I hate milk and always have. As I child, I drank it in the morning only when my mother disguised its revolting taste with coffee or chocolate. After school, a glass of milk was the unfair trade-off for chocolate covered grahams and mallomars. Whether downed before or after school, milk caused me severe flatulence. When I was 10, either because she couldn't stand my protests or my smell, my mother gave up forcing it on me.
For the last 10 years, as my bone density declined and I shrank 2 inches, I rued my childhood failure to drink milk. If I had only listened to Mom, a fractured hip would not loom on the horizon, I wouldn't have to choke on calcium "horse" pills twice a day and my pants wouldn't drag on the floor.
Tuesday, however, my refusal to drink milk was vindicated. According to Jane Brody, the personal health columnist for the NY Times, and the person solely responsible for my self-conferred M.D. degree, "two thirds of clinical trials show that milk, dairy foods and calcium supplements do not prevent fractures." If I want to stay out of the fracture unit of Mount Sinai, I should eat 9 servings of fruits and vegetables, decrease my consumption of animal protein to less than three ounces a day and eat only a moderate amount of grain.
On the one hand, this was great news. I could chuck my calcium pills, their concomitant vitamins, D-3 and magnesium, and use the money I would have spent on them on imported cantaloupe. On the other hand,this was a tragic turn of events. If I wanted to preserve what little bone density I had, I would have to forgo my usual portion of half a chicken and restrict myself to a wing. I would be perpetually starved. The only positive spin I could put on my new diet is that one five dollar Dallas BBQ early bird special of half a chicken and baked potato would provide eight dinners. With the money saved, I could sate my hunger with limitless bone strenthening brussel sprouts.
Like the length of a skirt, nutrition is matter of fashion. When we were growing up, eggs were the perfect food. Twenty years ago, those same eggs became toxic, clogging our arteries with dangerous cholesterol. Until recently, soy was a healthy source of protein. Now, its plant estrogens may cause breast cancer. So, I've decided to live dangerously. I will continue to eat half a chicken at a sitting and hope that I don't shrink more than three inches, don't break my femur and live long enough to be told by Jane Brody that chocolate layer cake and Junior's cheesecake are the keys go preventing fractures.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
A Philosophical Question
Being of a superficial bent, I rarely take the time to ponder philosophical or scientific problems. But this week , a pair of temporally disconnected but physically related incidents forced me to ruminate over a question I had not heretofore considered: Is stepping in dog shit lucky?
This seems to me to be both a philosophical and scientific problem. Philosophical, because solving it requires a definition of "lucky," an elusive term meaning different things to different people. Scientific, because any valid conclusion requires empirical evidence of the ramifications of stepping in dog shit.
Although neither a philosopher nor a scientist, I may, in fact, have more expertise than both in this matter, having stepped in dog shit both Tuesday and Wednesday. For us to properly analyze the problem posed, we will need a brief description of causative events.
Tuesday morning, wearing new beige, gold and gray Saucony sneakers, with soles stippled with 50 protruding triangular treads, each surrounded by an indentation 1/4 inch deep and 1/8 inch around, I planted my right shoe squarely in a pile of dog shit. I had been engrossed in thinking about whether to have a salad with tofu or a hummus sandwich for lunch and consequently did not observe the pile beforehand. Feeling the unmistakable squishiness beneath my foot, I inspected the sole of the sneaker. At the heel, each tread was covered with dog shit and more troubling, the 1/4 inch indentation around each tread tread was filled with canine excrement.
Despite the miasma that accompanied me, I continued walking to work and, once there, changed my shoes and spent twenty minutes at the ladies room sink trying to expunge the shit from the shoe. Using paper towels, I was quite successful in cleaning the treads, but only partially successful in cleaning the indentations. They required a special tool unavailable at the office, to wit, Q-tips. The process would have to be completed at home and it was. The final cleaning process was not as unpleasant as one might think, because by the the time of its undertaking,eight hours after the incident, I was inured to the stench.
Tuesday night, I gave considerable thought to whether the incident was "lucky." On the one hand, nothing bad, other than stepping in shit, had happened to me. That could, by an individual with extremely low expectations, be deemed lucky. On the other hand, nothing good had happened to me, other than my thoroughly enjoying the salad with tofu. I was able to draw no conclusion.
Wednesday, as I walked home, I marveled at the pungency of the fruit of female ginkgo tree, the odor of which accompanied me even into the subway, Macy's and Associated. When the unpleasant aroma was still with me as I turned my key in the lock, I thought to observe the bottom of the self-same sneakers. The sole of the right sneaker, soiled the previous day, was pristine. The heel of the left sneaker was encrusted in dog shit.
