KAHILA-HILAKBOT pataw sa kanila
Isang Selman Rushdie, nagsulat nobela;
May Jami at Rumi—both writers of Persia…
Sila’y itinakwil… isinumpa sila!
Kaya nangilabot pati na ang lubot
Nilang mga hukom-- pawang natatakot
Duminig sa kaso’t baka nga matigok
Sakaling magpataw hatol na baluktot…
Si Jami at Rumi tinawag nang banal
At itong si Rushdie ang turing ay hangal…
Aba’y ano na lang ang ipapangalan
For 30 journalists… sila ba’y animal?
Wala nang patawad meron pang patawa
Nang sila’y niratrat, nilapastangan pa…
Pawang taga-ulat—ganoon lang sila
Naghahanap-buhay dahil may pamilya.
Baka naman luho na ang katarungan—
H’wag na ngang asamin na ating makamtan…
Ituring na baboy ang mga kinatay:
Bawal kahit tikman ang pagkaing haram.
Pero on second thought may mga kinaplog—
Hindi lang tinikman nitong mga hayok…
Pinagpasasaan ng mga balakyot
Ano bang tikim lang? Inubos, sinimot…
“Brothers of the devils” ang tawag sa Qur’an
Sa mga lustay sa salapi at yaman...
(Sa Sûrah Al-Isrâ’ ay matutunghayan.)
Ang kanilang mansions ay veinte cuatro lang…
Kaya naman andap, bayag ay umurong,
At kinilabutan itong mga hukom.
Sapagkat, sapagkat kapag nagkataon…
Utol ni Satanas, ano’ng ihahatol?
Death by casketry— siksik sa kabaong?
Death by basketry—isilid sa bayong?
Pero wala na ngang death penalty ngayon
Pulos debt penalty, sa utang ay baon…
Ang sinumang hukom ay matataranta
Baka mga suspects, mapawalang-sala…
Dahil pitik-bulag na nga ang hustisya
Saka mahirap nang… Putok!—bulagta ka.
Tayo’y magpatawad, tayo’y magpatawa!
Tayo’y magpapataw? Aba, mahirap na…
Baka madamay pa ang buong pamilya
Kapag itong angkan ay biglang bum’welta…
Meron pong penis court… tennis court nga pala!
At may Anito Court—doon madadala
Ang ganitong kasong wala nang pag-asa…
Doon titimbangin kikinang na pasya.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
30 GAMUGAMO
PAGSAMA-SAMAHIN ang mga pangalan
Pati mga mukha’t katawang ginutay…
Gamugamo silang payak lang ang pakay
Sasagsag sa liyab o anumang tanglaw..
Isang kawan silang sa dilim napadpad—
Tatlumpung paningin, liwanag ang hanap…
Tatlumpung katawang sa dugo natigmak
Tatlumpung buhay na sa hukay nasadlak.
May bibig ang lupa’t bagwis ang balita--
Hiyaw at hagulgol ang mailalagda…
Tatlumpung sinaklot sa apoy ng tingga
Utak, dugo’t laman… pati diwa’t luha…
Diklap na hahaplos marahil sa isip--
Hindi nakapiling anak nilang paslit…
Habang nalalagas ang taning sa saglit
Karampot na kita’y bubungkalin pilit…
Hindi manlilisik, ni hindi kukurap
Ang mata sa k’wentong saanman kinalap,
Kahit pa sa hukay paa’y itinahak
Dapat maihatid sa madla ang ulat…
Sa mga pagitan ng sulsol at salsal
Sa mga hinimay na ladlad at daldal—
Kalansay ng ulat sisidlan ng laman
Mga kuntil-butil—bibigyan ng saysay…
Ilang latang gatas? Ilang subong kanin
Ang naitutumbas doon sa gawain…
Gawain lang nga ba o baka tungkulin
Itong gagampanang pagsuong sa lagim?
Mapupukaw pa ba silang natutulog
Sa kapaligirang tigib sa bangungot?
Namanhid nang budhi nais bang makurot
Tuwing isasaysay mga hapdi’t kirot?
Naghintay ang hukay sa inyong pagdating
Tila ba bunganga na impit ang daing—
Hindi alintana punglo at patalim…
Dahil may katumbas sandakot mang asin!
Tayong magdidildil sa mga balita
Sa mga pahayag, mga haka-haka
O kahit sa tsismis ng nakatunganga...
Alalayan sila sa kahit gunita…
Gamugamo silang sa ningas ng lagim
Umagaw ng liyab kahit na katiting…
Upang maihayag… upang maisalin
Sa manhid nang isip ng ating lupain.
May gamugamo ngang kahit sa karimlan
Pilit hahagilap ‘sanghibla ng ilaw…
Bagwis nilang lagas maging sa pagpanaw
Taglay ay liwanag sa sangkatauhan…
Pati mga mukha’t katawang ginutay…
Gamugamo silang payak lang ang pakay
Sasagsag sa liyab o anumang tanglaw..
Isang kawan silang sa dilim napadpad—
Tatlumpung paningin, liwanag ang hanap…
Tatlumpung katawang sa dugo natigmak
Tatlumpung buhay na sa hukay nasadlak.
May bibig ang lupa’t bagwis ang balita--
Hiyaw at hagulgol ang mailalagda…
Tatlumpung sinaklot sa apoy ng tingga
Utak, dugo’t laman… pati diwa’t luha…
Diklap na hahaplos marahil sa isip--
Hindi nakapiling anak nilang paslit…
Habang nalalagas ang taning sa saglit
Karampot na kita’y bubungkalin pilit…
Hindi manlilisik, ni hindi kukurap
Ang mata sa k’wentong saanman kinalap,
Kahit pa sa hukay paa’y itinahak
Dapat maihatid sa madla ang ulat…
Sa mga pagitan ng sulsol at salsal
Sa mga hinimay na ladlad at daldal—
Kalansay ng ulat sisidlan ng laman
Mga kuntil-butil—bibigyan ng saysay…
Ilang latang gatas? Ilang subong kanin
Ang naitutumbas doon sa gawain…
Gawain lang nga ba o baka tungkulin
Itong gagampanang pagsuong sa lagim?
Mapupukaw pa ba silang natutulog
Sa kapaligirang tigib sa bangungot?
Namanhid nang budhi nais bang makurot
Tuwing isasaysay mga hapdi’t kirot?
Naghintay ang hukay sa inyong pagdating
Tila ba bunganga na impit ang daing—
Hindi alintana punglo at patalim…
Dahil may katumbas sandakot mang asin!
Tayong magdidildil sa mga balita
Sa mga pahayag, mga haka-haka
O kahit sa tsismis ng nakatunganga...
Alalayan sila sa kahit gunita…
Gamugamo silang sa ningas ng lagim
Umagaw ng liyab kahit na katiting…
Upang maihayag… upang maisalin
Sa manhid nang isip ng ating lupain.
May gamugamo ngang kahit sa karimlan
Pilit hahagilap ‘sanghibla ng ilaw…
Bagwis nilang lagas maging sa pagpanaw
Taglay ay liwanag sa sangkatauhan…
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Bayog
PINAKAMAKUNAT yata sa may 1,250 species ng kawayan ang bayog—na malimit gamiting haligi sa bahay-kubo. Tumatagal kasi ng 50 taon, lalo na ‘yung higit dalawang taon ang edad… ‘yung taga sa panahon na halos dilaw na ang kulay… nakakabungi sa ngipin ng lagare ang kasinsinan ng makunat na himaymay.
Siyempre, panalo sa lutuin ang labong ng bayog—may sangkap na pait. Kailangang ibabad ng tatlong araw sa tubig na may timplang apog para mapalis ang pait… para masalinan ng mineral na pampatibay ng buhok, kuko’t ngipin. Sa ganoong timpla, mananatili ang mapusyaw na puti ng himaymay, mas malutong pa sa kagat. Mapapagkamalang mataas na uri ng palmetto cabbage o ubod ng niyog kapag isinangkap sa lumpia.
Tinimtimsa saluyot at bagoong ang karaniwang luto nito—katiting lang ang protina sa supling ng kawayan, pulos himaymay o digestible fiber lang… na mas masisikmura kaysa tinatawag na moral fiber ng mga sikat at sikwat na tao sa pamahalaan.
Saka mainam sa katawan ang bisa ng ganoong himaymay. Kinakaskas-linis ang sikmura’t bituka pati na mga ugat na dinadaluyan ng dugo… sinasalakab ang low density lipoproteins (LDL) o kolesterol na pasimuno sa sakit sa puso’t stroke. Hindi makakadagdag-bilbil ang labong kaya malalantakan ng mga nais maging kainaman ang hubog ng katawan.
Balagwit o pingga na pang-igib ng tubig na, nagagamit ding Thai stick at Shaolin pole ang ganoong shoulder pole. Paulit-ulit na inihahampas sa dibdib, tiyan, mga bisig at hita ang Thai stick—para kayang indahin ang bigwas, suntok, kaldag o tadyak na dadapo sa katawan sa full contact sports, halimbawa’y boxing. Psychological conditioning for the body to endure jolts of pain.
At sa kamay ng dalubhasa tulad ng aking abuela, mapanganib na sandata ang makunat na pingga… na madalas lumagapak sa aking tumbong noon kapag nalaman na ako’y nakipagbabag… aba’y 28,000/sq. inch ang tensile strength o tibay ng bayog—23,000 lang sa bakal. Kaya balagwit na hamak-hamakin mas matindi pa sa truncheon dahil nagiging sandatang Shaolin.
Matibay man kahit magaang na sangkap sa payak na dampa, talagang mas mura kaysa palochina, coco lumber o segunda manong kahoy ang bayog—na walang tinik na taglay. Sa loob lang ng limang taon, ang ipinunla’y nagiging kulumpon—3 sentimetro sang-araw ang pagbulas ng kawayan.
At sa ganoong singkad ng panahon, makakatikim na ng labong, may mapuputol pang sangkap para sa bahay kubo.
Ipaubaya na sa mga malikhain ang pagbuo ng kahit na balsa lang… kahit na tagni-tagning lunday na tahanan. Hindi na hihiling na bumuo sa kawayan ng luxury liner o lantsa’t yate na isasalang a la “Kon-Tiki” ni Thor Heyerdahl o daong ni Noah sa unday ng mga Ondoy, Pepeng, at iba pang namumuong unos.
Dire necessity ought to give birth to ingenious design.
Napakaraming kawayan sa paligid—may 49 species sa Pilipinas, kabilang na ang bayog—lalo na sa mga masikap na mag-uukol ng talino’t panahon. Maraming mga tiwangwang at nakaligtaang lupa. Doon makakapagpalago, makakapagpalaki ng bayog—kaysa magpalaki ng bayag.
Siyempre, panalo sa lutuin ang labong ng bayog—may sangkap na pait. Kailangang ibabad ng tatlong araw sa tubig na may timplang apog para mapalis ang pait… para masalinan ng mineral na pampatibay ng buhok, kuko’t ngipin. Sa ganoong timpla, mananatili ang mapusyaw na puti ng himaymay, mas malutong pa sa kagat. Mapapagkamalang mataas na uri ng palmetto cabbage o ubod ng niyog kapag isinangkap sa lumpia.
Tinimtimsa saluyot at bagoong ang karaniwang luto nito—katiting lang ang protina sa supling ng kawayan, pulos himaymay o digestible fiber lang… na mas masisikmura kaysa tinatawag na moral fiber ng mga sikat at sikwat na tao sa pamahalaan.
Saka mainam sa katawan ang bisa ng ganoong himaymay. Kinakaskas-linis ang sikmura’t bituka pati na mga ugat na dinadaluyan ng dugo… sinasalakab ang low density lipoproteins (LDL) o kolesterol na pasimuno sa sakit sa puso’t stroke. Hindi makakadagdag-bilbil ang labong kaya malalantakan ng mga nais maging kainaman ang hubog ng katawan.
Balagwit o pingga na pang-igib ng tubig na, nagagamit ding Thai stick at Shaolin pole ang ganoong shoulder pole. Paulit-ulit na inihahampas sa dibdib, tiyan, mga bisig at hita ang Thai stick—para kayang indahin ang bigwas, suntok, kaldag o tadyak na dadapo sa katawan sa full contact sports, halimbawa’y boxing. Psychological conditioning for the body to endure jolts of pain.
At sa kamay ng dalubhasa tulad ng aking abuela, mapanganib na sandata ang makunat na pingga… na madalas lumagapak sa aking tumbong noon kapag nalaman na ako’y nakipagbabag… aba’y 28,000/sq. inch ang tensile strength o tibay ng bayog—23,000 lang sa bakal. Kaya balagwit na hamak-hamakin mas matindi pa sa truncheon dahil nagiging sandatang Shaolin.
