Chandra Clarke

Award-winning entrepreneur. Author. Professional Optimist.

Living off the fat of the land

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This week, I have good news for all of you poor slobs who are out there doing crazy things like watching what you eat and working out. There’s no need! The world’s junk food manufacturers are going to look after us.

For example, according to a Reuters’ report, a prominent chocolate bar maker announced that it was doing its part in the battle of the bulge: it was cutting its king-sized bars in half. It is not, however, actually removing the other half from the package. No, instead it plans to market the halves as two bars in the same wrapper, thereby making it, and I quote, “shareable.” For the record, the minute everyone who reads this column is suddenly struck with a case of Chocolate Bar Generosity Syndrome, I want your first thought to be: Chandra.

Meanwhile, a major hamburger retailer, which I won’t name in this mcspace, has added salads to its menu. Presumably this is because nothing counteracts a huge cola and fries better than a few pale greens soaked with sweetened dressing.

No word yet though on whether a famous North American convenience store will jump on the healthy eating band wagon any time soon. It currently sells soda pop in cups that clock in at 1.3 litres in Canada, which is approximately as big as three football fields in American terms. It used to boggle my mind to think that anyone could consume that much liquid in a single sitting; of course, this is before I discovered the Englishman’s capacity for ale.

While portion size reduction can only help, I suspect there are other factors at work in the obesity epidemic. For instance, according to the World Health Organization, the average American ate 147 pounds — yes, pounds — of sweeteners in 2001. I’d say that’s the equivalent of eating your own body weight in sugar, but clearly when you eat that much sweetener in a year, your body weight is an upwardly mobile and hard to track number.

Further, about 62 pounds of that amount was high fructose corn syrup. Now I know what you’re thinking: you’re sitting there, saying to yourself, “Ha! Ha! Silly columnist! Obviously, I am safe because I did not drink 62 pounds of corn syrup last year.” To which I reply, “Ha! Ha! Silly reader! That’s what I thought!” Then I started looking at the ingredient lists and found it in things like iced tea, lemonade, jam, fruit drinks, and bizarrely, a package of boneless, skinless chicken breast meat. I’m not sure why anyone thought I might want my chicken sweetened, so I can only conclude the chickens themselves drank a lot of cola on the farm.

Now before the farmers start pelting me with corn awareness pamphlets, let me say that there’s probably nothing wrong with corn syrup sweeteners per se. It’s just there’s an awful lot of it and other highly refined products in our food supply these days. We’ve developed lazy palates — we want things super sweet or super smooth and super sized.

And the problem is that our bodies don’t seem to be designed for taking on that much highly refined or processed food on a constant basis. If you’ll forgive a little scatological etymology (translation: word history best not discussed in polite company), consider pumpernickel bread. Pumper comes from a German word meaning ‘breaking wind,’ while nickel means ‘demon’ (translation: your body could extract nutrition from the bread, but by heck it had to work like the devil for it).

I’m definitely not one for glorifying the old days and I admit there was a really good reason why people switched from ‘old world’ pumpernickel to other kinds of bread, and that is: you can also build brick houses out of pumpernickel loaves.

It’s just that eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich on white bread with a glass of iced tea may well be the digestive equivalent of sticking your finger in an electrical socket.

What’s that? Oh, sorry.

Didn’t mean to ruin your lunch.

If the shoe fits

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Pardon me for saying so, but your shoes are stupid.

I don’t mean to say that your shoes look stupid, although what you were thinking when you wore that blue and pink pair out last week, I do not know. What I mean is that your shoes aren’t very intelligent.

Adidas announced some time ago that it had developed a “smart shoe.” This shoe contains a microprocessor and a tiny screw and cable system, which adjusts the cushioning provided by the shoe — based on measurements of your size and stride. Three years of top secret research went into the making of the shoe, which company officials say “senses, understands and adapts.”

Now, this is very clever technology, and I can see where long distance runners, hikers, or even wait staff would have a need for a shoe that provides the ultimate in comfort in every step. However, I can’t help thinking that there are better places for this sort of application.

For example, I would love for my coffee pot to sense, understand and adapt first thing in the morning, because goodness knows I can’t. A truly intelligent pot would not only brew a fresh cup for me, but add the sugar and milk and bring it to me while I’m still struggling to figure out what day it is.

