Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

Down with Health Food

 Posted by at 11:48  Down with
Nov 262014
 
Health Food
Image by Duane Storey via Flickr

“I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric unit.” John Mortimer

Health ‘exerts’ can’t hold a story for very long.

When you have been around the block a few times you begin to notice that the ‘experts’ change their minds from time to time. What they tell you one decade can be considerably different from what they tell you in another. And when those decades mount up, the ‘experts’ often reverse themselves altogether. If that isn’t enough to make you swear off listening to ‘experts’ then I don’t know what is. Take health food for example.

Health food used to be simple

Back in the naive 50’s when I was growing up, we knew what health food was. It was the stuff you got from the farm stand or maybe the farmer made deliveries of fresh stuff every week. It was real food like fresh eggs, whole milk, cream and butter, home grown vegetables and maybe you would buy a cow to butcher and store in the locker. It was a simpler time and we weren’t far removed from our pioneer ancestors, The only processing we did was canning vegetables and making pickles. Then the ‘experts’ stepped in.

Throw out the good stuff

First to go were the eggs, or at least the yolks because of the fat and later the cholesterol. Next it was the whole milk because it contained too much fat and if that wasn’t enough, the ‘experts’ told us that it was bad fat. No more cream. No more butter. Use that paraffinny margarine instead. And while you are cutting, no more pickles because you have to reduce the salt.

Oops!

It was a decade or two later before the ‘experts’ discovered that margarine was even worse for you than the butter they made you give up. You would think that all this revisionism would teach us to ignore the ‘experts’ and eat the good foods that humans have always eaten but you would be underestimating the terrifying consequences that ‘experts’ are able to marshal to cow lesser mortals into submission. They upped the ante (and the syllables) and got us scared again. Mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats, good and bad cholesterol entered the lexicon. You needed an ‘expert’ to know what was safe to eat and what would kill you-

Keep that target moving

These days the ‘experts’ are more tolerant of eggs. Of course they never admit they were wrong. They just reveal that new information makes it safe to eat a few more these days. What rubbish! Throw away all the over processed, chemically enhanced food products foisted on us today as healthy. Toss the tofu. Jettison the vegeburgers. Ix-nay the chemical sweeteners. The future of health food was captured in the prophetic Woody Allen movie Sleeper back in ’73. Forget about the crap from the ‘experts’. Eat what tastes good.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Nov 262014
 

Well, I missed it.

bob X 4

bob X 4 (Photo credit: jacob earl)

I know how much our faithful readers count on getting regular doses of cantankerosity and until now I’ve been committed to living up to my responsibilities here at COC. Heaven knows, somebody has to do it. Justin may be the grand visionary and slave driver but lets just say that he goes AWOL from time to time. Between the kids and the kettle bells, it is hard to keep his attention. Then, of course, there is Bob. You wouldn’t think that life in the wilds of rural Georgia would be so complicated but I’m afraid that every so often Bob goes all nuanced on us. Lately I fear he has his sights on Oprah and her wide-ranging network of influence. Becoming a network mogul keeps his eyes on the prize and distracts him from the mundane production of content. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he is trying to displace Justin.

Anyway, since I’m the only Indian left actually producing content here at COC, it is a heavy responsibility and yesterday I just flat out wimped. I had a post half written when I ran out of steam. The vim and vinegar necessary to season the post just turned to watery gruel and I had to stop. It sits there still, filed away in my computer waiting for future inspiration. I feel bad about that and I hate to go Bob and Justin on our faithful readers but it is not my fault. I have been distracted lately and I feel I must confess my lack of focus and offer an excuse.

It’s not much

when compared to Justin’s kids or Bob’s frozen pipes and it perhaps reveals that the strong focused mind that has carried me through life to this point may be failing, perhaps even drifting into senility but the faithful readers here at Coots deserve nothing less than the truth. In four weeks, this Coot, along with my long suffering wife are leaving the country to visit Europe. It’s been 40 years since either of us set foot in Europe so we are excited and anxious at the same time and it is hard to focus on business as usual..

It’s not the trip itself

Plugs look different

Making the trip isn’t what raises the concerns. We are great tourists. It’s the details. What kinds of electrical adapters will we need to power our electronics? Do we need a voltage converter for our computers. Is my Skype account set up correctly to call home and will our ATM cards work on those foreign bank machines? Will I go crazy in a cramped coach airline seat on an 11 hour flight and will the sleeping pills my doctor gave me actually allow me to sleep on the flight. And thoseare just the things I can think of.

I know that nothing that I worry about will actually be a problem. That is the major life lesson of my seven decades so far. I have pretty much learned to stop worrying about problems I can foresee. What I really worry about is the ones that don’t occur to me now. I can’t possibly prepare for them but maybe if I continue to fuss about what I do know, I will stumble over something else that really requires my thinking.

Enough for now.

I’ll close up this posts for now and promise to do my best to keep the content flowing, maybe even from the continent itself but maybe you can help me. If there are world travelers reading this, there is one thing I ask from you. Share with me the things that you never anticipated during your travels that you should have thought about before you started. I still have four weeks to work on them. It just may be enough.

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Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Nov 262014
 

I can’t begin to understand where Justin gets his ideas but it is even harder to understand what is going on in our readers minds- or lack thereof.  This month they demand that we write Haiku.  Go figure.

I could write an essay about haiku and prepare pointers for mastering the fine art or haiku writing but that might expose the fact that I don’t know crap about Japanese poetry.  So I’m just going to cut to the chaise today and write haiku for your appreciation.  Readers are going to have to read them and then decided whether or not to weep.    But lets up the ante here.  If I’ve got to write haiku, then it is only fair that readers should have to respond in haiku as well.  After all, I didn’t vote for haiku.  Don’t ever let anybody tell you that decisions don’t have consequences.  Then I ask you to vote for your favorite haiku.

