Charles’ Parkour Training Blog

I have decided to use this wonderful opportunity to create a cost-benefit analysis for my 100 mile diet. In addition, I will be putting together simple posts such as this that will help outline certain products I buy and their relation to alternatives.

This article is about Yogurt: a wonderful major player in my new diet. After some browsing through the Abundance Co-op and Lori’s, we found this wonderful local dairy farm that not only makes raw milk cheese but amazing yogurt!

Now I’m sure most people know about Stonyfield yogurt. I’ll mention it briefly that Stonyfield does appear to be a decent alternative to most other forms of supermarket yogurt (gogurt?), but at what price? The ingredients sure sound nice:

Our Family Recipe: Cultured Pasteurized Organic Whole Milk, Pectin. Contains our Exclusive Blend of Six Live Active Cultures including L. Acidophilus, Bifidus, L. Casei and L. Reuteri.

However, doing some research, you’ll find that the Stonyfield family has forgone their farm and instead put up a huge factory. They buy organically produced powdered milk from other farms (There have been rumors of importing from New Zealand) and then ship it nationally. Is it organic? Sure. But they still emulate a good portion of the business model of industrial agriculture, harnessing the wonders of cheap oil. In addition, because of the role supermarkets play in Nutritionism and health food fads, finding a bucket of plain, whole milk yogurt is tough as stock is severely overshadowed by its nonfat alternative.

Stonyfield Plain Whole-milk Yogurt:  $3.69 + tax + damage to environment

Now let’s turn to a supermarket knock off: Wegman’s Super Yogurt!

This is a Wegman’s knock off of the Stonyfield product based on the same business model: organic ingredients, shipped from all over, low price. Wegman’s, although a “wholesome” family owned operation, is not innocent of buying into health fad marketing. This bottle is literally barfing with health claims:

43mg of EPA & DHA Omega 3 Fats!
Super Organics!
Powerful Nutrition!

Hell, the product name is “Super Yogurt.” Here is a list of ingredients:

If the picture is hard to read, it is as follows:

Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Organic Nonfat Milk, Organic Sugar, Organic Corn Starch, Organic Cream, Inulin (Dietary Fiber), Fish Oil (Anchovy, Sardine), Kosher Gelatin (Beef, Tilapia), Vitamin D3. Contains a Blend of Live and Active Cultures Including: L. Acidophilus, L. Bifidus, L. Casei, Probiotic Bifidobacterium Lactis.

This is a huge list. First off, the Wegman’s I live next to doesn’t sell a whole milk option. On the nutrition label, despite the 100 calorie serving size, and the label indicating only 10 calories from fat, 40 come from sugar alone. Add in the fiber and the small serving of fat and maybe you can slow absorption slightly. Yet, you cannot take away the fact that sugar is the second ingredient in this food product and as such, 40% of the calories come from sugar.

Apparently it’s a new fad to put fish oil into yogurt now. That way they can have that ad on the product label that takes up about 10% of the space. “43 mg of DHA and EPA.” Well what the heck are those? When I come out with my soon to be released Omega-3 article, you will know in better detail. For now though, EPA and DHA are readily available sources of omega-3 fatty acids. However, the label fails to tell us how much of what kind. To add to this, for those of you who don’t know, the least amount of recommended daily EPA and DHA intake is 650mg, however most other sources will tell you significantly higher values. 43 mg is barely enough to contribute.

Wegman’s “Super” Yogurt: $3.69 + tax + damage to environment

Meadow Creek Farms!

This is the yogurt we have been buying from both our local natural foods marts and our local farmer’s markets. I’ve tried Stonyfield and the Wegman’s alternative, and I will tell you nothing tastes better than this option. It has two simple ingredients:

Pasteurized Grade A Whole Jersey (cow) Milk, Cultures.

There’s not too much to say. They are a dairy farm about 60 miles away and have no interest in paying to become “certified organic.” Their cattle are Brown Jersey Cows that are raised free from antibiotics, artificial hormones, or pesticides. This is the plain option, however they also sell an incredibly delicious Maple yogurt which is made with local real maple syrup. With the plain, sometimes I’ll add a small spoon of local Summer blossom honey and it gives just the right amount of sweet taste.

This yogurt can be purchased at the Abundance Co-op or Lori’s for $3.75, or at the farmers market for $3.50. In addition, you get the benefits of helping out your local economy and putting your money into a system proud of its product and its operation.

As most of you know, aside from my time spent as a traceur and a fitness advocate, I am also an employed personal trainer at my university’s gym. Sometimes I enjoy my work, and other times I feel horrible that I am part of an industry that makes its billions by misleading the general community as to what it means to be “healthy” or “fit.” This is one of those cases.

