New Endurance Drug

A couple of new drugs apparently combine to give sedentary people the endurance fitness of people who exercise hard. Check this article recently published in the Wall St Journal

What staggered me most about this article were the comments about the potential abuse of these drugs by athletes. On the one hand the doctors were HAPPY that they'd found a pill that would allow lazy-ass people to continue to physically neglect and nutritionally abuse their bodies to the limit. But on the other hand they were WORRIED that people who actually look after themselves and live an extremely healthy lifestyle might use the drugs to further IMPROVE themselves???

But I guess its good to see everyone is sticking with the mentality of pouring resources into the lazy, unproductive, dregs of society while continuing to penalise the few people in the world who actually do work.

'Cos the people too lazy to help themselves need our help, doncha' know.

What Vitamins, Exactly?

As everyone knows, you MUST eat your vegetables to get your vitamins. Of course, don't press anybody for details; just accept that its a MUST. Like cardio for your heart: don't question it; just accept. Veggies = Vitamins. Nothing left to discuss.

But I like to discuss stupid statements; much to everybody's annoyance. And if ever there was a question to get an offended, defensive retort out of self-proclaimed experts it is: "what vitamins in what veggies do I need, exactly?"

Nobody seems able to answer that question. The best answer I've ever gotten was examples. Like: "well, for instance, carrots give you your vitamin A and broccoli gives you iron". And nobody seems to believe that vitamins and minerals might come from foods OTHER than veggies. So let me tell you how it is.

If you look up 'carrots' on NutritionData.com you will find that, true enough, carrots give you vitamin A. Specifically, 1 medium carrot gives you more than 200% of your daily requirement. Great! But, you know what? I already get my entire daily requirement of Vitamin A from the eggs I eat each day. And, after Vitamin A (and 1/1oth of my vitamin K), a carrot offers less than 1/50th of my daily requirement of just SOME other vitamins and minerals!

So far it looks like the truth to 'carrots provide vitamin A' is absolute - they provide vitamin A and nothing else. So, what? Are we supposed to eat 1 vegetable for each vitamin and mineral we need, each day? Thats at least 25 different vegetables you'd need to cook and eat each day!!! That would cost, literally, hundreds and hundreds of dollars per week.

But what about that nutritional powerhouse: broccoli? 1 cup provides me with a whopping 4% of my daily Iron requirement. In my case, again, my eggs alone provide me with almost 200% of my daily requirement. Of course, a cup of broccoli does provide my vitamin c - 81mg... though I have 1000-4000mg of supplemental vitamin c per day so 81mg sounds a bit pathetic. But broccoli DOES provide me with vitamin K which I don't get from my eggs or anything. Apparently I'll know I'm deficient of K if I bleed profusely... which I don't. So there goes that one.

And apart from C and K there, again, is barely more than a few percent of any of the other vitamins and minerals in a cup of broccoli... unless you fancy consuming around 20 cups of broccoli per day?

Anyway, I could go on. Carrots and Broccoli are actually quite nutritious among the veggies. Most offer so few vitamins and minerals that you would literally need to eat kilo quantities before you achieved the RDA of any ONE vitamin! 

In fact, I calculated that if you had half a KILO of equal parts broccoli, carrot, celery and onion, the ONLY vitamins or minerals you would get your RDA of were A, C & K. In fact, half a KILO of your typical, supposedly nutritious veggies - more than any reasonable person would EVER eat in a day - provides only 0-25% of any vitamin or mineral (other than A, C & K)! And thats before you consider that fibre reduces the absorbability of many of those vitamins and minerals by as much as 95%!!!

Now by comparison, my completely vegetable free, carnivores diet of eggs, meat, rice, whey protein and almonds provides me with an AVERAGE of 343% of every vitamin and mineral. The majors: zinc - 465%; iron - 459%; calcium - 280%; B12 - 1712% etc etc. Only C and K are below 100% and C I supplement in relative megadoses.

Oh, and as for fibre, veggies arent the only source there either. The rice, nuts and whole grain bread in my diet cover me nicely there.

So what was it I need my veggies for again???