Matibay man kahit magaang na sangkap sa payak na dampa, talagang mas mura kaysa palochina, coco lumber o segunda manong kahoy ang bayog—na walang tinik na taglay. Sa loob lang ng limang taon, ang ipinunla’y nagiging kulumpon—3 sentimetro sang-araw ang pagbulas ng kawayan.
At sa ganoong singkad ng panahon, makakatikim na ng labong, may mapuputol pang sangkap para sa bahay kubo.
Ipaubaya na sa mga malikhain ang pagbuo ng kahit na balsa lang… kahit na tagni-tagning lunday na tahanan. Hindi na hihiling na bumuo sa kawayan ng luxury liner o lantsa’t yate na isasalang a la “Kon-Tiki” ni Thor Heyerdahl o daong ni Noah sa unday ng mga Ondoy, Pepeng, at iba pang namumuong unos.
Dire necessity ought to give birth to ingenious design.
Napakaraming kawayan sa paligid—may 49 species sa Pilipinas, kabilang na ang bayog—lalo na sa mga masikap na mag-uukol ng talino’t panahon. Maraming mga tiwangwang at nakaligtaang lupa. Doon makakapagpalago, makakapagpalaki ng bayog—kaysa magpalaki ng bayag.
Tahanang Walang Hagdan
WALA talagang ikalawang palapag sa naturang tahanan kaya tiis na lang sa lublob-baha ang mga naroon na pawang may kapansanan. Na pawang mas higit karapat-dapat amutan ng tulong. Dahil sila ang mga uri ng taong hindi hihilata o magmumukmok saanmang evacuation center, maghihintay sa dating ng relief goods.
Mataas ang pagpapahalaga nila sa sarili, parang ‘yung tinukoy minsan ni Oscar Wilde—pare-pareho man tayong nadapurak at nakalublob sa lusak, mayroon pa ring nakatutok ang paningin sa mga bituin… kahit na saklot pa rin ng dilim.
Nasalanta ng baha ni Ondoy ang kanilang mga makina’t kasangkapan sa kabuhayan. Lupaypay man at may kapansanan sa katawan, inot na itutuloy lang ang kanilang gawaing ginagampanan. Marupok man ang katawan, mananatili ang tibay na taglay sa dibdib at isipan.
Lumpo na kung lumpo. Pero kaya naman nilang tumindig sa sariling paa. Direst misfortunes may crush the faint of heart and weak of will, never the unyielding spirit of those in Tahanang Walang Hagdan. Lumpo man, hindi naman laman lampa na ilalampaso ng kalamidad.
Teka, nalalapit na rin lang ang kapaskuhan, mas mainam para sa mga korporasyon na bumili ng bulto-bultong corporate giveaways sa kanila. Napakaraming mapagpipilian doon.
Mga magulang, ninong at ninang: makakabili ng mga gawang-kamay na laruan at educational toys sa Tahanang Walang Hagdan.
Tutal, ginawa yatang panggatong o ninakaw na ang mga upuan at school desks sa mga paaralan sa mga paaralan na ginawang evacuation centers, palitan na lang ang mga ganoong kagamitan. Gumagawa rin ang mga taga-Tahanang Walang Hagdan ng mga ganoong kasangkapan para sa mga paaralan at tanggapan.
Abala sa lapat-kamay na gawain ang mga tagaroon, walang panahon para mangipuspos o manlumo sa mga malupit na unday ni Ondoy at Pepeng. Sasagi tuloy sa isipan ang isa sa mga kahanga-hangang bayani mula Tanauan, Batangas.
Frail of body yet Herculean, aye, promethean of mind, the late “Sublime Paralytic” moved men, events, even the course of our nation’s history. He was moved from place to place on a hammock, borne on the shoulders of two aides—he wasn’t that helpless in his younger years.
He had taken to walking from the family hut in barrio Talaga to a school in far-flung Lipa City—a leg-sapping, stamina-wracking 20-kilometer or so daily trudge through treacherous terrain. Steeling the mind with knowledge may entail going through hardships and difficulties.
Such a regimen was no stranger to Virginia E. Montilla, 48, social services and administrative director for Tahanan.
School was virtually at an arm’s length—or about three kilometers away from the dormitory in Cubao where she and 20 other Tahanan scholars took residence throughout their college days. The pair of “aides” that gave them mobility: their hands steering their wheelchairs across stretches of asphalt roads… on into the future.
Mataas ang pagpapahalaga nila sa sarili, parang ‘yung tinukoy minsan ni Oscar Wilde—pare-pareho man tayong nadapurak at nakalublob sa lusak, mayroon pa ring nakatutok ang paningin sa mga bituin… kahit na saklot pa rin ng dilim.
Nasalanta ng baha ni Ondoy ang kanilang mga makina’t kasangkapan sa kabuhayan. Lupaypay man at may kapansanan sa katawan, inot na itutuloy lang ang kanilang gawaing ginagampanan. Marupok man ang katawan, mananatili ang tibay na taglay sa dibdib at isipan.
Lumpo na kung lumpo. Pero kaya naman nilang tumindig sa sariling paa. Direst misfortunes may crush the faint of heart and weak of will, never the unyielding spirit of those in Tahanang Walang Hagdan. Lumpo man, hindi naman laman lampa na ilalampaso ng kalamidad.
Teka, nalalapit na rin lang ang kapaskuhan, mas mainam para sa mga korporasyon na bumili ng bulto-bultong corporate giveaways sa kanila. Napakaraming mapagpipilian doon.
Mga magulang, ninong at ninang: makakabili ng mga gawang-kamay na laruan at educational toys sa Tahanang Walang Hagdan.
Tutal, ginawa yatang panggatong o ninakaw na ang mga upuan at school desks sa mga paaralan sa mga paaralan na ginawang evacuation centers, palitan na lang ang mga ganoong kagamitan. Gumagawa rin ang mga taga-Tahanang Walang Hagdan ng mga ganoong kasangkapan para sa mga paaralan at tanggapan.
Abala sa lapat-kamay na gawain ang mga tagaroon, walang panahon para mangipuspos o manlumo sa mga malupit na unday ni Ondoy at Pepeng. Sasagi tuloy sa isipan ang isa sa mga kahanga-hangang bayani mula Tanauan, Batangas.
Frail of body yet Herculean, aye, promethean of mind, the late “Sublime Paralytic” moved men, events, even the course of our nation’s history. He was moved from place to place on a hammock, borne on the shoulders of two aides—he wasn’t that helpless in his younger years.
He had taken to walking from the family hut in barrio Talaga to a school in far-flung Lipa City—a leg-sapping, stamina-wracking 20-kilometer or so daily trudge through treacherous terrain. Steeling the mind with knowledge may entail going through hardships and difficulties.
Such a regimen was no stranger to Virginia E. Montilla, 48, social services and administrative director for Tahanan.
School was virtually at an arm’s length—or about three kilometers away from the dormitory in Cubao where she and 20 other Tahanan scholars took residence throughout their college days. The pair of “aides” that gave them mobility: their hands steering their wheelchairs across stretches of asphalt roads… on into the future.
Furyu
SA self-sustaining 70-square meter lot na binalangkas noong rehimeng Ferdinand E. Marcos: 25 sq. m. ang nakalaan sa sampalapag na dampa, 45 sq. m. sa tanimang lupa na nakapaligid. Pumapatak na 35% allocation for structure, 65% for Nature—the entire scheme of sharing spaces is meant as enhancement to the dweller’s humanity and inner quality of life.
‘Yung kabuuan ng 70 metro kuwadradong lote ang mismong lawak ng pamamahay para sa pinakapayak at masinop na pamumuhay. Maisasalin sa mas malawak na latag ng lupain at pamayanan ang ganitong hatian, 35% for structure, 65% for Nature.
Sa Japan, 75% ang inilaan sa Kalikasan, 25% sa pamayanan at sambahayan. Sa inaakala nating masikip na Hongkong, 70% ang sa Kalikasan, 30% sa mga pamayana’t sambahayan.
Magugunita ang iginiit ng isang mistiko ukol sa ganitong pagpaparaya ng mas malaking bahagi ng lupain sa Kalikasan: “Hindi sisidlan ng kapangyarihan ang kalawakan. Ito mismo’y kapangyarihan!”
Magugunita muli na sa kalawakan ng disyerto nag-ayuno ng 40 araw si Kristo: baka sa tagpuan ng lupain at papawirin sa ganoong kalawakan sumagap ng dagdag pang kapangyarihan. Nakayanan nga ang lahat ng ipinukol na tukso ng diyablo.
Kapangyarihan man ang kalawakan, pekpek pa rin ang hindi malilimutang masarap kapag masikip o makipot—at natukoy na ng pananaliksik na nag-uudyok ng buryong, sexual perversions at paghina ng katinuan at pagkatao ang mga sikip na puwang.
Sa madaling sabi, cramped spaces reduce humanity of their dwellers.
At lumalawak naman pati na saklaw ng isipan at katangian ng diwa sa mga malawak na lunan.
Pero likas na yata ang pagkadayukdok ng Penoy bugok sa pekpek… kaya nagpupumilit na isalaksak ang sarili sa mga masikip.
Sa mas malaking sisidlan, mas marami ang maisasalin. Kaya ipinapayo ng mga dalubhasa sa feng shui (furyu sa Japan) na kailangan daw mapalis ang mga kalat at pampasikip sa alinmang panig ng tahanan. Kailangang magbigay-daan, lumikha ng puwang sa mga bagong kasaganaan na pupuno sa nilikhang puwang.
Maiisip: tiyak na kasabwat ang mga feng shui experts sa paglalatag ng planong panlunsod o urban planning ng Hong Kong… kaya marahil 30% lang ng land area ang nakatokang tindigan ng mga gusali, 70% ang nanatiling laan sa Kalikasan… sa tinatawag na life support, life enhancement systems for human dwellers. Call that “urban renewal.”
Sa kumpareng anluwage napulot ko ang naiibang taguri sa mga naturang puwang—Godspace o puwang para sa Maykapal na dapat laging nakahihigit ang lawak kaysa manspace o puwang para sa tao. Hindi maganda na ipagkait ng karaniwang tao ang puwang para sa Maykapal sa kanyang pamamahay… sa pamumuhay.
Sa mga pamamahay at pamumuhay ng Penoy bugok talagang ikinait at kinamkam ang puwang para sa Diyos—walang Godspace sa condo, wala rin sa squatters’ area.
‘Yung kabuuan ng 70 metro kuwadradong lote ang mismong lawak ng pamamahay para sa pinakapayak at masinop na pamumuhay. Maisasalin sa mas malawak na latag ng lupain at pamayanan ang ganitong hatian, 35% for structure, 65% for Nature.
Sa Japan, 75% ang inilaan sa Kalikasan, 25% sa pamayanan at sambahayan. Sa inaakala nating masikip na Hongkong, 70% ang sa Kalikasan, 30% sa mga pamayana’t sambahayan.
Magugunita ang iginiit ng isang mistiko ukol sa ganitong pagpaparaya ng mas malaking bahagi ng lupain sa Kalikasan: “Hindi sisidlan ng kapangyarihan ang kalawakan. Ito mismo’y kapangyarihan!”
Magugunita muli na sa kalawakan ng disyerto nag-ayuno ng 40 araw si Kristo: baka sa tagpuan ng lupain at papawirin sa ganoong kalawakan sumagap ng dagdag pang kapangyarihan. Nakayanan nga ang lahat ng ipinukol na tukso ng diyablo.
Kapangyarihan man ang kalawakan, pekpek pa rin ang hindi malilimutang masarap kapag masikip o makipot—at natukoy na ng pananaliksik na nag-uudyok ng buryong, sexual perversions at paghina ng katinuan at pagkatao ang mga sikip na puwang.
Sa madaling sabi, cramped spaces reduce humanity of their dwellers.
At lumalawak naman pati na saklaw ng isipan at katangian ng diwa sa mga malawak na lunan.
Pero likas na yata ang pagkadayukdok ng Penoy bugok sa pekpek… kaya nagpupumilit na isalaksak ang sarili sa mga masikip.
Sa mas malaking sisidlan, mas marami ang maisasalin. Kaya ipinapayo ng mga dalubhasa sa feng shui (furyu sa Japan) na kailangan daw mapalis ang mga kalat at pampasikip sa alinmang panig ng tahanan. Kailangang magbigay-daan, lumikha ng puwang sa mga bagong kasaganaan na pupuno sa nilikhang puwang.
