How To Avoid Processed Foods (And Maintain Flavor)?

Oh my. I (we?) eat a ton of processed food. A coworker once labeled me the King of Processed Food, in fact. He used to eat oatmeal all the time (with fresh raisins mixed in). He used the dry oats straight out of the Quaker box.

I tried it. After decades of taste bud assault, the flavor came across as very weak.

Last night, playing chess online, I whipped up a quick batch of maple and brown sugar oatmeal. I was so proud of myself. Here I was, eating healthy. I passed up fatty bean & cheese burritos, macaroni and cheese, brownies, cookies and ice cream all in favor of a healthier snack. Then my wife reminded me the oatmeal I was eating was as processed as red licorice. Or more!

Check out the ingredients:

Whole grain rolled oats (=good)
Sugar (=bad)
Natural flavors (=good)
Artificial flavors (=bad)
Salt (=bad)
Calcium carbonate (a chemical used in paint and adhesives!, so =bad)
Guar gum (=bad?)
Caramel color (=bad)
Niacinamide (not too bad)
Vitamin A palmitate (what the hell's that?)
Reduced iron (iron's bad, I've read)
Pyridoxine hydrochloride (I didn't do well in Chemistry)
Riboflavin (OK)
Thiamin mononitrate (a vitamin B derivative, I think)
Folic acid (OK)

At least the two packets I ate only contained four grams of fat. That's something to be happy about, I suspect.

But now I'm on the lookout for nonprocessed foods. Other than a salad bar (and even that's iffy), what other edible options are out there?

IE 7 Full Of Holes?

As many are aware, Microsoft last week officially introduced Internet Explorer 7. The new browser features a simplified interface, dedicates more real estate to the Web pages you're browsing (which Apple's Safari's done for years), adds tabbed browsing (also available for years in Mozilla Firefox) and introduces supposed security enhancements (long a weakness of Windows' popular browser).

In my tests, the IE 7 beta looked really good. Unfortunately, it didn't always work properly. I encountered several crashes and, often, Web sites simply didn't load or function properly.

Many of my clients depend upon Web-enabled applications to fuel their operations and e-mail, so for the interim I've recommended they not move off IE 6 until they can confirm their tools and programs work properly with IE 7.

I'm increasingly becoming comfortable with that decision. As an IT consultant, I subscribe to several security e-mail newsletters. The last few days have seen my inbox filling with new IE 7-related bug, hole, vulnerability and exploit warnings. While I'm not a big Firefox fan, except on my Mac, I'm planning to stick with IE 6 for awhile.

Am I alone, or is everyone else permitting Microsoft Update to automatically load the new Internet Explorer 7 browser?

If you are, pay close attention to the new security warnings. They're coming fast and furious.

75% Of US Businesses Home-Based

According to the latest US Census Bureau data, 75 percent of US businesses are run by self-employed individuals with no employees. Nearly half of all US businesses are home-based, and 59% of owners are 45 or older.

I found those numbers surprising. This is especially true as I operate two essentially home-based businesses myself and find a number of my clients manage home-based companies, too.

Frequently I hear and read about home-based businesses. So many home-based business recruiters promise almost instant riches, which is why I was so quick to discount the concept for such a long time. But the more I researched running my own companies from a home office, and the longer I've been operating my own enterprises from home, the more I believe the concept's sound. Then today I read home-based businesses are, in fact, propping up the US economy.

That's pretty cool, in my book.

A Day In The Woods

I thought about writing about the Bengals game. I could fume about the referees and the bogus roughing-the-passer call that gave the Bucs the game, but good teams overcome bad calls and my heart just wasn't in it; Graham should never have had to try and kick a 62-yarder to win the game. I heard him on the radio discussing how he'd missed and I found myself shouting "Dude, it was 62 YARDS!" Not his fault.

I could write about how poorly the Cards played against the Bearcats, and how uncomfortable it makes me seeing us outplayed by an unranked club and having our coach say he told the players to enjoy the win anyway, but I won't.

Instead I want to call your attention to the outstanding blog entries Paul-A-Ver publishes. He wrote up the trip several of us made to Fort Duffield Sunday, and I think Douglas Adams himself would describe the author as "one cool frude."

What other group of guys - including Phatman who will kick your ass on a downhill while sporting a cowbell on his handlebars - can you hang with and discuss Civil War history, Didgeridoo, the Bengals, Proust, dual-suspension bikes and Alain de Botton all in one trip?

NHL Season Begins: Did Anyone Notice?

The NHL season has begun once again. Did you even notice?

I remember a few years ago working deliberately to schedule a Philadelphia business meeting on opening day. The goal? Witness my beloved Flyers open at home.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out. The meeting was held two days too early. At least I got to enjoy driving by Wachovia Center.

Then came the strike. I have no tolerance for sporting work stoppages, whether it's baseball, football or hockey. These guys make millions to play a game. Let them try working 40-hour weeks as plumbers, call center employees or sales reps for $500 a week. That'd get them back on the fields and arenas quickly, I suspect.