Our car could be a lot smarter than it is. I wouldn’t mind if it could sense when some idiot is about to cut in front of me; it could do some pre-emptive honking and rude gesturing to prevent the cut off from happening altogether. Better yet, given gas prices lately, an intelligent car should be able to figure out how to convert itself to a hydrogen powered vehicle. It could make rude gestures at the gas station as we drove by too.

My computer could be a heck of a lot brighter. I would love it if it would sense that the operating system was about to crash and well, not crash. It should be able to know that I am not interested in emails about cheap or forbidden software, hot stock tips, or discounted drugs. And the CD ROM tray really would be a cup holder — one that dispensed either hot tea or strong scotch, depending on the type of day you were having at the office.

While we’re at it, why hasn’t someone invested three years of top secret research into making smarter politicians? Just think of the benefits to society in a world where there was no such thing as a Sarah Palin. Or a Boris Johnson. Or Vic Toews. Or…

Finally, when it comes to things that sense, understand and adapt, I think I want something like that for my laundry system. A clever washing machine would sense that the hamper is overflowing, understand that I am no more interested in it today than I was yesterday, and adapt by coming upstairs to fetch the clothes. Furthermore, it would toss the washed clothes into the dryer and take them out and fold them at the right moment so that no ironing would ever be required.

I’d even let it wash my stupid shoes.

Pas de Pudginess

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If there’s any book that went flying off the shelves faster than “The Da Vinci Code” it was “French Women Don’t Get Fat.” The book explains the so-called “French paradox” — the ability of the French to eat seemingly rich food without getting a case of les grands buttocks.

I could summarize the book by renaming it “101 Ways to Lose Weight Painlessly.” I could, except that it would remind me that was going to be the name of the book *I* had planned to write along the same lines, if Mme Guiliano hadn’t beaten me to it. Oh, but for a little more writing time first thing in the morning…

The book could also be summarized with titles like “Non, Je Ne Veux Pas Fries With That” or “Everything Avec Le Moderation.” However, there are two reasons why it shouldn’t be: 1) To condense the book into a short phrase defeats the purpose, which is to get you to take a more holistic approach to life and eating and 2) The French grammar police would have to arrest me for language abuse.

Personally I always thought that the answer to the French paradox — and indeed other supposedly inexplicable phenomenon like the Mediterranean diet — was fairly obvious. There’s a reason why the French celebrate “joie de vivre” and not “joie de Super Big Gulp.” They, and a lot of other Europeans, try go to for quality over quantity. There’s no French translation for “supersize me,” and if there were, it would probably be fairly literal — and quite telling — like “donne moi les twenty extra pounds sur ma patoot.”

However, given the, er, increasing rates of obesity in North America, the answer apparently wasn’t so obvious. The book has arrived just in time to address that issue, and to provide hope for the no/low carb dieters who are about to fall off the wagon.

Yes, I am predicting that fad is about to end. This is because 1) There’s only so long a rational, right-thinking human being can hold out against the temptation of good garlic bread and 2) Bakers across the land are joining forces to launch a particularly underhanded advertising campaign that will include muffin-scented inserts in popular magazines.

Take heart though: Guiliano offered plenty of practical, easy-to-follow advice, some of which you’ll have heard elsewhere, such as: drink more water, and walk more often. What you haven’t heard is: don’t avoid chocolate altogether, just the cheap, low-quality stuff. Or how about: gyms are more like punishment, disdain them in favour of more physical activity in your life, like sex. You can see why this book has been popular, can’t you?

Some of her advice isn’t practical here in North America — not yet, anyway. For example, she suggests going to the market on a daily basis, and only eating produce that’s in season. I don’t know about you, but with a family to raise and a full-time job, I don’t think I could fit in daily trips to the market. And I live in Canada, where the growing season is approximately 15 minutes long. I couldn’t face a whole winter without at least one green veggie.

But just imagine the profound changes in the economy if the advice in this book was adopted! The market for those made-by-the-millions plasticky cupcakes would dry up, and darnit, wouldn’t freshly made pastries like Napoleon squares and eclairs have to take their place? Gone would be the drinks made with “2% real juice!” and something, a decent chardonnay perhaps, would be required to take up the shelf space. The spice section of your grocery store might finally offer something other than the standard salt, pepper, oregano, and mustard powder.

