Darf's auch ein bisschen mehr sein?

Vermehrt bin ich im Netz über nicht mehr ganz so aktuelle Artikel gestoßen, die sich mit dem Portionsgrößen unserer Nahrung beschäftigten. Im Zeitalter der abnehmwilligen und adipositas-gefährdeten Bevölkerung, wundert es einen gar nicht mehr, dass die Leute immer voluminöser und dicker werden. Die Bilder aus Caroline’s Blog zeigen eindrucksvoll, was in unser ach so “ernährungsbewußten” Gesellschaft falsch läuft.

Wer kennt ihn nicht? Den Film “Supersize Me” , der zwar meiner Meinung nach einwenig übertrieben

...und das Gleiche nochmal aus der Moderne (850 kcal).

ist (nach zwei Tagen wegen Fastfood kotzen? Ein bisschen übertrieben, oder?), aber dennoch eindrucksvoll die Lage der Nation darstellt: die Portionen, die man vorwiegend im Fastfood Bereich erhält, wachsen proportional zum Bauchumfang ihrer Kundschaft und ein Ende ist noch nicht in Sicht, wie der anhaltende “Boom” zahlreicher XXL-Restaurants, auch in unseren Landen, belegt. Groß, größer, X-Tra-Large – und was kommt als nächstes? Die Büffelportion?

Zwei handelsübliche Pizzastücke (500 kcal) von vor 20 Jahren...

Natürlich will ich jetzt nicht die Keule mit der Moralpredigt herausholen – im Prinzip ist es ja eine lobenswerte Entwicklung, wenn man mehr für das gleiche Geld erhält, zumal ein aktiver Sportler ohnehin einen erhöhten Energiebedarf hat, klar. Grundsätzlich stellt sich dann nur die Frage, worin das “mehr” besteht. Eine Extraportion Gemüse kann man locker absegnen, doch wie verhält es sich mit Lebensmitteln, deren Energiedichte aus Unmengen Fett und einfachen Kohlenhydraten besteht?

Übergewichte Teenager unserer Zeit wachsen mit solchen Portionsgrößen auf und halten sie für selbstverständlich – wie soll ein normaler Mensch da noch abschätzen können, wieviel noch “normal” und gesund ist, wenn er nicht vorher ein Studium in Oekotrophologie belegt hat?

Tasse Kaffee mit Milch/Zucker aus den 80ern (43 kcal) trifft auf ...

Doch auch gesunde Lebensmittel können zu einer unerwünschten Gewichtszunahme führen, wenn die Zufuhr den Bedarf gehörig übersteigt, dummerweise habe ich noch nie irgendwo Werbung für einen “Extra großen Salat” oder die “doppelte Beilage” entdecken können – eine Entwicklung, die vielleicht noch auf sich warten lässt? Vielleicht, doch die Nachricht dürfte in etwa ankommen, oder?

...ihr Starbucks-Pendat von heute (330 kcal!)

In wiefern tangiert diese Nachricht nun den geneigten Ausdauer-/Kraftsportler der ohnehin zum großen Teil penibel auf seine Ernährung achtet? Insofern man nicht ständig Tupperdosen und vorbereitete Mahlzeiten mit sich führt, ist der Sportliche insofern davon betroffen, als dass er auf das zurückgreifen muss, was gerade da ist, logisch. Dazu kommt noch die Tatsache, dass niemand zu jeder Zeit die Nährwerte und Energiedichten sämtlicher Lebensmittel kennt, ja sogar kennen kann.

Und wenn wir ehrlich sind: Eine kleine Sünde hin und wieder liegt im Rahmen des Ermessens, sollte sogar wünschenswert sein, denn Genuss und Lebensfreude gehören hin und wieder ebenso dazu, wie eine knallharte Ernährungsweise vor einer Wettkampfperiode oder in einer Diät.

...und dickes Ende? Ein wahrer Koloss für den "großen Hunger" (590 kcal)

Kleiner Anfang: Cheeseburger mit 333 kcal von damals.

