Mmmmmmm....coal tar!

Have you had your coal tar today?  No?  If you took your multivitamin today, chances are you did!  Yay!!!

I'm starting to realize that I am pretty ignorant about my supplements.  I'd like to think I'm not alone.  Let's face it, it's almost cliché to think of a daily multivitamin as "insurance" against a sub-par diet, and of course, every American diet is sub-par, right?  Even if you think you eat a healthy diet, can you really be sure you're getting all of your Vitamin D3, zinc, or molybdenum?  And let's not forget coal tar!

How many of you knew that vitamins fall under one of six categories?  I didn't.  All vitamin supplements can be classified as "strictly synthetic," "nature-identical synthetic," "natural source," "food cultured," "food based," or "bacterial fermentation."  Not surprisingly, most vitamin supplements are either strictly synthetic or nature-identical synthetic, both of which are synonymous for "made in a lab."  The key difference between strictly synthetic and nature-identical synthetic is something called optical activity.  Optical activity is a technical term that refers to the shape of the molecular chain that comprises a particular vitamin.  While a synthetic vitamin might have the same chemical composition as the real deal, it's shape might not conform with a form that is compatible with the enzymes our bodies use to process it.  Therefore, since the optical activity of strictly synthetic vitamins differs from natural or even nature-identical synthetic vitamins, the bioavailability of strictly synthetic vitamins is lower than other forms.

But just because a vitamin is nature-identical doesn't mean it's all that great for us.  As you probably know, most Vitamin C supplements are comprised of ascorbic acid.  Guess where we get ascorbic acid from?  Oranges?  No.  Coal tar?  No, but I'm getting to that.  Corn!  That's right, ascorbic acid is typically derived chemically from corn/rice starch or corn sugar.

Coal tar is where we synthetically get Vitamin B-1 (thiamin).  Hydrochloric acid, the strongest of acids, is added to coal tar to cause it to precipitate.  The precipitant is collected and processed to create thiamin.  Yum!

The point here is that, just like I haven't given any thought to to my insurance coverages and deductibles (and probably should), I've never given any thought to my diet "insurance" until now.  We've always known that honest-to-goodness whole food is far superior to anything we can get out of a bottle, but maybe it's time we started to really look into the bottle.  Maybe we'll start to see that, not only are supplemental vitimans NOT a reasonable substitute for the vitamins and minerals we don't get due to our poor diets, but we'll start to see that they're light-years apart.

(BTW: if you're interested in reading about this topic in depth, check out the article All About Where Our Vitamin Supplements Come From.  I credit all of the information I wrote in this post to Ryan Andrews, who authored this article.  Any errors are my own.)

Now it's time to figure out if I should lower my deductibles!

Cooking in Bulk

I've always heard that cooking in bulk was common among the health conscious as it is a great way to minimize time spent slaving over the stove while allowing you to consistently eat healthy.  Okay, sure, but when you're a single guy who's used to microwave dinners and instant oatmeal, "cooking in bulk" pretty much always meant "make chili" to me (which I've never done).

Well, Precision Nutrition changed all of that.  Included is a "Quick Start" Guide, which has a shopping list and an example of how to prepare food in the kitchen.  Known as the "evening ritual," this food prep portion is supposed to take one hour, and when you're done, you'll have meals that will last you at least one day, maybe two!

What a pain in the ass that turned out to be!  No individual task was difficult, but I found myself constantly moving--getting out the ingredients, consulting the cook book, washing the vegetables, throwing them in the food processor, pre-heating the oven, yada yada yada.  While this whole experiment was supposed to take only an hour, it ended up taking me about two, and when I was done I was in no hurry to set foot in the kitchen again!  Cooking shouldn't be this demanding.

Here's a couple of things I learned that should immediately improve the experience next time.

• Start with a clean kitchen: obvious, right?  I found the reality to be quite different.  See, I've always been kind of a slob.  It's not terrible.  I mean, I usually put things away and I put my dirty clothes in a hamper, but I let little things creep up over time until the next thing I know I'm spending an afternoon putting things away.  The kitchen seems to be the epitome of my problems.  Dirty dishes set up shop in the sink (or counter tops when the sink gets full), my counters get crowded with food items that I have yet to put away, and the kitchen island accumulates all sorts of non-kitchen items (keys, mail, etc).  I found myself very frustrated having a lot of counter space but only being able to use a fraction of it, and I was also extremely frustrated having to clean pots/pans and utensils before using them because they were dirty when I started.  I have since cleaned up and organized my kitchen, but still...lesson learned!
• Cleaning the chicken: boneless, skinless chicken breasts are a staple of the PN system and any healthy diet.  It also should be easy to prepare, but somehow I managed to make it difficult.  My mother likes to "clean" the chicken, meaning she cuts off the fat and the otherwise undesirable looking portions of the chicken.  I've worked with raw chicken once, four years ago, so I really don't know what I'm doing with it.  From what I've found online, it seems like you can pretty much get away with just washing it and throwing it on the cooking sheet, but I didn't know that.  I tried pulling the tendons out but just ended up with small chunks of chicken all over the cooking sheet!  Next time around I'm gonna try cooking the chicken with minimum prep.
• Organize for the event: this goes beyond the basic having a squared away kitchen thing.  By this I mean you should read through the recipes you're gonna prepare, then pull out the things you're gonna need and stage them somewhere.  There's nothing more frustrating when you're working on a timed schedule and you can't find the damn quinoa!  It might take an extra few minutes, but I think the time saved would have been well worth it.

I'm going to be attempting a mini version of "the ritual" tonight, as I'm running out of pre-made meals.  I think this time I'm gonna chop the ingredients for the scrambled eggs tomorrow, prep the steel-cut oats, and make chili.  Hey, it's about time I tried it!