While some might have been annoyed by having stepped in shit two days in a row,always an optimist, I viewed the second incident as an opportunity to accumulate further data on the luckiness of such an episode. Unlike those with low expectations, I do not define "luck" as the absence of a bad occurrence. Thus, I do not consider it lucky that I did not fracture a hip in dance class. (However I would have considered it lucky had I fallen and not fractured a hip.) I define "luck" as an intangible without which a fabulous event would not have occurred. I would be able to say, with absolute certainty, that stepping in dog shit was lucky, if Thursday, I had received a call that I was the recipient of the Nobel prize for literature. Or, more realistically, that Kevin Costner had posted in Missed Connections on Craig's List: Seen on the 14A bus, short woman with two Trader Joe's bags, got off at Jane Street. You won my heart when the cherry tomatoes spilled out of the bag and you picked them up so gracefully."
As of today, I can say only that in the short run, stepping in shit does not appear to be lucky. I can say nothing about its long range effects, but if the Nobel committee calls next week, I'll supplement my conclusions.
This seems to me to be both a philosophical and scientific problem. Philosophical, because solving it requires a definition of "lucky," an elusive term meaning different things to different people. Scientific, because any valid conclusion requires empirical evidence of the ramifications of stepping in dog shit.
Although neither a philosopher nor a scientist, I may, in fact, have more expertise than both in this matter, having stepped in dog shit both Tuesday and Wednesday. For us to properly analyze the problem posed, we will need a brief description of causative events.
Tuesday morning, wearing new beige, gold and gray Saucony sneakers, with soles stippled with 50 protruding triangular treads, each surrounded by an indentation 1/4 inch deep and 1/8 inch around, I planted my right shoe squarely in a pile of dog shit. I had been engrossed in thinking about whether to have a salad with tofu or a hummus sandwich for lunch and consequently did not observe the pile beforehand. Feeling the unmistakable squishiness beneath my foot, I inspected the sole of the sneaker. At the heel, each tread was covered with dog shit and more troubling, the 1/4 inch indentation around each tread tread was filled with canine excrement.
Despite the miasma that accompanied me, I continued walking to work and, once there, changed my shoes and spent twenty minutes at the ladies room sink trying to expunge the shit from the shoe. Using paper towels, I was quite successful in cleaning the treads, but only partially successful in cleaning the indentations. They required a special tool unavailable at the office, to wit, Q-tips. The process would have to be completed at home and it was. The final cleaning process was not as unpleasant as one might think, because by the the time of its undertaking,eight hours after the incident, I was inured to the stench.
Tuesday night, I gave considerable thought to whether the incident was "lucky." On the one hand, nothing bad, other than stepping in shit, had happened to me. That could, by an individual with extremely low expectations, be deemed lucky. On the other hand, nothing good had happened to me, other than my thoroughly enjoying the salad with tofu. I was able to draw no conclusion.
Wednesday, as I walked home, I marveled at the pungency of the fruit of female ginkgo tree, the odor of which accompanied me even into the subway, Macy's and Associated. When the unpleasant aroma was still with me as I turned my key in the lock, I thought to observe the bottom of the self-same sneakers. The sole of the right sneaker, soiled the previous day, was pristine. The heel of the left sneaker was encrusted in dog shit.
While some might have been annoyed by having stepped in shit two days in a row,always an optimist, I viewed the second incident as an opportunity to accumulate further data on the luckiness of such an episode. Unlike those with low expectations, I do not define "luck" as the absence of a bad occurrence. Thus, I do not consider it lucky that I did not fracture a hip in dance class. (However I would have considered it lucky had I fallen and not fractured a hip.) I define "luck" as an intangible without which a fabulous event would not have occurred. I would be able to say, with absolute certainty, that stepping in dog shit was lucky, if Thursday, I had received a call that I was the recipient of the Nobel prize for literature. Or, more realistically, that Kevin Costner had posted in Missed Connections on Craig's List: Seen on the 14A bus, short woman with two Trader Joe's bags, got off at Jane Street. You won my heart when the cherry tomatoes spilled out of the bag and you picked them up so gracefully."
As of today, I can say only that in the short run, stepping in shit does not appear to be lucky. I can say nothing about its long range effects, but if the Nobel committee calls next week, I'll supplement my conclusions.
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