Wir leben in turbulenten Zeiten (naja, wann waren sie mal nicht turbulent?) in denen zumindest ein

Teil der menschlichen Bevölkerung einen Zustand erreicht hat, der mit dem in der Bibel häufig gepriesenen Land aus “Milch und Honig” zumindest ansatzweise korreliert oder vergleichbar ist. Zum ersten Mal, in der Menschheitsgeschichte, besteht im Okzident ein Nahrungsmittelüberfluss.

Essen zu jeder tageszeit in all seiner Form ist bei uns kein Problem. Sollten die Portionen dennoch weiter im Volumen ansteigen, ist eine Entwicklung der allgemeinen Bevölkerung zu einem stämmigeren Aussehen und mehr Leibesfülle nur eine Frage der Zeit.

Von ganz klein (399 kcal) bis "gib ihm" (776 kcal)

Der Bagel, Hauptnahrungsquelle agiler Serien-Cops aus den 80ern (140 kcal) ...

Den schlanken Sportler wird freuen – die übergewichtige

...und sein heutiger Bruder (350 kcal). Kein Wunder das die Seriencops immer dicker werden

Hausfrau, die sich durch eine Kohlsuppendiät quält und dabei hin und wieder einen Starbucks-Kaffee trinkt, wird sich lediglich wundern, warum sie kein Gramm ab- sondern im Gegenteil, noch ein paar Pfund zunimmt. Denn zahlreiche Studien scheinen zu belegen, dass mit ansteigender Portionsgröße auch die realistische Einschätzung ihres Kaloriengehaltes verloren geht. “Bigger” ist also nicht automatisch “better.”

weiterführende Links zum Thema:

Divinecaroline.com | Abnehmen.net | Extension.org | Circleofresponsibility.com

]]> http://bakterienherd.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/junkie-in-jeder-lebenslage/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:34:49 +0000 Chloroflexi http://bakterienherd.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/junkie-in-jeder-lebenslage/

Das Wort “Kaffeejunkie” ist schon längst in die Gemeinsprache übergetreten. In den Boulevardnachrichten liest man hin- und wieder was von Junkies in Ghettos, Vororten oder auf dem Land. Die Rede ist also von Süchtigen.

Interessanterweise wird englische junk ins Deutsche mit Müll, Abfall, Schrott oder Unrat übersetzt. Ist es etwas genau das, was in Junkfood steckt?? Müll, Krempel, Abfallstoffe? Oder geht es um die Sucht nach Altlasten und Abfall?

Ich denke, nach dieser Dokumentation und diesem Artikel sollten wir alle noch einmal darüber nachdenken, was wir alles so essen…

…und wenn wir schon dabei sind, können wir auch gleich noch über dessen Produktion grübeln.

After hearing about Epix for weeks now from Curt Marvis at Lionsgate at both #DH09 and #DMWC, I was psyched to hear this morning that they were giving away 72 hour passes to the EpixHD site this weekend.  Click here to get yours.  Great news for those of us who don’t have FiOS and want another Hulu on the scene.  Epix is a free streaming movie site stocked with the libraries of Paramount, Lionsgate, MGM – from blockbusters to classics to original programming.  Not sure what type of access any of us will have after the weekend, but hopefully we’re looking at another distribution partner for features and webisodes.  Launching with a beautifully clean interface, available to watch right now for free is Cloverfield, GI Joe, Iron Man, Spiderwick Chronicles, Flash Gordon, Love Guru, Madonna, Eat Drink Man Woman, Everybody Wants To Be Italian, Romance & Cigarettes, Dead Again, Crimes & Misdemeanors, Purple Rose of Cairo, Annie Hall, Stepford Wives, Godfather, Box of Moonlight and more.  Better selection than Fancast (Chaplin, Google Me, Hair, MacHeads, Meet the Mobsters, RIP Remix Manifesto, Supersize Me, Slacker…), Sling (Fiddler On The Roof, Heidi, Thief of Bagdad, Birth of a Nation…), Joost (Road to Bali, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Primal Fear, His Girl Friday…), and Crackle (Johnny Mnemonic, People v Larry Flynt, Shampoo, SLC Punk, Wolf..) combined.  Actually, now that I’ve taken a second look, I’m pretty impressed with their interfaces and selections too. Enjoy!

