Un-natural Nature Valley

So I picked up some Nature Valley Sweet and Salty Nut - Almond bars today. I'm mowing it down and wondering what's in. Let's have a look at the ingredients on our Nature Valley so-natural-it's-like-eating-tree-bark Naturelicious nature bars.

Almonds, High Maltose Corn Syrup, Rolled Oats, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Crisp Rice (Rice Flour, Sugar, Malt, Salt), Palm Kernel Oil, Wheat Flakes (Whole Wheat, Sugar, Salt, Malt), Fructose, Canola Oil, Water, Yogurt Powder (Cultured Whey Protein Concentrate, Cultured Skim Milk, Yogurt Cultures), Maltodextrin, Salt, Nonfat Milk, Soy Lecithin, Color Added, Honey Natural Flavor, Baking Soda, Sunflower Meal, Peanut Flour. Mixed Tocopherols Added to Retain Freshness.

Almonds - that's good.
High Maltose Corn Syrup - yea, that's crap.
Rolled Oats - sounds healthy enough
Sugar - not great, but hopefully natural enough
High Fructose Corn Syrup - devil food. America would lose 20 pounds a person without this chemically concocted crap.
Crisp Rice - fair
Palm Kernel Oil - mmm...oil. crap.
Wheat Flakes (more sugar I see)
Fructose - unnatural sugar. crap.
Canola Oil - didn't we already have oil?
Water - why am I so thirsty after eating one of these bars?
Yogurt Powder - maybe this is what the water is for?
Maltodextrin - sounds like something that causes cancer...
Salt - yea, we don't get enough sodium in our diets
nonfat milk - nonfat is good right? I don't know, I've never seen a nonfat cow.
Soy Lecithin - per wikipedia "Commercial lecithin, as used by food manufacturers, is a mixture of phospholipids in oil." Yummy, fats swimming in oil.
Color added - why? because naturally it's blue?
Honey natural flavor - why not just honey? Do they put bees in this stuff?
Baking soda - I'm all out of negative opinions. You may pass.
Sunflower Meal - I guess Sunflowers have to eat too.
Peanut Flour - How hard do you have to squeeze a peanut to get flour out of it?
Mixed Tocopherols Added to Retain Freshness - Once again, wikipedia "Tocopherols are sometimes used as a food preservative to prevent oils from going rancid". So the oils you shouldn't have to put in there to begin with need a preservative?

Needless to say, I'm staying clear of Nature Valley "of Sin" products after this. Seriously, way to mislead the consumers.

I like Kind bars as an alternative. These truly are all natural, and you don't have to Wikipedia have the ingredients.

Last weekend with the goats

Yea, the video isn't terribly exciting, but I thought I'd try and upload a video from my Evo to youtube. I guess it works ok.

It's been over a week

and the earth's population is still growing. Moving on...

I have my first cyclocross clinic tonight, so hopefully I'll be able to walk tomorrow and not experience bruising to my thigh from performing unskilled remounts all night. I actually am quite excited, as I went out for about 40 minutes and did some skills practice with sprints mixed in, and felt ok but see a lot of room for growth.

Hope to see some other 'crossers out there tonight!

The greatest issue of our time

is not Middle-Eastern conflict, green energy, or Sarah Palin getting elected to office. It's overpopulation. Dr. David Katz wrote a decent article that hopefully will get some discussions started.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-katz-md/nine-or-12-billion-things_b_693757.html

I have a feeling though that by the time we get around to frankly discussing the issue, the Duggans will have bred out the rest of us.

Seriously though, while it's easy to poke fun or ridicule a family that thinks it is their divine right to bring 19 or 20 kids into this world, I'm not very fond of the thought of having starving people with flies buzzing on their eyelids gasping their last breath because someone half the world away likes big families.

There are issues of resource allocation, of course, but then you can bring up the fact that America is the land of conspicuous consumption, where we each use as much resources as 45 Ethiopians. So the Duggans have a village indeed, burning up the same amount of this planet's finite resources as 990 (22x45) villagers.

The issue is very frustrating to me, because you can look at any specie that overpopulates, and you can clearly see that their demise is both quick and painful. Not the future I want for my kids. Both of them.

Tabatas

If you non-cross (slightly more normal) people ever hear me talk about Tabata night, let me explain what Tabatas are.

It is an specific exercise you can do on a bike or running. You can really do it at any type of sprint type activity, even swimming (if you like drowning, that is). It requires you to get warmed up, and then it lasts the longest 4 minutes you will ever know. 20 seconds full sprint, 10 seconds rest. 20 seconds sprint, 10 seconds rest. Repeat 6 more times. The idea is to get used to hitting the gas without giving yourself time to recover. My heart rate looks like a late-1998 IPO stock chart.

The idea is that once you do one set for a couple of weeks, then to add another set. Then maybe a few more weeks, then another set. 8 Tabata intervals, 5 mins rest, 8 Tabata intervals, 5 mins rest, 8 Tabata intervals, throw up, rest. Now you are ready to race.

I'm only on one set, but my vision blurred quite a bit after the 8th one. I may swerve during a race and hit a tree. Sadly, I won't be the first person to do that.

Ooooh buddy. I can feel it.

Started intervals last night, along with a hard ride on the way home Wednesday night. The legs are finally starting to wake up!

Speaking of waking up, I've watched this vid about 3 times now and my thighs are just sitting here twitching.

U.S. gran prix of cyclocross from Jim Fryer/BrakeThrough Media on Vimeo.

Here's a look inside the USGP series and why it and cyclocross are so damn cool! Includes interviews with some of the biggest names in the sport and they share with us, what makes cyclocross so special to them. Enjoy!

Another cyclist in the house!

Finally! We have AB riding his bike now, sans training wheels!

I had tried to get him going a few times just up and down our sidewalk, but that was like pulling nails to get him out there. Finally we decided to take him up to the school.

Saturday night we did just that and had him start out on the nice flat grassy fields. He took off the first time, and had a blast. He did really well, and never fell once. He went up and down the field a few times and then was a little tuckered out and wanted to play on the swingset, so that ended our training lesson for the night.

Sunday night came, and he wanted to ride again. Despite having just finished a triathlon, I went out there with him again, and we ended up having a nice crowd of neighbors to cheer him on. With the help of the Colonel, AB was riding in the street quite confidently as well. He was doing nicely until he rounded the cul-de-sac and stared down the storm drain and plowed straight into it, going over the bars. I was a very proud papa at that moment (it's a cyclist thing). He scraped up his knee pretty good, and we had some boo-hoo time, but 10 minutes later the Colonel had him back on his bike and AB did a great job. We were all impressed that he got back on it so quickly.

Last night he wanted to ride again (he rides more than I do now), and so we took him out. He was doing really nicely, going clear down the street. But then he would stop and look up the street at me and yell for help to get going again. I had him learn how to walk up a driveway and then point down the slope to get some help getting started. He mastered that technique in short order, and has no problems with curbs or anything. He is still a little wobbly, and needs to get a bit more control, but dang, he has came a long way in a very short time. I'm quite proud!