After a slight scheduling error with a client of mine, I found myself with an hour of time and no idea how to spend it. After some lounging around, a few Oly lifts and some muscle ups, I ventured my way back to the desk to find this magazine lying on the counter:

Fitness Magazine appears to be one of the many well known magazines that run a campaign based on good deeds, up to date health and fitness, and hope for their subscribers. This particular magazine enticed me in as one of their headlining articles was “Fitness Magazine’s 3rd Annual Healthy Food Awards!” I know better, but given the wide popularity of my “Planet Fitness. Scam.” article, I would like to share my thoughts.

The article can be found here and to demonstrate my point I want to go through this list with you and help you realize a very important trend. 50 Foods, not a one of them is actually food. No, the Reduced fat “natural” peanut butter is not real food. No, sir. Neither is the sliced ham, black bean burger, fruit chunks, or the “nature” chocolate chip cookies.

All of these food products are all highly processed, highly manufactured imitations of what food actually is. Yet a wide majority of them advertise in their name the buzz-words: Nature, natural, fiber, whole wheat, organic, fresh (there’s nothing fresh about them), healthy, or 100 calorie!

There is nothing healthy about these products and their ingredients labels are literally cluttered with chemical compounds that I’m convinced most chemists cannot pronounce. And yet, these people know the right answers. In fact, only several issues ago, they interviewed Michael Pollan and asked him his stance on food and what it means to eat healthily, and yet, none of his knowledge can be found in this magazine. This is the explanation for this inconsistency:

Fitness magazines are not created to help you become more knowledgable or more fit.

It’s against their business model. They are there to make money and if you were to learn the awful truth that there is nothing to sell in the health and fitness industry, you would no longer buy. Fitness magazine is a magazine full of well placed ads for their sponsors. It’s not obvious, I know. Everyone who buys magazines knows to shut your brain off when those big full page ads for Edy’s Ice Cream pop up, but the articles?

The articles are advertisements and the articles are big business. A fitness magazine with a subscriber base such as Fitness has a lot of market potential and power. Put an ad in, and demand has a potential to increase. Get a positive article, and you’re sitting in advertisement gold. This entire list is an advertisement for industrialized companies that sell products based on health fads. Low-fat this. Low calorie that. *

Here is a link to the nutritional data for 1 cup of raw kale. 33 calories?! Highly anti-inflammatory? 684% of your daily Vitamin K? I dare you to eat another cup of this and not feel full. Why is it hard to find this in a nationwide publication? Because the person selling kale lives in a house, down the road, and tends his small farm. He/she grows it, probably organically, and trucks it off to your local farmer’s market every couple of days to sell to you. He has no corporate sponsor. Answers to no industry. He doesn’t have some huge office building and I guarantee you he doesn’t feel the need to pay for adveritsement in a fitness magazine.

Knowing this, however, let’s go back and explore the wording used by these very clever editors.

Only nationally available products qualified.

or

Healthiest packaged foods.

These words are meant to confuse you. We live in a nation of multiple climates and regions. Not one locally produced good will always be available in every region. Thus, they must settle for industrially produced processed goods that can be packaged and shipped across the United States. To ship products in this way is only accomplished through massive processing to remove the food from it’s nutrients in an attempt to lengthen shelf-life. These foods are calories and calories only. Not nutrients. This list proved nothing, told you nothing, so you learned nothing.

Every purchase you make to these magazine companies is just money spent on pretty pictures, advertisements, and wasted paper. Cancel your subscription and go give that money to one of your local farmers, who have been growing and selling “Low-Calorie!” and “Healthy!” produce for generations. It does not have long shelf-life. It rots when you leave it out too long. It takes time and care to prepare. But, it is the only fool-proof method to eat healthy.

*The opinions presented here are that of myself and myself alone. If you would like to prove me wrong with facts, please present them through email and I will be more than happy to re-word this article.

Since undertaking the Summer pledge, most meals I have been preparing have been pretty close to 100% local. This meal I am going to share with you is a simple meal and was my first true, local, meal.

It starts with a farmer’s market and on Saturdays Leah and I make our way to the busy market to find our friendly neighborhood good food growers. Each market visit, we usually spend a good deal of time at the Heiden Valley Farms table where our wonderful beef farmer sets up shop. The sale takes less than 30 seconds, and yet we seem to cause a huge back-up as our conversation takes no less than 5-10 minutes. This is where the difference starts: Upon shaking Jim’s hand, a secret and unspoken bond has formed between us. It is the close relationship of a grower to a consumer.

Small talk leads to talk, and each and every consecutive purchase leads to not only business, but friendship. My friendship with my wondful local beef farmer fosters a healthy environment that not only boosts satisfaction, but also food quality. Where would the farmer’s incentive to cut corners be if he personally knew and shook hands with the person/people he or she sells their products to?

Red leaf kale is something that grows abundantly in the Rochester area and you’ll be hard pressed not to find any form of kale at any market. Kale is a wonder plant I discovered several years ago and have been munching on ever since.

