Ten Thousand Steps

For years we have heard that taking ten thousand steps every day will make you healthier. And you don't need special clothing, footwear, or equipment. You can do your walking barefoot or in three-inch heels, in shorts or bespoke suits, up a mountain or in your kitchen. The principle has a pleasing Japanese-style simplicity about it, like those exquisite, barely-there flower arrangements. If I bring up Japan, it's because that is where the 10,000-step movement began.

It's a part of my "shadow self" that I can't seem to shake, the tendency to glom onto goals, regardless of their worth. Ten thousand steps--is there a number more absolute, majestic and compelling than that slender digit trailing four plump zeroes? Who could resist it? Not I.

But for a long time I couldn't find a pedometer (did I mention that you need a pedometer?) that counted steps accurately. Then recently I heard about a new generation of battery-powered gizmos that were supposed to do the job. I bought one, measured my stride as instructed, told it my height and weight, and clipped it to my waistband. Then I took Bisou for a walk.

I had no idea what I would find when I checked the count at bedtime. Would the day's harvest yield five hundred or five thousand steps? As it turned out, it was the latter. Not bad, for a baseline, but I was only halfway to my goal.

For the next couple of days I took Bisou for longer walks. In the evening, while watching TV, I set a kitchen timer for twenty-five minute periods, and each time it rang I got up and walked three times around the room. Every night the number on my pedometer grew. On Friday, it showed eight thousand steps.  On Saturday, I did it again.

On Sunday, I couldn't get out of bed.

On Monday, I was hobbling stiff-kneed around the kitchen when I heard a story on NPR that was sent to me personally by the universe. It turns out that the goal of 10,000 steps is not based on any kind of scientific evidence. It was promulgated in Japan decades ago by a pedometer manufacturer who wanted to sell more pedometers.

Now, a study of 17,000 women of a certain age shows that walking a mere 4,400 steps a day had a beneficial effect on the women's longevity. Some ambitious participants walked more, but after 7,500 steps there were no additional effects on longevity (possibly because their painful knees drove them to suicide).

Since hearing that story, I have abandoned my obsession with the 10,000 steps. I am not abandoning my pedometer, however, even though the numbers 4,400 or even 7,500 don’t have the same appeal. I have settled for a measly five thousand steps a day. My knees are already thanking me.

And when the next fitness craze hits, whether it be daily push-ups, jumping jacks, or handstands, I will strive to keep in mind the common sense views of my mother, who lived into her nineties without the aid of canes, walkers, joint replacements, or NSAIDs. She walked every day, making circuits inside the house when the weather was bad, but only for as long as she enjoyed it. 

She would have laughed at my pedometer. "Why do you need a little machine," I can hear her saying, "to tell you when you've had enough?"

Health Fashions

When I was born, the midwife laid me in the bassinet, on my back. "This is how the child must sleep," she informed my mother. "Or she will die."

When my children were born, I was told to always lay them on their stomachs. Or they would die.

By the time my grandchildren arrived, pediatricians were sure that the only way to ward off SIDS was to never let a baby sleep on its stomach.

My father, a heavy smoker, died in his early fifties of lung cancer.That premature death convinced me of the fragility of the supposedly strong sex, and I devoted myself to preventing my healthy young husband from suddenly expiring. In the 1970s, I did this mostly by eliminating salt from our diet. For years I fed my family broccoli, green beans, and tuna casserole without even a soupçon of salt.

I figured out a way to bake salt-free bread (ordinarily salt is needed for the dough to rise) and published an article about it in some now-defunct magazine. I hope that nobody took my recipe seriously, and I apologize to any readers who did. Maybe they will take comfort in the knowledge that years later I developed a condition that requires me to consume plenty of salt to keep from keeling over.

