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DIY natural hygiene products you can make at home 12 Mar 2023 10:53 AM (2 years ago)

Should we keep wearing masks after the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic is over? 8 Jan 2022 12:17 PM (3 years ago)

After almost two years of wearing masks in public, are we ready to ditch the mask? There are some compelling reasons not to.

The COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic struck North America like a freight train in March 2020. We saw it coming, yet we were embarrassingly unprepared. In May 2020, despite the obvious benefits of wearing a mask during a respiratory pandemic, I was frustrated that the authorities were still poo-pooing masks.

Close everything down and send the economy plummeting? Sure, why not?

Wear masks that are only a minor inconvenience? Not a chance.

Fast-forward to 2022. We kick off the year after wearing masks for a year-and-a-half, since the authorities finally recommended and even mandated mask-wearing. It turns out that masks – surprise, surprise – protect people from infecting each other with coronavirus. Whodathunk?

Masks are super protectors

It turns out that masks also protect people from other things, too.

Every year seasonal influenza (the flu) rages through the United States. According to the CDC:

CDC estimates that flu has resulted in 9 million – 41 million illnesses, 140,000 – 710,000 hospitalizations and 12,000 – 52,000 deaths annually between 2010 and 2020.

 

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC):

Each year in Canada, it is estimated that influenza causes approximately:

• 12,200 hospitalizations
• 3,500 deaths

 

In both countries, those deaths and hospitalizations happen overwhelmingly from early October until late April.

Except for the 2020-2021 flu season…because there was no 2020-2021 flu season. Check the graphs below.

The CDC graph shows how the 2020-2021 flu season (pink line) never took off. You can see how it compares to the previous three seasons (green, dark blue and light blue). While we were all wearing masks, the flu flew away.

But look what’s happening this season. As fewer Americans are wearing masks, and the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is filling hospitals, it looks like we are having a flu season once again. Or not. You see, the US flu monitoring doesn’t actually test for flu – it just tracks flu-like symptoms. And the Omicron variant resembles the flu more than previous variants. SO that flu season that we might be having this year is likely just Omicron.

The PHAC graph compares the 2020-2021 flu season (dashed blue line across the bottom) with the average from 2014 to early pre-pandemic 2020. These are actual tests for flu, and once again, there really was no flu season.

This year (red line, also across the bottom), as Canadians continue to wear masks indoors, no flu season again. Because these are actual tests, the avalanche of Omicron cases can’t swamp the flu-tracking results in Canada.

Awwww…but it’s just the flu.

Actually, it’s about 40,000 deaths per year across North America. Yes, if we all wore masks in public, indoor spaces from October through April, we could save 40,000 people from dying. Is wearing a mask too much of a burden to save 40,000 people from dying?

There are also 450,000 hospitalizations each year from flu across North America. That’s half a million people suffering a lot more than “just a flu” each year. And we could relieve that suffering just by wearing a mask in public places.

But there is more. A 2017 study pegged the average hospital stay for seasonal influenza at C$14,612 (about US$11,500). That is a US$14 million drain on the Canadian economy.

But that’s nothing compared to the toll it takes on the US economy. An NCBI study found that the “average annual total economic burden of influenza to the healthcare system and society” in the United States is a whopping $11.2 billion. That’s over $11 billion each year caused by flu hospitalizations.

Let’s review. If we wear masks in public places, we save 40,000 lives, save 450,000 people from suffering so badly that they need to go to the hospital and save the economy over $11 billion.

Take our masks off and 40,000 people die, 450,000 people suffer and we throw away $11 billion. Any questions?

Your masking questions answered!

Would we have to wear masks everywhere?

Good question. The honest answer is that I don’t know. But, seeing as my credentials on masks and disease prevention appears more accurate than that of the “experts”, here is my tentative advice. We should wear masks wherever lots of people are in close proximity in small places with poor ventilation. For example:

• in public transportation, such as buses, airplanes, trains and maybe taxis
• in elevators
• in stores and malls
• in theatres and indoor stadiums, when more than a quarter of the seats are occupied
• probably some other places, too

Should there be mask mandates? What about my rights?

