My post on Covey’s 7 habits

From time to time I revisit some blog posts — for example, several of those mentioned at the right — to revise and extend my remarks. My post on Covey’s 7 habits is a prime example, and it came to mind because today again I reworked it somewhat. So if you find productivity and effectiveness of interest, you might take another look at it.

More purple potatoes

I bought a handful of Stokes Purple® potatoes at Whole foods, and today I rinsed them well, let them dry, then rubbed them with olive oil. These are long and skinny, so I roasted them whole, with their skins on, in my air “fryer.”

I just had one: cut it up, mashed it with the skin, added a pinch of grey sea salt and a little Gay Lea Spreadable Butter (a mix of butter and canola oil) that The Wife gave me. It was delicious, and cooked to perfection. In fact, it was so good I had a second. (They were small.)

Stokes Purple® is one variety — and a trademarked variety — of purple potato, but there are others, such as Imperial Purple. Purple potatoes are highly nutritious. Look for them.

Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

Elizabeth Pennisi writes in Science, the publication of the AAAS:

Deep in the human gut, myriad “good” bacteria and other microbes help us digest our food, as well as keep us healthy by affecting our immune, metabolic, and nervous systems. Some of these humble microbial assistants have been in our guts since before humans became human—certain gut microbes are found in almost all primates, suggesting they first colonized a common ancestor. But humans have also lost many of these helpers found in other primates and may be losing even more as people around the world continue to flock to cities, a researcher reported last week at a microbiology meeting in Washington, D.C. Those absent gut microbes could affect human health, he says.

“This work helps us develop a new understanding of the course of human biological and cultural development,” says Lev Tsypin, a microbiology graduate student at the California Institute of Technology who was not involved in the new study.

The microbiome comprises all the bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microscopic life that inhabit an individual, be it a person, a plant, or a planaria. For humans and many other species, the best characterized microbiome centers on the bacteria in the gut. The more microbiologists study these gut microbes, the more they link the bacteria to functions of their hosts. In humans, for example, gut bacteria influence how the immune system responds to pathogens and allergens, or interact with the brain, affecting mood.

Andrew Moeller, an evolutionary biologist at Cornell University, was one of the first to show that gut bacteria and humans have built these relationships over a very long time. Six years ago, he and colleagues reported the work showing human gut microbes are very similar to those in other primates, suggesting their intestinal presence predates the evolution of humans.

But his follow-up studies, and work by others, also indicate the human gut microbiome has, in a general sense, become less diverse than the gut microbes in our current primate cousins. One study found 85 microbial genera, such as Bacteroides and Bifidobacterium, in the guts of wild apes, but just 55 in people in U.S. cities. Splitting the difference, people in less developed parts of the world have between 60 and 65 of those bacterial groups, an observation that ties the decrease in microbial diversity to urbanization.

Changes in diet as humans moved on from their hunter-gatherer past and then into cities, antibiotic use, more life stresses, and better hygiene are all possible contributors to the loss of human gut microbes, says Reshmi Upreti, a microbiologist at the University of Washington, Bothell. Several prominent researchers have argued that this lower diversity could contribute to increases in asthma and other inflammatory diseases.

In their past work comparing primate gut microbiomes, Moeller and colleagues simply looked at  . . .

Continue reading.

Is Cheese Harmful or Healthy? Compared to What?

Goodbye to Grooming Dept Moisturizing Pre-Shave Chamomile & Lemon after 508 days.

I started using Grooming Dept Moisturizing Pre-Shave — specifically, Chamomile & Lemon — on 15 February 2021. That’s 508 days ago — 1 year, 4 months, and 23 days. This morning I decided the tub was finished. (I could probably have gotten another week’s use from it, but I was eager to start my backup: a tub of Rainforest Grooming Dept Moisturizing Pre-Shave.)

I have used the Chamomile & Lemon pre-shave six days a week — never on Sunday — though on the infrequent occasions when I use a shave stick, I use MR GLO instead. Even taking skipped days into account, a tub of Moisturizing Pre-Shave will last well over a year of daily use. A tub is $17, so the per-shave cost is well under a nickel a shave. And in my experience, this stuff really works. (Grooming Dept is low on stock in the pre-shave, but West Coast Shaving and The Razor Company have various fragrances in stock.)

So we bid farewell to the old today and will welcome the new tomorrow. 

The old tub still did a fine job today, with lather from Colonia and the Star Craft shaving brush, and my well-prepped stubble welcomed Rockwell 6S R4 razor, which easily and smoothly produced a perfect outcome. A splash of Geo. F. Trumper’s Coral Skin Food, and the day begins.

The tea this morning is Murchie’s Victorian Garden: “Notes of jasmine, lavender, sweet pea and bergamot are combined with strawberry and vanilla in this smooth and well-rounded blend of green and black teas.”