The Happiness in Health

Which Way Do Your Feet Roll?

Ω April 23rd, 2010 Ω Tagged Dirty Dozen, food safety, oatmeal, organic, physics, running, Saratoga Peanut Butter Company, strawberries Ω 39 Comments

New PSA: Your foot health is VERY important. You’re asking them to do a lot: running around from appointment to appointment, standing in line, even giving a well-placed kick every so often. Those puppies take a lot of abuse.

Did you know that when you run, your feet strike the ground at a force of three to four times your body weight? So, let’s take me for example:

F = mg
F = (54.5 kg) x (9.8 m/s2) (give or take a few decimal values)
F = 534.5 kg.m/s2 = 534.5 Newtons (with rounding error)

So, just loitering around, I’m exerting a force of 534.5 N on the Earth (and the Earth is pushing back on me with the same force, but for the sake of simplicity, we’ll ignore that little detail). So that means that when I’m running, I’m exerting a force of 1600 to 2100 Newtons! No wonder my feet hurt! Even if you don’t run, you exert a lot of force while walking.

I thought about force while I was running today (what? don’t you all think about stuff like that?), and how, gosh darn it, sometimes my feet just HURT. Especially the outsides of my feet. When I examined my sneakers a little closer today, I discovered why the outsides of my feet hurt the most:

See how the outside edge of my right sneaker is worn away? Here, it’s more apparent in one of my everyday walking-around shoes:

I’m a classic supinator, meaning my feet roll to the outside when I’m walking and running. Apparently, supination is not as common as overpronating, because I can’t find many shoes specially designed to correct supination. I’ll keep searching.

What? You want to know how big my feet are?

My feet are a size 9. I’m 5′ 6″, so my feet aren’t THAT big … but, as I mentioned before, my nickname at a former place of employment was “sled foot”. I just think of my big feet giving extra leverage while I run. Eat my dust, sukkahs!

Let’s talk about food a bit.

Oh no!! It’s the last of the Chillin’ Chocolate! The best OIAJ I’ve ever had, but still … *tear*

My sister D sent me this cute little Dirty Dozen cheat sheet that you can print out and take with you to the supermarket:

[source]

The Dirty Dozen are the 12 items of produce that have the highest level of pesticides. I talk about what produce to buy organic and what to buy conventional in this post from way back when. The guide above is great, especially concerning spinach. If you buy spinach in those “triple washed” tubs, don’t be deceived – spinach tested the highest for coliform bacteria of any leafy green, even spinach that was already “washed”. So, wash wash wash your spinach!

(Click on the “coliform bacteria” link if you really want to see what coliforms are. I’ll give you a hint: poopy.)

Have a great weekend, everyone! See you all on Sunday!

Q: Which way do YOUR feet roll?

» Filed under Exercise » 39 Comments

Encyclopedia Erwin and the Case of the Strange Fruit

Ω January 24th, 2010 Ω Tagged apples, organic, physics Ω 5 Comments

What the heck is this thing??

As a lover of all foods strange and fascinating, I couldn’t resist this one.  This is called a “Buddha’s hand“, an uncommonly used citrus fruit (at least here in the US). I’ve mostly seen them used in decorations, although apparently they can be candied or eaten raw. I’ve actually tried a Buddha’s hand, and while it WAS an experience … I think I’ll stick with oranges :).

While grocery shopping today, I picked up one of the two produce items I buy organic: apples.

The other item I buy organic is lettuce. Why these two? When I’m triaging produce items due to cost, I look at two categories:

(1) how often I eat them, and
(2) how dirty they are.

By how dirty they are, I mean: how much pesticide would I be eating with each bite? Produce items with a thick skin, like bananas or oranges, don’t need to be organic because the skin will be removed anyway. Items that are part of the dirty dozen usually have thin skins (= high pesticide). Those on the list that I eat a lot, I buy organic.

As a side note: I love red bell peppers, but I rarely buy them organic because they are so gosh darned expensive compared to regular peppers. I figure I don’t eat them enough to matter. We all need our priorities, right?

For lunch, Peter and I checked out this new Indian restaurant in Glastonbury. The restaurant served a buffet, and I tried many different items:

Not too shabby, typical Indian restaurant fare. I’d probably go back there again for dinner, as the lunch buffet didn’t have saag paneer :(.

The dessert was honey dough balls (I think they’re called Gulab Jamun?):

Doughy, dense, and delicious, with an exotic flavor I couldn’t place. Maybe cardamom or some other Indian spice? One of these makes a great end to a meal.

Have you ever though about what happens to the water inside a glass when you rotate it? (Upright, of course, or you’ll make a mess!) You would think that the water would rotate, too, but no no! Due to inertia, the water in the middle of the glass stays still. Try it some time at dinner. If you have ice cubes in your glass, you’ll see that they don’t move much (they will move a little, due to friction). Pretty cool, huh?

I’m outies like a belly button.

» Filed under Eating Out » 5 Comments