There is a saying: My right to throw a punch ends where your face begins. Do we have a right to infect people when we know that some people will die and others will get painfully sick? Especially when the solution is sooooo easy to implement?

As a general rule, we try to avoid high-cost, low-benefit mandates. But saving 40,000 lives, 450,000 hospitalizations and over $11 billion is a huge gain. And it can be achieved at so little cost and so little inconvenience.

I don’t wanna wear a mask. I want to protest instead.

[Sarcasm alert!]

I understand the huge burden society would place on your shoulders. Being forced to cover up a part of your body in the name of “public decency” is bad enough. But now you would be asked to cover up a part of your body to save 40,000 lives, 450,000 hospitalizations and over $11 billion. I can see how that might be taking things too far.

[End sarcasm]

I don’t see anybody demanding their right to walk around topless.

I don’t see anybody demanding their right to walk around bottomless.

I don’t see any sincerity in demanding the right to walk around maskless.

Let’s start talking about a seasonal mask mandate

The benefits of wearing a mask are not limited just to the effects of the flu. Even the common cold costs people in misery, in unproductive days off work and in over-the-counter medications. I don’t know about you, but since this pandemic began, we’ve had no colds in our household.

Plus, COVID-19 will probably remain with us in one form or another. Less deadly. Less dangerous. But still killing people and still sending them to hospital, just like the flu. When the pandemic is over and the COVID-19 becomes endemic, it will still be worth wearing a mask to protect against thousands of COVID-related deaths and hospitalizations each year.

There might be other diseases that have been lessened since we’ve been wearing masks, too. We might be saving lives without even realizing it.

The benefits of mask-wearing are high. The costs are low. With any luck, we can put this pandemic behind us. When we do, we could retain good habits we’ve learnt … or we could return to 40,000 senseless deaths and 450,000 needless hospitalizations, at a cost of over $11 billion.

House or apartment – which is best for fitness? 20 May 2021 3:53 AM (3 years ago)

If you live in a house, it’s much easier to keep fit. Here are 11 reasons why?

File this under “Things the COVID-19 pandemic taught me.”

One of the defining attributes of the pandemic has been weight gain. In fact, 61% of US adults experienced undesired weight change in the first year of the pandemic. Most of that was weight gain.

Some of the loss might be because so many people got sick. Some might have been due to stress.

Most of the weight gain was likely due to one of two factors. First, eating more, partly due to stress and partly due to being around food more in confinement. Second, less physical activity while in confinement.

I am willing to bet that apartment dwellers bear a disproportionate share of the weight gain. That’s because it’s easier to keep fit in a house than an apartment. In confinement, therefore, house dwellers are more likely to keep fit.

Why it’s easier to keep fit in a house

Let’s start with the obvious. To put it simply, one is more confined in an apartment than in a house. With the exception of tiny houses and monster apartments, houses are just bigger.

• The average size of apartments in the U.S. is 882 square feet.
• The average size of houses in the U.S. is 1,650 square feet.

So, house dwellers have on average nearly twice as much space to move in as apartment dwellers have. Of course, there might be more people living in the houses, so it’s a little more complicated.

Indeed, it gets more complicated. More space means longer distances to walk. Each time you get off the couch to go to the washroom, you take more steps. Each time you got to the fridge to get a snack. Each time to move from one place in your home to the other, you will take more steps on average in a house than in an apartment.

Housecleaning keeps you fitter than apartment cleaning. Just washing, sweeping, vacuuming and dusting take twice the work in the average house than in the average apartment. There are just more surfaces to clean in a house. Twice the floor space, twice the wall surfaces, twice the furniture to keep clean, twice the bathroom space, larger counters, and much more than twice the windows.

Houses come with land, and taking care of the land can keep a person fit. Mowing, shoveling snow, weeding, raking and gardening all burn calories. Apartments have no outside to care for.

Apartments also have little maintenance. No furnace to check on. No plumbing to take care of. No electricals. These are all taken care of by the landlord. Although they might call in a plumber or electrician from time to time, house owners have to take care of maintenance and repairs themselves.