Maiisip: tiyak na kasabwat ang mga feng shui experts sa paglalatag ng planong panlunsod o urban planning ng Hong Kong… kaya marahil 30% lang ng land area ang nakatokang tindigan ng mga gusali, 70% ang nanatiling laan sa Kalikasan… sa tinatawag na life support, life enhancement systems for human dwellers. Call that “urban renewal.”
Sa kumpareng anluwage napulot ko ang naiibang taguri sa mga naturang puwang—Godspace o puwang para sa Maykapal na dapat laging nakahihigit ang lawak kaysa manspace o puwang para sa tao. Hindi maganda na ipagkait ng karaniwang tao ang puwang para sa Maykapal sa kanyang pamamahay… sa pamumuhay.
Sa mga pamamahay at pamumuhay ng Penoy bugok talagang ikinait at kinamkam ang puwang para sa Diyos—walang Godspace sa condo, wala rin sa squatters’ area.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Kicking carcinoma
“The life of the body is a tranquil heart, but envy is a cancer in the bones.”
Proverbs 14:30
PETTY felon dies from a gunshot wound. But the malignant growth that was gnawing at his innards lives on. Famished for information, such a colony of cancer cells—in couch potato mode-- feeds ravenously on a diet of trashy movies, gaining a semblance of awareness, a will to live, even a hunger to spawn children in its own hideous image. Such horror of oncology was plied in Clive Barker’s 1980s uptake on cancer, “Son of Celluloid.”
The mass of tissues mocks its doltish felon-host barely eking less than an aimless existence. It crows about its superiority as a form of life that has imbued itself with a thirst for learning and loftier ambitions. Carcinoma -- as an anomalous bit of genetic information-- stockpiles more and more information, turns into a self-aware entity and aspires to become more than Homo sapiens.
Similarly besieged from within by carcinoma colonies, the do-or-die protagonist in Norman Spinrad’s 1960s sci-fi uptake, “Carcinoma Angels” brings the battle inside his body; he mounts a no-quarters-asked-no-quarters-given assault to decimate every pernicious cell that was eating his insides.
Spinrad suggests that spontaneous remission did not correlate with any external factor. The fight against cancer must be waged--and won—within to bring healing.
As the dust of an all-out inward war had settled, kick-ass protagonist had reclaimed his own territory, emerges triumphant— conquest completed and there’s the consequent spontaneous remission.
Such far-fetched combative modes of wiping out carcinoma wouldn’t stir interest in medical circles. Too, pharmaceutical outfits—they bankroll research and development for new drugs-- have little interest in pursuing alternative cancer therapies. Alternative treatments plied out in fiction and unorthodox healing circles are generally inexpensive and cannot be patented. Drug firms can only rake in profits with a drug that can be patented.
Like equally top number deadly killer heart disease, cancer is a multidimensional malaise. That’s why it is nearly impossible to study the effects of diet, therapeutic agents, and other influences in the traditional research framework. Investigating several variables calls for dozens of experiments— and that requires gargantuan amounts of research funding.
Too, the conventional experimental tack calls for checking one substance at a time in a proverbial seeking for a needle buried in a haystack. Such a search mode-- hopefully-- may zero in on an active biochemical principle or pharmacological agent that can cure cancer.
Another drawback: too tough to design a double-blind study to find out whether combinations of various elements or components that go into natural therapies can zap carcinoma; double-blind studies are designed to pinpoint one or few therapies that work.
With his life on the line ticking and trickling away, the desperate cancer patient may, short of running amok, likely take after the bellicose mode of Spinrad’s protagonist in “Carcinoma Angels.” He carries out whatever imponderable solution it takes to extirpate hordes of malignancy within threatening metastasis for its final conquest.
ECHOING the counsel of a wise king in the Scriptures to nurture a tranquil heart and shun envy that can burrow into the marrow, a martial artist named Li Ching-yuen (1677-1933) spilled out the topmost secret to longevity: “Keep a quiet heart.”
The brutal physical regimen in any system of unarmed combat, say, karatedo (literally, “way of the empty hand”) represents the tip of the iceberg—the repetitive drills to hone the entire body’s reflexes for fighting embodies the pinky finger, the entire regimen is a full arm’s length that covers cultivation of the spirit, the emotions, an inner rhythm and the mind. Indeed, old-fashioned martial skills aim to nurture more of the psyche rather than the sinew. It is an out-and-out attitude makeover and some.
In pushing the limits of physical prowess a wee bit at a time in a self-effacing regimen, the martial arts initiate may step into the realm beyond the physical. This, after the cares and fears of the heart are hushed still—there is irony in that gaining expertise in the art of warfare, one may find peace.
Consider isshin-ryu (translates as “one heart-stream” or “one truth-stream” where the ancient character for “heart” also stands for “truth” or “reality”) a typical style of karatedo. Getting to the black belt level of skills, a learner has to go through endurance repetitions hundreds of times. Say, focused slamming of one’s fists onto a twine-wound punching pad called makawara, lashing out a dose of 100-300 kicks for each leg, including a non-stop 25-kilometer jog. Such generous doses of physical punishment look a tad close to an ascetic’s self-inflicted mortification of the flesh, or a religious penitent’s acts of atonement.
Then again, reports point to a 16-year old youth stricken with cerebral palsy—he saw action in the World Karate Championship held in Pittsburgh, U.S. from June 18-20. Srimanth Bal of Gujarat, India had to square off and win over cerebral palsy, a non-contagious condition that cause physical disability in human development.
Srimanth could not walk for eleven years; he was bound to his wheelchair and had to be force-fed. He could not walk without help. His father came to know about karate therapy and sought out for help the president All India Isshinryu Karate Association.
Recalls Srimanth’s coach: "Five years ago in 2004, we started giving him training. At that time he could not even walk. Initially, it was very difficult how to train him. But, I guided him and trained him.”
Plunging into earnest training for five years, the boy ploughed off on the path to recovery and control of his limbs. Too, he has earned the kuro obi or black belt level of skills, an arsenal of martial know-how which he plied out at a global level competition.
HEWING to the Albert Einstein assertion, “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” fictionist Norman Spinrad dumps his never-say-die cancer-stricken protagonist right into the character’s bloodstream—all 70,000 miles spanning the length and breadth of the human body; a network of highways, byways and wee ways through which carcinoma are likely ferried and pumped all-through to infest the victim. The unlikely culprit that, as Spinrad suggests, abets carcinoma to worsen into metastasis and corrupt the corpus?
The heart, it is.
There must be more than medical wisdom in King Solomon’s divine-inspired proverb: “The life of the body is a tranquil heart…”
Why, the “nin” character in ninjutsu (or art of the ninja literally translates as “heart art”) is a variant for heart and must have inspired the Brooklyn, New York-based National Children’s Leukemia Foundation to ply out Ninja Power Martial Arts Therapy— “a unique program that blends the ancient wisdom of the martial arts with the mind-body approach of modern integrative medicine."
The combative arts therapy “offers powerful messages of hope, opportunities for success and achievement, concrete techniques to manage pain and fear, the opportunity to connect with peers without feeling ‘different’, and time to feel ‘normal’ and in control. (A) child… torn down physically and psychologically by disease, rebounds with martial arts therapy, gaining control of negative emotions and rebuilding self-confidence and self-esteem.”
Children—including cancer-stricken 2-5 year-olds—drill through defensive moves in hour-long group sessions that also include meditation, visualization and breathing techniques. In meditation, children can cultivate their own intrinsic energies, becoming empowered and focused on positive outcomes.
“Breathing techniques and visualization help children conquer pain and negative emotions while physically engaging karate movements can boost children psychologically and improve balance and coordination. Learning karate improves self-confidence and self-esteem, and children quickly develop their own ‘indomitable spirit,’ cites the NCLF online prospectus.
NO food and drug regulatory body of any nation would hazard approval of curative quackery, hence, qigong— literally “breathing skills,” a soft martial art that relies on use of ki, chi, qi or life force in mortal combat—took a bad rap under the Mao Ze Dong regime in China. Qigong advocate Guo Lin cured herself of uterine cancer after 10 years of practicing such art, but the state prevented her from sharing such martial cum therapeutic know-how to other cancer sufferers—“she began teaching her method to people suffering from cancer and chronic illnesses in 1970. Her first student, a worker who suffered from serious heart disease, was cured after practicing her qigong. Her second student, a factory worker, was cured of his stomach cancer after a year of assiduous practice,” recounts author David A. Palmer in “Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China.”
Cites Palmer: “Between 1971 and 1977, Guo Lin was interrogated seven times by the (government authorities). In spite of the harassment, the number of people who came to practice with her grew, until she was able to train coaches to lead practice groups in other parks, and an informal organization of practitioners was created to study and publicize her (quaint anti-cancer treatment) method.”
There was no retreat no surrender for this femme fatal of a martial artist. Soon, Guo Lin had the backing of Communist Party cadres who had benefited from her method. A retired navy officer turned up as ardent supporter and took Guo Lin to several work units, looking for a permanent base for teaching and practice. By 1977, two officials at Beijing Normal University risked offering the campus as a center for Guo Lin’s tutorials.
Sensing a new political climate at the heels of Mao’s death, to the health ministry she submitted a report summarizing seven years of experience teaching qigong and claimed that it was a cure for cancer. Too, she began to organize regular, formal courses at Beijing Normal University.
“‘Experience sharing assemblies’ were also held, at which practitioners could share and summarize the benefits of the method. In a turn of events, Guo Lin was invited to lecture at dozens of universities, factories and official units. Thousands of people began to learn her qigong method in parks and public spaces around the country,” writes Palmer.
Thus, qigong blossomed as a regimen for primary health care, a mode of preemptive strike at a dreaded menace of the 21st century that zapped dead 6.7 million in 2002 and may decimate 10.3 million by 2020 to emerge as the world’s top killer.
KARATEDO as a way of life saw the light in an archipelago at the southernmost tip of Japan: Okinawa, as reports have it, “has a population of about 1.3 million, and has 55 centenarians per 100,000 people, the highest ratio in the world.”
The unarmed mode of combat was plied out by the island’s fishers and farmers who fought off sword- and spear-wielding samurai warriors centuries ago. Apart from the draconian physical regimen befitting karatedo, Okinawans have steeled themselves in the nobility of a near-Spartan lifestyle feeding on the fruits of the land and the bounties of the sea.
It would be too tough to turn up a double-blind study to figure out whatever it is in karatedo that quells carcinoma. It could be the quaint breathing techniques, the supposedly healing sounds expelled during form practice. It might be the hours of meditation and rapt absorption beneath the torrents of a waterfall, the appreciation for serene beauty manifest in nature, the explosive striking techniques, a pared-down lifestyle that celebrates frugality… that’s a kaleidoscopic assortment that can be dismissed by any food and drug agency: “No approved therapeutic claims.”
Proverbs 14:30
PETTY felon dies from a gunshot wound. But the malignant growth that was gnawing at his innards lives on. Famished for information, such a colony of cancer cells—in couch potato mode-- feeds ravenously on a diet of trashy movies, gaining a semblance of awareness, a will to live, even a hunger to spawn children in its own hideous image. Such horror of oncology was plied in Clive Barker’s 1980s uptake on cancer, “Son of Celluloid.”
The mass of tissues mocks its doltish felon-host barely eking less than an aimless existence. It crows about its superiority as a form of life that has imbued itself with a thirst for learning and loftier ambitions. Carcinoma -- as an anomalous bit of genetic information-- stockpiles more and more information, turns into a self-aware entity and aspires to become more than Homo sapiens.
Similarly besieged from within by carcinoma colonies, the do-or-die protagonist in Norman Spinrad’s 1960s sci-fi uptake, “Carcinoma Angels” brings the battle inside his body; he mounts a no-quarters-asked-no-quarters-given assault to decimate every pernicious cell that was eating his insides.
Spinrad suggests that spontaneous remission did not correlate with any external factor. The fight against cancer must be waged--and won—within to bring healing.
As the dust of an all-out inward war had settled, kick-ass protagonist had reclaimed his own territory, emerges triumphant— conquest completed and there’s the consequent spontaneous remission.
Such far-fetched combative modes of wiping out carcinoma wouldn’t stir interest in medical circles. Too, pharmaceutical outfits—they bankroll research and development for new drugs-- have little interest in pursuing alternative cancer therapies. Alternative treatments plied out in fiction and unorthodox healing circles are generally inexpensive and cannot be patented. Drug firms can only rake in profits with a drug that can be patented.
Like equally top number deadly killer heart disease, cancer is a multidimensional malaise. That’s why it is nearly impossible to study the effects of diet, therapeutic agents, and other influences in the traditional research framework. Investigating several variables calls for dozens of experiments— and that requires gargantuan amounts of research funding.
