cuts (chuck) are harvested later.

The most prominent cellular agriculture company, Memphis Meats, hopes to have its stem cell-grown “clean” chicken and pork on store shelves by 2021. They’ve already got a working meatball for people to taste.

Will it save us?

That remains to be seen. The “cultured meat” evangelists who decry the climactic impact of ruminants always overlook the vital role holistically-grazed livestock play in maintaining soil health, re-greening land, and building carbon sinks. What other “alternative” benefits of eating and raising traditional will they miss? If they try to “optimize” the fatty acid content of a stem-cell ribeye by excising the saturated fat and bumping up the linoleic acid, I will be very upset (but not very surprised).

If the technology gets cheap enough, we’ll probably be able to grow our own at home to whichever specifications we like. Bump up the vitamin K2, omega-3, collagen, zinc, and so on. That could be cool. Whatever the supposed benefits, if it doesn’t taste and behave just like good meat I’m not interested.

That’s it for me, folks. What about you? What are the trends you’re watching for? Which are the trends you’ve adopted? Let me know down below, and thanks for reading!

[sportsandfitnessinfo]

New Post has been published on http://fitnessandhealthpros.com/fitness/9-trends-of-primal-interest/

9 Trends of Primal Interest

I get a lot of industry news. I eat out a fair bit. I talk to people whose job it is to spot and track health trends. I’m privy to some of the greatest, most innovative minds in the alternative health community—my readers. And you guys are always sending me interesting links. Today, I’m going to discuss some trends of Primal interest. I might poke fun at some of them, and others might be relatively small-scale, but even the silly or minor ones point to interesting movements in the health and fitness zeitgeist.

So, what are the 9 I’m highlighting today?

Experiences over Things

In 2015, I wrote about the dichotomy of value between experiences and things, pointing to research suggesting that buying experiences brings more joy and meaning to a person’s life than buying material objects. I explained how our hunter-gatherer evolution probably wired us to get more out of experiences, and I dug a bit into my own opinion on the matter.

People appear to be agreeing with me. Millennials in particular are choosing things like travel and dining out over gear and gadgets. And the material objects people are consuming enable experiential living—smartphones, fitness trackers, and such. Even media consumption is shifting away from ownership of music and movies to on-demand services like Spotify and Netflix.

Eating Root-to-Leaf

Nose-to-tail eating has taken off. Previously arcane bits like sweetbreads, liver, tripe, marrow, and kidney are on menus everywhere, and few people bat an eye anymore. It’s normal.

Eating root-to-leaf means considering the edibility of the entire plant. More often than not, we’re throwing away a large amount of digestible, nutrient-dense flora.

Broccoli crowns are amazing, but did you know you can eat the leaves? Broccoli leaves are some of my favorite. This also works for Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and celery.

It means eating roots and their greens, whether it’s a carrot, a beet, a rutabaga, or a turnip. When the guy at the farmer’s market asks if you want him to “twist off the leaves,” say “absolutely not.”

Even things like lemon, orange, or grapefruit rinds can be grated, pickled, or processed to extract the flavonoids.

Artisanal Wilderness Retreats

Outfits are taking young professionals on carefully curated excursions into the wild. Check out this video from Wilderness Collective documenting their maiden trip. Yes, it’s overwrought. Yes, it’s a bit silly and a little too perfect. But it’s satisfying a real need people have: spending unbroken days immersed in natural settings.

Walking the dog in the park before work is better than nothing. Putting up a Yosemite wallpaper on your laptop is nice (and may even have an effect). Actually spending 5 nights camping out and trekking through Yosemite is nicer and far more real, even if you’ve got a Michelin-starred chef flambéing flat iron steaks for you at dinnertime.