House dwellers go beyond repairs and maintenance. There always seems to be things to build or upgrade in a house. Not so in an apartment. Most apartment dwellers don’t even own a toolbox, let alone power tools. A hammer, plyers and a multi-bit screwdriver might be all the tools they own.

Here’s a big difference. Many houses have staircases, and climbing stairs is good exercise. I can’t find statistics, but I assume about half of houses have staircases. I go up and down my stairs on average a dozen times per day. That’s 4,380 flights of stirs per year. Talk about incidental calorie burning!

Even many one-story houses have some stairs. For example, high ranch bungalows and split levels have some stairs. And most houses have two or three steps at the front door or coming in from the garage.

And then there are basements. But not everywhere. Only 42% of U.S. houses have basements, which means that 58% don’t. Still, that is almost half of houses have basement stairs, which means that almost half of house dwellers go down occasionally or often for recreation, to get things from storage or to contemplate their furnace or hot water tank or circuit breakers. I go down on average once a day, although there might be weeks when I don’t go down and days when I go down many times (like for Christmas or Halloween decorations, or to switch clothes at the changes of seasons).

Possibly the most subtle difference between apartments and houses is that it’s easy to go outside from a house. Just open the door, and step into the yard, front or back. That might not be a very long walk, but already the house expands from twice the size of an apartment to three or four times the size.

And outside extends beyond the yard. Going for a longer walk is almost instantaneous. Consider the steps to take in an apartment just to leave the building:

1. Get dressed.
2. Grab keys.
3. Lock door.
4. Walk to elevator.
5. Push button.
6. Wait
7. Get in elevator.
8. Push button.
9. Wait
10. Walk to door.
11. Push through door.
12. Push through second door.

It just seems like so much work to go anywhere that one does it only when planning a major trip.

In a house, one might not even get dressed to go into one’s back yard. And to walk across the street to be neighborly – even at a social distance – one might not even grab one’s keys, never mind lock the door.

And so it is that I lost weight during the pandemic. No more sitting for hours in a car commuting. Instead, that time went to more gardening. And working from home means it’s easy to pace around outside while on the phone, something one cannot do in an office tower. Or in an apartment (It’s a long way down if you absent-mindedly do.).

There’s another hidden “bonus” connection between fitness and dwelling type. When you move more, you reduce stress. When you are surrounded by nature, which is more likely in a house, you are less stressed. When you are less confined, you feel less stressed. Living in a house is less stressful.

When you are less stressed, you are less likely to eat more than you need. So, not only are you more likely to keep fit in a house, you are also less likely to overeat.

Everything I’ve written here is about averages. Some people in apartments keep very fit. Some people go for extended walks twice a day, or go cycling every evening. Some people don’t waste time with elevators when it’s so much healthier to use the stairs.

And some house-dwellers don’t climb back up the basement stairs from their gaming until their bladder is begging for mercy or threatening to explode.

But on average, there is simply more space to move, both inside and outside a house than in an apartment. There are more surfaces to clean and much, much more to take care of. So keeping fit without even trying is much easier in a house than in an apartment.

Let’s end disposable plastic containers in Canada 17 Oct 2020 4:33 PM (4 years ago)

Plastic can be useful. Disposable plastic is almost always wasteful. Canadians, it’s your turn to make a difference and put an end to disposable, single-use plastics in Canada.

The government of Canada has proposed to end some disposable plastics, and it wants to know what you think. Do you think it wants to ban too many types of disposable plastic, or do you think it should ban even more?

To be honest, the government is proposing to ban more types of single-use plastic items than I expected. But the list falls far short of what could be done, and some of the most wasteful and easiest to ban disposable plastics did not make the list.

This is where you can help.

The Government of Canada is asking for your feedback:

This discussion paper is seeking input on a proposed integrated management approach to plastics to take a number of actions, including regulations which would be developed under the provisions of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA).