Too, the conventional experimental tack calls for checking one substance at a time in a proverbial seeking for a needle buried in a haystack. Such a search mode-- hopefully-- may zero in on an active biochemical principle or pharmacological agent that can cure cancer.
Another drawback: too tough to design a double-blind study to find out whether combinations of various elements or components that go into natural therapies can zap carcinoma; double-blind studies are designed to pinpoint one or few therapies that work.
With his life on the line ticking and trickling away, the desperate cancer patient may, short of running amok, likely take after the bellicose mode of Spinrad’s protagonist in “Carcinoma Angels.” He carries out whatever imponderable solution it takes to extirpate hordes of malignancy within threatening metastasis for its final conquest.
ECHOING the counsel of a wise king in the Scriptures to nurture a tranquil heart and shun envy that can burrow into the marrow, a martial artist named Li Ching-yuen (1677-1933) spilled out the topmost secret to longevity: “Keep a quiet heart.”
The brutal physical regimen in any system of unarmed combat, say, karatedo (literally, “way of the empty hand”) represents the tip of the iceberg—the repetitive drills to hone the entire body’s reflexes for fighting embodies the pinky finger, the entire regimen is a full arm’s length that covers cultivation of the spirit, the emotions, an inner rhythm and the mind. Indeed, old-fashioned martial skills aim to nurture more of the psyche rather than the sinew. It is an out-and-out attitude makeover and some.
In pushing the limits of physical prowess a wee bit at a time in a self-effacing regimen, the martial arts initiate may step into the realm beyond the physical. This, after the cares and fears of the heart are hushed still—there is irony in that gaining expertise in the art of warfare, one may find peace.
Consider isshin-ryu (translates as “one heart-stream” or “one truth-stream” where the ancient character for “heart” also stands for “truth” or “reality”) a typical style of karatedo. Getting to the black belt level of skills, a learner has to go through endurance repetitions hundreds of times. Say, focused slamming of one’s fists onto a twine-wound punching pad called makawara, lashing out a dose of 100-300 kicks for each leg, including a non-stop 25-kilometer jog. Such generous doses of physical punishment look a tad close to an ascetic’s self-inflicted mortification of the flesh, or a religious penitent’s acts of atonement.
Then again, reports point to a 16-year old youth stricken with cerebral palsy—he saw action in the World Karate Championship held in Pittsburgh, U.S. from June 18-20. Srimanth Bal of Gujarat, India had to square off and win over cerebral palsy, a non-contagious condition that cause physical disability in human development.
Srimanth could not walk for eleven years; he was bound to his wheelchair and had to be force-fed. He could not walk without help. His father came to know about karate therapy and sought out for help the president All India Isshinryu Karate Association.
Recalls Srimanth’s coach: "Five years ago in 2004, we started giving him training. At that time he could not even walk. Initially, it was very difficult how to train him. But, I guided him and trained him.”
Plunging into earnest training for five years, the boy ploughed off on the path to recovery and control of his limbs. Too, he has earned the kuro obi or black belt level of skills, an arsenal of martial know-how which he plied out at a global level competition.
HEWING to the Albert Einstein assertion, “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” fictionist Norman Spinrad dumps his never-say-die cancer-stricken protagonist right into the character’s bloodstream—all 70,000 miles spanning the length and breadth of the human body; a network of highways, byways and wee ways through which carcinoma are likely ferried and pumped all-through to infest the victim. The unlikely culprit that, as Spinrad suggests, abets carcinoma to worsen into metastasis and corrupt the corpus?
The heart, it is.
There must be more than medical wisdom in King Solomon’s divine-inspired proverb: “The life of the body is a tranquil heart…”
Why, the “nin” character in ninjutsu (or art of the ninja literally translates as “heart art”) is a variant for heart and must have inspired the Brooklyn, New York-based National Children’s Leukemia Foundation to ply out Ninja Power Martial Arts Therapy— “a unique program that blends the ancient wisdom of the martial arts with the mind-body approach of modern integrative medicine."
The combative arts therapy “offers powerful messages of hope, opportunities for success and achievement, concrete techniques to manage pain and fear, the opportunity to connect with peers without feeling ‘different’, and time to feel ‘normal’ and in control. (A) child… torn down physically and psychologically by disease, rebounds with martial arts therapy, gaining control of negative emotions and rebuilding self-confidence and self-esteem.”
Children—including cancer-stricken 2-5 year-olds—drill through defensive moves in hour-long group sessions that also include meditation, visualization and breathing techniques. In meditation, children can cultivate their own intrinsic energies, becoming empowered and focused on positive outcomes.
“Breathing techniques and visualization help children conquer pain and negative emotions while physically engaging karate movements can boost children psychologically and improve balance and coordination. Learning karate improves self-confidence and self-esteem, and children quickly develop their own ‘indomitable spirit,’ cites the NCLF online prospectus.
NO food and drug regulatory body of any nation would hazard approval of curative quackery, hence, qigong— literally “breathing skills,” a soft martial art that relies on use of ki, chi, qi or life force in mortal combat—took a bad rap under the Mao Ze Dong regime in China. Qigong advocate Guo Lin cured herself of uterine cancer after 10 years of practicing such art, but the state prevented her from sharing such martial cum therapeutic know-how to other cancer sufferers—“she began teaching her method to people suffering from cancer and chronic illnesses in 1970. Her first student, a worker who suffered from serious heart disease, was cured after practicing her qigong. Her second student, a factory worker, was cured of his stomach cancer after a year of assiduous practice,” recounts author David A. Palmer in “Qigong Fever: Body, Science, and Utopia in China.”
Cites Palmer: “Between 1971 and 1977, Guo Lin was interrogated seven times by the (government authorities). In spite of the harassment, the number of people who came to practice with her grew, until she was able to train coaches to lead practice groups in other parks, and an informal organization of practitioners was created to study and publicize her (quaint anti-cancer treatment) method.”
There was no retreat no surrender for this femme fatal of a martial artist. Soon, Guo Lin had the backing of Communist Party cadres who had benefited from her method. A retired navy officer turned up as ardent supporter and took Guo Lin to several work units, looking for a permanent base for teaching and practice. By 1977, two officials at Beijing Normal University risked offering the campus as a center for Guo Lin’s tutorials.
Sensing a new political climate at the heels of Mao’s death, to the health ministry she submitted a report summarizing seven years of experience teaching qigong and claimed that it was a cure for cancer. Too, she began to organize regular, formal courses at Beijing Normal University.
“‘Experience sharing assemblies’ were also held, at which practitioners could share and summarize the benefits of the method. In a turn of events, Guo Lin was invited to lecture at dozens of universities, factories and official units. Thousands of people began to learn her qigong method in parks and public spaces around the country,” writes Palmer.
Thus, qigong blossomed as a regimen for primary health care, a mode of preemptive strike at a dreaded menace of the 21st century that zapped dead 6.7 million in 2002 and may decimate 10.3 million by 2020 to emerge as the world’s top killer.
KARATEDO as a way of life saw the light in an archipelago at the southernmost tip of Japan: Okinawa, as reports have it, “has a population of about 1.3 million, and has 55 centenarians per 100,000 people, the highest ratio in the world.”
The unarmed mode of combat was plied out by the island’s fishers and farmers who fought off sword- and spear-wielding samurai warriors centuries ago. Apart from the draconian physical regimen befitting karatedo, Okinawans have steeled themselves in the nobility of a near-Spartan lifestyle feeding on the fruits of the land and the bounties of the sea.
It would be too tough to turn up a double-blind study to figure out whatever it is in karatedo that quells carcinoma. It could be the quaint breathing techniques, the supposedly healing sounds expelled during form practice. It might be the hours of meditation and rapt absorption beneath the torrents of a waterfall, the appreciation for serene beauty manifest in nature, the explosive striking techniques, a pared-down lifestyle that celebrates frugality… that’s a kaleidoscopic assortment that can be dismissed by any food and drug agency: “No approved therapeutic claims.”
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Paala’la’y gamot sa taong nakakalimot
Rogelio G. Mangahas wrote:
DONG, nilalabanan ko ang grabidad ng kalimot kaya yata ako napuwersa ni Mila Aguilar na magmember dito. Di ko pa gaanong alam ang mga detalye nito kaya incomplete ang mga entries, kung baga.
Dong Ampil de los Reyes wrote back:
SA tuos ng advertising industry, mahigit sa $15 bilyon ang halaga ng puwang sa gawing kanan ng sama-samang profile ng umaabot na sa 5 milyong tao na nakaanib sa Facebook—na mas astig talaga at mataas ang antas kaysa Friendster, kahit sa DesktopDating na pawang social network engines sa Internet.
Talagang napakaraming saklot ng lungkot saanmang lukot at kuyukot ng mundo. Kaya nagsulputan pati sa Internet ang mga lunan o website para mapagkunan ng kausap sa panulat, katipan sa pagtatagpo, kalaguyo, kasiping, kasumping o kasabwat sa kinagigiliwang gawain.
Mantakin naman, kabilang na ang kartada nating dalawa sa bunton ng mga kartada sa Facebook—mga hilatsa ng pagmumukha, larawan, tala, at samut-saring kuntil-butil na maisasalpak. At ang kapirasong puwang sa may kanan ng Facebook profile, nagkakahalaga ng $15 bilyon… sa timbangan ng halaga, dapat lang na tapatan din ng katumbas na halaga.
Teka, dekada 1980 pa lang, umiinom na ang katoto nating Edgardo M. Reyes (Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag, Laro sa Baga, Bangkang Papel sa Dagat ng Apoy, atbp. marikit na nobela’t maikling kuwento) ng lecithin supplements. Para masalag ang daluhong ng kalimot at manatiling may talim-balisong ang isipan.
Naitala ko nga pala sa aking Facebook profile ang mga pagkain na mayaman sa lecithin—na choline nga ang taguri sa ngayon… uulitin ko na lang, saka dadagdagan ng iba pang pagkain:
To create acetylcholine (Ach), DMAE (dimethylaminoethanol) works with choline. Ah, the brain turns up neurotransmitters with choline, so needful a nutrient for overall brain health and functioning. When there’s not enough choline intake in your diet, the brain swipes it from other parts of your brain-- why, it starts eating itself alive to keep on doing vital functions like heart and lung regulation.
You need at least 35 mg of DMAE a day. Fish is a good food source, especially sardines and anchovies—oo, kahit mga mumurahing tunsoy, tinapang Salinas, dilis at bagoong!
Healthful levels of choline intake: 425 mg a day for women; 550 mg for men; and as much as 1500 mg a day if you’re a senior citizen. Best food sources of choline are (in mg per 100 g of food):
Raw egg yolks – 682
Beef liver -- 418
Whole cooked eggs – 272
Chicken liver – 290.
Wheat germ --152
Bacon --125
Pork --103
A choline metabolite, betaine should also be considered for intake. Foods with the highest betaine concentrations per 100g:
Wheat bran—1506
Wheat germ—1395
Spinach—725
Mga ganitong uri ng sulatin ang natotoka ngayon sa ‘kin ng isang pasulatan sa Makati… masayang gawain. Nadaragdagan ang nahahango kong kaalaman.
--hellspawnshop@hotmail.com
DONG, nilalabanan ko ang grabidad ng kalimot kaya yata ako napuwersa ni Mila Aguilar na magmember dito. Di ko pa gaanong alam ang mga detalye nito kaya incomplete ang mga entries, kung baga.
Dong Ampil de los Reyes wrote back:
SA tuos ng advertising industry, mahigit sa $15 bilyon ang halaga ng puwang sa gawing kanan ng sama-samang profile ng umaabot na sa 5 milyong tao na nakaanib sa Facebook—na mas astig talaga at mataas ang antas kaysa Friendster, kahit sa DesktopDating na pawang social network engines sa Internet.
Talagang napakaraming saklot ng lungkot saanmang lukot at kuyukot ng mundo. Kaya nagsulputan pati sa Internet ang mga lunan o website para mapagkunan ng kausap sa panulat, katipan sa pagtatagpo, kalaguyo, kasiping, kasumping o kasabwat sa kinagigiliwang gawain.
Mantakin naman, kabilang na ang kartada nating dalawa sa bunton ng mga kartada sa Facebook—mga hilatsa ng pagmumukha, larawan, tala, at samut-saring kuntil-butil na maisasalpak. At ang kapirasong puwang sa may kanan ng Facebook profile, nagkakahalaga ng $15 bilyon… sa timbangan ng halaga, dapat lang na tapatan din ng katumbas na halaga.