In my CSA box, I was given several different things this week, including an interesting beet like vegetable I’ve never seen before. Here is the CSA difference: surprise and creativity! By switching local, I have so far tested and tried 12 new species of plants that I have never tried before. Beets! Radishes! Turnips, spinach, broccoli, tiny-red-root-things-I-don’t-know-what-they-are! Spinach and broccoli may seem strange to some people, but what most don’t realize is that there are sometimes dozens or hundreds of different species of a single plant. A Super-Market finds it economical to only carry one species, but go to a normal market, and you’ll find several variations!

This was our meal:

A 1# Sirloin Steak (100% grass fed and pastured) covered in Beet dices and wrapped in leaves of Red Leaf Kale and baked. Green Peas and locally produced spices including black pepper, salt, cardamom, etc. with a “Very” Blueberry wine from the Finger Lakes.

The difference doesn’t just come from the taste. It comes in the security and the knowledge that you are also supporting your local economy.

It’s been a while since my last update and as always I apologize. My computer time has become very minimal compared to what it used to and probably won’t be changing anytime soon. Luckily, I’ve developed the habit of spending much of this time reading books and I’ve changed significantly as a person and a human being. (Look forward to my upcoming series: Books that Define Me!)

In my conquest to become a more and more well rounded individual, I have shifted my focus not only into nutrition, but also into sustainability. This knowledge has caused a huge change in maturity and has shifted my thinking.

Because of this, Leah and I are undergoing a Summer long challenge to only eat locally produced food. This means no mangoes, no bananas, no cereal, oats, rice, etc. We joined a local CSA which delivers produce every Friday. The rest of our food comes from farmers we find at the local farmer’s markets or local produce found at our close-by organic foods mart and Co-op.

In a follow up post I will have pictures and prices for the kinds of foods I am eating, but for now here is a mock up list:

Green Garlic – CSA
Radishes – CSA
Beets – CSA
Spinach – CSA and farmers market
Strawberries – CSA
Green lettuce – CSA
Rainbow Chard – CSA
Sweet peas – CSA
Kale (red/green curly) – CSA, Lori’s, Farmer’s market

Apples (many varieties) – Farmer’s Market
Blueberries (almost in season) – probably from the farmer’s market
Turnips – Lori’s
Red Romaine lettuce – Lori’s
Scallions – farmer’s market, Lori’s, Co-op

Whole Milk – Lori’s, Co-op
Raw milk cheddar cheese – Lori’s, Co-op, farmer’s market
Yogurt (many varieties) – Lori’s, Co-op, Farmer’s market

Eggs – Fresh brown eggs from a farmer right down the street
Wine – Farmer’s market

Meat -

Meat is going to be an entirely separate post. For now, I get my animal protein from a beef farmer from Heiden Farms. He always has ground beef, however, because his production is limited (as it should be), he doesn’t always have the same cuts every week. His meat is completely grass-fed and pastured.

Again, everything listed is locally produced and given most of the produce is bought from farmer’s markets, most of the money is going straight back to him.

So far I am extremely happy with the initial results and I will continue to update what kinds of foods I am buying/eating as well as bills and expenses.

For a long time now I have been a big opponent of the supplement industry. I don’t necessarily have an undying hatred for supplements in general; specifically the companies that sell and advertise them. They design their bottles and ads to be as misleading as possible and catch people up in a storm. It is my opinion that almost all supplements are a waste of time and hard earned money.

I’m in a bit of a situation that is going to involve abstinance from that which I love most – my training. As I’ve found, this is about as difficult as a chain smoker attempting to quit cold turkey and I have had little success. My tendinitis/osis is extremely resillient.

True to the quote that graces my top banner, I’ve decided to switch strategies to use my situation to my (and hopefully others) advantage. So here we go!

Charles Moreland’s Great Supplement Adventure!!!

A couple months ago I had nice argument/discussion with someone about the effects of glucosamine. After a great deal of research I concluded that there “appeared” to be some interesting clinical support for the tag team that is glucosamine chondroitin. This product appears to be mainly for osteoarthritis however also boasts collagen support for tendons.

After an interesting chat with Coach Sommer, Vitamin C was brought to my attention. This my bane and without a doubt the whole supplement craze was started by this one “miracle” being preached by Linus Pauling. However each study that slams Pauling back down into mortality is also based on his premise that megadoses of Vitamin C will fight off the common cold. I have yet to find any addressing collagen recovery.

Given Coach Sommer’s experience level, I’ve decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. And off to the store I was. $25 US dollars later I had two “miracle” supplements and zero self-esteem/pride.

Glucosamine Chondroitin

Vitamin C

I have enough supply to last for a decent month long trial. I’ll be keeping a log pertaining to dosages consumed perday accompanied by a weekly “personal assessment.”

Onward!!!

Charles Moreland