 
Here’s a link to the discussion paper:

• A proposed integrated management approach to plastic products: discussion paper

The formal consultation period is over, but a letter expressing one’s view is never a lost cause. Politicians and bureaucrats are highly sensitive to what people are thinking, even when there is no formal consultation in place.

Parties wishing to comment on any aspect of this paper, including the categorization of single-use plastics and proposed management approaches, are invited to provide written comments to the Director of the Plastics and Marine Litter Division of ECCC by December 9, 2020 at ec.plastiques-plastics.ec@canada.ca.

 

Yes, you can help change the course of disposable plastics history. Here is what I suggest you do.

Let’s ban single-use plastic containers for soap, shampoo, conditioner, hand cream and tooth paste

These are soooo easy to get rid of that it’s almost a no brainer. For more details, here is my blog post on these single-use plastic containers.

Then, write to the Director of the Plastics and Marine Litter Division of ECCC by December 9, 2020 at ec.plastiques-plastics.ec@canada.ca.

Not sure what to say? Here is what I wrote:

Dear Director.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on A proposed integrated management approach to plastic products: discussion paper.

You are off to a great start, so thank you for the effort you and your team put into reviewing the wide array of wasteful plastics Canadians use daily.

Please add soap, shampoo, conditioner and hand cream bottles, as well as tooth paste tubes to your list. Indeed, you could add any personal care product that comes in a liquid or cream form.

All these products are available in unwrapped bars right now. Indeed, the majority of soap is already sold this way. It would take a matter of months for factories to re-tool and sell their products in less-polluting bars. There is no reason these products need to be wrapped in disposable bottles.

Furthermore, manufacturers could easily dispense liquid shampoo and conditioner, as well as hand cream, soap and toothpaste, at point-of-sale. We do this with gasoline. We do this with beverages at the cafeteria. We don’t throw away the old gas tank when it comes time to fill up, so why throw away a shampoo bottle when it’s time to fill that up?

There are options for every type of consumer. There are options for industry.

Bonus: shipping all that shampoo and conditioner to stores in solid form, or even in bulk for dispensing, will reduce Canada’s carbon footprint, helping the Government of Canada to meet another important planet-saving goal.

I look forward to seeing an expanded list that includes these “low-hanging fruits” in 2021.

 

Don’t copy my words; use your own. Add to the list if you can think of other products that come in single-use containers that could easily be replaced. Refer to your own feelings and your own experience. Tell the government how you would prefer to buy these products in some way other than in a disposable bottle. A single personal letter is worth more than hundreds of form letters.

Canada is a democracy. We get our say between elections on important issues like this. There might not be this good a chance to make a difference in reducing plastic waste for another decade or two.

So take a few minutes to make a big difference now, while the door is open. Send your comments to ec.plastiques-plastics.ec@canada.ca today.

Top 10 bad products we buy that are destroying our planet 19 Jul 2020 11:30 AM (4 years ago)

Everything we buy has an impact on the environment. But some things bring us little value, even if they are “convenient”…and some of those are pure waste! So why buy them in the first place?

Sometimes we struggle between the pursuit of convenience and the need to protect the environment. But what we carelessly call “the environment” is our life support system. So, it’s important to to keep convenience in perspective.

Would you pee in the swimming pool, just because it’s convenient?

Don’t answer that.

Here is my list of top ten brainless products that should be banned. They pollute our life support system while adding little, if any, real value. When we buy them, we are peeing in the swimming pool. Let’s call them “Satan’s Little Helpers”.

Disposable shampoo bottles

Consider the life span of a shampoo bottle. You buy it, along with the shampoo inside. Eventually, you use up the shampoo. But the bottle is as good as new. So what do you do with that bottle? Best case scenario is that it gets recycled. Or it goes into the recycling stream, but ends up in a landfill. Or, worst case, it goes straight to the landfill.

But the bottle is still as good as new!

You don’t throw out your gas tank when you run low on fuel.

You don’t throw out your fridge when you run low on food.

Why throw away your shampoo bottle when you run low on shampoo?