Teka, dekada 1980 pa lang, umiinom na ang katoto nating Edgardo M. Reyes (Sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag, Laro sa Baga, Bangkang Papel sa Dagat ng Apoy, atbp. marikit na nobela’t maikling kuwento) ng lecithin supplements. Para masalag ang daluhong ng kalimot at manatiling may talim-balisong ang isipan.
Naitala ko nga pala sa aking Facebook profile ang mga pagkain na mayaman sa lecithin—na choline nga ang taguri sa ngayon… uulitin ko na lang, saka dadagdagan ng iba pang pagkain:
To create acetylcholine (Ach), DMAE (dimethylaminoethanol) works with choline. Ah, the brain turns up neurotransmitters with choline, so needful a nutrient for overall brain health and functioning. When there’s not enough choline intake in your diet, the brain swipes it from other parts of your brain-- why, it starts eating itself alive to keep on doing vital functions like heart and lung regulation.
You need at least 35 mg of DMAE a day. Fish is a good food source, especially sardines and anchovies—oo, kahit mga mumurahing tunsoy, tinapang Salinas, dilis at bagoong!
Healthful levels of choline intake: 425 mg a day for women; 550 mg for men; and as much as 1500 mg a day if you’re a senior citizen. Best food sources of choline are (in mg per 100 g of food):
Raw egg yolks – 682
Beef liver -- 418
Whole cooked eggs – 272
Chicken liver – 290.
Wheat germ --152
Bacon --125
Pork --103
A choline metabolite, betaine should also be considered for intake. Foods with the highest betaine concentrations per 100g:
Wheat bran—1506
Wheat germ—1395
Spinach—725
Mga ganitong uri ng sulatin ang natotoka ngayon sa ‘kin ng isang pasulatan sa Makati… masayang gawain. Nadaragdagan ang nahahango kong kaalaman.
--hellspawnshop@hotmail.com
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Right to retort left to extort
DALAWANG linggo daw na inalimura
Nitong pahayagang para bang maruya—
Apoy sa ilalim walang patumangga
Sa ibabaw naman, kulo ng mantika.
At nang mapika nga itong mambabatas
Nais makaresbak, agad bumalangkas
Nito ngang kakatwang panukalang batas—
Balita’t malita dapat na parehas!
Kapag binatikos si Senador Kumag
O si Gunggongressman ay aming kinaldag
Pahina o airtime hitang ibubukas—
Kumag at gunggong man.. dapat makaroskas...
Mungkahing tit for tat kapag pinairal
Ang krimeng libelo baka raw matanggal
Totoo’t palpak mang hayag na paratang
Pwede nang irambol sa pahina’t airtime…
Ang katoto naming mga kartunista
May kiliti’t anghang kapag bumibira
Kapirasong puwang kung reresbakan pa
Pati comic relief… makakadismaya.
Halimbawa na lang itong “Pugad Baboy”
Bakbakan ba naman ang mga diktador?
Unano’t pandak daw at may pagkaulol
Santambak na pygmy agad ang nasapol…
Pa’no kung mainis silang mga pandak,
Lalo na nga silang megalomaniac?
May talipandas ngang naging talipandak
Na hanggang sa ngayon ay namamayagpag…
Ano nang cartoon strip ang ibubulaga
O pansamantalang papalitan kaya?
May sense of ill-humor o makakasuya
Kapag humirit na iyong tinutuya?
(Pero sa totoo, mas nakakatawa
Pati talumpating binibigkas nila
Second thought o utot man ang ibubuga
Maaaliw tayo—talagang talaga!)
Ah, the right to reply ibigay sa diyablo
Upang maihayag ang mga numero—
Iyong kumbinasyong tatama sa lotto…
Upang sambayanan, instant milyonaryo!
--hellspawnshop@hotmail.com
Nitong pahayagang para bang maruya—
Apoy sa ilalim walang patumangga
Sa ibabaw naman, kulo ng mantika.
At nang mapika nga itong mambabatas
Nais makaresbak, agad bumalangkas
Nito ngang kakatwang panukalang batas—
Balita’t malita dapat na parehas!
Kapag binatikos si Senador Kumag
O si Gunggongressman ay aming kinaldag
Pahina o airtime hitang ibubukas—
Kumag at gunggong man.. dapat makaroskas...
Mungkahing tit for tat kapag pinairal
Ang krimeng libelo baka raw matanggal
Totoo’t palpak mang hayag na paratang
Pwede nang irambol sa pahina’t airtime…
Ang katoto naming mga kartunista
May kiliti’t anghang kapag bumibira
Kapirasong puwang kung reresbakan pa
Pati comic relief… makakadismaya.
Halimbawa na lang itong “Pugad Baboy”
Bakbakan ba naman ang mga diktador?
Unano’t pandak daw at may pagkaulol
Santambak na pygmy agad ang nasapol…
Pa’no kung mainis silang mga pandak,
Lalo na nga silang megalomaniac?
May talipandas ngang naging talipandak
Na hanggang sa ngayon ay namamayagpag…
Ano nang cartoon strip ang ibubulaga
O pansamantalang papalitan kaya?
May sense of ill-humor o makakasuya
Kapag humirit na iyong tinutuya?
(Pero sa totoo, mas nakakatawa
Pati talumpating binibigkas nila
Second thought o utot man ang ibubuga
Maaaliw tayo—talagang talaga!)
Ah, the right to reply ibigay sa diyablo
Upang maihayag ang mga numero—
Iyong kumbinasyong tatama sa lotto…
Upang sambayanan, instant milyonaryo!
--hellspawnshop@hotmail.com
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Square meal, round tummy
Kuro ng anak sa doodles11006@gmail.com:
A FELLOW warned me that I’m getting bigger and told me to exercise more, some say I look healthier than I was last year when they first saw me. At 65 kilos I think it’s healthy, right? I'm still doing something about my tummy. You were right it’s easy to get big but hard to trim down. I’ve lessen my intake of carbs but it’s not working fast enough. I want my abs back. Mabigat ba ang Apo mo? Simulan mo na kasi ilakad para ma- exercise, ha-ha-ha-ha. I always refer to her as Musaba as dubbed by Aaron. Can’t you send some pics of the kittens before they are to be sentenced outside by Mama especially the white kitten you mentioned?
Turo ng ama sa tagakataga@yahoo.com:
AT 10 stones wrapped on a delicate bone structure, that’s not really fab—flab that’s what. All it takes to snap any rib encaging the heart like pretzel is one PSI—a pound per square inch of pressure. You’ve got to say adios to adipose... or you just continue inflicting undue torture on your heart with the slow build of flab pressure.
Trimming down isn’t about lopping off calorie intake—no, not dumping three square meals on a round tummy. What counts is spreading out intake of quality carbohydrates in five wee meals, yeah, you read right: five.
And when I say quality carbohydrates, I’m talking about unpolished cereals-- say, rolled oats with the unsightly dirt-looking bran tacked on each grain, crushed whole wheat, unpolished rice… Include kamote, gabi, yams like ubi and tugui—their long-chain biochemical make-up is nothing short of wonderful that even our innards can appreciate… it takes longer time for the enzymes and such gastric juices in our insides to work on these complex carbohydrates… so we feel full for longer periods…
And they spawn no spike in the body’s blood sugar level after ingestion… this is the beauty of slow food. On sekantot, oops, second thought, ingestion’s just like lovemaking, to be done in solemn adagio, like that ponderous cadence of Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”
Sobra na tummy, palitan na! Indeed the tummy area holds the dan tien, the body’s axis and center of gravity where every movement flows from. Washboard abs shouldn’t include the washing machine plunked on ‘em…
Kuo Yun-shen, the jian or master who perfected the peng ch’üan (an explosive push) or so-called “Demon Hand” spent three years of his incarceration doing a variant of the three-hugging position. His hands were in heavy chains, so taking that position—and doing the rhythmic breathing (count two, inhale; count eight, hold breath down to diaphragm level; count four, exhale) must have been agonizing.
Thanks to daily practice of that precursor to the “Demon Hand” my six-pack abs hasn’t bulged into a beer keg… Do that. You’ll even find out for yourself how chi or life force revitalizes, firms up your entire body.
Uh, the white kitten was named Miao Ze-dong.
A FELLOW warned me that I’m getting bigger and told me to exercise more, some say I look healthier than I was last year when they first saw me. At 65 kilos I think it’s healthy, right? I'm still doing something about my tummy. You were right it’s easy to get big but hard to trim down. I’ve lessen my intake of carbs but it’s not working fast enough. I want my abs back. Mabigat ba ang Apo mo? Simulan mo na kasi ilakad para ma- exercise, ha-ha-ha-ha. I always refer to her as Musaba as dubbed by Aaron. Can’t you send some pics of the kittens before they are to be sentenced outside by Mama especially the white kitten you mentioned?
Turo ng ama sa tagakataga@yahoo.com:
AT 10 stones wrapped on a delicate bone structure, that’s not really fab—flab that’s what. All it takes to snap any rib encaging the heart like pretzel is one PSI—a pound per square inch of pressure. You’ve got to say adios to adipose... or you just continue inflicting undue torture on your heart with the slow build of flab pressure.
Trimming down isn’t about lopping off calorie intake—no, not dumping three square meals on a round tummy. What counts is spreading out intake of quality carbohydrates in five wee meals, yeah, you read right: five.
And when I say quality carbohydrates, I’m talking about unpolished cereals-- say, rolled oats with the unsightly dirt-looking bran tacked on each grain, crushed whole wheat, unpolished rice… Include kamote, gabi, yams like ubi and tugui—their long-chain biochemical make-up is nothing short of wonderful that even our innards can appreciate… it takes longer time for the enzymes and such gastric juices in our insides to work on these complex carbohydrates… so we feel full for longer periods…
And they spawn no spike in the body’s blood sugar level after ingestion… this is the beauty of slow food. On sekantot, oops, second thought, ingestion’s just like lovemaking, to be done in solemn adagio, like that ponderous cadence of Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.”
Sobra na tummy, palitan na! Indeed the tummy area holds the dan tien, the body’s axis and center of gravity where every movement flows from. Washboard abs shouldn’t include the washing machine plunked on ‘em…
Kuo Yun-shen, the jian or master who perfected the peng ch’üan (an explosive push) or so-called “Demon Hand” spent three years of his incarceration doing a variant of the three-hugging position. His hands were in heavy chains, so taking that position—and doing the rhythmic breathing (count two, inhale; count eight, hold breath down to diaphragm level; count four, exhale) must have been agonizing.
Thanks to daily practice of that precursor to the “Demon Hand” my six-pack abs hasn’t bulged into a beer keg… Do that. You’ll even find out for yourself how chi or life force revitalizes, firms up your entire body.
Uh, the white kitten was named Miao Ze-dong.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tough 25 (Also-random things)
IN the pre-information technology age, all it took to read anyone like a book was certain tools like phrenology or a reading of the physique’s tell-tale signs, after Shakespeare, “Our bodies are our gardens… our wills are gardeners.” (There are a lot of inept gardeners who can’t even tend bars or beer gardens.) And sri lanka, the richness of character is evidenced by its form, gait, and movement— aah, “the quality of life is determined by the quality of movement.”
To read another’s mind, get that bloke’s speech/writing pattern down pat—the barrage of verbiage or economy of words points to the mind-set, the psychological make-up. We use words, words use us. We define with words; words define us.
It has become hip in cyberspace to come up with a list of 25 facts, factoids, and whatever you fancy jotting down about yourself… the list-up is plunked pat on one’s Facebook, Desktop Dating or Friendster account… para may maunawaan ang mga kaibigan hinggil sa ‘yo. ‘Hirap din talaga makipagsosyalan, pero pagbigyan natin pati mga masugid at masungit na tagasubaybay sa tudling na ito:
1. Learned ABC, the first few English phrases, and read the primer “Pepe and Pilar” at age 3. Tutored by Nanay—that was in 1957 when a transistor radio passed for household entertainment.
2. Sang to himself in the early boyhood years but the adults got wind of such, turned him into a jukebox of sorts, no dime needed to put into— threats of a spanking did it. The erstwhile choirboy would rather not sing under duress to this day.
3. Fell in love at age 3 with Mimosa pudica—the lowly makahiya—for its sunburst of pink pistils and thorny stems that defied the graze of goats. Learned later that its infusion can staunch post-partum blood-flow… the plant certainly lives up to its name, mahiyaing puday.
4. Fell in love anew at 4 with Eichornia crassipes—the water hyacinth—for the peacock tail array of its blooms-- so many Argus eyes looking back at me. (Hopefully in adoration.)Then it turned out the runaway plant that clogs waterways had roots that took out the noxious odors and toxins in water.