The salt-free seventies were succeeded by the fat-free eighties. You could eat all the carbs--and yes, all the sugar--you wanted as long as you didn't go near a molecule of fat. My mother was appalled. "This is not right!" she cried. "In Spain after the Civil War people got terribly sick because nobody had harvested the olives and they hadn't had any oil, let alone animal fats, for three years. They had skin problems and bone problems, and some even went blind. Don't believe these doctors who say that fats are bad." Then she would hold up her index finger and proclaim, "Moderation in all things!"

The fat-free diet was supposed to be good for our figure as well as our health, so we drank skimmed milk, gave up butter, and put that dietary oxymoron, "fat-free cream," in our coffee. Fat-free milk products remained popular until a couple of years ago, when studies showed that people who ate full-fat dairy were slimmer than those who ate the fat-free versions. Likewise, people who consume real sugar weigh less than those who use artificial sweeteners.

Remember that early panacea, vitamin C? It was succeeded in our medicine cabinets by the B vitamins. They were in turn replaced by vitamin D, which most of us are now deficient in as a result of following dermatologists' advice never to expose our skin to the sun (remember when sunshine was good for you?).

For a while coffee was supposed to be bad, but later was rehabilitated. Ditto for eggs, and potatoes. On the other hand, liver was once force-fed to children because of its nutritional excellence, but now is to be avoided.

Remember leeches? I don't, and neither do you, but after two centuries of being reviled they're now FDA-approved and back at work relieving a variety of circulatory problems.

If there was one dictum likely to stand unchallenged, however, it was the health benefits of dog ownership. Walking a dog, studies showed, was good for the heart, the lungs, the bones, and the soul. Dog owners lived longer, happier lives than the rest of the population. But I just heard on the radio that orthopedic surgeons are concerned about an outbreak of bone fractures among elderly dog walkers. What's next, an FDA recommendation against dog ownership after age 65?

Given how quickly certain principles of the health sciences are demolished, and others erected in their place, the sanest response is to embrace my mother's mantra: moderation in all things. And while it may feel discouraging that nothing in life is certain, especially where medicine is concerned, we can take comfort in one thing that doesn't look like changing soon: immortality is still out of reach.

An Innocent In Coffeeland

For years, although I liked nothing better than a good, strong cup of coffee, I drank instant coffee at home.

Then, for a long time, I gave up coffee along with dairy, wheat, and sugar, and lived mainly on weak tea, green vegetables, and will power.  One thing I clung to, however, was a glass or two of wine in the evenings, but during my recent bout of shingles I had to give that up as well, because of the narcotic pain meds.  And when it was over I thought I'd see if continuing to abstain from wine would have a positive effect on my health.

But I cannot forgo all worldly pleasures, so I decided to compensate for the absence of alcohol by letting coffee back into my life.  And this time it wouldn't be Nescafe, but real coffee.

I didn't know much about making coffee, but I disliked the taste of over-boiled coffee, and didn't want yet another electrical appliance cluttering my counter.  I wanted to make coffee by a simple method,with a beautiful implement.

From what I could see on the internet, the pour-over method seemed the most direct--you put some grounds in a filter and poured hot water over them.  And you could make it in a Chemex.  Chemex pots look like they came from a chemistry lab staffed by Italian designers.  They have an hourglass shape and wear an elegant wooden belt around their waist.  They have been enthroned at MOMA as exemplars of contemporary kitchen sculpture.  I wanted one.

The only problem was that the Chemex requires a disposable filter that is not sold in supermarkets.  That, and the idea of throwing out a filter every day of my life put me off the Chemex, despite its beauty.  But wait!  It turned out that a tiny company in Seattle--where else?--was makinga  permanent filter for the Chemex.  Unfortunately, it cost $90.

But the ever helpful spirits of the internet, who had figured out what I wanted without my ever having told them, came up with a Japanese variation of the Chemex, a Hario, that used a cloth filter.  It even had a wooden belt around its waist, and although the cloth filter looked like it would be a pain to clean I was ready to put a Hario in my virtual basket.

Before hitting "buy," however, I thought I should check exactly what the pour-over method involved.  I found a number of videos featuring solemn guys in aprons officiating at altar-like counters.  On the counters were arranged the ritual vessels and implements of  the pour-over method, which I learned was the purest, most artistic way of making coffee, and the one allowing the officiant a maximum of individual expression.