The answer: because the stores refuse to sell you the shampoo without the bottle. Seriously, go to Walmart and try telling them you need a refill. “No thanks. I don’t need a new bottle. Just the shampoo, thank you very much.”

Good luck!

Disposable shampoo bottles should be banned. Same for conditioner bottles. And moisturizing bottles. And tooth paste tubes. And laundry detergent bottles.

In fact, all disposable containers could easily be banned, given a few years lead time for industry to re-tool. Isn’t it nuts that disposable containers exist at all?

Why are disposable bottles still allowed for shampoo, conditioner, hand cream? #ZeroWaste
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Disposable dryer sheets

This might be less known, but there are substitutes for disposable dryer sheets, such as aluminum balls or wool dryer balls.

I use a sheet made out of fabric from PurEcoSheet that I won in a contest years ago (I wish I knew what the fabric is).

With any of these options, you don’t even have to put them in the dryer or take them out. Just keep them there.

Never think about putting in the dryer sheets.

Never make the effort to throw away the old dryer sheets.

Never pay for dryer sheets again.

And never create needless waste from dryer sheets.

Do they work? Ours do. We never have static in our clothing. Bonus, we never have unnecessary chemicals wiping off our clothes onto our bodies, either.

As an aside, when you buy disposable dryer sheets, the store will force you to buy a new box each time, too.

Wet wipes

Let’s see. We have cleansers galore at our house. You probably do, too.

We have plenty of rags, as clothes often wear out. You probably have them, too.

We are blessed to have the miracle of hot and cold running water at our house. Bet you do, too!

So why does anybody need pre-wet disposable “wipes” to clean counters, wash hands or wipe down any normal household surface? Sure, you might not want to throw a cloth full of heavy machine grease into your laundry, but all other rags are 100% washable.

Disposable wipes are nothing but garbage, wrapped in extra plastic (yes, they make you buy new plastic wrapping each time)! Don’t buy them.

You have cloth, soap, water – what do you need disposable wipes for? #ZeroWaste
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Paper Towels

Like wet wipes, these are totally useless. How many trees are cut down each year to create disposable rags? How many clothes – rags in waiting – are placed in the garbage each year? ‘Nough said.

Zipper seal bags

Let me preface this by saying that zipper seal bags and similar products are not necessarily evil. Yes, they are disposable, but that’s just how they are marketed (to keep you buying more of them).

I‘ve used the same zipper seal bag – rinsed weekly and occasionally washed – for my daily cut vegetables for several months at a time.

Don’t put meat or cheese in them; that makes them hard to wash and re-use. Use them only for non-oily things and they are very handy. Unlike hard containers, they adjust to the shape and size of space available in your lunch box.

And if you are canoeing or hiking, they will keep things dry (and if you add lots of air, your passport will not only stay dry, but also float when your canoe capsizes).

Don’t hold your breath for TV ads explaining how to extend the life of your zipper seal bags. Just do it on your own. Else, they are just more disposables polluting our planet.

Plastic shopping bags

This is the du-uh item on my list. Twenty years ago, my wife and I were the only ones shopping with reusable bags at the grocery store. Now everyone does.

Well, not quite everyone. Can you believe that 500 billion plastic bags are still being given or sold for a nominal fee each year? With an average usage of 12-15 minutes each? That it takes 60 million barrels of oil to make those bags…each year? Obviously, neither the urge to avoid peeing in the communal pool, nor the “hefty” five-cent fee (where a fee is even charged at all), are dissuading shoppers from using disposable bags at grocery stores.

And how often do you see anybody bring their own bags when shopping for clothes or hardware or toys or anything else?

It’s time to ban disposable bags.

Not plastic disposable bags – all disposable bags. There’s a lot of research suggesting that paper might be as bad as plastic when life-cycle environmental damage is calculated.

Oh yes, with a ban on disposable bags people will stop forgetting to bring their bags. Occasionally, somebody will still forget, of course. At that point, they can decide to buy a new non-disposable bag at a more reasonable $2.00 price. Or they can decide to just carry out their goods.

There are options beyond disposable grocery bags. And fashion store bags. And hardware store bags. This one is just a no-brainer.

