Improving your immune system

There are some interesting hypotheses around about the role of cleaning agents in undermining our immune systems, as well as causing diseases and respiratory conditions like asthma. I recently saw a study that concluded that anti-bacterial cleaning agents were sanitising our environment so muh that our immune systems were becoming hyper-sensitive.

This is interesting because I lived in the Philippines for 2 years and during the first 6 months I would often have diarrhoea as a result of the food. I was drinking distilled water though used tap water to clean my teeth. But in time my body adjusted. Being back in Australia for Spring though its evident to me that my immune system is more tolerant because I don't seem to have the same hay fever that affected me in Australia or Japan in years past. It might be too early to say. I also find that my stomach is stronger too. Food combinations that upset my stomach before no longer do. Importantly I am pretty well eating the same type of food as I did before I left. Same brands too.

I would not read too much into this anecdotal evidence.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The importance of diet and exercise to Asians

Asian and other developing countries seem to be the most vulnerable in the switch to a Western diet. Australians like myself have nothing but excuses for exercising. We have beaches to run along, few trains that require chasing, and a dry, cool climate climate to do this, in a plethora of greem grassy parks.
In Asia its not as easy. Living in Tokyo there are crowded streets, but in as much as you can choose where you live it is possible to select a place where you can get exercise. In Tokyo the best place is near a river. I lived in Sumiyoshi for a period, so I could ride my bike up the river. This is pretty well the only green precinct of any size in Tokyo aside from the Imperial Garden and a few other parks (like Harajuku). In the suburbs too there are no so many parks. You almost have to go to the rice padi areas to find open space.
In the Philippines it gets even worse. You are lucky if you can find trees in Metro Manila, and still rarer to see grass outside of the scarce golf clubs in the city. Its also hot, polluted and the streets are pretty disgusting in most parts of the city. Of course you can choose where you live. I recommend a city apartment because:
1. On the weekends and at night the streets are quieter
2. You can walk around the city late at night when there is no pollution.

But herein lies the problem. Filipinos generally have little discipline. They dont eat vegetables in their diet. If you go out you will be lucky if you get any vegetables, and you will get a lot of bone and fat in your meet. Their beef & pork is literally 1/3 bone, 1/3 fat and 1/3 protein. Well if you are aspiring to get out of the Philippines, you are in luck. There are plenty of jobs for graduates in the top rankings. The problem is if you eat this crap, you will end up in hospital with hypertension and severe cramps. Why? Hello! Because you eat crap and live a sedentary life in front of a computer screen. It is near impossible to get real juice in the Philippines. Its mostly sugar and water. I mean other than pineapple juice and imported grocery items.
Herein lies the problem. The Philippines is so impressed by Western junk food that it has abandoned traditional healthy food. In the provinces they still eat a better balance of food. There is still the franchise crap, but its the 'treat' rather than the norm. It is the middle class that is too busy to think, who have a narrow materialistic conception of success that they miss the point of life - the pursuit of value in every aspect of life. Middle class Asian aspirants are so befuddled with money and what it can do that they have a single focus - to use it. But what for? Nope, not long range goals like building a career or buying a house, but to buy flash brand name clothes, cars and phone to impress their friends or GF. Its all about perceptions. A huge fraud that makes them empty people. You might well say its the same in the West, but this is more extreme. There is no genuine pride in this pursuit.
These people might get the girl of their dreams, and they can show the world that they have a trophy, but they will soon realise the cost of that pursuit. They will have acquired another empty vessel in their life, a vessel that requires an unending flow of money. They might eventually realise or they might lower themselves further to retain this false pride, this delusion of achievement. And that really stupid comment she said last week will be forgotten. They will repress it. They might even conclude that was the first time she said something stupid, instead of realising that she has been repressing all personal thoughts since they met. Live and learn...
The Western diet is crap... eat it at your peril.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The impact of fat on personal health

We are told that fat or oil in our diet is bad, that western diets have too much oil. This is not strictly correct. We are not so much eating too much oil or fat (ie. solid oil) but rather:
1. Eating too much - too many calories
2. Not getting enough exercise because of our sedentary lives sitting in offices or at TV and computer screens.
3. We are eating the wrong types of fats

