Views of a Modern World

Everything else Rick writes

Evidence-based food preparation

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After reading this post on Springwise (a site/feed I enjoy very much), I realized that I needed to post another orphaned idea.

People have seen a number of “prepared food” offerings, where a company delivers a bunch of meals to you or your family that are designed (usually) to control portions and assist in weight-loss.

The story on leViv is different because the company takes a slightly different take, focusing on specific health “issues” and producing five separate programs, one for each.

At one spot, the company makes a reference to “evidence-based recommendations,” which almost makes me think that this idea is close to being adopted.

The idea that I had, building off of 23andme’s stated goal of continuously improving their product by reference to the evolving scientific literature connecting SNPs and other genetic sequences to specific diseases or other traits, was to develop a private chef company (what I called these prepared food delivery companies in the past) that would take a similar approach by integrating nutritional research into changing and updated recipes targeted to specific client attributes. So, a study that says 1/3 cup of blueberries a week reduces heart disease risk for 40 year-old male nonsmokers means that I would get a slightly different menu. The integration of the two businesses, genetic information about potential predilections for certain diseases along with nutrition guidelines related to those risks, would lead to perhaps not genomic medicine but almost certainly to genomic nutrition.

After all, there are very few nutrition studies that talk about taking in large amounts of dangerous things like fat and sugar, so it’s probably a riskless improvement to diet planning that can only help prevent possible medical problems.

Clearly, the more individualized the assessment and menu, the more complicated this would be. However, the true private chef could use this sort of information to create an optimized shopping list and menu for a family to serve as the palette on which to base his or her creations.

I’d be delighted to hear from the folks at leViv about their reaction to my idea, and even more delighted to read more about how they are actually constructing menus for their five plans.

Allegheny College Gets WSJ Mention

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In this article on lawyer/presidents (or president/lawyers, if you prefer), the WSJ‘s Law Blog notes that William McKinley, the 25th President, attended Allegheny College (“briefly attended,” according to this biography) and “for one term” according to his Wikipedia entry.

So, if we’re grading on a curve, I’ve managed to graduate from Allegheny and from a law school. Now for that president thing….

Applet wanted – $50 bounty

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Wanted: a work-for-hire (so it can be released under a CC license for non-commercial use, exact license TBD) software applet, either for an iPhone or for a Fujitsu laptop (running Vista).

Feature: uses internal accelerometer(s), shock sensor, or similar functions at the hardware level as input for output that describes the motion of the phone/laptop in terms of Richter scale (yes, the earthquake Richter scale).

Reference: BLDGBLOG: Earthquakes in the Sky is the post that got me thinking about this. Many thanks to BLDGBLOG, which should be recognized in some way, perhaps with a persistent link in the credits.

Reward: $50 for first working version. Submissions to tsmember@gmail.com. I will be able to test the laptop version myself and will have to distribute the iPhone version to a colleague. All submissions will be recognized here.

Fighting H-bombs with C-notes

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I read somewhere (here’s one reference and one that makes it both positive and negative, and another – any other favorites?) of someone referring to the not-so-casual, i.e., intentional, dropping of a reference that one went to Harvard as an “H-bomb.” (Not this H-bomb.)

Since my partner and I went to Cornell for business school and law school, respectively, we thought that an appropriate response was in order. Did you catch that? I just flashed you a C-note.

Private recommendations?

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Why don’t recommendation systems create, or allow for, a way to post recommendations that respects poster privacy? For example, I may want to post something about a doctor that I use but not want to reveal my true name or information that reveals too much about me — say, an indication that I have some particular health problem.

Yes, there is a tension between anonymity and usefulness/veracity of recommendations, but that can be dealt with separately; it explains why this could be an option for some posters.

Emerson revisited – great quote

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I recently came across this quote and have been upset about not getting it posted sooner. It just oozes character.

An excess of parental attention may build self-esteem, which is useless, at the expense of self-reliance, which is gold.

Hugh O’Neill in “The Seven Dadly Sins” in Best Life magazine, April 2008, p. 81.

I think that trying to explain what is, at its heart, a clear and simple expression of Emerson’s philosophy would ruin it.

I will however note that the lesson holds true for employees as well as children. We have seen, but not critically evaluated, numerous articles that reference Gen Y as being very demanding for affirmation and opportunity, often without responsibility or performance. Maybe this explains it.

Refrigerator storage & planning

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I like the Unclutterer blog because it’s short and to the point, reducing clutter in its posts as well as your life. This article describes the author’s approach to removing food clutter, in the form of things he’s decided not to eat that still live in his pantry.

I have a different problem: we’re forever throwing away leftovers not because we chose not to eat them, but because they migrated to the back of the fridge or underneath a slice of pizza and went out of sight, out of mind. The few solutions that I’ve come up with all have drawbacks:

  • Eat everything — I’m already a bit heavier than my post-Ranger School marathon weight, and I see no need to add to that problem in solving this one.
  • Throw it away first — my mother was one of the starving kids in China moms, and it still lives with me. All this would do, of course, is eliminate the guilt I feel when throwing stuff out after believing that I was going to eat it.
  • Buy a 6-inch deep refrigerator — my theory is that if there’s no space back there, stuff can’t hide or be hidden. But we otherwise like our fridge and don’t have the 20+ feet of wall space that would be required to install this mythical fridge.

What we have done so far is move to clear colorless containers for more food, so that every time it opens, we are more obviously reminded of what’s hanging around for a second chance.

What do you do to avoid the forgotten leftover tragedy? Please put your thoughts in a comment, and I’ll report on my test of the ideas that seem the best for us.