Islands Bürger ohne Burger

Dazu einen FilmTipp:

Was passiert, wenn man sich einen monat lang nur von McDonalds-Fraß ernährt: Superzize Me

Köstlich.

I love being introduced to a good blog that I didn’t know about before. I’ve been reading this one ever since I saw Stephanie and her husband on Oprah and it is fantastic. All shiny and fluffy and happy. I’m refreshed to know that I can like something written by an extremely conservative Republican Mormon. Congratulations to me for being open minded enough to appreciate people even when I disagree with their politics and religion. Gosh, I’m great. Let me pause to give myself a hug. Go, me!

Now to discuss this blog. The dude claims that it’s not a blog, rather a “webcomic”. I looked that word up, because it seemed to me that a website of daily photos would not be called a “comic”, and from the other examples I found on Wikipedia, they agree, but hey, we all know that Wikipedia is not The Law. I’m just thinking about the day that Michael Jackson died, then that nasty rumor about Jeff Goldblum also dying circulated. I was on a set in the middle of backwoods Georgia making a movie, feeling really removed from the world. We looked up “Jeff Goldblum” on Wikipedia and it listed that day as the day of his death. Which, for some reason, made us all believe that it really happened. Why? We all know that anyone can change things on Wikipedia. Why do we even bother to read that site? Maybe because we’re used to almost all information we receive being filtered by someone else’s agenda?

Back to the dude’s site. I’m okay to let him call it whatever he wants to. But if a video blog is a vlog, wouldn’t a photo blog be a phlog? Anyway. . .

Cute idea. Write stuff on a blackboard, photograph yourself next to it, publish it. A spin. I like it. -K

(Thanks to Amie for sharing, and please, click on her Twitter page to see the best bad hair day pic ever.)

Not all egoists are good essayists, but all good essayists have egos. And the video essayists? Supersized.

When you decide to craft an essay, video, print or other, you do so because you feel like what you have to say is supremely important, or at least important enough that the public should be consuming your work and thinking, “Wow, that’s important.” From that moment on you’re constantly walking the fine line between indulging your audience and indulging yourself, something that I find is much more easily distinguished in video than in print. With video, you have control not only over words, but also over image and sound, both of which contribute to the total finished product. The viewer can see when you place yourself in the frame, hear when you record a voiceover and read what you choose to dub and caption.

I made the mistake of watching both the Moore and the Spurlock in a single night, and by the time I was finished I wanted to give up on essay writing altogether, eat a bowl of wheat germ and call it a night. It wasn’t that either of them were intolerably obnoxious, rather, I just got tired of watching them prance around being hyper self-aware of themselves and their cameras. What is so endearing about Varda is that she just plays in front of her camera—she eats grapes, looks at her hands holding heart-shaped potatoes, looks at her hands, all with a sense of wonderment, which you can hear in her voice. The beauty of Varda is that she’s just so wonderfully uncalculated. She has a thesis of sorts (which, as another classmate put it, had “something to do with stooping”), but past that point she seems to abandon all planning and just rolls with it, much like her cameras.

My problem with Supersize Me is that I think this could have been a fine project without the part where he actually goes and eats McDonald’s for 30 days. That was the part of the Spurlock that I found to be a little too much—this was the product of some guy who wanted to see himself on camera. At least, that’s the impression I got, and it turned me off. It doesn’t interest me that your girlfriend can tell that your (very purposeful and intentional) consumption of 5,000 fat calories a day is affecting your sex life. I do, however, find it hilarious that of the 8 times you were asked to supersize, 5 of them were in Texas.

