Chuck Newton

5 Cholesterol Myths

Okay now, what is this doing on a law blog?  I know, if you want health news you will visit a health website.

But, this is important for a couple of different reasons to lawyers.  First, there is so much disinformation out there concerning health, that I am tired of every lawyer I know being on edge or feeling guilty for what they eat.  Second, I get tired of just being on guard and on edge myself about these issues.  I work at home, and I eat primarily home prepared food, even at lunch.  (Can you say "good old fashion leftovers").  It is stressful watching colleagues struggle and in fighting the temptations I have sometimes.  I get tired of seeing others and worrying myself that if I eat an egg, or butter my bread that I am sacrificing my health and the financial well being of my family.

So, on Health.Com I found The Top 5 Cholesterol Myths, and I wanted to share them with you.  They are:

Myth 1: Americans have the highest cholesterol in the world.  Not true.  We are in the middle range.

Myth 2: Eggs are evil.  They have dietary cholesterol, but this type of cholesterol is not necessarily as harmful as once thought.  When dietary cholesterol intake rises, your body compensates by producing less of its own cholesterol.

Myth 3:  Kid's cannot have cholesterol problems.  Research has shown that atherosclerosis — the narrowing of the arteries that leads to heart attacks—can start as ear;u as age eight.

Myth 4: Food is heart-healthy if it says "0 mg cholesterol".  It is believed to be the least important. Saturated fat (found in animal foods and dairy products) and trans fats (found in packaged foods) appear to have a far greater impact on low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the so-called bad cholesterol that causes atherosclerosis, than dietary cholesterol.

Myth 5: Cholesterol is always a bad thing.  High cholesterol can be dangerous, but cholesterol itself is essential to various bodily processes, from insulating nerve cells in the brain to providing structure for cell membranes. That's why your body makes the white, waxy substance (about 75% of the cholesterol in your blood is made by the liver and cells elsewhere in your body).

Cutting Your Grocery Bill

Good Morning America has a piece on a family that cut their grocery bill in half.  I thought my wife and I were pretty good at shopping, but then you see a video like this and you realize how bad you really are.  But, here is the truth of the matter.  If you can cut your food bill substantially, while grocery prices are rising, without sacrificing much, then you have so much left that you can spend on other things.  The first thing to do is stop eating out.  Cook in.  This leaves great food for lunch the next day.  My wife and I work at home, and that is great.  You will feel better as well.  But, I have got to figure out how this family does it.

Ice Cream As An Antidepressant

Finally, someone has cleared that up.  I love ice cream, and I am generally happy.  What more research does anybody need.  One scoop or two?

ABC News covered this issue recently on its website.

New research published in Nature Neuroscience shed some light on the biological relationship between depression and appetite. While it does not show that ice cream is an antidepressant, it does suggest that a brain chemical, that motivates the consumption of the ice cream, may be.  The chemical ghrelin is naturally produced in the brain and the stomach and it is the most potent appetite stimulant known.

Anyway, you can read the article for the science.  Let me just say, that I am feeling like a little ice cream.

I Am A Flaming Liberal But This Is Just Plain Stupid!

Maybe you should make that a flamed broiled liberal.  But, this news upsets me.

As you might have heard, Los Angeles has placed a ban on fast food establishment in its poor areas.

Do not get me wrong.  We all eat too much of this junk.  We -- especially me and Roger Moore for that matter -- are too damn fat.  But, this is just crazy.

Upper class people can eat at Chili's but poorer people who cannot afford a $10 hamburger cannot eat at McDonald's.  Brilliant.

First, upper class people do not do things that are bad for themselves?  Come on.

Second, this is not the way to handle an obesity problem.  We are not communist who believe we can dictate to (as opposed to educate and reason with) people.  This is a personal freedom issue.

With this, Los Angeles is no better than the Republicans who thought the way to stop bankruptcy filings was to ban people from filing bankruptcy.  Or, to way to stop malpractice claims was not to do more to prevent malpractice, but make it impossible for people to sue doctors who unnecessarily harm them.