Women’s magazines would find that they’d actually have to produce editorial copy about important issues, instead of breathless coverage of the latest diet trend. Streets would no longer be littered with extra large coffee and soda cups.

Life would be good. Life would be “A Year in Provence,” well, all year round.

Now if only we could get Mme. Guiliano to write a book called “French Women Don’t Watch TV” in time to prevent a horrible new reality show.

It Could Have Been a Contenda

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It’s hard to believe around fifty years ago people were once *excited* by an invention called television.

It must have seemed so promising. You could watch an escapist glamorous Hollywood musical. You could travel back in time to the wild west. Variety shows introduced you to exotic music (the Beatles!) from far away places (England!). Hey, at the time it was pretty cool. Sorry, groovy. Whatever.

There were ground breaking shows that dealt with major issues like racial discrimination (All in the Family), global unity (Star Trek), or being stranded on a desert island with dumb sailors (Gilligan’s Island.) There were broadcasts of important historical events, like the moon landing. Indeed, there was so much interesting stuff being shown that you could almost forgive shows like “Mr. Ed.” (Wait! Let me clean out my inbox before you send in your complaints!)

Then something happened to television. I haven’t decided whether: (a) Aliens from the planet Neefnoof began tampering with the broadcasts; (b) Multi-national mega corporations started mass producing muck; or (c) Writing school graduates joined the TV industry en masse.

Whatever it was, we’re now getting shows like … “Cosmetic Surgery Live.” I don’t know about you, but I want to watch this show about as much as I want to know more about a procedure I saw advertised yesterday called “lipodissolve.”

Or what if I told you about an event where lots of people gathered around to see individuals being attacked by dogs? You’d think aha! That must be an intellectually stimulating history special on PBS, re-enacting a scene from Roman coliseum. Nope, just reality TV — “Fear Factor.”

This is why, as a parent, I am profoundly grateful for two things: my computer, and my Internet connection. Okay, I’m also grateful for baby gates, apple juice, and night lights, but that’s another story.

The Internet is showing hints that it’s going to become what TV could have been: a fantastic educator. I can go to a site called Research Channel and watch lectures from universities across the US. For example, I can download a piece from the University of Washington called: Cosmetic Surgery: New Advances.

Whoops! Bad example. But from that same site there are things like “Archaeology and Wine Production” or “Learning from Sea Creatures,” and even “Language, Mind, and Brain: How Infants Crack the Speech Code.” I think I’ll watch that last one to figure out how long I have before I have to start spelling things like “t-o-y s-t-o-r-e?” to my husband.

Or I can go to another site and get nearly the entire MIT curriculum without ever having to set foot on campus. Just think of the home schooling I can do with that! Er, once we’ve covered the bit about numbers and the alphabet of course.

I can access satellite shots of my neighbourhood, which means I’m part of the first generation of mums with eyes in the back of their heads AND in the sky. (“Son, I said stay *out* of the garage! Never mind how I knew!”) My children can to play checkers with Australians, watch whales off the coast of British Columbia, and download pictures from Mars, all in a single afternoon. And yes, at some point, they will still come to me and say, “Mum, I’m bored!”

But my point is that the Internet is a grand resource. So it really frosts me to hear about the “Turn off the PC Week” movement. The group behind this warns about the “dangers of excessive computer time” with vague references to “social, physical, and psychological problems.”

Yes, there are a lot of YouTube channels that seem to have taken their cue from Fear Factor. Yes, there is fake news. But as far as I’m concerned, the only real dangers associated with time on the PC are contracting printer rage and computer butt. There’s no known cure for printer rage, but a good balance of outdoor play time and good old-fashioned house chores will cure the other. It goes without saying that the kids should be taken out for real-world trips to zoos, museums, and sports fields whenever parents can afford it.

But *don’t* turn off that PC. Or mobile device. Just show them how to use it properly.

Who knows? Maybe your child will be the one to cure cancer, land on Mars, or invent a printer that never accordion-folds paper that wasn’t supposed to be accordion-folded.