Confused

it is more like August or July than Mid October right now. What the hell. Warm, raining? Insane i tell ya. Insane.

And, i will sadly admit to not commuting on the bike today. The Lure of the car and the rest day were overwhelming the will to persevere and make the statement of a bike commuter and an inhabitant of the planet. But. That said, Racers have to be selfish now and then. Hauling a big trailer around 5 days a week isn't exactly the best thing for racing on the weekends.

But it is okay. I busted the pianissimo riding last night. Had a wicked strong ride home. Part in thanks to a guy wearing a harpoon brewery jersey. Kinda funny esp in light of thinking about New Belgium Brewery yesterday. Actually the crazier thing was seeing a guy heading north (i was headed south into the headwind) wearing a fat tire ale jersey. that was cool.

It felt good opening up, powering and peaking, backing off, going again, all w/o any feedback of any kind. Going to my physical limits, backing off a little, driving up against that wall of pain, backing down, back up. All the while anytime i slowed down the voice from the trailer would impatiently shout "FASTER" or "GO FASTER DADDY!"

Persistent. I guess she was as tired of the pianissimo riding as i was.

I was also thinking alot about the milk thing. After my comment about milk and the Velonews 'article' someone quipped "...[she] did some more vegan brainwashing on you while driving back and fro..." (see i can use ellipses properly). First off. My brother has been a vegan since 1991. He's smarter, and more articulate than i am. Trust me. No one can have been around stronger arguments for the vegan lifestyle than i have. 1991 was a long time ago. I've been hearing it for a while. There ain't nothing new my vegan house guest can do to 'brainwash' me. I'm beyond it. I absorb the new facts. Collect them with what i have in the jumble of a brain. But, the brain washing comment bugged me.

If you've been reading here for a while, SansAuto had a great series of nutrition articles up. In fact they are still up and quite well worth the read for vegans and omnivores alike.

Oh i'll state this fact: I strongly believe there is no middle ground between the two. Vegetarian is just retarded. Making such a label with so many exceptions doesn't make sense. Fish eating "vegetarians"? Lacto-Ovo veggies? That last one is the worst in my book. Sure, you can eat only farm raised eggs from down the street, and cheese made around the corner from real happy cows (not those fake californian ones), but that doesn't really change the fact that you are eating animals/animal products. And you cease to be a vegetarian. Sure people can argue counter to my point of view. And yes, it is just my opinion. But. There shouldn't ever be a middle ground between vegans and omnivors. Pretty clear cut. That said, nothing is scarier than chicken meat, and fish. Want to be healthy? Eat grass fed, natural/organic beef. Cows that eat stuff we can't. Feed lot cows eat tons of GMO grain. Crops that could be used to grow people food. Grass fed cows eat grass. People don't do well when they eat grass. Cows have 4 stomachs for a reason. They do because they eat GRASS.

So. Now back to Milk. Or baby cow juice. Cow's milk is loaded with stuff to grow baby cows, to help them develop the right stuff to eat grass all day and get big and fat. It ain't good for people. Yogurt? Cheese? Well now that's all processed, broken down cow juice. Other organisms or enzymes break down those proteins designed for baby cows into more simple, more universal elements. IE better for cross organism consumption.

I'm going to snip a few paragraphs from SansAuto's Milk Entry. I strongly suggest yall go read it. Be active participants in your knowledge. Don't be complacent targets of corporate marketing. okay? Just cause the dairy council says milk is good, doesn't mean ya should be drinking it. Okay? Side note. I keep some milk in the fridge, mostly for cooking, pancakes, waffles, french toast... that sort of stuff (in terms of processed foods there is no comparison between that liquid protien and sugar mix and that soy/almond stuff - hell it might as well be trans-fats with the amount of processing that goes into it).

My thesis studied whole and skim milk. When you drink a glass of milk your blood glucose levels go up a little (GI=30 which is low). Blood insulin increases three or four times what you would expect. That really doesn't make sense because you don't need that much insulin to deal with the glucose in the system. But it happens and I don't think it's good.

This is pretty solid too:

Yes, I just said that milk "building strong bones" was due to insulin, not calcium, so where should I get my calcium? Orange juice or other fortified stuff. Really the issue with calcium is due to expulsion and not intake. The US has one of the highest milk consumption rates in the world, and also one of the highest osteoporosis incidence rates in the world.

no way... the calcium in milk doesn't do you any good? I'M SHOCKED. no not really.

Then there is the protein/acid calicum issue (milk has alot of protein - not good)

Second, your body needs to be neutral (as in not acidic). The typical American diet is very acidic. In order for your blood to remain at a constant pH, your body uses a buffer called calcium bicarbonate. Calcium bicarbonate comes from your bone matrix, is used to buffer acidity and is then excreted in the urine. The most acidic foods are colas, processed foods and meats, especially processed meats like ham, bacon, sausage and bologna. The most basic (as in alkaline) foods are fruits and vegetables. Even citrus fruits have a net basic effect on the body (I don't understand this, but I've heard it from several different sources, so I've accepted it). Grains are acidic, but not as acidic as meats. The best thing that you can do for your bones is eat lots of fruits and vegetables (as long as you already exercise).

Hist take home message for strong bones (calcium) really comes down to this:

exercise, basic diet and calcium intake. It takes all three.

exercise meaning something other than cycling and swimming. Although, cyclocross certainly has plenty of bone bending stuff going on. (score another plus in the cross side of things). (see i knew i couldn't get away from cross completely).

Yogurt is good. Well i'm telling myself that. And maybe i've succumbed to the marketing of Stonyfield and Dannon. The active cultures in there definately have a significant benefit to human health. I don't really like the super sugar loaded stuff and i prefer to buy a biodynamic and organic product, non homogenized and all that. The bacteria that make the yogurt break down all those pain in the ass proteins and hormones into simpler structures. Making it all more beneficial and easier to digest for humans. Milk takes up to 4 hours to digest, where as Yogurt is digested w/in 1 hour. That i find is the 'tellingest' fact out there.

Side note - mid way through the second race on sunday i had a jones for some Shift. Man i wanted a couple bottles of that stuff. Saturday i used one of the smoothies (not shift, the ain't got it down round these parts no more) from Stonyfield farms as a pre-race drink/meal. Man it was good. I've been saved from bonking by a shift (hind sight i should have drunk it about 30 minutes earlier on that ride). Anyway.

Don't be deluded into thinking your ritual of a bowl of cold cereal in the morning is going to make your bones strong. That milk in there ain't good. Neither is the processed cereal. Make up a batch of steel cut oats and put some yogurt on it.

Hell have your cold cereal with yogurt. Hell they even have soy yogurt. But i ain't a big fan of that stuff... whatever.

But.

Don't take my word for all this. Find a non-dairy council sponsored source of information. Of if you find a dairy council source, look at the facts. Often you'll find the data rather surprising. case in point that chocolate milk study: they found gatorade just as effective as chocolate milk in recovery. WOW. both were better than Endurox. Hmmm. But all anyone (me included for a while) was talking about, was how amazing chocolate milk is!

That's it.
Go digest, be informed, listen to other's and make your own opinion, but be sure it is justified with facts, not marketing.
G