So, I boycotted the NHL last year on principle. Didn't watch a game. Even though I saw the Flyers listed in first place in the newspaper, I didn't even read the game summaries.

Apparently, neither did anyone else but the diehards.

Gone are the major-network TV contracts. Attendance figures are down for at least five teams. The fan base has stagnated. Even popular teams like the Penguins lost $7 million last season. None of that bodes well for the NHL.

The repercussions are clear. Just try to find a game on TV. Oh wait, you can't. Not unless you subscribe to Outdoor Life Network (which only a minor fraction of television viewers do). It used to be you could easily find NHL games on FOX and ESPN. No more.

That's what happens when you can't figure out how to split a ton of money, folks. People move on. Worse, not all of them come back when play resumes. Even baseball and football suffered declines following their work stoppages. The NHL never enjoyed the same vibrancy and popularity, so it's no surprise the sport continues struggling to increase audience and appeal.

Were the games on a major TV network, I'd probably watch. But even then I'd only tune in if Philly were playing. And judging by the looks of their record so far this year, there's not much to see.

Update:

The price of striking? Chicago, with it's storied Blackhawks franchise that brought the world the Espositos, is only 61% full! What a shame. Hockey was enjoying a resurgence, television broadcasts were frequent and then the players and owners killed the enthusiasm with a season-long work stoppage. What a shame, truly.

Bill Parcells DEFCON Rises To 2

Bill Parcells' blood pressure is rising. You just know it. The man's held his temper remarkably in Dallas, but I'm confident a spectacle is looming.

Following Terrell Owens' "Why Am I Here?!" rant this week, you knew the Bill Parcells DEFCON (BPD) meter jumped at least to three.

Now today it comes out that TO is no longer talking to his position coach. I say that's good enough to boost the BPD meter to two.

Can DEFCON 1 be far behind?

Cardinals' Second String Outperforms Others' First Stringers!

I, like most every other University of Louisville Cardinal fan, noticed excessive profusions of distempter from head coach Bobby Petrino during Friday night's Louisville-MTSU game. Granted, Petrino had his reasons. The Cardinals were slow to find their pace.

Any time a national champion-caliber team struggles against an unranked opponent it's cause for concern. But the Cards didn't struggle for long. After going down 10-3 (partially due to a fluke failed special teams defensive play) early, the University of Louisville offensive machine more than sparked to life. It exploded.

Apparently not everyone agrees (as witnessed by the Cards' moving up only a single spot in the national polls). Critics should rethink their arguments in light of these facts.

The Cardinals threw for 340 yards. They had 526 total yards of offense (without either their starting quarterback or their starting running back!).

Folks, those are video game-type numbers, and the Cards are doing it with their second string! Better yet, Louisville averaged 8.3 yards per play and converted seven of 13 third down attempts. That's good to help the Cards hold on to their ranking as the number one offense in college football.

The defense deserves accolades, too, though. In that MTSU game the defense only gave up 83 yards rushing.

Combine the two (overpowering offensive capacity and a stingy defense) and you'll see why I believe the Cards are a legitimate party to national championship conversations.

Bengals, Blink Both Prove Disappointing

Malcolm Gladwell's Blink started out strong, but faded to a limp-like end. Kind of like the Bengals game against the Patriots yesterday.

Cincinnati just flat failed to show up. The Bengals suffered a huge letdown after pasting Pittsburgh at home. Oh well.

I expected more from Gladwell's Blink, especially after all the hype The Tipping Point produced. Essentially, Gladwell builds excitement from three of four carefully selected academic studies that seemingly indicate the subconscious identifies clues and reaches conclusions (even with complex problems) much more quickly than conscious minds.

My trouble with the book? Gladwell leans too heavily on just a handful of supporting cases (there's an incident involving a sculpture, one regarding married couples, another associated with medical doctors and a few other strays thrown in). In other words, there's no statistically valid sample size here.

But then, there never was meant to be. This is a pop psychology book. Facts are for suckers.

I'd have even been OK with that. But his recounting (at the book's end) a horrible incident (immortalized by Bruce Springsteen) that essentially serves to undermine his neatly compacted "Blink" theory left me thinking "What? That's it? There's no more here?" Anyone can write a book supporting a surprising theory if they only have to find a few select case histories to support it (and that's not very hard).

All in all, the Blink concept's neat. Compelling, even. But there's no book here. A quick magazine article, yes, but no book.

Worse, I left the book thinking the Blink concept doesn't hold up in everyday life. After all, anyone watching the Bengals game yesterday would have thought the Patriots were in trouble inside the first few minutes. The Patriots couldn't move the ball. Brady was turning it over. Cincinnati gained yards then jumped on the board quick with two field goals.

But were you to jump to quick conclusions based on those facts and any evident subconscious clues - a supposedly common factor in the Blink theory - your instinctive reaction would have likely proven quite incorrect.