5. Collects seeds and rootstock of plants he chances upon roadsides and mountain trails—nope, he’s not out to do a bit of Shunamitism on ‘em the way der Fuhrer Adolph Hitler’s minions did… uh, seeds can pack fiery life force in themselves.
6. Sleeps on his prayer rug whenever his panganay na apo is at home; two or three cats sleep with him, usually curling up about his tummy… they’re probably keeping themselves warm, uh, does he have bonfires of vanities and verities in his belly?
7. Loves to cook slow food—the sort that entails a layering of flavors and melding of savory notes. Learned such cookery from Lola and Nanay.
8. Does a pray-over, blessing, mantra, katha, sulat, oracion on whatever he cooks to render ‘em kosher. Dr. Masaru Emoto figured that intention can transform the molecular structure of fluids into wonderful patterns, did he not?
9. Whips up one-of-kind “Balbacoa a la Dong,” bovine trotters in a rich cocktail of pureed liver, black salted beans, camote chips, and a bevy of spices—that don’t hurt those with gout or arthritis. And his “Kimchi a la Dong” is dulcetly incendiary.
10. Learned the rudiments of brujeria from a mangkukulam-turned-born-again-Christian in the 1980s. Mangkokolum na, Kulamnista pa ngayon.
11. Learned shorin-ryu karatedo and kobudo weaponry atop a sawdust dump in the 1960s; earned kuro-obi rank at age 10. That’s gaining more ABC—agility, balance, coordination.
12. Still does aubade or a daily salutation to the sun as if he’s into Shinto.
13. Misses the Angelus of halcyon days—so he makes do with the rites of vespers hour before a TV set, doing a Sufi scholar’s chant… “Allahuma kaffi…..” (And that’s just the beginning.)
14. Turned into an unabashed doting gramps at age 54, 30 years after he became a father.
15. Bitten by dogs for countless times in his childhood years—but remains a rabid company of the canine kind… they’ve got what it takes to carry a decent tune.
16. Still does cartwheels, sanchin kata and headstands… and what passes for the six healing sounds of qi gong like a gleeful imp… despite his age.
17. Is a huge fan of U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queen, Eraserheads, and Billy Joel… plus Philip Kindred Dick, Howard Philips Lovecraft, Walter Lippman, Harlan Ellison, and Ray Bradbury. They do poetry, don’t they?
18. Adores Bach, Hydn, Beethoven, Beatles, Vivaldi, Van Halen, and Wagner. They’re into heavy metal that’s gone way, way off the table of elements, are they not?
19. Still makes the rounds of wet markets, sniffing for rare finds, say, ulang (crayfish) or ayungin (silver perch)…
20. Watches “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Cats,” and “Fiddler on the Roof” again and again and again… Breathless over a “Sweeney Todd” vignette with the protagonist howling, “My arm is complete…” the hand’s extension a flat razor blade with chased silver handle.
21. Was then squeamish and unreasonably afraid of the talahib and cane sugar grass blade… now packs three butterfly knives (baling sungay) like needful articles of underclothing… just in case.
22. His ring finger is longer than his middle finger… augury pointing up sangfroid… reptilian cold bloodedness under pressure… supposedly a lycanthrope’s tell-tale physical trait.
23. Stern consentedor of a father… kasabwat ng mga anak sa kabalbalan.
24. Has a monitor lizard’s keepsake scar on the first phalanx of his middle finger, left hand… been bitten there, biter was cooked into delicious adobo allowing me to bite back. Nemo me impune lacessit.
25. Usually writes with legs tucked in a lotus pose as if still curled in a foxhole, uh, didn’t Voltaire say, “To write is to be at war?”
To read another’s mind, get that bloke’s speech/writing pattern down pat—the barrage of verbiage or economy of words points to the mind-set, the psychological make-up. We use words, words use us. We define with words; words define us.
It has become hip in cyberspace to come up with a list of 25 facts, factoids, and whatever you fancy jotting down about yourself… the list-up is plunked pat on one’s Facebook, Desktop Dating or Friendster account… para may maunawaan ang mga kaibigan hinggil sa ‘yo. ‘Hirap din talaga makipagsosyalan, pero pagbigyan natin pati mga masugid at masungit na tagasubaybay sa tudling na ito:
1. Learned ABC, the first few English phrases, and read the primer “Pepe and Pilar” at age 3. Tutored by Nanay—that was in 1957 when a transistor radio passed for household entertainment.
2. Sang to himself in the early boyhood years but the adults got wind of such, turned him into a jukebox of sorts, no dime needed to put into— threats of a spanking did it. The erstwhile choirboy would rather not sing under duress to this day.
3. Fell in love at age 3 with Mimosa pudica—the lowly makahiya—for its sunburst of pink pistils and thorny stems that defied the graze of goats. Learned later that its infusion can staunch post-partum blood-flow… the plant certainly lives up to its name, mahiyaing puday.
4. Fell in love anew at 4 with Eichornia crassipes—the water hyacinth—for the peacock tail array of its blooms-- so many Argus eyes looking back at me. (Hopefully in adoration.)Then it turned out the runaway plant that clogs waterways had roots that took out the noxious odors and toxins in water.
5. Collects seeds and rootstock of plants he chances upon roadsides and mountain trails—nope, he’s not out to do a bit of Shunamitism on ‘em the way der Fuhrer Adolph Hitler’s minions did… uh, seeds can pack fiery life force in themselves.
6. Sleeps on his prayer rug whenever his panganay na apo is at home; two or three cats sleep with him, usually curling up about his tummy… they’re probably keeping themselves warm, uh, does he have bonfires of vanities and verities in his belly?
7. Loves to cook slow food—the sort that entails a layering of flavors and melding of savory notes. Learned such cookery from Lola and Nanay.
8. Does a pray-over, blessing, mantra, katha, sulat, oracion on whatever he cooks to render ‘em kosher. Dr. Masaru Emoto figured that intention can transform the molecular structure of fluids into wonderful patterns, did he not?
9. Whips up one-of-kind “Balbacoa a la Dong,” bovine trotters in a rich cocktail of pureed liver, black salted beans, camote chips, and a bevy of spices—that don’t hurt those with gout or arthritis. And his “Kimchi a la Dong” is dulcetly incendiary.
10. Learned the rudiments of brujeria from a mangkukulam-turned-born-again-Christian in the 1980s. Mangkokolum na, Kulamnista pa ngayon.
11. Learned shorin-ryu karatedo and kobudo weaponry atop a sawdust dump in the 1960s; earned kuro-obi rank at age 10. That’s gaining more ABC—agility, balance, coordination.
12. Still does aubade or a daily salutation to the sun as if he’s into Shinto.
13. Misses the Angelus of halcyon days—so he makes do with the rites of vespers hour before a TV set, doing a Sufi scholar’s chant… “Allahuma kaffi…..” (And that’s just the beginning.)
14. Turned into an unabashed doting gramps at age 54, 30 years after he became a father.
15. Bitten by dogs for countless times in his childhood years—but remains a rabid company of the canine kind… they’ve got what it takes to carry a decent tune.
16. Still does cartwheels, sanchin kata and headstands… and what passes for the six healing sounds of qi gong like a gleeful imp… despite his age.
17. Is a huge fan of U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queen, Eraserheads, and Billy Joel… plus Philip Kindred Dick, Howard Philips Lovecraft, Walter Lippman, Harlan Ellison, and Ray Bradbury. They do poetry, don’t they?
18. Adores Bach, Hydn, Beethoven, Beatles, Vivaldi, Van Halen, and Wagner. They’re into heavy metal that’s gone way, way off the table of elements, are they not?
19. Still makes the rounds of wet markets, sniffing for rare finds, say, ulang (crayfish) or ayungin (silver perch)…
20. Watches “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Cats,” and “Fiddler on the Roof” again and again and again… Breathless over a “Sweeney Todd” vignette with the protagonist howling, “My arm is complete…” the hand’s extension a flat razor blade with chased silver handle.
21. Was then squeamish and unreasonably afraid of the talahib and cane sugar grass blade… now packs three butterfly knives (baling sungay) like needful articles of underclothing… just in case.
22. His ring finger is longer than his middle finger… augury pointing up sangfroid… reptilian cold bloodedness under pressure… supposedly a lycanthrope’s tell-tale physical trait.
23. Stern consentedor of a father… kasabwat ng mga anak sa kabalbalan.
24. Has a monitor lizard’s keepsake scar on the first phalanx of his middle finger, left hand… been bitten there, biter was cooked into delicious adobo allowing me to bite back. Nemo me impune lacessit.
25. Usually writes with legs tucked in a lotus pose as if still curled in a foxhole, uh, didn’t Voltaire say, “To write is to be at war?”
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Never say diet!
(Or eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you diet)
RICE and fish ‘til they rest in peace—that’s no longer the perennial Filipino diet that has turned any which way, shaped over the years by the available food choices and a weakened peso purchasing power that can hardly grapple with ever-rising food costs. Once dirt-cheap galunggong or round scad fetches P80 a kilo as of January 2009. Some 30 million families grub on less than a U.S. dollar daily (about P50); so they turn to more affordable instant noodles, P5 per 65-gram packet oozing with salt and industrial-strength flavors to hush howling tummies.
Weight- and waist-watchers the world over can take a cue from the Pinoy daily food fare that guarantees restricted calorie intake. Fact is, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization country profile sort of paints Filipinos as fashionably skinny—nearly 32% of preschool children are underweight-for-age, about 20% of adolescents and 13.2% of adults including adults were underweight making them chronically energy deficient.
More than half of local households had less than 100% per capita energy intake— why, calorie restriction diets which supposedly prolong life isn’t a craze yet hereabouts—resulting in loss of body fat among adults and stunted growth for children.
On the other hand, overweight and obesity affect a significant proportion of children, adolescents and adults—pleasingly plump but predisposed to certain health risks as evidenced by the rising trend in prevalence of diseases of the heart and vascular system.
Consider diet: a particular selection of food, designed or prescribed to improve a person's physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease. Today, the term connotes a food regimen to improve one’s physical condition likely to pare down unsightly bulges or cause weight loss. From vintage 1970s Atkins to celebrity endorsed Zone, every letter of the English alphabet stands for as much 10 diets, each seeking to shed a dieter’s pounds. There’s even a 3-hour diet, a-pound-a-day-in-21-day diet—each touted to induce weight loss.
The most current weight-loss fad, the morning banana diet has Japanese women going bonkers over Philippine bananas—which accounts for over 90% of bananas consumed in Japan, making local exporters richer by $400 million in 2007. To shed excess avoirdupois—a pharmacist invented the diet for her overweight hubby—the dieter can splurge on bananas and lukewarm water for breakfast, eat anything for lunch or dinner before 8 p.m., and hit the sack before midnight.
It turns out that the human brain works best with around 25 grams of glucose running in the blood stream— roughly the same amount found in a banana. So, a banana binge for breakfast may likely make the dieter go bananas.
The fad spread via social networking sites, peaked in popularity by 2007 and turned up books, testimonials from actors, and a television show. Fact is sweet potato or the humble camote— body-builder chow which has powered Jamaica’s Usain Bolt to several gold medal-swiping runs in the 2008 Beijing Olympics-- has higher and more bio-available potassium and energy-dense simple sugar than bananas. In fairness, camote may likely draw the attention it deserves, become the cynosure of weight-watcher’s eyes in due time.
MOST delicious-sounding of all weight-loss regimes: “The Chocolate Diet” a low calorie, low fat diet plan with small amounts of chocolate allowed daily cooked up by British diet author and editor Sally Voak promises a loss of seven pounds in two weeks. The catch: chocoholic shuns off chocolate in the first week to rein in dark cravings, a 50-300-calorie daily chocolate allowance in the second week.
The diet, spelled out in a $20 book has an exercise add-on: choco-bingers, sugar addicts and premenstrual cravers are advised to walk briskly for at least 20 minutes daily, be involved in a relaxing exercise such as swimming or yoga a couple of times a week.
The diet is touted as good for chocoholics who don’t want to give up the cravings. Too, it promotes intake of veggies—but the calorie allowances are too low for most dieters and those who are very physically active. And it may not be helpful for non-chocoholics.
THE regimen of ascetics, passive dissenters like Mohandas K. Gandhi fasting to the death for political ends, and some 30 million Filipinos still scrimping on grub on their tables to keep body and soul together: calorie restriction or anti-aging diet.
However, while the lifespan of many animals (monkeys, rats, spiders) were extended with restricted calorie intake, many theories exist as to why the various experiments on animals have resulted in longevity. And it’s tough for the dieter since sufficient nutrition (vitamins and minerals) must be maintained while lowering energy intake as much as possible.
Even so, this diet has gained many adherents the world over, fired with hopes of living long lives.