Similarly with Moore, I understand that you wanted to make a film about Flint because it’s your hometown, but I just don’t need the sound of many minutes of droning voiceover clouding my experience. I got the impression Moore found his monosyllabic, sarcastic tone quite droll, which just annoyed me even more. I think one of the funniest moments in Roger & Me was when Miss Pets-or-Meat was like, “Yeah, I’m going back to veterinary school. There’s lots of animals that need taking care of.” This, of course, after we just witnessed her casually clubbing a rabbit with a baseball bat, not to mention skinning and gutting it. Shit like that, straight from the economically down source, that’s golden. It’s your job as the essayist to seek out those gems. Put your subjects before yourself, or else claim YouTube as your home turf.

Dans le food, la tendance est à l’allégement. Lancés dans les années 80, les produits light on envahit les linéaires de nos supermarchés. Depuis quelques années, on allège les produit à outrance, faisant fi des promotions et pourcentage offert au profit d’articles sans sel, sans graisse transfat, sans cholestérol… C’est très vrai en Europe, un peu moins aux Etats-Unis, patrie historique du fast-food.

Le documentaire Supersize Me a bien tenté de jeté un burger dans la marre, certaines municipalités ont même initié des programmes d’amaigrissement général afin de lutter contre les problématiques de santé publique liées à l’obésité… En vain.

La gourmandise et la culture du more de l’oncle Sam triomphe en cette année de crise à travers une formule de restaurants défiant les lois de la santé : Heart Attack Grill.

Le principe de ces restaus est très simple : tout y est vendu en quantités gargantuesques, le tout arrosé d’une sauce cynique. Les serveuses sont pulpeuses et déguisées en infirmières, les sandwiches énormes, les frites sont disponible à volonté et clou du spectacle : les clients dont le poids dépasse 175 kilos sont invités gratuitement…

Un lien dédié à deux fantasmes prégnants : la nourriture et la sexualité. Fantasmes qui ne sont finalement rien d’autre que 2 des éléments les plus indispensables à la survie de l’homme, ce qui devrait cautionner le succès de ces endroits…

Une façon un peu trash de rappeler que la nourriture, contrairement à ce que les nutritionnistes veulent essayer de nous faire gober, c’est avant tout du plaisir, pas de la médication.

Cette vidéo détaille le concept :

Merci à Chloé pour le lien.

Source : Easyfood

It’s hard to be healthy.

To me, healthy is in comparison to what I was my senior year of college: extraordinarily bus, underslept, and ferociously hungry.

I had little no time to make my own food. I barely grocery shopped (except for beer) and got by on Panda Express and Subway, with occasional sushi, In-N-Out, and Cantina Express.

None of it is healthy. Maybe a few healthy ingredients……like the lettuce on my burgers or the raw fish in my sushi.

But that of course was combined with all sorts of not so good stuff or decent stuff, but too much of it. [See: carborice, carbobread, fattyfriedorangechicken, fattavacado, etc.)

However, since summer struck and my former schedule (consisting of graduating, editor-in-chief duties at The Poly Post, 16 units, hint of a social life, a weekly column, a local beat and more) has turned into an internship at KPCC 89.3 three days a week. That means a LOT more free time.

SO I've been cooking, or at least making: lots of salads and smoothies and almost no fast food. Not to mention, regular exercise 2-4 days a week, compared to ZERO days a week during the busy school year.

But I've learned quickly that it's not easy to eat right. It's not hard if you eat every meal at home, or maybe live in San Francisco where the food is organic and excellent. But round these parts in Pomona, we've got fast food, fast food, fast food, and a couple liquor stores. Sure, there's plenty of Mexican restaurants, but I can only eat tacos so much. [Sorry SoCalians]

I’m looking for more options. Maybe we should have some food parties. I just got some good recipes from my Jewish mother. Chicken burgers, chicken chili, ricotta pancakes, and a blender cookbook full of new ideas.

But what about when I’m interning at Current TV in Hollywood [6860 Lexington Ave]?

What about Pomona/Claremont area? I know plenty of spots I hit up in both towns. But most are either grossly unhealthy or more expensive than I want when I’m looking for a bite. Dante’s Deli and Boulevard Bagels on Diamond Bar, Cantina Express and Buen Taco for Mexican, Back Abbey, The Press, sushi and whatevers in downtown Claremont….

