A No Corn Syrup Eating Challenge

Its been a week since I challenged you to avoid eating corn syrup for a week. 

How have you done?

Was it harder than expected?

Will you continue?

Grocery Shopping

Why is it whenever I return from grocery shopping, I'm surprised with a number of my purchases?

A Healthier(-ish) Food Challenge

Most of the food we eat is highly processed, and full of artificial ingredients.  Thanks largely to the government's sugar tariffs many companies have realized that corn syrup, or high fructose corn syrup, is a much less expensive sweetener than real (and better for you) sugar.  (So called, "Mexican" Coke and Pepsi supposedly taste better than American made soda because Mexico does not have high sugar tariffs, and soda made in Mexico is made with the less expensive, and better, real sugar.)

High fructose corn syrup is in a huge number of products, and while its not awful itself (though its not good) the things it is in are not the sorts of things that you should be eating.

My challenge for you is to avoid eating anything with: "corn syrup," "fructose," high fructose corn syrup," and any other variation of it for a whole week.

This is a small step towards eating healthier, and only requires you to read the "ingredients" list on every package that you buy and avoid the corn syrup.

We shouldn't be eating any packaged stuff at all, but this is just a small challenge to get started.

I actually tried this challenge starting last Monday, but had a 15 hour work day on Tuesday and drank an energy drink.  I suppose coffee, which I don't drink, might have been better.  So, I'm trying it again.  Hopefully, I'll continue indefinitely. 

Join me, and let me know how you've done.

Fly Tying and Cooking

I was just relearning how to tie flies (for fly fishing).  It occurred to me that tying flies is similar to cooking in that the most important part is to have good ingredients (or parts) and then not screw them up.

I bet that I can cook a better steak than the best chef in the world, if I get the best cut of meat in the world to work with and his cut of meat is mediocre.  My job then would be just to not screw it up.  (He'd probably win if his cut of meat was improved to "above average.")

With fly tying you need the right items in order to tie a fly correctly.  You can screw up the timing too, but you can't tie a Black Gnat without black hackle and black dubbing.

Beer Preferences

I said that I was sweet and lovable, and because this is so I have just spent some time with my grandmother.

We went out to eat at a restaurant that contains a bar.  When the waitress asked about our drinks the conversation went as follows (more or less):

Waitress: "What would you like to drink?"

Me: "Sam Adams."

Waitress: "That's the only kind of beer that we don't have." (direct quote)

Me: "Okay, Guinness."

Waitress: "We don't have that."

Me: "Old Style."

Waitress: "That's old. We don't have that."

Me: "..."

Waitress: "Would you like a beer list?"

Me: "..."

Waitress: "The beers we have are: frog piss, cat piss, fish piss, dog piss, bear piss..."

(You can actually get Bear Whiz Beer in International Falls, MN. I haven't tried it.)

Me: "Jameson."



The moral of my story, which is repeated regularly, is that it seems to be easier to have no preferred taste in beer.

Spaghetti for Beginners

I pointed out earlier that the manosphere should spend some time trying to help us improve our lives.  One way that we can do this is to post recipies.

Spaghetti is easy to make and can be modified to suit your tastes.

1. Fill your biggest pot with water
    A.  some suggest adding oil and salt, that only makes cleaning the pot more difficult

2. Set the pot on the stove on high until it boils, then turn the heat down a bit

3. find your box of spaghetti
    A.  1/3 to 1/2 box for just you if you aren't adding many dishes
    B. I break them in half so that they fit in the pot better
    C. Whole wheat is supposedly healthier than white

4. Put saucepan on the stove, and fill it with a jar of sauce
    A. I'm liking Prego brand right now
    B. skip the garlic sauces, add your own garlic
    C. buy meat sauce so that you don't need to cook and add your own meat
    D. set heat on medium it only needs to get hot (which happens fast)

5. Add spices, garlic, onions, etc.
    A. open your spice jars and smell for whatever smells appropriate
    B. use about a 1/2 Tablespoon for each spice, think about 1/2 cm out of your little spice jar
    C. add cheese when its done, not now (It will make the pan harder to clean.)

6.  Take a spaghetti out and bite it, every so often
    A. pasta is hard and crunchy at first
    B. its better to cook too little than too long
    C. its done when it tastes right, or you get bored

7.  Pour spaghetti though colander into the sink
     A. no colander? use a slotted spoon to pull the spaghetti out, or a fork

8.  Pour sauce on the spaghetti

9.  Add more of whatever spices or cheese you like.



I like this because its easy and you can get away with only dirtying one pot and one pan.  (You don't need to dirty the pan if you put the cold sauce on the cooked spaghetti and then microwave it.)  And the pot will essentially only have had water in it, so its easy to clean.

It can also be much better than most spaghetti at most restaurants.  I don't bother ordering spaghetti at restaurants because I figure that I can do it at least as well at home. (Which is now true of lots of things.)