Dear Cia Column

Dear cia,
are you good at drawing? (Cause I'm terrible =P)

Dear A4,

Hmm, well that's a highly subjective question. ^^;

I mean you tell me if I'm a good artist or not; here's my latest drawing, which is (as I hope you'll remember) a rendition of our two server mascots, Alta (Big Sister) and Pico (Little Brother):



By my own impressions, I feel my drawing skills are... "adequate".  However, my main problem is motivation... some people absolutely LOVE to draw, and I don't, it's more of a hassle for me.... a thing to do if I can't find the kind of drawing I'm looking for, so I have to do it myself.  

I could say the same about server ownership... I may be "adequate" in the job, but I don't actually like doing it.  I honestly would rather be playing, and if not for this thread and the opportunity to help people, I honestly feel I've been shafted... forced to become an admin and ruin my fun, so others can do the things I always wanted to do myself, but can't muster the time to do them anymore.  

But oh well... it's ancient history now, as I finally discovered my true vocation and rather focus my attention on that.  You might have noticed I don't play much Minecraft these days... there's just no drive to it like there used to be.  And good riddance too... during a nice Spring or Summer day, I rather be outside getting some sun, rather than locked in sitting on my arse all day (although in fairness, I have a standing desk now, woohoo!). XD

hmm, for some reason, I feel this really should go in the "whining" thread, lol.  >v<


--Cia

Dear Cia,

How many grains do you think the average person consumes?

Dear Avocado,

Hard to say, I'm not exactly following grain eating habits much anymore. XD

But you have to figure it's not a small sum... after all, grains are small, and to make them filling to us, or to manufacture our processed products, we have to use many of them.  Figure that an ear of corn contains around 800 kernels, or a bowl of rice anywhere between 3000 to 6000 grains, and two slices of sandwich bread are likely the pulverized remains of 500-1000 wheat berries. I can't even imagine oatmeal, which purposefully flattens all oats so that they can fit more into a single bowl... maybe about 7000 to 10,000 oats in a bowl! 

And that''s not even covering pulses. XD

Now multiply all that by three, since it's three square meals, and imagine some more for the inevitable snacks, double-servings, and dessert, since even all that massacre of baby grasses won't be enough to produce satiety.  This is well and truly a very inefficient way of getting fed, since it wastes countless lives (including the bugs and weeds killed to grow the grains, as well as the plants animals killed and displaced to support the agriculture to make them) for little gain and in fact a lot of harm.  


--Cia

Dear Cia,

What do you think the healthiest fruits are?

Dear Avocado,

A fairly subjective question, and one that can have multiple answers depending on how you define "healthy".  Conventional health beliefs dictate that coconut is one of the WORST fruits of all time, due to its HEARTCLOGGINGSATURATEDFATOMG!!,... meanwhile, I'll consider it the best fruit there is precisely because of said saturated fat, plus it's myriad other benefits and uses. ^^

Other similar fruits that I thiink are super healthy for the same reason (high in healthy fats and nutrients, offer good satiety and are low in sugar) are you [avocados, lol] and olives.  ^__^

For standard fruits that offer moderate sugar and high nutrient density (including a powerful array of antioxidants), my best recommendations are the berries... things like blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, cranberries and so forth.  They're relatively cheap and easy to eat, and they're not that high in sugar, yet pack a nutritional punch that puts even oranges to shame. XD

Speaking of which, the most versatile healthy fruit would probably go to the venerable lemon and lime, as they don't have a whole lot of sugar yet serve many wonderful uses across a whole plethora of dishes -- they're great to flavor water, garnish meat dishes, preserve easily-oxidized fruit, and as aromatics, just to name a few uses.  ^^

And finally, if fiber and starch are your game, green bananas and plantains reign supreme, offering the highest concentration of resistant starch of all common food items (more so than potatoes, I believe); not to mention they're also one of the best sources of potassium.  They're not low in sugar, however, so don't go nuts eating them... a little goes a long way.  <3

--Cia

Dear cia:
Why do coconuts have milk in them? ^^

Dear Cia,

Do you consider avocados to be fruits or vegetables?

Dear Hannah.