But I’m pretty sure a giant Chipotle burrito ain’t exactly what the doctor ordered either. But I have a big appetite, so salads don’t tend to fill me up unless there’s a lot of meat in them.

Everywhere I look, I see chains. That’s LA for you, right? Fuck that! Gimme something good to eat!

Fresh&Easy isn’t bad, but I’m not big on prepared meals. I tend to be disappointed. Prefer something actually fresh. Give em a sandwich bar! And Trader Joe’s in San Dimas is legit, especially for good sausage and beer and pirate’s booty. But after seeing SuperSize Me, reading all this crap about healthcare (I’m uninsured!), and diabetes and obesity, and waiting to see Food, Inc…..it’s bad out there.

Just as always, the corporate monsters survive. And they blame Americans for being fat. Consumers are only half to blame in my opinion. Now I’m not suing McDonald’s if I gain a couple pounds, but even its healthiest options (like the McSalad Shaker, ooohhh how clever) become just as fatty once you dress it. And who wants dry leaves? Not I!

I haven’t found my health groove yet…but going on a run today, so that’ll take the guilt off all the Starbucks I’ve been devouring (yuck!). Luckily and unluckily, my girlfriend works there and happens to love the place…and circumstances are, they’re fucking everywhere we are. Now I love me some iced coffee, but the cream and sugar make it probably close to the caloricness of a carmel macchiato (maybe?). Speaking of, *Bux has taken all the transfats out of their fresh frozen pastries. And yes, at least the licensed store on Cal Poly’s campus, they’re delivered the day or days ahead of time, and put in the pastry case frozen the night before, to be perfectly cool and moist upon your 7 a.m. nasty blueberry scone purchase.

Death to us all via mass consumerism, monopolization, and bad, bad food.

It has been hectic at work these past few weeks and have had almost no time to post regular blogs. I did make a feast last weekend and promise to upload the highlights very soon.

But for now I pose this question: Why do we eat food? And, perhaps more importantly, how do we eat food?

I find myself thinking about this almost everyday. The factual answer to the first question is that we eat so that we can fuel our body with all the nutrients and energy it needs to perform everyday.

If we don’t eat a balanced and healthy diet then our body will not function as properly as it should. But somewhere along the way we have forgotten that this is the reason we eat. We should eat for necessity and not pleasure. But I do believe it is essential to have pleasure in what you eat. A balance of both.

Now, how de we eat? I’ve noticed that there are many people in the world who eat dishes which they like, regardless of its nutritional content or benefit to their health.

For example, there is an abundance of junk food being consumed in the world, and it does worry me. If you haven’t seen the film Supersize Me yet, I recommend you do.  I’m not saying it’s a brilliant documentary, but it will definitely open your eyes to how much fast food can affect your health. OK, the guy ate a specific brand of fast food 3 times a day for a month, which is what 90 visits to the fast food restaurant? I wonder if visiting 90 times in ones life will have an affect too?

I have to say that I used to eat a lot of junk food myself. I went through a stage of eating 5-6 packets of crisps (US: chips) a day, and basically having a no bars off eating habit. If it tasted good, I ate it. Consequently I piled on the weight…

I feel that we spend too much time eating the kind of food that makes us happy, gives us a good feeling, or even for nostalgic reasons. For example, last month I went back to London for a week and was together with my brothers who also have been away from the UK. The entire week it felt like we were constantly eating! Eating food that we missed like fish and chips, kebab rolls, meat pies, cheese and onion pasties and donner kebabs. And most of the time these were eaten in-between meals… Not very healthy, but we did it, and I watched myself and my brothers as we indulged.

It is a very real thing to eat for pleasure, nostalgia and so forth, but it is not a very healthy thing, and should be acknowledged. Next time you reach for a belly fix take a moment to ask yourself why you are eating it. Try to understand why and how you eat, you never know you may just realize something!

