Eight Miles in 82 Minutes.

Nice little run today.

From Gough and Bay to the Golden Gate Bridge, then back along Bay and down the Embarcadero to just north of the Ferry Terminal.

Eight miles in 82 minutes. 5.85 mph. Not so shabby--for me, anyway.

--E. R. O'Neill

Nice Run.

Only ten miles.

In 1 hour and 57 minutes.

But hey, there were hills!

Gmaps pedometer claims it's 1100 calories burned.

But everything else I read says that depends on your speed.

I'd imagine it would depend on your fitness, too--though I'm not sure which way.

I mean: if you're more fit, you're more efficient, therefore burning fewer calories.

On the other hand, if you're more fit, you're able to do more work, hence burn more calories.

Let's see, 5.13 mph burns about 1100 or 1200 calories--according to different sites.

Have I earned my veggie burrito yet!?

--E. R. O'Neill

Eat Food, Not Nutrients.

Michael Pollan is at it again.

And thank goodness for him!

His long piece on 1/28/07 in the New York Times argues what I've been saying.

Lots of other people say it too.

• Eat simple, whole foods. Emphasize fruits and vegetables.
• Avoid highly refined foods.
• Eat less but better.
• Get some exercise.

But Pollan emphasizes the way our focus on nutrition seems actually to have made us sicker.

"Nutrition" would be an expression of scientific reductionism--the idea that there are agents in food which cause specific effects, apart from the circumstances or contexts.

Pollan wants to emphasize culture, food as part of a way of life.

It's not just something present in or absent from the food that makes it good for you.

It's how it's made, where it comes from, how it's part of larger healthful patterns of life.

It may be familiar, but it bears repeating.

--E. R. O'Neill