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It's Monday, so you know what that means?  POOP QUIZ.  Wait, I mean POP QUIZ.  Ah, that's so embarrassing.  Anyhow, here's the question: which foods -- plants or animals -- tend to have the largest effect on your poo and pee?

Here's my list:

• Beets turn my urine and stool red
• Asparagus makes my pee smell
• Beans make many people fart (though I don't remember having a specific problem with this)
• Corn and peanuts have been known to pass through the digestive system intact
• Cheese tends to firm things up

Five out of six of those are plants.  And I can't think of eating an animal where I can look in the toilet afterward and say, "Looks like I ate [X animal] yesterday."  Chicken, fish, beef, poultry, wild game, eggs.  It all looks pretty much the same coming out the other end.  But plants?  It's like a rainbow of odd smells and colors and textures.

<fiction>

"Dear John, your bathroom adventures are all rather amusing, but what's your point?  -- Adriana Lima, Brazil.  PS - luv ur blog!  PPS - Why dont u return my calls???" 

</fiction>

Many of us have firsthand experience that there is far more chemical diversity in the plant kingdom than in the animal kingdom.  Just look down.

Think of it this way.  Plants are the source of both deadly poisons and life-saving medicines.  They can be good or bad.  And given this diversity, our digestive system hasn't evolved to recognize and efficiently process them all.  There are just way too many weird chemical compounds out there.

But when it comes to eating animals, you pretty much know what you're getting. Muscle is muscle, and it's made up of pretty much the same stuff among all mammals.  Bird muscles are made in a similar way to other bird muscles.  No big surprises.  Your digestive system knows what to do.

Now, say you're lost in the New Guinea rain forest.  You could eat an exotic species of mammal (provided you can kill it) -- and your digestive system is going to know what to do with it.  I don't recommend eating random plants that you find in the rain forest.  You're more likely to end up sick (or dead).

Now, say you're lost in the grocery store.  Given the chemical diversity in the plant kingdom, shouldn't we be a little bit more suspicious about which plants are actually healthy and which are actually harmful?  Maybe whole grains aren't gods gift to mankind.  Maybe kale is loaded with nutrients.  And there may be novel health threats from the processed meat for sale.

Look, I'm not saying there aren't profoundly healthy plants (remember: poisons AND medicines), but why do so many people assume that plants are healthy and animals are unhealthy?  If you were actually in the wild, faced with unfamiliar plants and animals, you should have the exact opposite orientation: be far more cautious of eating unfamiliar plants than unfamiliar animals.

Got firsthand experience?  Put it in the comments.

Here's a rap response to Gettin' Real in the Whole Foods Parking Lot.  The first minute is the weakest, but the rhymes really pick up and some are drop dead funny.

Yesterday I went to the premier dog show in the world: the 135th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.  The World Series of Woof.  The second oldest continually-held sporting event in the country.  (Know the oldest?  Put your best guess in the comments.)

I was a man on a mission.  I wanted to talk to dog-owners and breeders who fed their dogs an ancestral diet -- more or less what a wolf would eat.  What's great is that you actually get to go "backstage" and meet the dogs.  Many owners let you pet their dogs, and most are happy to talk (the owners, not the dogs).  So I went around interviewing owners and breeders.  And -- miracle of miracles -- many dog owners and breeders are already on to this paleo concept.  But they don't need to call it paleo.  (That's a term that us highly intelligent humans need to help figure out what to eat.)  They just call it raw, whole prey raw, or BARF.  A species-specific diet.  

It's astonishing how many health problems go away when you stop feeding grain-based kibble to dogs.  This list of health benefits is assembled form interviews with multiple owners / breeders:

• *Much* better teeth
• Bad breath goes away
• Healthier and shinier coat
• The dog stops smelling so "dog-like"
• Less moody
• Lost weight (if overweight)

Sound familiar?  I wonder why it works.  I asked them what motivated them to feed their dogs this way, and I heard: "Well, it just makes sense."

Not everybody was a fan of raw.  Here were some difficulties and criticisms:

• Concern about getting a balanced set of nutrients, particularly as puppies
• The time required to source and prepare quality food
• Difficulty when traveling
• Concern about bacterial contamination of animal products

Most WKC dog show owners simply feed their dog kibble / chow -- fairly high-end brands, unsurprisingly.  Many dogs do just fine on it.  But these high-end dog food brands have all been going grain free.  (Dog people, with characteristic frankness, just call it "grain free", not the specific and obscure "gluten free".)