Disclaimer:

I am not a scientist or a dietist, so do not quote me on this. These are just my personal thoughts and musings.

I had two options when I started Food Week:
A) delight you with delicious delicacies of the silver screen for seven days or
B) delight you for three days, then make you want to hurl only to delight you once more.
WWJ1D? All I can say is if you don’t know me by now…(mini-ode to Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes/Simply Red for you non-music geeks).

Today, I present to you something that sucks…big time, and is certainly not truly scrumptious: The Most Disgusting Food Moments in the Movies!!! ::Dun-dun-duhhhhhhn:: …Don’t worry, I’ll start you off nice and easy.

A Fish Called Wanda
No, thanks moment: Otto eats the live contents of KkkkkkkKen’s aquarium (including the eponymous angel fish) and shoves some ketchup’d chips (fries) up his nostrils. Fish and chips. Get it?

Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist
No, thanks moment: Caroline. Gum. Barf. Public toilet. Gum. Mouth…in that order. Nuff said.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
No, thanks moment(s): Austin drinks a warm, and rather nutty, cuppa joe (aka Fat Bastard’s poo). Speaking of Fat Bastard, his “love” scene with Felicity Shagwell is topped off with him eating fried chicken and rubbing chicken grease on his man boobs. ::shudder::

The Road to Wellville
No, thanks plot point: Cereal? Yes! Poop fixation? No. Anything that ruins cereal is the devil. Jus’ sayin’

Alien
No, thanks moment: Speaking of cereal, the scene where everyone celebrates Kane’s recovery with a group cereal/leftover feast starts out so munchie-inducing…until the alien baby bursts from his chest and sprays his blood all over everyone. Thanks, Cameron.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
No, thanks moment: Excuse me Mr. [Jones], but did we have to watch the monkey brains/snake baby feast? Also, while not technically food-related, the bug scene makes me want to barf every single time I see it. So that sort of counts, right? ::twitch, twitch::

Icky pies: American Pie, Thinner, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
No, thanks moment(s): Sophomoric pie humping makes me not want apple pie ever again, but maybe it’s just the endless sophomoric pie humping jokes the film spawned. Cue nice segue: Thinner begins, because a dude runs over an old gypsy woman while his classy lady friend is all…handsy with his bits. Massive gypsy-curse weight loss ensues and the only way to stop it is to make a gypsy pie from your own blood and feed it to another. Ick.

There’s nothing better than venting, right? Getting rid of a bunch of all that stress and anxiety…by systematically murdering the bastards that caused you to go prematurely grey and having your demented/lovesick landlady bake them into shepherd’s pie for the masses. Well, that was Sweeney Todd’s plan anyway. I don’t know what’s worse–eating human meant pies or eating Sacha Baron Cohen-human meat pies?

Come to think of it, those last two movies lead quite nicely into the next three movies…ah, segues!

Cannibalist’s Delight: Soylent Green, Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Rising, Shawn of the Dead
No, thanks moment(s): How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your [human] meat?! Little else compares to being fed processed and packaged Soylent Green by the government only to find out you’ve been chowing down on the impoverished populace of 2022 NYC.

That said, I’m sure the perfect paring for such a fleshy feast would have to be some fava beans and a nice Chianti!!! Hannibal the cannibal is definitely one of the most deranged villains in movie history (though he’s nearly one-upped by the skin suit making, bits tucking Buffalo Bill). The sickness doesn’t stop there, the 2007 prequel Hannibal Rising makes things worse by existing (…oh, snap!), er-I mean building on Hannibal’s continuous flashbacks to hungry soviets chowing down on his sweet little sister, Mischa Lecter. All zombie movies belong on this list, but I have yet to see anything as gross as watching the douchey David get ripped to bits by the ravenous denizens outside of the Winchester in Shawn of the Dead.