Individually wrapped packages

How many times have you bought a box of some food product, only to find that each item inside is individually wrapped, or wrapped in pairs? Cookies, crackers, snacks – there is no need for this. All that extra packaging only serves to pollute more, both by filling landfills after being used and in polluting the air when the plastic is being manufactured.

Consider the cereal box. Inside is almost always a plastic bag. Why two layers of packaging? I started buying Nature’s Path cereals because they use only one layer of packaging for many of their cereals. The cereal comes in its bag, and the branding and other information is printed on that bag – no need to put the bag inside a box.

Now Nature’s Path is working toward fully reusable packaging, along with delivery and collection of that packaging, through a service called “Loop”. We’ll be watching to see how that works out.

All packaging?

Did you notice that a lot of this is about packaging?

Although the items I list here are mostly no-brainers – packaging that is so obviously useless and polluting that it makes one’s head hurt just to look at it – almost all packaging could and should be eliminated. There are very few things we buy that actually need a disposable wrapping, whether it’s food wrapping or personal care bottles, shoe boxes or hybrid plastic-cardboard toy wrappings.

It is interesting to note that when California banned plastic grocery bags, it led to an increase in paper bags and in thicker disposable garbage bags. In other words, the plastic was bad, but the ban should have covered disposable bags of all kinds. It’s not so much the plastic, but the disposable aspect that hurts our planet.

Disposable dishes

You are probably wondering why I haven’t mentioned straws. Straws have been in the news a lot. Companies are moving from useless disposable plastic straws to useless disposable paper straws – going from worse to bad is at least in the right direction.

Or is it? Are paper straws better for the environment than plastic straws? If the research into paper versus plastic shopping bags I mentioned above is any indication, that answer is a resounding…umm…maybe?

Others have stopped serving straws altogether. Bravo!

Is this a big deal?

Based on the media attention, you would think so. But in the entertainment industry, magicians call this a “sleight of hand.” Everybody keep your eyes on the straws. See how good we are eliminating straws? Isn’t it amazing? Nobody look at the disposable cups the straws come in. Or the disposable plates and wrappings.

Let’s look at some facts:

Straws make up 4% of the pieces of plastic waste. That sounds like a lot, but straws are tiny. Altogether, they make up 0.0002% of the mass of plastic waste. Not even a drop in the bucket.

Straws are just 0.0002% of plastic waste. Let’s end single-use disposable cups, containers, bottles. #ZeroWaste
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The 500 billion disposable cups they come in each year are made typically of some combination of plastic, carton and styrofoam. A reusable coffee mug (or juice, or smoothie or whatever cup) is more environmentally friendly than a disposable one after 6 to 127 uses (even factoring in the environmental impact of washing them).

We haven’t even begun to talk about disposable fast food plates, containers, cups and cutlery.

Straws are not the problem. No, your company is not amazing for eliminating straws. Your company is a HUGE polluter for pushing a non-stop torrent of pollution out your front door every day.

Of all the dishes and containers that fast food restaurants use, the easiest to eliminate tomorrow – yes, tomorrow – are beverage containers. Pass the law and BYOC (bring your own cup).

Hopefully Canada’s upcoming plastics ban will include the cups, not just the straws, and hopefully it will ban them regardless of the material – replacing plastic with paper or some other material isn’t going to fix the problem.

Drive-throughs

Drive-thrus are a double waste. This is because people using drive-throughs are not only polluting for nothing, but are often inflicting self-harm, as well. In this sedentary society, do people really need another reason to sit? They could make their coffee at home. They could walk up to the counter. Or they could sit in a vehicle with the engine running and pollute for nothing.

Drive-throughs are responsible for burning 57 million gallons of gasoline in the US alone each year. Even on the coldest Canadian winter days, there is no reason someone needs to sit in their car, running the engine, while ordering coffee or a burger or a muffin.

Or doing banking.

Or picking up a prescription.

What can you do?

Actually, there is a lot you can do. In almost all cases, you can avoid these useless polluters. I know there are people in my household who insist on using paper towels and going through the drive-through. But that doesn’t mean I have to.