Our bodies actually need fat. You can simply argue that changing to other forms of nutrition will help you. If you eat too many calories they will be converted into fat regardless of the source. But there is good and bad fats (or oils). The table at this Wikipedia page "Fatty acids in dietary fats" shows that virgin olive oil is the best form of dietary or edible oil. The reason is the high proportion of mono-saturated fats. Interesting the next best oil is canola (rapeseed) oil. You will readily note that canola oil is much cheaper than olive oil. Given that its only 10% less beneficial in terms of monosaturated fats, you might want to consider it. Olive oil does have other benefits though. For cooking purposes I understand that olive oil is more stable as a cooking oil than say canola oil, so you might not want to use canola oil to many times, as it might turn carcinogenic. The flipside is that olive oil is very expensive, so better to change canola oil regularly for health reasons.
Palm oil comes in distant 3rd place, but other oils are mostly saturated fats. The problem with saturated fats is that they will be converted low density lipid (LDL) triglycerides which clog up your arteries. A high ratio of low density lipid (LDL) triglycerides to high density lipid (HDL) triglycerides is linked to cardiovascular disease and pancreatitis, but you should also avoid excess total cholesterol numbers as well. These scales are age related, so consult a doctor. I find when I dont exercise enough and eat well that my blood circulation gets a bit restricted. Your body is telling you things if you listen to it. I miss the wide range of vegetables in Australia!

I miss the freshness and variety of foods in Australia. You can find nice vegetables in the PhilippinesPhilippines in the countryside - say Laguna or Baguio - but if you buyy from an SM grocery store in Metro Manila the quality is shocking - nevermind the price. I saw lovely green beans in Laguna for P190 for 10 kilograms ($US0.40/kg). If I ate them for a month, thats 3 months supply. I dare say those Manila-bound vegetables lack refrigeration, so after the 7-8hour truck trip to Manila in a tropical climate, they are not looking the best.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Soap that works - No butts about it!

I would have to be one of the greatest cynics when it comes to beauty products, but as fortune would have it, maybe I should be paying greater attention to the claims made by so called ‘experts’. I have for the last 10 years given a lot of attention to the food I eat, but cared less about my skin. Recently my girlfriend started this soap business in the Philippines, the home of virgin coconut oil. Recently I have been trialing her soap, and have been impressed by the results. I remember hearing from my hairdresser years ago that I should be using a natural shampoo to wash my hair. Now that I am loosing my hair I tend to just wash it less. But I feel more assured washing my hair with this soap as well.

For several years now I have had a patch of dry, scaly skin on my butt from long periods of mountain biking. I thought this would disappear but it never did after several long rides in Japan. I just noticed last night that the problem had finally gone away. I attribute it to the soap since nothing else has changed in the last few months.

It made me reflect on what role soap plays and how it worked. It seemed counter-intuitive that soap that removed oils & dirt from the body would place coconut oil or other oils on your skin. Then I realised that the way these things work. The trick is to have an excess of coconut oil over the active soap ingredient so residual oils are left on your skin. There was no reason to have 100% coconut oil because it would just be wasted and it would unnecessarily increase the cost of the product. Anyway claims of 100% virgin coconut oil are just for marketing since there are other ingredients like lye, fragrances and for commercial soaps even colourings and other reagents to speed up the soap making process. Needless to say these synthetic ingredients are there to speed up the process, not to help your skin, so its best to avoid commercial soaps made in factories. Fortunately the Philippines is a cheap source of ingredients so we can distribute cheaply our hand-made soaps. Aside from the fact that there are too many chemicals in our food and other products, the mark-up on these supermarket products is really excessive, particularly in the Philippines. I saw green beans in the provinces selling for P200/10 kilograms. They sell in SM or Robinsons for P20 for a 0.2kg bundle, thats a 20x mark-up for something that is aged by the time I get to the supermarket.

Another difference I observed was that my girlfriends skin was not as sensitive. Before my facial hair would irritate her skin. It would be redder and she would get pimples. But now its softer than ever. Now I can smooch with her without complaint! It has brought us closer together. I love the stuff. So far i have just used the tea tree version, but I want to try the eucalyptus based soap. You can place orders on her website if you car about your skin. I felt my butt this morning. Smooth as a babies bottom. See http://hugssoap.ecrater.com.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com