The objects on the counter were:  a tiny digital scale, a grinder, a digital timer, a filter, a cup, and a kettle.  Having ground and weighed the precise amount of coffee, the instructor put it in the filter and turned on the kettle.  But not just any kettle. The right kettle had a skinny s-shaped spout to allow him to pour the water over the grounds in the proper way.

This pouring was the most sacred part of the ritual.  Once the water was boiling, he turned the kettle off and let it rest while, with his index finger, he made a hole in the middle of the grounds.  He picked up the kettle and carefully poured a little water into the hole, letting the grounds "bloom."  He set the timer for exactly three minutes and, starting at the center of the grounds, slowly poured the water in an outward spiral motion, timing it so the last drop would come out as the timer bell dinged.  He removed the filter, took a sip, closed his eyes and all but genuflected.

I thought I could dispense with the scale and the timer, and I already owned a grinder, but clearly I would have to invest in one of those swan-neck kettles.  After another hunt for the ideal conjunction of function, looks and economy I purchased one, made in China but with a vaguely Italian name.  And then I was ready to buy the Hario coffee pot with the cloth filter.

But at the last moment my personal shoppers in the ether offered up yet another possibility:  a Hario pot with a plastic mesh filter that would be much simpler to clean than the cloth one.  Unfortunately, this pot was nothing much to look at--no hourglass figure, no adorable wooden belt.  Exhausted by my search, I put aesthetics aside and bought it.

It should be obvious to you by now that the kettle and the pot have arrived and I have become a priestess of the pour-over coffee-brewing method:  the sun isn't up yet, and look what a long post I've written.

Walking

My friend John Harkey walks, bikes and practices sustainable living in Nashville, Tennessee.  I loved his essay on walking and thought you might enjoy it too.  You can read more of John's writing at
www.Harkeyresearch.blog.com 

Walking

In his essay of the same title Henry David Thoreau repeated the phrase wrongly ascribed to Horace Greeley: “go west young man, go west.”  Actually, Thoreau was talking about “walking” west, and for him the more precise direction was “southwest,” away from his village home (Concord), and away from the city (Boston), in the direction of the setting sun.  In his essay, he said he was going to make an “extreme” statement.  As he describes his walks, and the ambition of walking, the word “extreme” seems mild
.

For Thoreau a daily four-hour walk was the minimum duration, and more was preferred. His walking “ambition” was to leave civilization entirely, avoiding the well traveled path and claiming the uncharted wilderness to the south and west as his home. His “home” in the village was merely a starting place for his walking adventure, but his destination was the Pacific Ocean, or maybe the Rocky Mountains.
 

Unfortunately, or maybe to our good fortune, Thoreau never made it that far.  In fact, his pace wasn’t very rapid, and he was easily diverted. If you have ever been on a spring wildflower walk, you will know what happened.  Every step or two there is something new and unusual for a botanist/poet to look at, and if you are in a group, comment on.  Thoreau, like Christopher Robin, knew a lot about the 100-acre wood, but a 4-hour walk might take him one place in his imagination (say to some of the Greek Isles as he followed the meanderings of Odysseus), but while thinking about Odysseus he might be observing some ant platoons outside his door re-enacting their version of the Trojan war.

For me, a walk in the wilderness is a deep pleasure. But my wilderness walks are a part time occupation. I take those walks several times a year, but in my daily walks (and bike rides), I turn Thoreau’s treatise on its head, and turn towards the city, to meet friends, to purchase coffee, to shop for groceries, and to enjoy the pleasures of the urban experience, which are many.
 

Thoreau, of course, did too.  His sustenance was more from the village and the city than from the wilderness.  He thrived on the intellectual stimulation of Concord and the wider Boston community, and he enjoyed friendship. He wrote about the horrors of the village (“most men lead lives of quiet desperation”), but was really sustained by The Village.