And you don’t have to, either.

You have a choice.

In the long run however, it will take more than you and I to turn this boat around. Society will have to move past the disposable-for-profit (planned obsolescence) business model.

In the meantime, why would you pee in the swimming pool?

Three reasons why wearing a mask protects you from coronavirus 17 May 2020 5:18 AM (4 years ago)

Experts will tell you that a mask doesn’t protect the person who wears it from coronavirus and COVID-19. But the experts are wrong. Here are three reasons why.

If you’ve been paying any attention around you over the past few months, you will have heard the experts switch their advice on wearing masks several times. Maybe wear masks. Don’t wear masks. Wear masks.

The one message that has been (relatively) consistent is that wearing a mask will protect people around you, but not you.

That statement is half right. And half wrong.

Before I get to the three reasons the advice is wrong, let’s look first at how the advice is right

Masks do protect you from infecting people around you

A mask does indeed protect you from infecting people around you with coronavirus and COVID-19. Let’s look at how it does this and why you really should care enough to wear one.

When you cough or sneeze, and even when you just talk, you emit thousands of tiny droplets. Just one minute of talking could spew out as many as 100,000 droplets, lingering in the air for ten, 20 or even more minutes. If you have the coronavirus in your system, even if you don’t know it, the virus is in those droplets.

Health experts have rightly identified wearing a mask as protection against spitting or sneezing out these contaminated droplets onto:

• other people’s faces
• other people’s hands and arms
• other people’s clothes
• counter tops that other people might touch
• the air that other people will breathe

By wearing a mask, you do indeed protect people around you.

But why should you protect them, you might ask? Here are two good reasons.

Protect other people because it’s neighborly

Imagine that you are driving at dusk. You know there might be pedestrians around, but probably not. You can still see without your headlights, but if you turn them on you’ll be better able to see pedestrians, even those foolishly wearing grayish clothing.

What do you do?

Of course you will turn on your lights to reduce the risk of accidentally murdering a fellow citizen. You’ll do what you feel you safely can to avoid killing raccoons or foxes, too.

Bottom line: you don’t want to kill somebody, even by accident.

So, if wearing a mask can help you avoid accidentally killing somebody, can there any better reason to wear one?

Protect other people to protect yourself

Ah, but there are other reasons, including a very selfish reason to protect people around you.

If you accidentally infect someone around you, they might in turn accidentally infect people around them. As long as we keep passing this virus around, it can end up with anybody. I’m sorry if this is too graphic, but it could end up killing a friend of yours or even a member of your family.

Or you.

You might have heard of immunity. Once you get the virus, you might supposedly be immune. “Might.” “Supposedly.” The fact is that we just don’t know. And other coronaviruses, typically known as colds and flues, come back year after year. If immunity exists, we have no idea how long it lasts.

And if immunity exists, we don’t know if it applies to somebody who is asymptomatic. You might be carrying the virus (novel coronavirus) without being sick (having the disease called COVID-19), and therefor not actually building up immunity.

The bottom line is that if you have this virus in your system and you infect somebody, you have no idea if you will kill somebody, who you might kill or how many people you could kill.

So, wear a mask to protect yourself from infecting and possibly killing people around you (including yourself).

Masks also protect you from other people around you

This is where the experts get it wrong. In fact, they aren’t even thinking through some of the most important parts. While they talk about only one way masks protect you, there are in fact three ways masks protect you from getting infected by people around you.

Masks protect you from airborne infection

This is what the experts talk about and disagree about. Many of them say that masks don’t protect you from airborne droplets.

Let’s look at the facts.

Masks have holes in them. They are porous. That’s how you can breathe through them. Unfortunately, droplets can also go through those tiny holes along with the air.

Regular medical masks and cloth masks have bigger holes that let in more droplets than those fancy N95 masks that healthcare workers wear. With those bigger holes, are they useless? Studies are mixed.