DR. Robert Atkins wrote about the Atkins Diet in the 1970s and had Time Magazine dubbing it “the most popular diet program.”
The weight loss program is hinged on the process of ketosis-- the lowered level of carbohydrate intake nudges the body to use up its fat reservoirs. Too, carbohydrates coax creation of insulin to convert the excess to fat—less carbohydrate, less insulin, less add-on fat.
The diet has four phases-- each with a carefully controlled level of carbohydrate intake:
·Phase 1 lasts for at least two weeks and calls for a maximum of 20 grams of carbohydrate intake-- no starchy vegetables, fruits, grains, or breads.
·Phase 2 involves adding more fibrous vegetables (carbohydrates) until the so-called “Critical Carbohydrate Level for Losing” is reached. The calibrated increases in carbohydrate intake are carefully managed on a week-by-week basis.
·Phase 3 and 4 keeping up stages in which carbohydrate intake can be increased - but only until the point that weight is maintained. Shun any food that may lead to weight gain.
Atkins has been very successful for many people and has resulted in not only significant weight loss - but also health improvement. Atkins is a high-fat diet—and most government health agencies recommend not more than 30% fat in our diet. But with Atkins you can easily consume more fat than this.
Too, one must question how healthy is ketosis -- it may have the desired short-term effect, but what about the long term? And certain organs may be overworked to sustain the process of ketosis.
LITERALLY the father of all diets, Chankonabe is a deliciously revolting fare taken twice a day to gear up girth with blubber— and sumo wrestlers have to pile up poundage in gargantuan proportions for the demands of the sport. Records have it even sumo grand champions—they pack as much as 800 pounds in heft—don’t die from split-second bursts of violence in the ring, Heart and brain attacks do ‘em in.
Chankonabe is legal steroid, a hand-me-down concoction from the 19th century— gallons of chicken, fish, horse meat, pork or beef stock a-simmer in a huge wok, tossed in with chunks of miso (fermented soy bean paste), tofu, carrots, cabbages, leeks, potatoes, lotus roots, daikon radishes, shiitake mushrooms, and burdock roots… a yummy protein-packed brew that, Japanese believe, helps make the bones denser. It’s healthy taken in moderation.
But sumo wrestlers ought to have bottomless appetites— 10 bowls of chanko, eight huge bowls of rice, 130 pieces of sushi, and 25 portions of barbecued beef washed down with beer plus an occasional side dish of shrimp siomai (steamed dumplings), omelettes or fried chicken is routine eating for one meal. A wrestler named Takamisugi attained legend status for downing 65 bowls of the stew— about 29 pounds of beef—in one sitting. He stopped: his jaws got tired munching.
Proteins and carbohydrates provide 4 calories; fats pack 9 calories per gram. But not all foods have the same number of calories per unit of volume, say, a cup of cucumbers has 14 calories while one cup of raisins bursts with 520 calories. That's the secret for bulking up: choose calorie-concentrated foods.
The best proteins for gaining muscle come from lean meat-- chicken, lean beef, egg whites, turkey and fish. Shun fatty cuts of beef, as well as pork, sausage, bacon and whole milk products because they ooze with huge amounts of artery-clogging, unhealthy saturated fat.
GOUT gets the goat of overweight people—keeping up a healthy body weight keeps it at bay. Too, extra fluid intake can help flush uric acid crystals out-- beer and alcoholic drinks can’t and ought to be shunned. Along with prescribed medications, a low purine diet can bust bouts with joint aches. Certain foods pack purine, the chemical that turns into uric acid when broken down in the body.
A gout management diet includes foods that are high in complex carbohydrates, low in protein and low in fat.
Shun these high-purine foods like the plague: beer, anchovies (bagoong Pangasinan or Balayan included), organ meats (brains, kidney, liver, tripe, innards or the sweetbreads that go into heavenly kare-kare, callos, dinuguan, or bopis), game meats, gravies, yeast, meat extracts, sardines, herring, scallops.
These can be taken in moderation: fresh and saltwater fish, shellfish, eel, meat, poultry, meat soups and broth, asparagus, mushrooms, cauliflower, spinach, legumes, oatmeal, bran, wheat germ, whole-grain breads and cereals, eggs.
Some people have found strawberries helpful while certain nutrients in dark berries may help ease down hellfire in joint points, even lower the uric acid. Oily fish like salmon, or fatty acids in virgin coconut or olive oil or nuts ease inflammation too.
FOLLOWING a low-carbohydrate diet akin to Atkins, dieters Neris Thomas and India Knight together shed 140 pounds in one year—their combined weight was 434 pounds—and turned up the “Idiot Proof Diet” to share what they learned with others.
The food regimen, spelled out in their Idiot Proof Diet book—retails at $25—consists of three phases, Phase 1 is an all-low carbohydrate stage similar to the Atkins diet induction phase. The initial is the most extreme— with carbohydrate and caffeine intake at the pits—and it took six months for Thomas and Knight to get through this.
In Phase 2 dieters are permitted a daily carbohydrate allowance of 40-100 grams. By Phase 3 dieters can slowly add carbohydrates each week-- if there’s weight gain occurs, pare down on carbohydrates again.
In all phases of the diet, refined carbohydrates and sugars are shunned—refrain from bread, pasta, rice, potato and desserts. Recommended: meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, cheese, butter, cream, green vegetables, avocado, nuts, and herb tea. Dieters are encouraged to increase their exercise—walking is acceptable-- to at least 20 minutes daily.
The authors point up the psychological aspects involved in weight loss. They also acknowledge how closely food intake is related to emotional well being.
As idiot-proof as it gets, the diet doesn’t involve calorie-counting, and is easy to follow with familiar foods. The rub: the weekly grocery bill can balloon since high protein foods and fresh produce fetch high prices. Too, high protein diets can lead to constipation owing to inadequate fiber intake. The consequent rapid rate of weight loss may not be healthy and there is the risk of increased weight gain after carbohydrates are reintroduced.
QUALITY of living depends on the liver, goes the quip. Dr. Sandra Cabot of Australia must have taken that in earnest, plied out “The Liver Cleansing Diet” in 1997 that became a serious bestseller.
Poor diet and nutrition hampers the functions of the liver— a major actor in neutralizing toxins and metabolism plus some 500 other functions. Dr. Cabot avers that improved liver function can induce weight loss—she had worked with 1540 patients for two years that had a 100% success rate via liver cleansing. Impaired liver functions can touch off these symptoms that, it is claimed, can be weaned with a liver cleansing diet:
· Abdominal bloating
· Overweight
· Poor digestion
· Frequent fatigue and headaches
· Ill moods
· Bad breath and coated tongue
· Irritable Bowel Syndrome
· Sluggish metabolism and allergies
· Overloaded immune system
· Hypertension
· Alcohol intolerance or excess alcohol intake
· Inability to lose weight
The liver detox diet calls for the dieter to :
· Eat only when hungry.
· Drink 8-12 glasses of filtered water every day.
· Limit intake of refined sugars, shun artificial sweeteners.
· Identify and refrain from allergy-causing foods.
· Eat fresh food, with plenty of raw fruits and veggies.
· Avoid excessive saturated or damaged fats.
Heaping the onus of health issues on the liver is a tad simplistic an approach to dieting. Too, there is dearth of scientific evidence to bolster claims that detoxifying diets are effective.
A “Low Salt Diet” aims to cut the daily intake of sodium chloride, the common table salt. Daily recommended intake of sodium is 2.4 grams-- or a teaspoon of table salt per day.
Studies have ascertained that a reduction of sodium can lead to a lower blood pressure: a level of 1,500 mg—less than a half-teaspoon-- has been found to have the best affect for people with high blood pressure (or hypertension).
Many foods contain ‘hidden’ quantities of sodium, so it pays to read the food label. Better still shun canned, convenience, cured or processed foods that pack oodles of salt in various guises.
THE three-phase “South Beach Diet” plan was drawn up by cardiologist Dr Arthur Agatston based at Mount Sinai Hospital, South Florida for his overweight heart patients. The patients lost weight and got excellent health results.
A two-week induction phase without rice, pasta, and breads starts out the South Beach Diet. Right off, weight loss at this period ranges from 8 to 13 pounds. Meats, shellfish, chicken, turkey, and fish can be taken-- along with nuts, fat-free cheese, eggs, salads, and veggies.
Phase 2 puts the carbohydrates back on the menu-- very sparingly, that leads to weight loss of 1-2 pounds a week.
Phase 3 is toughing it and loving a healthy lifestyle, eating health-giving foods and keeping the ideal weight.
Sane and sound principles of eating in balance, little-and-often, carbohydrates of low glycemic index—or those that don’t cause blood sugar levels to soar instantly-- make up the South Beach diet that had socked positive impact on the feeding habits of millions.
Drawback: There are some food items, say, turkey and salmon, that aren't budget-friendly and good nutritious foods fetch premium prices than highly-processed convenience chow.
SOUTHERN Mediterraneans have a lower incidence of heart disease than their Western counterparts. The good culprit: lower levels of saturated fat in their food fare. Voila: Mediterranean Diet that offers oodles of vegetables and fruit, salads slathered with olive oil, bread, pasta, and other grains. Plus wee amounts of animal-based protein from occasional intake of fish and poultry; red meat is rarely eaten. Low to moderate quantities of wine—a glass a day with a meal-- and some eggs round out the menu.
Southern Mediterranean peoples—in Greece, Spain and Italy-- don’t see their everyday food fare as a heart-healthy diet—it’s a way of life.
THE “Macrobiotic Diet”-- it hews close to the Far Eastern philosophy of macrobiotics (or "Great Life")-- has the numbers on its menu down pat:
· 50% whole grains
· 25% seasonal vegetables, cooked or raw.
· 10% protein foods - such as fish or legumes.
· 5% seaweeds
· 5% soups
· 5% fruit, nuts, or seeds
Its adherents contend that food should be organically grown, eaten fresh and—no wolf downs, please-- chewed slowly, in a relaxed manner.
Sugars, spices, alcohol, eggs, meat, and cheese are out as these can whack out the body's tenuous yin and yang equilibrium.
Macrobiotics is more of a way of life than just weight loss diet.Too, there are claims made about the healing properties of the macrobiotic diet—say, cancer and heart conditions have been tamed by this diet.
Here's the rub: there lurks nutritional deficiencies in this diet-- particularly calcium and iron.
CHEW that cud of diets but for most Filipinos, despite a hundred or less grassroots food terminals called Bagsakan Centers up in the drawing boards, access to food is still the most pressing woe. To address this, the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) has turned up nutritious meals, P22 a pop that needs to be dished out for the dirt-poor in 46,000 barangays all over the country.
RICE and fish ‘til they rest in peace—that’s no longer the perennial Filipino diet that has turned any which way, shaped over the years by the available food choices and a weakened peso purchasing power that can hardly grapple with ever-rising food costs. Once dirt-cheap galunggong or round scad fetches P80 a kilo as of January 2009. Some 30 million families grub on less than a U.S. dollar daily (about P50); so they turn to more affordable instant noodles, P5 per 65-gram packet oozing with salt and industrial-strength flavors to hush howling tummies.
Weight- and waist-watchers the world over can take a cue from the Pinoy daily food fare that guarantees restricted calorie intake. Fact is, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization country profile sort of paints Filipinos as fashionably skinny—nearly 32% of preschool children are underweight-for-age, about 20% of adolescents and 13.2% of adults including adults were underweight making them chronically energy deficient.
More than half of local households had less than 100% per capita energy intake— why, calorie restriction diets which supposedly prolong life isn’t a craze yet hereabouts—resulting in loss of body fat among adults and stunted growth for children.
On the other hand, overweight and obesity affect a significant proportion of children, adolescents and adults—pleasingly plump but predisposed to certain health risks as evidenced by the rising trend in prevalence of diseases of the heart and vascular system.
Consider diet: a particular selection of food, designed or prescribed to improve a person's physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease. Today, the term connotes a food regimen to improve one’s physical condition likely to pare down unsightly bulges or cause weight loss. From vintage 1970s Atkins to celebrity endorsed Zone, every letter of the English alphabet stands for as much 10 diets, each seeking to shed a dieter’s pounds. There’s even a 3-hour diet, a-pound-a-day-in-21-day diet—each touted to induce weight loss.
The most current weight-loss fad, the morning banana diet has Japanese women going bonkers over Philippine bananas—which accounts for over 90% of bananas consumed in Japan, making local exporters richer by $400 million in 2007. To shed excess avoirdupois—a pharmacist invented the diet for her overweight hubby—the dieter can splurge on bananas and lukewarm water for breakfast, eat anything for lunch or dinner before 8 p.m., and hit the sack before midnight.