You have to think what is next.  Mandatory birth control?  Why not mandate a specific diet and the limit the number of calories a person eats each day.  Have the food police follow them and arrest them when they sneak an extra beagle.  I have the perfect name for this elite unit - The Food Taliban.

We cannot manage to restrict cigarettes, hard liquor, and other harmful vices, but we can limit access to a hamburger.

Mississippi has tried to legislate abortion clinics out of existence in the state using ordinances such as these.  The same people who are upset with this support such a thing as banning fast food establishments?

I remember years ago reading of a new community in Florida that wanted to limit the number of lawyers it had, so it prohibited lawyers from buying houses in its community.  The more legislative version of "the first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyer", which I think was the communities first choice.  The federal courts, as I recall, told them to stop it.

What is the next step, to limit cakes, pies and puddings within the city limits of Los Angeles, or at least for the poor people.  Because when they run out of bread we would not want them to eat cake.

As badly as we need universal health insurance and government protections, this is the exact crazy ass stuff the scares the bejesus out of sane people -- knowing there are government officials that will take their zeal too damn far.

It looks like the California Restaurant Association is going to mount a legal challenge.  Once again, we can only hope the courts will save us from our government.

Thank you Los Angeles for showing people why they cannot trust a more liberal set of policies.

Ice Creams With The Most Fat

I guess it is pretty obvious from my girth and demeanor that I enjoy ice cream.  Now, damnit, ABC News is reporting on the 6 most fattening ice cream brands and flavors.  This is the reason that people hate the liberal news media.  They have a video on their site reviewing these.  But, shortly they are:

1)Häagen-Dazs Chocolate Peanut Butter
(360 calories, 24 grams of fat)

2) Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby
(330 calories, 20 grams of fat)

3) Häagen-Dazs Butter Pecan
(310 calories, 23 grams of fat)

4)Sheer Bliss Pomegranate With Chocolate Chips
(320 calories, 20 grams fat)

5) Ben & Jerry's Vermonty Python 
(300 calories, 19 grams of fat)

6) Coldstone Cookie Batter 
(300 calories, 16 grams of fat)

British Snobbery?

Either I do not get it, or rich Brits do not get it.  I have always found something profoundly humorous even in their serious efforts.  Reality is not one of their strong points.

Now this is rich.  Literally.  According to the Daily Mail, Prince Charles has converted his Aston Martin to run on English wine.

It was a little reminiscent to me years ago when I learned that Sir Paul McCartney filled his tub with Perrier bottled water to take a bath.

I guess it might be possible for wine-powered engines to help reduce the carbon footprint, but a gallon of wine is going to cost more than the price of gas.  Worse, if this caught on, a bottle of wine at the store would greatly increase due to competition for fuel.

With all of that fame and wealth, you would really thing the Royal Family could do something more productive and, well, not so silly.

I can see the gas stations now.  Instead of regular unleaded, premium, and super premium, the station will offer red, white and blush.  And, there will be some snob at the station yelling, "  WE ARE NOT FILLING UP WITH MERLOT!!"

Everybody Can Take Part In Pretending To Take Part In The Presidential Election

I like The Onion because this has the look and feel, and shallowness, of the morning shows.

Some Unusual Cost Savings As A Result Of Working At Home

Times are getting tough.  Part of it is that prices are just going up, but a lot of it is nothing more than our extravagances coming back to roost.

Often when we talk about moving our law offices home we speak in terms of large savings such as the cost of a separate office, staff, and cutting the costs of commuting.  These are all good things, and it should be enough in and of these savings to get you to move home.

However, the truth of the matter is that moving home can not only act to tranquil your life, but it can help you save by spending less on these extravagances.  After all, there is a lot to the commuting life that causes you to spend in ways that living and working at home does not.  So, let us review a few of these areas.