Brad Pitt, you bastard: Interview with the Vampire and Se7en
No, thanks moment(s): Sure vampires suck the blood right out of ya, but for some reason this movie only gives me the cringies when I have to watch Louis feast on all of those revolting rats and poufy (albeit irritating) poodles. Leave it to Brad to out do himself by bringing us an up close and personal look at each of the deadly sins in Se7en. At least they get gluttony out of the way early on, but the sight of that first victim…alls I have to say is too much food in too many orifices.

Real World Gross: Supersize Me, Roger & Me, and Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe
No, thanks moment(s): Morgan Spurlock wolfing down McDonald’s may seem harmless, until you see how it’s killing him. Oh and the best moment is when the food becomes too much for poor Morgan, and he barfs all over the place. Tasty. Allow me to wrap up with a few throwbacks:
1. Michael Moore’s interview with the (likely clinically insane) Flint, Michigan woman that definitely doesn’t raise rabbits for pets.
2. The slightly more comical look at visionary documentarian preparing and eating a little boiled sole food (aka his shoe) after he loses a bet. Not tasty, but still funny, insightful, and frightening–lets just say I have been threatening to “eat my hat” for too many things, and I don’t want to be made to pay the piper, as it were.

Want more Food Week? I thought you might —> click me!

Earlier this month when I spoke with Dr. Anthony Parel, a Gandhian scholar, he gave me the “top five things one could do to be more like Gandhi.” His list (which has its own page on this site) has been a great reference point throughout the week. So today, I worked on the last item on his list “To build a more just and less violent society and polity through constructive program.”

The “constructive program” that I have worked on building is a new project for both my English and Social Justice classes. This new assignment is called “Life Lab: The Experimental Life & Search for Truth”. The essence of the assignment is to experiment with the way you live so that you can gain some understanding of the a subject that you previously knew little about. Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock did this with his film “Supersize Me” and then with his FX television show “30 Days”. Author Barbara Ehrenreich did this and wrote about the experience in her work “Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America”.

Several other authors and journalists have done this as well.

My first blog, “One Dollar Diet Project” was also a Life Lab, as is this one. This experienced based model for learning seeks to give students the chance to experiment with how they live, in a sustained and reflective way. The project requires: changing the way you live, researching topics related to these changes, interviewing people, blogging every day about the experience, and building a multimedia presentation to share what you learned with a live audience. It is my hope that students will experiment with living (and ultimately truth) in order to deepen their thinking about a subject, transform their lives, and build character.

As Gandhi would say, “If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”

- Chistopher

Short- Mockumentary

more about “Mockumentary“, posted with vodpod

Mockumentary is a short film that mocks popular documentaries; Supersize Me, Grizzly Man, Living with Michael Jackson and Reality TV show Trading Spouses.

… for more visit bigchillidog.wordpress.com

DISCUSS THIS STORY

“THE FOOD INDUSTRY DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FOOD YOU ARE EATING, BECAUSE IF YOU DID, YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO EAT IT”

TAKE A PEAK INTO MY WORLD!

or

SHIT THAT I HAVE POSTED ON MY TUMBLR PREVIOUSLY AND WILL NOW AGAIN POST HERE BECAUSE IT AMUSES ME AND THERE IS NO ONE TO FUCKING STOP ME.

by your pal, Conrad Noir.

And: my tumblarity is shit right now and that displeases me. Fuck tumblarity. Speaking of which…

Uh huh.

Just a few things I dig:

1. Lisa Bonet in Angel Heart. Hell yeah.

2. Motherfuckin’ popsicles.

3. Bjork!

4. Cash!

5. Metal album covers. Just look at that shit. Yngwie Malmsteen was a fucking douchebag, but just look at that album cover. It gets me hard. There’s enough metal there to build a fortress!

6. Holistic cures for insomnia.

7. Music that sounds like cunnilingus. Or inspires cunnilingus. Like, Blonde Redhead. Marco Sparks tells me that Benjamin Light loves Blonde Redhead.

8. Burgers. Mmm burgers.

9. Playing my guitar.

10. Grapes. They’re tasty. A touch boring at times, sure, but tasty.

But there’s so much more about me. Stay tuned for part two, you weirdos! See you then!