Ah, cute question!  I half-envision the coconuts mooing and being milked by farmers. XD

Just a quick clarification, though... although coconut "milk" is a term used interchangeably with the liquid inside the coconut (and heck, I'm guilty of that as well!), in actuality the liquid inside the coconut is technically coconut "water".  Coconut milk is a separate substance made by liquifying the white coconut meat with the coconut water (or just plain water), yielding a nice, rich, thick, fatty white drink that tastes delicious and can be used in lieu of milk in some recipes. ^^



So why is there coconut water inside coconuts? Because the water IS the coconut,.. or rather the coconut baby's food, or endosperm.  The coconut palm filters in some water inside its seeds, infusing it with its own special blend of fatty acids and nutrients -- I would imagine the imagery is not altogether different from a chicken egg bathing the embroyonic yolk with egg white.  Over time, this coconut embryonic "soup" starts to solidify and cling to the walls of the shell, first as a soft jelly, then overtime as a thick, fibrous meat, high in fat and calories to help the coconut sapling grow big and strong.  This is why as the coconut seed gets older, it will have less coconut water, or at least less good-tasting water... whereas the young coconut's water will be plentiful and sweet, the mature coconut's water will be meager and duller in taste (though still good, unless you happen to get a rancid coconut, yuck!).  

It's truly amazing how nature works sometimes.  


--Cia

Dear Avocado,

Poor Avocado, there there... *me hugs you over something mentioned elsewhere* XD

Anyway, this is more of a subjective question, so I won't take too long answering this.  

Personsally I feel that avocados are a fruit,... often times we associate fruits and veggies as "sweet" and "savory" that we forget that botanically you can have sweet vegetables (ie, beets) and savory fruits (ie, avocados, olives).  Ultimately I find it easier to define a fruit as not the entire plant itself, but rather simply its dispersal mechanisms... like eggs to a chicken.  Most fruits are produced by a plant or bush or tree in a way that attracts animals to come and eat them... not because they hate their babies, but rather because the animals can help disperse them.  Imagine a fruit bat coming in to swoop and grabe a guava, take it back to its home tree miles away, and eat at it sloppily, ingesting some seeds, but letting others fall to the rainforest floor, where they can sprout and grow new trees.  And even those seeds that are ingested can make it through the bats intestine intact, and be pooped out in a nice rich bed of bat guano, where it will have the nutrients needed to become a mighty tree.  All this took was a little reward for the bat -- a nice simpe ball of vitamins, sugar and fiber, a mere childsplay for the guava tree to create -- and it can secure a proud lineage of guava trees far beyond what it itself could have managed through simple drop-methods of seed dispersal.  And the bat is happy too, as it has the energy it needs to feed itself and its own young, and so it will do its best to keep helping the guava tree out with this tasty dispersal job, and it will teach its own descendants to do the same. A nice symbiosis is establisehd, and all is well with the world. ^^

Granted, not all fruits require the help of animals for dispersal... since I've talked at length about coconuts, they're a good example of plants that like their young to fend for themselves and sail the seven seas on their own (although humans HAVE certainly helped them out a lot, it seems).  But certainly all fruits require dispersal of some kind, and aside from the seed, the fruits are not technically living... they really are more of a gift to those who eat them (and aren't specifically targeted by phytates), in exchange for helping to disperse the seed inside.  If you eat an avocado and plant the seed to give it some chance to grow into a beautiful avocado tree, then technically no life is wasted in the consumption of that avocado.  You did your duty to the parent avocado tree in dispersing its young, and in exchange you got some nutritious vitamins, minerals and mono-unsaturated fat.  You can't be that win-win.  


--Cia

Dear Cia,

How much Vitamin D should we get everyday and how can it improve health conditions?

Dear Avocado,

Sorry, I'm all tuckered out so I'll have to reply in a very wimpy way... ;-;

But while our needs are different depending on our age, body size and the latitude we live in (Northern climates have less sun, for instance), the minimum daily requirement by the US government is 800 IU (which is only enough to keep you from getting rickets), the most common supplements go up to 2000 IU (which is a joke), the minimum decent amount for hydroxy restoration is 5000 IU, and optimum for adults should be around 8000 IU.  Vitamin D3 is generally more common and better in some ways than D2, but sunlight still beats both of them (although it has to be high-angle sunlight).  Gelcaps are better than tablets; and it's generally hard to get your full Vitamin D from food, so it's either plenty of sun, or supplementation.

Besides improving your mood, helping your immune system, and preventing a whole menagerie of autoimmune diseases (and possibly cancer), you also need vitamin D to properly use calcium in your body.  Without enough Vitamin D, all that calcium you're getting from milk and cheese might as well be talcum powder.  :<

For more information, check out this very fun and informative [and funny] video:

Dear Cia,

How much vitamin C should we get in a day and how can this benefit us?

Hello Avocado, 

Although Vitamin C is famous for its immune-system enhancing characteristics, it's actually only a partial player in immune system health (vitamin D, vitamin E and cholesterol playing a bigger role, among others), and taking it while sick doesn't guarantee it will make the sickness magically go away (although it makes for a tasty placebo).  