Some of it may vary by breed too -- there are breeds that are closer to wolves, like a husky, malamute, or spitz.  (You can spot these breeds because they still have the pointy ears, curly tail, and double coat of a wolf.)  One spritz owner just quarters up a cow and tosses it into a pen of puppies.  They happily devour it.  More domesticated breeds may have a higher tolerance for plant foods -- even the raw dogs would seek out some fruit in the orchard, and enjoyed carrots and beets.  With so many breeds, I'd be surprised if there weren't some variability in diet.

At the show, there are well over 100 breeds represented.  Each breed belongs to one of seven groups, more or less based on the function they were bred for:

• Sporting (retrievers, setters, spaniels)
• Hound (beagles, dachshunds, greyhound)
• Working (malamute, great dane, husky, rottweiler)
• Terrier (scottish terrier, bull terrier) 
• Toy (toy poodle, shih tzu, chihuahua)
• Non-Sporting (bulldog, poodle, chow chow)
• Herding (collies, german shepherd)

What's a little ironic is that despite being grouped by function, they aren't assessed by function.  Why not have a competition, and assess the dogs on how well they retrieve, herd, flush out prey, learn commands, and run?  Functional fitness anyone?  And yes, we can also assess them by how well they cuddle and elicit coos from grown men.

One other thing I noticed.  Dog handlers give treats to their dog in the ring.  And they seemed to briefly put the treat in their own mouth, and then give it to the dog.  What was actually happening, I learned, is that the handlers were storing the treats in their mouths.  Apparently, because it's easier to access.  And ya know what the treats are?  Liver.  Cooked liver.  These professional dog handlers are keeping a bunch of cooked liver in their mouths.  Needless to say, dogs really love liver.  Wonder why.  Maybe more nutritious or something.

Anyhow, it was a cool event and if you're ever in NYC when it's going on, I recommend you go.  And no matter where you are, you must now watch clips from one of the funniest movies of all time, Best in Show.  Or better yet, go watch the whole thing.

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Disclaimer: I do not recommend that you eat whole prey raw.  Unless you're a dog.

Everbody gets tired at work, particularly in the early afternoon.  Here are 11 ways to defeat sleepiness at the office or in class.

1. Eat less sugar and carbohydrate - Sugar and carbs cause your blood sugar to spike...then crash. Cut back on the carb-heavy breakfasts (bagels, muffins, toast, juice, fruit) and go with eggs, bacon, vegetables.  For lunch, skip the pasta bowl and go for a cobb salad. For a snack, have a few nuts or some jerky. 

2. Get 10 minutes of sun - Pretend you're a smoker and take a smoke break...then go get some rays.  Sun exposure wakes you up. That's why people get black-out shades when they sleep -- it's harder to sleep with the sun shining on your body.

3. Use a light box - Folks use light boxes for seasonal affective disorder and for re-establishing their circadian rhythms. The light is telling your body that it's daytime!  Or just keep the lights on bright.

4. Take a power nap - 10 minutes goes a long way. Find a place in your office building (or outside) where you can take a little snooze. The bathroom stall works in a pinch.

5. Fast - When I am really tired, this is my go to secret.  Fasting keeps me super alert, even when I'm exhausted.  That's why I was fasting during my interview on Colbert (a post on that later).  The body is saying, "Okay, I'm hungry -- be active and go hunt or gather some food.  Why are you just sitting here?  Don't you want to survive and reproduce?  Get your ass in gear."  Warning: Fasting will be distracting if you typically eat a lot of sugar and carbohydrate or have never done it before.

6. Stand up - I've come to love standing up to work.  It puts you in an active frame of mind.  Imagine trying to work while lying down in a soft bed.  Difficult, right?  So do the opposite.

7. Keep it cold - When it's a little chilly, it's harder to fall asleep.  Turn down the thermostat, open a window, or lose the sweater.

8. Exercise - On your lunch break, go workout at a nearby gym or go for a run.  You'll have an exercise buzz for hours.

9. If you drink caffeine, try to keep it slow and steady - If you're a caffeine drinker, avoid that enormous spike of caffeine in the morning, because you'll crash a few hours later.  A better strategy is to drink coffee or tea a bit slower over a longer stretch.

10. Listen to upbeat music - An old trick.

11. Get more sleep at night - Duh.

For all of these, it's useful to think about what makes you tired, AND THEN DO THE OPPOSITE.  Darkness vs. Light.  Soft music/silence vs. Upbeat music.  Lying down vs. Standing up.  Eating a big meal vs. Fasting.  Inactivity vs. Exercise.  Warm vs. Cold.  Also think about combining methods -- a 10 minute nap in the sun and you will feel like a new person.  Fasting and standing up?  You can stay awake for a year.

Okay, have at it.  Use these tips and you'll have a lot more time to waste on facebook.

