American States Diet

Recently, I read an article that was shared to me by one of my students. The article, written by Dr. Gregor Plotczy of the University of Western Delaware. According to him, the whole idea of eating locally is mis-informed. If you live in Kansas and are Polish-American you should be able to eat pineapples, just not lots of them. According to Plotczy, each of us has a state that we are most aligned with ethnically. The immigration patterns of each state is different and therefore the ethno-genetics of each state is different, just as each person's genetic code is different. If you are from Germany, as I am, you should be eating German food or the food from places in America where Germans settled. If you really want to be super accurate and local, assuming that it's possible, you can either choose the food from your region of origin and look at where those people settled. If you do not know or are not sure, then you should have your DNA analyzed.

The basic concept, or Grundprinzip, is that the food that our ancestors ate is integral to who they were in two ways. First, where they lived determined what food they could eat. Second, what food they could eat determined who they were. My ancestors are mostly from Swabia, which is probably why I really like Swabian food as well as food that could be grown in Swabia, dishes like Maultaschen, or ravioli. Our bodies are capable of eating foods outside our region of adaptation, but in doing so we run the risk of malnourishment since our bodies have not yet adapted to the new food.

Many Americans are mixtures, or Mischlinge. Their bodies can handle food from more ethno-cultural regions. As a Swabian-American, I should be eating foods that are popular in places like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis. I have tried making Cincinnati style chili, and it was a big hit with my family. In a way, it is like an un-filled Maultaschen.

A New Invention To Wake Up Kids

Every mom has the same problem, no matter where they live. The problem is how to get your kids up  in time for school. Kids are programmed to want to sleep, so waking them up is like swimming up stream without a paddle. My oldest son, Joachim, is especially bad. He likes to play video games late into the night, so to solve that problem, we regularly go down to the basement and turn off the power to his room. To get around this, he just uses his tablet to play games on with the sound turned off. We've taken away his tablet numerous times, but he always seems to have another stashed away. There's also his smart phone which is a whole other story.

After a while, you get tired of the games and begin to look for something more effective. What I found, after a lot of research on the Internet, is a product called Wakey Wakey. Wakey Wakey are flannel or cotton sheets in fashionable colors and patterns that plug into the wall and have a chip and receiver in them. They are a take-off on an electric blanket. What you do is plug the sheets in, tuck in your child and at the time you pre-set using a smart phone app, the blankets send out a mild electric shock. You can set the intensity of the shock from low to stun. I don't recommend stun since the child will be incapacitated till their heart starts beating again. It's all perfectly safe, if uncomfortable. And isn't that the point! If they don't get out of bed, the sheets will shock them again at pre-set intervals. I've set it at one minute.

Honestly, even though I never endorse products, I endorse Wakey Wakey. It may not be pretty, though the screams have been amusing, but it gets the job done.

Drought in California

I was in California recently for the annual Thanda Yoga International Teacher's Conference and the news was all about the drought. The skies were clear and the days were sunny in a way that it never was back home in Baden-Wurtemburg. I don't know about you but yoga makes me thirsty and I couldn't help but feel guilty whenever I wanted to drink some water. Forget the carbon emissions that I created by flying to California in the first place, I was adding to the drought. Some of the water I was ingesting I was going to take back with me to Virginia. It didn't seem fair, moreover, I try to do right by the planet. I try to eat local and organic and all of that, but in this circumstance, was that really ethical?

Is it ethical to visit a drought stricken area and consume their precious resources? I don't think it is. Who knows if the cup of water you drink will be the last? Maybe that life giving water could safe a thirsty baby or water a row of organic asparagus.

Since I was already there, the only thing I could think of doing was to drink imported water and to skip showering. I bought a case of San Pellegrino at Costco, drank half of it while I was there and poured the rest of it out onto the plants outside the hotel just before I went back to the airport.