For Thoreau, walking was an elite activity. While it involved only a modest investment of money (good shoes, sturdy clothing, and a hat), it required time.  In Thoreau’s day, the only people with “time” were the wealthy and the occasional bohemian poet.  The men (and women) of quiet desperation walked to work and to market, but otherwise were busy creating the economic engine that won the Civil War.

One of Thoreau’s more memorable trips was taken by train rather than on foot, from Boston down to New York, and there he met a promising new urban poet, Walt Whitman, who had just been “found” and promoted by Thoreau’s mentor, a Mr. Emerson.  Thoreau had just published his masterpiece, Walden, a year earlier (1854), and Whitman had just published his first edition of “Leaves of Grass.”

In contrast to Thoreau, Whitman looked toward the city and its thriving masses of people for inspiration rather than to the uncharted wilderness near Thoreau’s cabin. Whitman’s walk is also open ended —walking “the long brown road before me leading wherever I choose”—but is about those he meets rather than where he goes—“the felon, the diseased, the illiterate person” and “the escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple.” And, the objects of civilization: “planks and posts of wharves, rows of houses, porches” and then the ideas, the “philosophies” and the “music.”  Whitman’s walk was an exploration of culture—the city—rather than fields and forest, and he liked what he saw, as much as Thoreau liked wilderness. 
 

I like both walks. For my wilderness walks, though, I take part of the city with me, in the form of a friend or two. Climbing up a mountain along a shady path, we observe the beauty of a cascading stream while discussing whether charter schools really make a difference.

Walking is easy, requires no new expenditures, can be fit into a busy lifestyle, and helps you maintain health. It’s also fun, or can be. Twenty minutes a day (just over a mile) is helpful to health.  Forty minutes (2-3 miles) will help you maintain weight, and with healthier eating, possibly lose weight.  Either distance gives you time to think (alone) or banter (with friends), improving your mood and your friendships.

Thoreau set the bar too high, leaving his quietly desperate neighbors behind as he walked “away” from the Village. Today, in Nashville at least, the Village is the spark, encouraging its residents to leave the desperation (the TV, the computer, the couch, the bag of potato chips) behind, and take a walk (on the new greenway or sidewalk) “into” the Village.

For a description of one of the more interesting urban walks in America, try this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/nyregion/high-lines-best-kept-secret-its-a-fast-commute.html?hp

Research note on Walking for Health

Two researchers at University College of London conducted a meta-analysis of 18 observational studies (460,000 participants) on the health effects of walking published between 1970 and 2007. Their study was summarized in the August 2009 edition of the Harvard Health Letter.

• Walking reduced the risk of dying by 32% during the study period. The study period averaged 11.3 years for the studies reviewed. )  
• The risk of cardiovascular events was reduced by 31%.

• Benefits of walking were found for people walking as little as 5.5 miles a week at a pace of 2 miles per hour.  Greater protection was obtained by more miles and a more rapid pace

Here is a link to the Harvard Report

http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletters/Harvard_Mens_Health_Watch/2009/August/Walking-Your-steps-to-health

Blogging in the ER

You know how it is in American medical circles:  you say the word "twinge," followed by the word "chest" and, if you're male and in your 60s, the cardiovascular care machine roars into high gear.

Since the twinges and the chest belonged to my spouse, a couple of days ago I sent him to the cardiologist, who said everything looked fine but ordered a stress test, the results of which were terrific except that two more twinges happened, which caused him to order a further stress test for later in the week.  Meanwhile there were more twinges, so in my role as draconian health enforcer I made the victim call the cardiologist's office this morning, and the triage nurse said he should go to the ER, just to make sure that all is well.  Over the victim's protestations we drove off to the hospital.

Which is where we are now, attended by lovely people and waiting for test results.  So far everything looks fine.  He's in a hospital gown, chest dotted with electrodes, reading the New Yorker and twinge-free for the moment.  I'm fine too, my only source of discomfort being a baby's screams from the next cubicle.  There's nothing more upsetting to me than a baby's cry.  It sets off some primitive impulse to rush in and effect a rescue.  I don't remember being afflicted this way as a teenager, but it set in with a vengeance when I had my first baby.