It turns out that the human brain works best with around 25 grams of glucose running in the blood stream— roughly the same amount found in a banana. So, a banana binge for breakfast may likely make the dieter go bananas.
The fad spread via social networking sites, peaked in popularity by 2007 and turned up books, testimonials from actors, and a television show. Fact is sweet potato or the humble camote— body-builder chow which has powered Jamaica’s Usain Bolt to several gold medal-swiping runs in the 2008 Beijing Olympics-- has higher and more bio-available potassium and energy-dense simple sugar than bananas. In fairness, camote may likely draw the attention it deserves, become the cynosure of weight-watcher’s eyes in due time.
MOST delicious-sounding of all weight-loss regimes: “The Chocolate Diet” a low calorie, low fat diet plan with small amounts of chocolate allowed daily cooked up by British diet author and editor Sally Voak promises a loss of seven pounds in two weeks. The catch: chocoholic shuns off chocolate in the first week to rein in dark cravings, a 50-300-calorie daily chocolate allowance in the second week.
The diet, spelled out in a $20 book has an exercise add-on: choco-bingers, sugar addicts and premenstrual cravers are advised to walk briskly for at least 20 minutes daily, be involved in a relaxing exercise such as swimming or yoga a couple of times a week.
The diet is touted as good for chocoholics who don’t want to give up the cravings. Too, it promotes intake of veggies—but the calorie allowances are too low for most dieters and those who are very physically active. And it may not be helpful for non-chocoholics.
THE regimen of ascetics, passive dissenters like Mohandas K. Gandhi fasting to the death for political ends, and some 30 million Filipinos still scrimping on grub on their tables to keep body and soul together: calorie restriction or anti-aging diet.
However, while the lifespan of many animals (monkeys, rats, spiders) were extended with restricted calorie intake, many theories exist as to why the various experiments on animals have resulted in longevity. And it’s tough for the dieter since sufficient nutrition (vitamins and minerals) must be maintained while lowering energy intake as much as possible.
Even so, this diet has gained many adherents the world over, fired with hopes of living long lives.
DR. Robert Atkins wrote about the Atkins Diet in the 1970s and had Time Magazine dubbing it “the most popular diet program.”
The weight loss program is hinged on the process of ketosis-- the lowered level of carbohydrate intake nudges the body to use up its fat reservoirs. Too, carbohydrates coax creation of insulin to convert the excess to fat—less carbohydrate, less insulin, less add-on fat.
The diet has four phases-- each with a carefully controlled level of carbohydrate intake:
·Phase 1 lasts for at least two weeks and calls for a maximum of 20 grams of carbohydrate intake-- no starchy vegetables, fruits, grains, or breads.
·Phase 2 involves adding more fibrous vegetables (carbohydrates) until the so-called “Critical Carbohydrate Level for Losing” is reached. The calibrated increases in carbohydrate intake are carefully managed on a week-by-week basis.
·Phase 3 and 4 keeping up stages in which carbohydrate intake can be increased - but only until the point that weight is maintained. Shun any food that may lead to weight gain.
Atkins has been very successful for many people and has resulted in not only significant weight loss - but also health improvement. Atkins is a high-fat diet—and most government health agencies recommend not more than 30% fat in our diet. But with Atkins you can easily consume more fat than this.
Too, one must question how healthy is ketosis -- it may have the desired short-term effect, but what about the long term? And certain organs may be overworked to sustain the process of ketosis.
LITERALLY the father of all diets, Chankonabe is a deliciously revolting fare taken twice a day to gear up girth with blubber— and sumo wrestlers have to pile up poundage in gargantuan proportions for the demands of the sport. Records have it even sumo grand champions—they pack as much as 800 pounds in heft—don’t die from split-second bursts of violence in the ring, Heart and brain attacks do ‘em in.
Chankonabe is legal steroid, a hand-me-down concoction from the 19th century— gallons of chicken, fish, horse meat, pork or beef stock a-simmer in a huge wok, tossed in with chunks of miso (fermented soy bean paste), tofu, carrots, cabbages, leeks, potatoes, lotus roots, daikon radishes, shiitake mushrooms, and burdock roots… a yummy protein-packed brew that, Japanese believe, helps make the bones denser. It’s healthy taken in moderation.
But sumo wrestlers ought to have bottomless appetites— 10 bowls of chanko, eight huge bowls of rice, 130 pieces of sushi, and 25 portions of barbecued beef washed down with beer plus an occasional side dish of shrimp siomai (steamed dumplings), omelettes or fried chicken is routine eating for one meal. A wrestler named Takamisugi attained legend status for downing 65 bowls of the stew— about 29 pounds of beef—in one sitting. He stopped: his jaws got tired munching.
Proteins and carbohydrates provide 4 calories; fats pack 9 calories per gram. But not all foods have the same number of calories per unit of volume, say, a cup of cucumbers has 14 calories while one cup of raisins bursts with 520 calories. That's the secret for bulking up: choose calorie-concentrated foods.
The best proteins for gaining muscle come from lean meat-- chicken, lean beef, egg whites, turkey and fish. Shun fatty cuts of beef, as well as pork, sausage, bacon and whole milk products because they ooze with huge amounts of artery-clogging, unhealthy saturated fat.
GOUT gets the goat of overweight people—keeping up a healthy body weight keeps it at bay. Too, extra fluid intake can help flush uric acid crystals out-- beer and alcoholic drinks can’t and ought to be shunned. Along with prescribed medications, a low purine diet can bust bouts with joint aches. Certain foods pack purine, the chemical that turns into uric acid when broken down in the body.
A gout management diet includes foods that are high in complex carbohydrates, low in protein and low in fat.
Shun these high-purine foods like the plague: beer, anchovies (bagoong Pangasinan or Balayan included), organ meats (brains, kidney, liver, tripe, innards or the sweetbreads that go into heavenly kare-kare, callos, dinuguan, or bopis), game meats, gravies, yeast, meat extracts, sardines, herring, scallops.
These can be taken in moderation: fresh and saltwater fish, shellfish, eel, meat, poultry, meat soups and broth, asparagus, mushrooms, cauliflower, spinach, legumes, oatmeal, bran, wheat germ, whole-grain breads and cereals, eggs.
Some people have found strawberries helpful while certain nutrients in dark berries may help ease down hellfire in joint points, even lower the uric acid. Oily fish like salmon, or fatty acids in virgin coconut or olive oil or nuts ease inflammation too.
FOLLOWING a low-carbohydrate diet akin to Atkins, dieters Neris Thomas and India Knight together shed 140 pounds in one year—their combined weight was 434 pounds—and turned up the “Idiot Proof Diet” to share what they learned with others.
The food regimen, spelled out in their Idiot Proof Diet book—retails at $25—consists of three phases, Phase 1 is an all-low carbohydrate stage similar to the Atkins diet induction phase. The initial is the most extreme— with carbohydrate and caffeine intake at the pits—and it took six months for Thomas and Knight to get through this.
In Phase 2 dieters are permitted a daily carbohydrate allowance of 40-100 grams. By Phase 3 dieters can slowly add carbohydrates each week-- if there’s weight gain occurs, pare down on carbohydrates again.
In all phases of the diet, refined carbohydrates and sugars are shunned—refrain from bread, pasta, rice, potato and desserts. Recommended: meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, cheese, butter, cream, green vegetables, avocado, nuts, and herb tea. Dieters are encouraged to increase their exercise—walking is acceptable-- to at least 20 minutes daily.
The authors point up the psychological aspects involved in weight loss. They also acknowledge how closely food intake is related to emotional well being.
As idiot-proof as it gets, the diet doesn’t involve calorie-counting, and is easy to follow with familiar foods. The rub: the weekly grocery bill can balloon since high protein foods and fresh produce fetch high prices. Too, high protein diets can lead to constipation owing to inadequate fiber intake. The consequent rapid rate of weight loss may not be healthy and there is the risk of increased weight gain after carbohydrates are reintroduced.
QUALITY of living depends on the liver, goes the quip. Dr. Sandra Cabot of Australia must have taken that in earnest, plied out “The Liver Cleansing Diet” in 1997 that became a serious bestseller.
Poor diet and nutrition hampers the functions of the liver— a major actor in neutralizing toxins and metabolism plus some 500 other functions. Dr. Cabot avers that improved liver function can induce weight loss—she had worked with 1540 patients for two years that had a 100% success rate via liver cleansing. Impaired liver functions can touch off these symptoms that, it is claimed, can be weaned with a liver cleansing diet:
· Abdominal bloating
· Overweight
· Poor digestion
· Frequent fatigue and headaches
· Ill moods
· Bad breath and coated tongue
· Irritable Bowel Syndrome
· Sluggish metabolism and allergies
· Overloaded immune system
· Hypertension
· Alcohol intolerance or excess alcohol intake
· Inability to lose weight
The liver detox diet calls for the dieter to :
· Eat only when hungry.
· Drink 8-12 glasses of filtered water every day.
· Limit intake of refined sugars, shun artificial sweeteners.
· Identify and refrain from allergy-causing foods.
· Eat fresh food, with plenty of raw fruits and veggies.
· Avoid excessive saturated or damaged fats.
Heaping the onus of health issues on the liver is a tad simplistic an approach to dieting. Too, there is dearth of scientific evidence to bolster claims that detoxifying diets are effective.
A “Low Salt Diet” aims to cut the daily intake of sodium chloride, the common table salt. Daily recommended intake of sodium is 2.4 grams-- or a teaspoon of table salt per day.
Studies have ascertained that a reduction of sodium can lead to a lower blood pressure: a level of 1,500 mg—less than a half-teaspoon-- has been found to have the best affect for people with high blood pressure (or hypertension).
Many foods contain ‘hidden’ quantities of sodium, so it pays to read the food label. Better still shun canned, convenience, cured or processed foods that pack oodles of salt in various guises.
THE three-phase “South Beach Diet” plan was drawn up by cardiologist Dr Arthur Agatston based at Mount Sinai Hospital, South Florida for his overweight heart patients. The patients lost weight and got excellent health results.
A two-week induction phase without rice, pasta, and breads starts out the South Beach Diet. Right off, weight loss at this period ranges from 8 to 13 pounds. Meats, shellfish, chicken, turkey, and fish can be taken-- along with nuts, fat-free cheese, eggs, salads, and veggies.
Phase 2 puts the carbohydrates back on the menu-- very sparingly, that leads to weight loss of 1-2 pounds a week.
Phase 3 is toughing it and loving a healthy lifestyle, eating health-giving foods and keeping the ideal weight.
Sane and sound principles of eating in balance, little-and-often, carbohydrates of low glycemic index—or those that don’t cause blood sugar levels to soar instantly-- make up the South Beach diet that had socked positive impact on the feeding habits of millions.
Drawback: There are some food items, say, turkey and salmon, that aren't budget-friendly and good nutritious foods fetch premium prices than highly-processed convenience chow.
SOUTHERN Mediterraneans have a lower incidence of heart disease than their Western counterparts. The good culprit: lower levels of saturated fat in their food fare. Voila: Mediterranean Diet that offers oodles of vegetables and fruit, salads slathered with olive oil, bread, pasta, and other grains. Plus wee amounts of animal-based protein from occasional intake of fish and poultry; red meat is rarely eaten. Low to moderate quantities of wine—a glass a day with a meal-- and some eggs round out the menu.
Southern Mediterranean peoples—in Greece, Spain and Italy-- don’t see their everyday food fare as a heart-healthy diet—it’s a way of life.
THE “Macrobiotic Diet”-- it hews close to the Far Eastern philosophy of macrobiotics (or "Great Life")-- has the numbers on its menu down pat:
· 50% whole grains
· 25% seasonal vegetables, cooked or raw.
· 10% protein foods - such as fish or legumes.
· 5% seaweeds
· 5% soups
· 5% fruit, nuts, or seeds
Its adherents contend that food should be organically grown, eaten fresh and—no wolf downs, please-- chewed slowly, in a relaxed manner.
Sugars, spices, alcohol, eggs, meat, and cheese are out as these can whack out the body's tenuous yin and yang equilibrium.
Macrobiotics is more of a way of life than just weight loss diet.Too, there are claims made about the healing properties of the macrobiotic diet—say, cancer and heart conditions have been tamed by this diet.
Here's the rub: there lurks nutritional deficiencies in this diet-- particularly calcium and iron.
CHEW that cud of diets but for most Filipinos, despite a hundred or less grassroots food terminals called Bagsakan Centers up in the drawing boards, access to food is still the most pressing woe. To address this, the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) has turned up nutritious meals, P22 a pop that needs to be dished out for the dirt-poor in 46,000 barangays all over the country.
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