Movement, Not Just Exercise

There’s growing awareness of the importance and primacy of frequent—constant, if you can—low-level movement. Developments like fitness trackers, walking clubs at the workplace, the rise of standing workstations (pun intended), the bi-monthly article railing against the dangers of sitting too much, the concept of “exercise snacks,” (mini workouts done throughout the day) and the constant recommendations that people walk at least 10,000 steps a day suggest that the word has gotten out. Folks like Katy Bowman (of Don’t Just Sit There fame) have played a huge role in furthering, explicating, and refining the message.

Formal, dedicated training isn’t going anywhere. Nor should it. The stuff plain works. But it works better atop a foundation of constant low-level movement.

Health and Wellness Tourism

I’m not talking about jetting off to Costa Rica for dental work, or Thailand for a sex change operation. I’m talking about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, or maybe the Appalachian Trail, or even flying to Spain to hike the Camino de Santiago, or to Turkey to do the Lycian Way. Kickboxing camps in Chiang Mai, Inca Trail maintenance at Machu Picchu, WWOOFing.

Nutrigenomics

Right now, we know a few things about the interactions between specific genetic variants and certain foods, activities, and environmental inputs. But biology is probably the most complex system in the universe. We’re missing a ton.

It’s also getting better. Scientists continue to unmask, identify, and catalogue new variants and their effects—and how what you eat and how you train affects them. A product I used and enjoyed, DNA Fit, and similar ones will only get better, more accurate, and more comprehensive.

Monetization of Recovery Days

With all the CrossFitting, Tough Muddering, Olympic lifting, and other training people are doing, they’re finally beginning to wise up to the role recovery days play in fitness. But rather than only rely on time off and sleep, they’re spending big bucks on the best recovery money can buy. Float tanks (rich in magnesium sulfate epsom salts; the sensory deprivation activates but ultimately helps you tame the monkey mind), cryotherapy chambers (ultra-cold therapy), mobility tools that help you stretch and perform self-myofascial release.

Yes, this can get expensive. This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve always argued for more rest and relaxation and recovery, and the consensual exchange of money for services indicates that consumers of cryotherapy, float tanks, mobility/self-myofascial-release products are clearly getting something out of the exchange.

The Rise of Purple Food

Used to be you could only get a big whack of the all-important purple anthocyanins from a cup of blueberries. That’s changing. There’s purple carrots, purple cauliflower, purple sweet potatoes, purple regular potato, purple asparagus, purple corn, black rice. These aren’t recent creations. Purple/black varieties of produce have been around for decades. They’re becoming more prominent though. All that purple doesn’t make up for the loss of Prince, but it’s probably good for our insulin sensitivity and cognitive function.

Cellular Agriculture

Tech companies’ recent forays into food haven’t gone very well, but cellular agriculture could be a game changer. To grow a piece of beef in the lab, they culture stem cells taken from a piece of beef off an actual living cow. Tender cuts (filets) are harvested earlier, tougher cuts (chuck) are harvested later.

The most prominent cellular agriculture company, Memphis Meats, hopes to have its stem cell-grown “clean” chicken and pork on store shelves by 2021. They’ve already got a working meatball for people to taste.

Will it save us?

That remains to be seen. The “cultured meat” evangelists who decry the climactic impact of ruminants always overlook the vital role holistically-grazed livestock play in maintaining soil health, re-greening land, and building carbon sinks. What other “alternative” benefits of eating and raising traditional will they miss? If they try to “optimize” the fatty acid content of a stem-cell ribeye by excising the saturated fat and bumping up the linoleic acid, I will be very upset (but not very surprised).

If the technology gets cheap enough, we’ll probably be able to grow our own at home to whichever specifications we like. Bump up the vitamin K2, omega-3, collagen, zinc, and so on. That could be cool. Whatever the supposed benefits, if it doesn’t taste and behave just like good meat I’m not interested.

That’s it for me, folks. What about you? What are the trends you’re watching for? Which are the trends you’ve adopted? Let me know down below, and thanks for reading!

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Originally at :Mark's Daily Apple Written By : Mark Sisson

#Interest, #Primal, #Trends #Fitness