Nevertheless, this water soluble vitamin is still VERY essential to us in many other ways, primarily for its antioxidant properties (notice how a bit of lemon or lime can prevent chopped avocado from browning quickly), its antihistimine properties, its ability to serve as cofactor with other vitamins and minerals (especially iron, which depends heavily on vitamin C), and its crucial role in the development of collagen (which is needed for skin and joints, and without which we would not be able to heal from wounds).  A deficiency will lead to scurvy, which not surprisingly, given the above, can be characterized with skin browning, open sores, rashes, bleeding gums, fallen teeth, lethargy, fatigue, anemia, depression, and ultimately death.  In old European sailing ships where scurvy was most well-known due to their nutritionally-deficient rations of sea biscuits (essentially ultra-hard flour crackers) and dried muscle meat, more sailors died from this disease than from actual fighting.  It was only after it occurred to them to fresh fruit (especially oranges, lemons and limes, which brought about the name of "Limies" for the English), and other high-vitamin C herbs, that this disease stopped being such a scourge for sailors.

How much vitamin C do you need to prevent scurvy?  About 10mg, which is hardly anything at all.  How much does the US recommend you consume?  Well depending on what you are, between 60-90mg a day, which is enough to prevent scurvy, but is incredibly conservative when you consider that vitamin C is EXTREMELY hard to overdose, and even its "toxic" effects (after, say, 10 grams, or 10,000mg) generally don't amount to much beyond diarrhea.  The recommended minimum for good health is around 200mg, and I would agree with that, although you can safely consume up to 1000mg a day for really robust health at little expense.  ^^

Will you need to supplement to achieve this? I don't believe you do, so long as you're always eating a healthy mix of fruits, vegetables, and even organ meats (beef liver contains a respectable amount of Vitamin C, though still less than oranges gram-per-gram).  Papaya, peas, tomatoes, grapefruit, strawberries, raspberries, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kiwis, kale, guava and bell peppers are all examples of fruits and vegetables that have as much, or more, vitamin C than an orange (around 50+mg).  A healthy combination of these, plus all the other low-grade contributors of vitamin C into your diet, are enough to propel you well past the 200mg minimum, and into the real of optimum levels. ^^


--Cia

Dear Cia,

Why must you give everyone shame for not asking as many questions as me? D:

Dear Avocado,

haha, well mainly I'm just joking, you have to recall my penchant for teasing.  XD

In actuality, people are free to miss out on free cheese,... I mean sometimes it's beneficial, like when I get back from a long hard day, and rather than spend it on the server doing stuff, I spend it here writing answers to questions.  Not to say I don't enjoy it of course.. in fact sometimes I love it WAY more than playing, and that might be scary to some. XD

But I do still want to have people ask more questions.  As one genius put it...



--Cia

Dear Cia,

What kind of snacks would be best to eat right after returning home? I want to know what I can eat immediately without having to prepare something that isn't loaded with wheat and/or carbs

Dear Cia,

How hard is it to convince someone else to change their diet (presumably for the better)?

Dear Avocado,

Well we certainly don't want to confuse wheat for carbs... you can still have safe "carbs" or "starches" (I certainly wouldn't put kale and carrots in the same league as what or corn).

As for what is best, I can't really answer that, as what people consider "best" largely depends on their own personal tastes, as well as what is directly available to them. I mean I love eating big coconut pieces, but this requires getting a coconut (at a not-expensive price... today I saw a ridiculous golfball-sized one for freakin $2.49, ugh!!!), breaking it, taking out the water and meat, and storing it in a way that won't make it go bad or soggy. I love coconut butter cookies, but you have to take the time and knowledge to make them. I mean boatloads of dehydrated chicken for my dogs (and myself), but who here has an Excalibur dehydrator? I love deviled eggs, but that's more of an acquired taste. I like cheese and ultra dark chocolate (90% or more), but what if you're allergic to them? Pork cracklings are tasty, but what if you don't like pork or find it objectionable to eat skin? What if olives are too digusting for you? What if blackberries and cherries are not in season? what if all you have are simple baby carrots, but no nutritious fat to eat them with? What if they're not entirely grain-phobic and will still eat things with millet, rice, quinoa, chia or flax seed? What if they can't cook and all they can do is buy things from a store?

These are all special considerations that have to be factored, to allow people to reach their own answer based on their own tastes and availability of things. Oh and their environment matters too... if they live under a parent or legal guardian that expects them to eat certain things and won't let them try out "internet mumbo jumbo", then it's a moot point... Ritz crackers with Cheez Whiz, or else!! XD

Well, just a quick reminder of how complex the issue really is.