Haiku Number 1

Snowy mountain tops

Spring flowers blooming riot

California

Haiku Number 2

Spring-rain soaked ground

Undermines peaceful homestead

Sweet gum tree attacks


Haiku Number 3

Boring, routine day

Take the road less traveled

Be cantankerous


Haiku Number 4

Kid cacophony

Stay at home dad conundrum

Sound the kettlebell!

So that my haiku contribution for today.  If you want to guess the inspiration for each poem, give it your best shot and remember to vote for your favorite and lets have those comments in the form of haiku.

What is your favorite of today's haiku?

  • Haiku 3 (67%, 2 Votes)
  • Haiku 4 (33%, 1 Votes)
  • Haiku 1 (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Haiku 2 (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 3

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Haiku-apps

Haiku-apps (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Nov 262014
 

Time flies. Given that it’s been a while since I checked in with a contribution to the blog you might be asking what I’ve been up to. I’m not sure how to explain my inactivity. It’s not exactly that I’ve been busy- although I have been focusing on other activities more than COC. It’s not exactly that I’ve lost interest in posting – although the amount of comments suggests that either no one is reading COC or, if they are, they don’t much care for the content. It doesn’t matter. I get drawn back here like a moth to the flame. I just seem incapable of staying away. Once more I’m speaking my mind and letting it all hang out. Today, Thanksgiving is on my mind. Thanksgiving is almost on us and, dog gone it, I’m excited. I can’t explain but, no matter the reason, today I’m thankful.
Being thankful comes easy to Americans. We live in the greatest country ever. We have great traditions and a glorius track record of accomplishments. Thanksgiving is a time when we celebrate our history but there is more to Thanksgiving than political history and philosophy. Thanksgiving is also a celebration of abundance and a successful harvest. It’s a time to indulge the appetites and cravings suppressed throughout the rest of the year and relase the inner glutton that gets beaten down at other times.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Cantakerous Old Coots

Happy Thanksgiving from the Cantakerous Old Coots

I’t only natural to feel Thankful at Thanksgiving when you can finally free your inner gourmand. At last you can take a seat at a dining table loaded with delicious food and dig in with reckless abandon. After long months of watching your weight, counting your calories and measuring you cholesterol, it’s time to indulge. Thanksgiving provides an excuse to stuff yourself like a hog without worrying about snide comments deriding your expanding paunch. Finally it’s time to eat big like your grandparents instead of your teenage grand daughter and enjoy the bounty of our fruitful country. Thanksgiving embodies traditional American values as translated into a bountiful feast. Continue reading »

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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Sep 022014
 
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 26: A demonstrator ho...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

“If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people’s opinions will rush in from all quarters.” George Bernard Shaw

Just ask those kids down on Wall Street.

If you listen to pundits, they always want you to be open minded. “Give other people’s ideas a chance,” they tell you. “And it will make for a better world.”

Maybe that’s true. Maybe the world would be a better place if ideas were flowing through open minds like worms through apples. It might be nice if the world were a better place. Still, I don’t know if opening my mind to other people’s thoughts will make my world better. I’m not sure I want anything to do with what most people think.

Most people are nuts!

First of all there is a lot of craziness out there. Just look at the nut jobs polluting wall street- and I’m not just talking about their ideas. If you listen to those dim bulbs, everything should be free, including toilets and when you can’t shit for free, then your only alternative is to shit on a cop car. Well, I’m not buying their ideas, tempting as they might be because I’ve been around this block before. Old timers remember the 60’s because we lived them. We used to tell people not to trust anyone over 30 and demand a new world order. It was just as nutty as the wall street demonstrators but back then, we hadn’t been around the block so it seemed more reasonable. What did those old timers really know anyway and why should we let them run things. That’s the way it always looks to the inexperienced. When you haven’t lived much, it all seems so simple.

I was tempted! 

I didn’t buy into the demonstrations back then although I must admit being seriously tempted and a funny thing happened over time. I grew up. I took on responsibilities and obligations. It was a big trauma on my 30th birthday because I crossed the line and became untrustworthy. When I stopped to think about it, however, I couldn’t find any difference. I was still the same guy with the same hangups and the same dreams. It was the beginning of my recovery. Over time I took my place in society; earned my way, raised my kids and became part of the world that had seemed so wrong just a few years back.

Get your heads straight, kiddos! 

With any luck, those kids down on Wall Street will find their way back as well. And maybe when the authorities finally break up the herd, those dim bulbs will have a chance to reflect on life and think for themselves. It’s a natural thing to want life easy when you are a kid and when you have parents whose every thought in life was to help their kids avoid difficulty. That’s not the way life works though. The easy path often provides the least satisfaction and the smallest rewards. A life without challenges is empty but that is what those kids think they want.

Somehow their dreams and goals got waylaid and left them empty headed and rudderless. As a result they are vulnerable to any silliness floating around. Well their heads aren’t empty any longer and they have lost their mission in life leaving only dependency and whining.

Wake up and look down the road. 

Most of those kids will turn 30 and grow up just like my generation but nothing is helped by indulging them in their silliness. They’ve had their fun. It’s all been a great party but there is nothing in that experience to move them or our country forward. It’s time for them to go home and get a job.

Ralph

Ralph is the inspiration for Cantankerous Old Coots and is our Grand Duke of Cantankerousness

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