The Citizen, 2015-05-14, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015. PAGE 5.
Ibelieve I’ve come up with the all-in-one
cure for world hunger, environ-
mental devastation, animal cruelty and jock
itch.
Okay, I’m not sure about jock itch – but it’ll
fix everything else.
It’s bugs. We need to eat more of them.
When I say bugs, I mean crickets, meal
worms, ants, grasshoppers, termites, wasps,
locusts, wood-boring beetles and...well, most
bugs actually. They’re packed with protein and
they’re everywhere. They not only grow on
trees, they grow IN trees. Plus they don’t have
those Bambi blinkers that make eating meat
such a guilt trip. Nobody ever looked into the
compound eye of a cicada and thought
“Aw...cute little guy.”
You’re probably already eating more bugs
than you knew. The Canadian Food Inspection
Agency and the U.S. Federal Drug
Administration have actually established
permissible levels of bug parts in the produce
we buy. That’s right – you are already gobbling
down thrips, mites and lice (or parts thereof)
pretty much every day.
See? Didn’t hurt a bit. Do you like canned
mushrooms? Lucky you! The FDA has
approved up to 20 maggots per 100 grams of
drained mushrooms at no extra charge.
Now don’t go all swoony on me here –
there’s nothing wrong with chowing down on
bugs. They are a chosen dietary staple for two
billion humans around the globe. Bugs are
snack food in parts of Asia, Africa and Mexico.
I once had a chance to buy a newspaper cone
full of candied scorpions from a street vendor
in Hanoi. (I’d have gone for it but I was on a
diet.)
As far as efficiency goes, bugs are a real no-
brainer. With cattle, it takes 13 pounds of grain
to produce one pound of meat. Fish on fish
farms consume five pounds of wild fish in
order to produce one pound of farm fish. You
don’t have to be Einstein to do the math.
Fertilizer and pesticide used to raise bugs?
Nada. Greenhouse gas emissions? A joke. And
think of the land use savings. No need for
greenhouses, stockyards, silos or vast swatches
of pasture land. With insects you could raise
several million head on a ‘ranch’ no bigger
than your apartment balcony.
Scientists say when it comes to converting
feed to meat, crickets are twice as efficient as
chickens – and 12 times as efficient as
cattle. David Pimentel, a professor at
Cornell University says if all the grain
currently fed to U.S. livestock was fed to
people instead, 800 million humans would
have full bellies.
So why don’t we do it? The ‘ick’ factor, of
course. Somehow we decided that frogs’ legs,
pork trotters and ‘sweetbreads’ (thymus and
pancreas glands) are acceptable, but insects are
a no-no.
Funny thing, taste. Reminds me of the
story of the American tourist in a Paris
restaurant perusing the menu. “What’s this
‘soupe aux nids d’hirondelles’”? he asks the
waiter.
“Birds’ Nest soup, monsieur” says the
waiter.
“Izzat like twigs and feathers and crap?”
“Non, monsieur. It is made from the saliva of
swallows.”
The American is appalled. “What? You
expect me to eat somethin’ that came out of a
bird’s mouth? Screw that, buddy. Just bring me
a couple of hard boiled eggs.”
Arthur
Black
Shawn
Loughlin
Shawn’s Sense
Honestly, I was skeptical when I read
several stories about the “dad bod”
being the next big thing as far as hunks
go, but the second it began being criticized for
gender inequality, I knew it must be real.
The dad bod, if you’ve been living under
the internet’s version of a rock as of late, is a
term that was coined by Clemson University
(in South Carolina) student Mackenzie
Pearson.
In her own words, the dad bod is the
following: “The dad bod is a nice balance
between a beer gut and working out. The dad
bod says, “I go to the gym occasionally, but I
also drink heavily on the weekends and enjoy
eating eight slices of pizza at a time.” It’s not
an overweight guy, but it isn’t one with
washboard abs, either.”
Pearson goes on to say that women love the
dad bod because it’s real, honest and worth
cuddling with. Odds are, if a guy has a dad bod
throughout his early 20s, he’s going to be
similarly built later in life.
Now, I’m not sure where I fit on the scale to
be honest. I might be a bit past the dad bod or
right on. Who knows and who cares?
Pearson’s statement is more than liberating,
it’s down-right honest and real and,
unfortunately, one of the best-kept secrets in
the world.
Women, I may be speaking for a small sub-
set of men, but I know at least a few of us guys
know that dad bod is better for finding the love
of your life than abs.
I know that there are others because people
like Peter Holley, a reporter at The Washington
Post , has written about how the secret has
finally been cracked on the internet.
Holley states that, throughout his life, he has
been on both ends of the spectrum. He has had
the chiseled look that takes hours at the gym
and he has allowed himself to enjoy life and
ended up a little more realistic looking because
of it.
He says, in no uncertain terms, that as far as
making a connection with a woman, the dad
bod is the way to go.
(Note that the term making a connection is
there, not the term ‘picking up’.)
Holley writes that when he spent hours in the
gym, his physique could actually act as a
barrier to connections.
“At times, it even... unwittingly revealed me
to be the insecure boy that I was,” he wrote.
Holley goes on to speak about the
destruction of “men”, though he says that’s not
accurate. It’s the destruction of macho men
we’re recognizing.
Sure, advertisers will still use ‘jacked’
models with six packs that quarters wouldn’t
just bounce off of, but potentially crack when
coming in contact with, but women are no
longer looking for a brute to slaughter a
sabertooth tiger or even a man to work in a
field or mine, but someone who can provide a
life and a family says Holley.
The dad bod isn’t sexy, it’s a message.
