Cinnamon Gags.
Around my office, most of my coworkers know that I’m a culinary school grad, so I get a lot of oddball questions. The one that I’ve been asked a lot, recently, is ‘What is the deal with the tablespoon of cinnamon thing?’ or ‘Is that stuff true in the videos, or are they faking with the cinnamon?’.
My official answer is: Some are faked, some are not.
Anyone who has worked in a bakery knows that cinnamon will mess you up if you’re not careful. Cinnamon powder is very fine-grained, and gets airborne easily. sneezing, coughing, and retching can ensue.
The videos where people are gagging, coughing, and look like they’re dieing . . . These are probably mostly real. When you take a teaspoon or tablespoon of cinnamon, you work your tongue to wet it. If you don’t have a very ‘wet’ mouth, with a lot of saliva production, the fine dust can become airborne and drift into your lower sinuses. It only takes a tiny amount to send most people into sneezing or coughing fits. Some people also breath-in through their mouth, getting some dust into their lungs . . . this usually gets most people, the coughing includes the involuntary sharp breath intakes, which introduces more dust, and more coughing. Most people don’t notice the connection between breathing when you masticate.
The gagging (and worse) can be caused by the intensely sharp ‘bite’ of the cinnamon.
I’ve heard a lot of people dismiss all of this because they ‘take herbs in suspension every day’ or something to that effect. That’s the biggest difference. . . ‘in suspension’, so they’re already mixed into water, honey, oil, or something else that’s simply wet; no dust involved.
BMI Vindication.
I finally feel somewhat vindicated, albeit much too late, after reading the following article and it’s referenced NPR article. http://lifehacker.com/5308542/skip-body-mass-index-for-health-measurements
When I was in the Navy, I would routinely fail the BMI portion of our PRT (Physical Readiness Test), scoring as ‘Obese’. Why? I was about 5′7, and 235#. I was much more active back then, walking and riding my bicycle everywhere. I was in very good cardiovascular condition, and I was squating around 550-650 depending on the year. I’d calipered at 14%, and displaced (HD – Hydro Displacement) at 13%. My BMI, subtracting neck measurement from waist measurement (16″ Neck, 30″ to 32″ waist) and then looking-up height and weight on a chart, I was routinely told that I was scoring 35% bodyfat or higher, even within days of caliper measurements. Meanwhile, blatantly fat guys with multiple chins and hiding a beach-ball-belly under their uniform shirt would pass or be borderline. Of course, these days, I have my own beachball growing. No sign of my chin multiplying yet. This desk-job is killing me.
Needless to say, I was always jealous of the Air Force bicycle + heart-rate PRT (PFT for them?) method, that actually looks at how your body responds to effort.
I’ll end here. I have a backlog of posts that I haven’t had a chance to post yet. I need to find a better way to journal.
Ready for a change. Need a New Deal.
I keep telling myself ‘It has to get better.’. Even if our policies involved plastering issues and random suggestions on a wall and throwing darts blindfolded from 20 paces, we couldn’t do as bad as the last 8 years. I’m sure it took a lot of conscious though and heavy thinking to paint ourselves so thoroughly into a corner. I know there’s no way for Obama to find a way out that doesn’t stick us into another corner.
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Spinning my wheels
I’m having issues. I’m recovered from some injuries that have built-up over the last few years. Broken arm (split my ulna from the elbow ‘cup’ down about halfway to my wrist). Couple of mild concussions. Several bad muscle strains/mild tears. Hyper-extended knee (yet again). Hip out of socket (yet again).
I think a lot of these (except for the concussions, broken arm and damage to my ulnar nerve) are due to working a very sedentary desk-job while trying to do things that I have always done.
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