On the way to the hospital--my husband drove, saying that if I did he would have a heart attack, ha, ha--we listened to Mozart's Piano Concerto number 21 on the radio.  It's the one that moviegoers learned to hum when the second movement became the sound track for Elvira Madigan.  The drive from our house to the hospital lasts about forty minutes, and when you start the climb towards the Green Mountains, it is lovely, even on a gray morning like today.

The music played, the scenery rolled along, and I meditated about our life stage.  I felt weirdly serene and clear-headed--I get that way whenever my spouse develops so much as a hangnail.  I hope that things turn out fine today--I'm pretty sure they will.  But episodes like this one remind me that these drives through lovely country on the way to hospitals or doctors' offices will only become more frequent in the years ahead.

Already, what with one thing and another, staying healthy has started to feel like a part-time job.  Some day it will probably turn into a full-time job, and eventually just staying alive will become a way of life. 

The glorious Mozart went on, but as the road wound its way among the hills there was a burst of static and the music was lost.  We drove around a curve and Wolfgang A. returned, only to be swallowed up by static again after a few measures.  It's kind of like my life these days, I thought:  moments of heart-wrenching beauty followed by times of static so harsh that all the music fades.

As we came down into the valley the reception improved.  By the time we reached the hospital parking lot the third movement, the Allegro was playing, and powered by its energy I got out of the car and followed my spouse through the wide glass doors of the ER.

After a couple of hours the cardiologist swept aside the cubicle curtain and issued a "not a cardiac event" decree, and I resisted the urge to kiss the hem of his garment.  The baby in the next cubicle stopped crying.
The second stress test will happen in a few days.  Meanwhile, I'm finishing the day on the patio (first time in 2013!) with the peepers going full blast in the woods.  The bluebird's wife has joined him at the nest box, and a honey bee just buzzed my glass of wine.

So Darned Healthy

For the fourth year in a row Vermont has been named, by those whose business it is to know such things, the healthiest state in the nation.

We are outstanding in access to pre-natal health care and  medical insurance.  We are--and this surprised me--the least obese state.  I see hugely fat people whenever I go to the grocery store:  not only obese old people riding in those little carts, and men whose bulging stomachs force their jeans to slide perilously over their hips, but huge young women, in their late teens or early twenties, whose waist-to-hip ratio is the opposite of what it should be.  I worry about their skeletons, and what pregnancy will do to them, and how they'll fare carrying all that tonnage around by the time they're forty.  Granted, my supermarket is just over the line in New York, but plenty of Vermonters shop there.  If this is the slimmest population in the country, what must the rest of America be like?

Vermont is not without its health problems, though.  Binge drinking is one.  There are a lot of colleges in the state, which might account for the some of the drinking, not to mention those long winter nights and power outages.

Low rates of infant immunization is another.  I don't know a lot of people with babies here, and I haven't quizzed the ones I do know about their take on vaccinations.  But I do know a number of dog owners who, having done a lot of reading and being of an independent mind set, vaccinate their pets minimally if at all.  My hunch is that young Vermont parents fall along the same lines.

If you ask me, the main reason Vermonters are healthy is that there aren't many of us--fewer than 700,000.  My long experience with chickens has convinced me that the best way to keep a flock in radiant health is to keep it small--that means less competition for food and dirt baths, plenty of room on the roost, no manure accumulation, and a benign pecking order.  Plus, chickens like to be known and called by name.

For humans, less crowding means plentiful parking, short check-out lines, no road rage, blessed quiet (sometimes it's too quiet), clean air, and postmistresses who know you by name.  Now wouldn't that make anybody feel better?

Fear Of Food

"Americans," I remember hearing Julia Child warble, "are afraid of their food."