1.  Coffee.  I am not a coffee person, so Starbucks and its rivals, have never much interested me.  Nonetheless, I always marvel at the commuters waiting in the drive-thru on the way to their workplaces every day.  Why?  Well, good coffee I am sure is part of it, but it is also the busyness of life.  The goal is to get out of your home every morning.  Lingering is not an option because that has consequences.  So, you get into the habit of pulling through 5 Bucks every morning.  It is easy, it is convenient and, of course, it is easy to justify the expense because you work so hard, you are in such a hurry, and you have to kick start your busy life.  It allows you to wake up and get your day started during down time when you are in the car every morning.  But, the truth of the matter is it gets to be expensive.  I read somewhere that the average Starbucks customer spends in excess of $1,000.00 a year on coffee at their locations.  Four or five dollars might not sound like a lot, but a thousands dollars is a lot of money.  To think that you could put your child through a semester or two of a public university on what you many consume in coffee in three to four years is truly amazing.  When you work at home, you have no reason to feel pushed into this trip and expense every morning.  You have time to make coffee (even exotic blends) relatively cheaply while getting ready to work.  After all, you only have a carpet commute.

2.  Other beverages.  Bottle water in particular is a convenience at work.  It is portable.  At home, however, if I want a drink of water I just get it in a glass with some ice, filtered, out of my frig.  It usually taste better as well because, as research shows, bottled water is essentially dead water.  I have read reports that the average person at work spends over $300.00 a year on bottled water.  Then of course there is soda or colas out of the vending machine.  I have got to admit that I over consume diet colas.  But, I buy a store brand at the grocery store that has an average costs of 17 cents a can.  This is much less than most vending machines that charge over a dollar for a can of pop.  But, if you buy one Coke a day, every day you are at work, you will spend over $260.00 a year on this habit.

3.  Lunch.  It is funny really.  When I worked in a typical office environment I use to know several people who brought something from home almost every day, and almost never ate it because they would get  pressured into going out to lunch with the rest of the tribe.  And, out-to-eat food just does not sit well during the day.  You have to rush to get it, you have to fight a crowd, you have to wolf it down, and then rush back to the office, only not to feel very good later.  But, it is what we do, and it can be very costly.  At home I not only do not have that rush to gorge, and I can eat my meal slowly while watching Family Feud, the news or some design show on TV, but we almost always eat leftovers from the night before.  Occasionally a sandwich.  And, the night before meals are better because I work at home.  My wife and I do not have to rush through our commute to make a nice meal.  In fact, we can often start it, while still working.  So dinner is better and lunch is better, and lunch costs pennies instead of dollars.

4.  Grocery shopping.  My wife and I purchase a lot of store brands.  You might say that you do as well.  But, the truth of the matter is that when you are not eating out as much and you are preparing meals for lunch and dinner, then you buy more groceries than you pay others for prepared food.  This is cheaper in and of itself, but it is cheaper still when you can use store brands.

The forecast is that by the end of the year inflation is expected to be 3.5% higher than it was the December before.  You have to save money any way you can.  What I hope this reflects is that there are some obvious savings that can be had to offset this inflation that benefit you when you move your office home that you might not have otherwise thought about.

Is Box Wine Greener?

You know I do not drink wine daily, but I do like wine tastings and like to visit Texas wineries.  My wife and I have fun with the taste, the process followed to make wine a particular wine, the bottles, the labels, and even the name chosen.

By the way, we did not much care for Joe Blow Red that we tried recently.  Way too much in the way of tannins.  But, maybe the name should have given us a clue.

Also, I really cannot drink too much because red wine has histamine.  I take anti-histamines daily.

So, I found it interesting when Ecopreneurist suggested that it is more eco-friendly in a box and that Almaden and Inglenook are switching wines from 3 to 4 liter jugs to Bag-in-Box (BIB) packaging.

First, I am not sure it is true that a box is more eco-friendly.  It seems to me glass and cardboard are equally recyclable, and in reality almost all cardboard makes it into the landfill or recycling outlet, while some class does not.  (Can you say vase).

Second, it seems to me that this just takes part of the fun of the wine culture away from the enjoyment of the process.  Now experiencing wine will have all of the clamor of reading a cereal box.

That is just great.  (Not).

Don't Eat Your Desk

I like The Onion and its parodies.