Studies involving rats show that when having access to junk food, pregnant rats ate roughly 40 percent more food and 56 percent more calories than rats who were fed just chow. Furthermore, once born, babies of the junk food rat mommas showed a preference for high fat and sugar foods and ate more than their chow fed peers.  Does this research translate to humans?

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Slimy

Actions speak louder than words. I can write no more scathing an attack on the leader of the opposition than he can achieve merely by being him. So it was that the man who instinctively knows where the camera is cycled to work whilst his chauffer followed just out of site driving a pair of shoes.

Fatuous, slimy, ultimately laughable. A joy to read. Silly boy.

So, now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s ponder on cycling here in the UK.

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Image:   colros on Flickr under a  Creative Commons license

I have to admit that my 3rd grader doesn’t eat school lunches. She has tried what the kids call “hot lunch” exactly 3 times in her entire public school career. She doesn’t like them. At all. Every morning, I fix her lunch, and although I sometimes grumble a little, I am glad to get to choose what she can eat for her midday meal.

But lately, I have been thinking a lot about those hot lunches. For one thing, they feed a lot of children. Many of my daughter’s friends eat them frequently or always. In 2006, more than 30 million children in the U.S. each day ate school lunches. And the school lunch program has been all over the news lately. From downer cows that end up in our kids’ lunches to efforts in districts across the country to combat obesity and bad eating habits in school cafeterias, school lunches seem to be a metaphor for all the bigger issues about food in America today.

Depending on who you talk to, school lunches might be described as anything from a program that nourishes our kids

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But according to a 2004 study in the International Journal of Obesity summarized in Bicycling Magazine, a class of pesticides called organochlorines actually slow down human metabolisms, making it harder for the body to use calories. Like many toxicants, organochlorines are bioaccumulaters, which means they are stored in the body rather than excreted efficiently. Most bioaccumulators are stored in the fat tissue of animals, including humans. Mercury is a good example of a bioaccumulator: tuna, swordfish and shark have high levels of mercury than sardines and shrimp because they are higher on the food chain and thus eat the mercury stored in the fatty tissue of prey fish, compounding toxicity. Similarly, organochlorines are stored in our fatty tissue.

But unlike heavy metals like mercury, organochlorines are actually excreted from tissue cells when a person burns calories (thermogenesis). At first, this sounds pretty good; obviously, the organochlorines are expelled from the body with a bit more efficiency than other bioaccumulators. The problem is, when we burn fat, the organochlorines are released into our bloodstream, where they are able to disrupt our mitochondria - the parts of our cells that generate energy. In doing so, they slow down each cell’s metabolic rate, which is another way of saying that they slow down a person’s entire metabolism.

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However, I always feel a pang of  ’green guilt,’ as I dutifully return the plastic bottles for recycling.  I had to consider that the plastic was made from petroleum, the bottles had to be shipped and it was all for an unneccessary food item. I found a brand of bubbly in glass containers, but the travel costs of our simple treat still nagged me.

My sister solved my dilemma with the best Christmas present ever! I am loving our new Soda Club Fountain Jet! Our starter kit came with soda flavors to add, but we’ve been happy with our bubbles and a squeeze of lemon or lime.

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I’m a skeinavore. I only eat foods from within 100 yards.

Now, let's make one thing clear: I would rather not eat at all. Every time I do, I feel immense guilt about the methane I produce. Did you know that the average person produces 2 liters of gas a day? The shame of it keeps me up at night.

But even a carbon-negative person like me has to take in calories. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here to point out and counteract all the wasteful, thoughtless things you people do.

Since I am forced to ingest biomatter, I’ve developed some easy-to-follow eating guidelines with our habitorb in mind. A Carbon-Negative Diet, if you will. So for those eager to learn the secret to staying thin and green, here, in a nutshell, is my diet:

• Things that come from my immediate vicinity.
• Things that died a natural death after a long, happy life.
• Things that I find.
• Things that don't produce methane. The following list of gas-generators is completely forbidden:

• Asparagus
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Corn
• Cucumbers
• Kohlrabi
• Leeks
• Onions
• Peas
• Peppers
• Radishes
• Sauerkraut
• Turnips
• Carbonated drinks
• Beer
• Red wine
• Sugar substitutes
• Apples
• Beans
• Dairy products
• Eggs
• Wheat
• Melons
• Apricots
• Prunes
• Olestra

This leaves, basically, hemp, soy, some ancient grains, and Chicken McNuggets®, but only if they fall to the ground in front of me. If every American followed my simple plan, obesity would be a thing of the past. We could curtail our methane production, shut down the cattle industry (indeed, all farming as we know it), and save billions in fuel and plus-size clothing. But of course you won’t. You’ll keep driving your Prius to Whole Foods and enjoying your tasty groceries. Fine; more spelt for me.