It means that a man spends time enjoying
life, he won’t be at the gym at all hours making
sure he looks like an American Eagle or Calvin
Klein model. He will be at home, maybe
helping with the chores, playing with the kids
or just there to cuddle up with at the end of the
day and watch a movie.
So there we had it. After years of watching
the fairer sex try to destroy the image of
womanhood that was based in size 0 clothing
and blonde hair, someone destroyed the image
of the perfect man in one 500-word article on
the internet.
Unfortunately, the best-kept secret of why
women find comfortable-looking men
attractive didn’t bring the welcome relief for
normal-sized men that people thought it might.
It didn’t take long before some women were
stating that men shouldn’t get this kind of
‘pass’ if women weren’t given the same thing.
The ‘dad bod’ trend might just be sexist.
Okay, I don’t believe that. Not for a second.
While I admit that many men with ‘dad
bods’ may be shallow and expect women to
reach that size 0 dress if they’re going to be his
significant other, I have to believe that those of
us who are a little larger than an Abercrombie
and Fitch model appreciate real people.
A lot of the backlash is coming because of
the idea of a mom bod, which could be talking
about someone who just gave birth.
Apparently there’s a lot of pressure on new
moms to lose weight after giving birth.
Personally, I think that’s stupid. On a more
global level, I think that there are probably a
few idiots saying something about it and
making women feel bad and that’s what’s
leading to this.
But I want people to think about this: Men
aren’t the rocks we may try to let on.
When we notice our shirts getting a bit more
snug, when we see a woman we care for ogling
some model, when someone keeps saying they
can’t believe a pair of pants don’t fit, we feel it.
We have a desire to do something about it, but
to be honest, there isn’t always the time or the
opportunity to do so.
We feel just as slighted and when we are
finally given a nod that says we might just be
okay as we are, someone else has to feel
insulted and take it away.
The fact that some of the people trying to
take it away are mothers who have been
ostracized from “the beautiful” groups because
of their own struggles makes it that much more
hurtful.
We all have struggles. For me it’s time. I
could be ripped, but when you discount the
nights I spend working, the time I put in
scheduling soccer and referees and the fact that
I do enjoy watching television or movies with
my wife, the half hour I have on my exercise
bike each morning is really all I can do. To be
told that’s not enough because someone else
was told not to like their body is downright
mean-spirited.
Last week, for example, of my five
weeknights, I spent two in council chambers
and two on the soccer field, one coaching and
one refereeing. When Friday night rolled
around, all I wanted to do was rest.
It all goes back to what I wrote about
before: we shouldn’t be trying to drag people
down to make them equal, we should be
building people up. I don’t expect a new
mother to be ripped and the same shouldn’t be
expected of me.
Denny
Scott
Denny’s Den
An uphill battle
There is a great scene in The Godfather
Part 3 (probably the only one, because
the movie itself is terrible) where Al
Pacino’s Michael Corleone is just fed up with
the world he has made for himself.
It is a drama course in itself focused on
quiet, stewing rage. “Just when I thought I was
out... they pull me back in,” he says.
This quote has been rolling through my head
on a loop since I officially took my show on
the road last week. And by that I mean when I
finally started cycling outside.
Maybe being “out” and being “pulled back
in” aren’t exactly the right analogies, but it’s
more along the lines of “just when I thought I
was prepared... I get a rude awakening.”
When I started training in early January, it
was hard. I knew it was going to be hard.
The first time I sat on the bike, I didn’t even
reach the five-minute mark before I had to
quit. My legs weren’t strong enough and my
body’s seat (trying to be polite here) wasn’t
ready either. I immediately understood why
everyone I spoke to about cycling talked about
buying padded shorts before they asked about
my bike. They are that important.
But I worked hard and my ride times
continued to climb. Before I knew it, I was
biking for whole segments of television shows
from commercial break to commercial break,
and then entire half-hour shows from start to
finish. I eventually graduated to whole HBO
shows that were an hour long with no
commercial breaks and I was getting pretty
impressed with myself. All the while, as most
of you have noticed, I was losing weight (I
now sit at over 40 pounds lost for those of you
wondering). Then I went outside.
I had built up strength, both tangible
(remember the padded shorts?) and intangible,
I had gotten the hang of my new clip-in pedals
and it had turned just warm enough that the
remaining snow in the fields had melted away.
In other words: it was time to move outside.
As I’ve already alluded to, it was tough. A lot
tougher than I thought it was going to be.
Riding a bike that’s moving can’t be much
harder than riding a bike that’s not, right? Well
it is. It’s much harder.
The first muscles that started to hurt were
my biceps, triceps and shoulders. Those results
are obvious. As you can imagine, when you’re
riding a bike that’s stationary, there are exactly
zero steering manoeuvers involved. There is
significantly more steering activity involved
when the bike is moving.
The second group of muscles that started to
hurt after riding outside is less of a group and
more of just a big catch-all of muscles in
various sections of my legs that I wasn’t using
when I was stationary. (Don’t even get me
started on balancing while “clipped in.”)
Going uphill is a big thing and when you’re
doing that, you’re working a whole new group
of muscles than when you’re riding on flat
ground (stationary or not).
So, basically, let’s just say there was (and
still is) a bit of a learning curve involved.
Then there is the matter of using mental
“muscles” that I didn’t have to use when
stationary. For example, the risk of getting hit
by a car while riding in my apartment, I would
say, was quite low. On the road, however, there
are cars everywhere, and even if you’re Lance
Armstrong at his most doped-up, most cars are
still faster than you.
So now I’m having to think about a lot more,
which leaves less brain activity for other
cycling-related activities.
Anyway, I’m getting there, it’s just a bit of
an uphill battle... so to speak.
Other Views
The dad bod, the mom bod and you
Hate to bug you, but…