Yes, I have a man crush on Joel Salatin.  Featured in Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Food Inc.,  Salatin is a self-described: "Christian libertarian environmentalist lunatic".  And he's an articulate (and entertaining) advocate of sustainable farming.  Any time he speaks, you're pretty much guaranteed a show.  He didn't disappoint as the keynote speaker at this year's Wise Traditions - Weston Price Conference.  I've dug up a few videos.

First, here's a great TEDx talk he gave about his first foray into selling his eggs to restaurants.  Listen to how he talks about The Essence of Egg.  The Essence of Chicken.  The Essence of Pig.  And how he brings those animals to life by creating the right habitat for them at Polyface Farm.

Then think about The Essence of Human.  What habitat brings out our human essence?

Here's a short clip on farming regulation.  Money quote:"They need to grant us that at some point that a food ingestion is not a government event."

And here is an excerpt from his talk at Wise Traditions 2010 courtesy of Real Food Media.

Here are other Joel Salatin videos, Joel Salatin's books, Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, Food Inc., and Salatin's Polyface Farm. 

You know my position on gourmet cupcakes: evil of the purest form.  Princess of Comfort Foods.  Harbinger of Civilizational (Tooth) Decay.  Which is why you may be surprised to hear me defend some cupcake makers.  Get this:

Welcome to the regulatory state.  Where you need a license to live.  What a great lesson to teach our children: don't bother.  Don't bother taking a risk, starting a little business, and learning how to turn a profit.  Pack up your enterprise, turn off your ingenuity, and go play some video games.

Shame on Michael Wolfensohn.  But Wolfensohn was just following the rules.  The rules are the problem.  A bad set of rules looks like this: everything is illegal, with the exception of complex specified licensed activities.  Good rules: everything is legal, with the exception of a few simple specified illegal activities.

You might say that this is an isolated incident.  It's not.  Burdensome regulations have shut down local farmers markets.  And if you want some horror stories that are happening all over America, visit the Institute for Justice.  IJ has done pro-bono work on economic liberty cases.

• Taalib-Din Abdul Uqdah v. District of Columbia.  The DC Board of Cosmetology (whatever that is for) tried to impose the 1938 Cosmetology Code on Uqdah's traditional African hair-braiding business.  Something tells me the 1938 bureaucrats who wrote the code didn't have African hair in mind.  It's a Medieval guild system.
• Kalish v. Milliken.  "Anyone in Virginia can do yoga, and anyone can teach yoga.  But, incredibly, it is illegal to teach people to teach yoga.  Yoga-teacher training is just the latest target of vocational school licensing laws that require countless entrepreneurs to ask the government’s permission before opening their mouths."
• Meadows v. Odom.  "Why would the Louisiana Horticulture Commission force a florist to either throw away seven perfectly fine floral displays or be fined $250?  Because would-be Baton Rouge florist Sandy Meadows, like so many other women, has been unable to pass a highly subjective State-mandated floral exam—an exam graded by existing florists in the state who have a vested interest in keeping her out of work."

The DC Board of Cosmetology?  The Louisiana Horticulture Commission?  These bureaucracies are parasites.  And the people who work there are parasites.  It's terrible that we have to even assert this, but people have a right to make an honest living.  

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

As for the 13-year old cupcake makers?  I disapprove of what you sell, but I will defend to the death your right to sell it.*

* Except for Sex and the City gourmet cupcakes.  If you sell those, you're on your own, boys.  I may even tip off the officer myself.

Update: One reader, Bob Ewing, actually works for IJ.  Check out his comments, and this excellent video on all the crazy licensing regulations out there. 

Pomegranates must be in season somewhere, because they're cheap in New York right now.  And as much as it pains me to say anything positive about a product with the word "wonderful" in its name, I kind of dig these new ads for Pom Wonderful.  They are based on three ancient myths of the pomegranate: a Persian warrior named Isfandiyar, Eve and the Garden of Eden, and Aphrodite.  (The company must have passed on The Rape of Persephone, the cheerful tale of Hades abducting Persephone, taking her to the underworld, and tricking her into eating pomegranate seeds.  She didn't read the fine print, which stipulated for each seed she ate, she would have to spend a month in the underworld each year.  Thus, winter.  Maybe Tim Burton will direct that one.)

Questions I find interesting:

• Which fruits are the oldest in their current form?  Clearly, apples and oranges are dramatically larger and sweeter than their ancestral varieties.  What about pomegranates?  Which are most ancient, which are most recent?
• What other ancient myths surround different fruits, or foods?  Which fruits and foods get more myths than others and why?  And does this reflect a collected wisdom that these foods actually are more nutritious than others?

Know any good links, leads, or books?  Share 'em in the comments.