So true--for me at least. My first apprehensions about food were based on a realization that, unless one was extremely careful, food could make one fat. But since those days, my food fears have expanded and become more sophisticated as a result of years of exposure to "healthful hints" and the latest reports on what is likely to kill us in the food we eat.

On grocery-shopping days, my food fear escalates into a phobia. Take today, for instance. Heart full of dread, I wheeled my cart into the supermarket's produce section. Ostensibly, this should be the least fear-inducing part of the place. What could be healthier than fresh veggies and fruit?

Because I grow most of the vegetables that can be frozen, I don't even look at broccoli, spinach, chard, and so on. Those are safely in my freezer, and I am not afraid of them. But I don't grow my own apples, for example. And here the dilemmas begin. Should I buy expensive organic apples that have been trucked across the continent with much damage to the environment, or opt for local apples that have been sprayed with god-knows-what? There is a new apple on display today, the "Pinata," fresh from Washington State and combining "typical apple character with tropical flavors." What kind of idiot do these grocers think I am? Don't I know genetic engineering when I see it?

O.k., but I need some fruit. What about grapes? There they are, in seedless splendor, just arrived from Chile. Forget the hydrocarbons that their trip shot into the atmosphere. Who knows what they were sprayed with? Ditto for those beautiful pineapples, and the oranges, and the off-season berries. I leave the produce department with some sweet potatoes (at least you peel those) and a box of raisins (I need those antioxidants in one shape or another, and these come from nearby California).

I push my cart to the fish department. Fish is supposed to be good for you, and I like fish. I like salmon. Here's some--oops, no. It's farm raised. You thought factory-farmed chicken was bad? Wait til you hear what the fish farms are doing not just to the fish, but to the coastline. Plus, see that orange color? Do I really want to put that into my body? There is some fish that is not farm raised: it comes from Ecuador, and from Indonesia. I can just see the black clouds of diesel behind those trawlers. I can feel the emptiness of the over-fished depths.

Deep in the bowels of the store are canned goods, sitting in their baths of salt. I put a can of organic chickpeas in my cart anyway. Who cares where they came from? Here be pastas. What could be wrong with macaroni? Wheat, that's what! Wheat these days contains high amounts of gluten, and you should eat it in only tiny amounts. But, you say, bread is the staff of life! As if.

I pick up a 25lb bag of white rice--don't worry, it's for the dogs! So is the big tray of chicken drumsticks, and I even feel guilty about feeding those to the dogs, given what we all know about Purdue et al., but it's better than the regular dog food, which contains even worse horrors.

The Mediterranean diet is supposed to be the epitome of healthy eating. I was brought up on the real thing, and I love that kind of food. Which begins with olive oil. I have always looked down my nose at the "extra virgin" stuff, preferring the darker, more flavorful oils. But it turns out that something in the processing makes the extra virgin oil kinder to your heart. I used to like buying olive oil. Now I do it with a frown.

Forget the cereal aisles, the bakery, the ice cream section. I pass those by, a monk in the midst of Vegas. In the dairy section, I buy a big package of string cheese, which I will cut up into tiny pieces for dog treats. I look at the racks of eggs: regular eggs (from hens enduring unspeakable torments in cages), organic eggs (well-fed hens, but probably still caged), cage-free eggs (a million hens kept in a building, as free to move about as people on a metro platform at rush hour), and finally, free-range eggs, almost as expensive as the Faberge kind. Well, at least I have my four girls at home, who are a little bored because they cannot go outside, but are otherwise all right. I go back to the produce section and buy them a couple of cabbages to peck at.

It never fails--by the time I get to the checkout, I am depressed. Isn't it ironic that, in the midst of plenty, I am practically starving. Surrounded by foods from all over the planet, I can allow myself to eat only a tiny percentage of them. What is wrong with this picture?

On my way out of the store, I pass by a new display rack--garden seeds! Utterly premature in this climate, but there they are--the embryos of chard, spinach, lettuce, peppers, basil, tomatoes...my only hope, my bulwark against starvation.