--Cia

Dear Rad,

I won't lie to you, it is possibly the hardest thing to ever do.  Despite all my harping about here, the success rate of my advice is somewhere along the lines of 1 out of 15 people helped... not that what I offered didn't help (in some cases it did or was in the process of), but ultimately the person failed to continue due to at least the following things I've observed:

1> Realizing how HARD it is to leave such a ubiquitious thing as wheat... once they realize it's not just "whole wheat bread" and may encompass common staples such as pizza or beer, all bets are off, and they forget they were even interested in weight loss.

2> Being outright addicted to grains and sugar... the withdrawal symptoms are SO severe, they literally come crawling back, and scorn me for ever even suggesting that they be rid of their Precious.



3> Failing to do enough research on their own, and thus continuing to get intimidated with fears of losing essential fiber or fortified nutrients from HEALTHYWHOLEGRAINS, as well as flaming their own time-held fears of saturated fat and cholesterol.

4> Allowing conventional diet wisdom to interfere with their new dietary approach, thus eliminating wheat but all the while starving themselves and cutting out fat to presumably lose weight, and ending up weak and miserable and thus demoralized in the process.

5> Succumbing to peer pressure.

6> Not receiving enough friend or family support, who may in turn inadvertently sabotage or purposefully forbid any kind of dietary tinkering, other than conventional dietary advice and medication that, as we all know, works SOOOO darn well.

7> Following it half-assedly without asking any questions or verifying you're doing things right -- if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  >.<

8> Succumbing to tradition, and preferring to get sicker on foods you've grown up with rather despite knowing how harmful they can be.

9> Losing interest after any of the above fail to make this a walk in the park... at least conventional dieting is easier since EVERYONE will help you cut out fat, but the whole world is against you cutting out grains.  

10> Adopting a fatalistic approach to food... "everything is bad, so we might as well die happy".  

The last one particularly irks me since I feel you can have your cake and eat it too, but then I could simply be a unique case.  Obviously tradition, fear and peer pressure may figure more strongly in other people, and for them those are highly legitimate concerns, in which case getting them to change is like getting them to pull out their own teeth.  

As hard as this may sound to accept, we do no one any service by forcing them to change, other than to make ourselves look unsympathetic and bigoted, and I don't feel that's the image we want to necessarily project if we want to promote a change in thinking.  In short, only people who genuinely want to change and are ready to put some work into that change, can have a chance to rethink something so intimiate and important as that which they put into their bodies, the most holy of temples to them.  If they resist, leave them be as being more forceful will only make them resist more... just as we would do if someone cowed us to do something we didn't want to do, such as join some freakish new cult.  

The reason television and media are so effective in convincing people to change their ways (often for the worst) is because they use special tricks and psychological mechanisms to make people THINK that a change is their own idea, when in fact they merely had a message subliminally added into their subconscious.  Those freaky medicine commercials with all the cool calm music and fun atmosphere, followed by a laundry list of side-effects that can kill you, are a good example as your average viewer will more closely associate the medicine to all the smiles and music rather than the list of death.  That is the power of propaganda, if you're looking for something that can easily change people's behaviors... but propganda by its very nature is manipulative and deceiving, since it relies so heavily on half-truths to make people pretend like they're thinking of something brilliant.  Personally, I rather have real lasting change, not fake just-add-water change that can easily be overturned by craftier propaganda than yours (just as happens so often in the world of TV advertisements).

In short, it can be a very hard thing to do if you intend to do it right, so learn to pick your battles wisely, else you risk doing more harm than good.  


--Cia

Dear Cia,
Should I be here?

Dear Cykrion,

That's a subjective question that you really shouldn't be asking me.  All I can tell you is that you performed poorly during the unbanning application, showed no desire to do what it took to return to the server, and currently have no one expecting you to return... other than Super who is already permanently in hot water himself.  

People can still stay on our forum so long as they don't overstay their welcome and misbehave in any way shape or form, such as spamming, whining or writing offensive posts, and as long as they don't expect to be showered with praise, admiration or even birthday wishes that they don't quite deserve... https://bigsister.forumotion.com/t205p150-birthday-thread#10015

Depending on whether you find that desirable or not, you can use that to answer your own question.


--Cia

Dear Cia:
When you were switching to your wheat free diet, were they any foods that you found particularly hard to give up?

Dear Cia,

How can playing a musical instrument in school/college impact student's learning abilities?