• First, the mask will stop the bigger droplets.
• Second, it will stop even some smaller droplets that hit the fabric.
• Third, it will stop two or three droplets trying to pass through a hole at once (picture the Three Stooges all trying to pass through a window at once).

If a mask stops some, but not all, of the droplets, does it matter? Most likely, yes. The best guess is that you are less likely to get sick if you are exposed to fewer microbes, but we don’t know for sure and we don’t know by how much.

As retired public health specialist and epidemiologist Dr. Felix Li puts it:

While there is abundance of scientific evidence that surgical masks can protect health care workers from droplet-transmitted diseases, including COVID-19, some health authorities still maintain that somehow the same mask cannot perform the same function for the general public?

Are they all not human beings, with the same general anatomy and physiology? Let’s be frank: Masks can protect all people against droplet-transmitted diseases such as COVID-19. The only difference here is that the general public has a relatively lower risk of exposure to the virus than health care workers.

If you go into a crowded place, such as a bus or an elevator, your risk of exposure gets much higher.

 

Masks protect you from touching your face

But here’s another reason to wear a mask that nobody is talking about – and the silence from health experts on this is really puzzling. It’s how masks protect you from getting infected by yourself.

A mask keeps you from touching your face.

Did you know that you probably touch your face 15.7 times per hour. Or 23 times per hour. And it’s next impossible to not touch our faces.

Do you know what else you touch in between face touches?

• counter tops
• door knobs
• gas pumps
• elevator buttons
• hand rails
• products on store shelves

When an infected person coughs, sneezes or even just talks, guess where their droplets land?

• on counter tops
• on door knobs
• on gas pumps
• on elevator buttons
• on hand rails
• on products on store shelves

They also touch their face 16 or 23 or however many times per hour, and then they also touch…

• counter tops
• door knobs
• gas pumps
• elevator buttons
• hand rails
• products on store shelves

Almost everything in a public place could be infected, and you will touch many of those things. Yes, even shopping carts and bus poles and seats and turn styles and pens and paper and so many other things that others might have touch before you or breathed on.

Wearing a mask protects you from putting your potentially contaminated finger or hand near your nose or mouth. You might still touch your face, possibly even your eyes, but your have hugely reduced your risk of infection by keeping your nose and mouth covered.

In fact, a mask might be as effective at protecting you in public places as hand sanitizer. Perhaps even more effective.

Masks protect you from people getting too close

There is a third reason to wear a mask. It acts a lot like those bumper stickers:

“If you can read this bumper sticker, you are following too closely.”

 

A mask serves as a reminder to people to keep their distance. Or at least it lets people know that you are sensitive to them invading your space. In other words, masks help encourage distancing.

Some people will invade your space anyway. But those people probably don’t turn on their headlights, either. Thankfully, few people are like that (and most of them are too busy trolling on social media to approach you in real life, anyway).

Just wear a mask

So, just wear a mask whenever you’ll be indoors near people.

You don’t need one at home.

You don’t need one in open spaces outdoors.

And they do not replace physical distancing or hand-washing. These remain critical ways of protecting yourself against coronavirus and COVID-19.

But when you’ll be in an enclosed space where other people are (or have recently been), or where you might touch objects that other have touched or been near while breathing, wear that mask!

Leadership secrets from foreign penguins from Ohio 4 Apr 2020 10:53 PM (5 years ago)

Leadership by example helps forge a team. Let’s see how penguins can lead the way.

Leadership is not about a person’s – or an animal’s – title. It’s about, quite literally, leading the way.

A few years ago, there was a brand new fitness program at the San Francisco Zoo – a program that sort of just took off on its own without any goals or “leadership” from the zookeeper. This fitness program is for the birds, but it carries a leadership lesson for all of us.

The specific birds in question are penguins. Penguins are supposed to swim. In fact, 46 penguins at the San Francisco zoo had been taking regular dips in the pool to cool off and keep their feathers sleek. Ah, ain’t life grand. Lie around, eat, swim, rest, eat, swim, relax, eat, swim.

Until six “bodybuilder” penguins moved in from Ohio. The newcomers jumped into the pool and swam. And swam. And swam. In fact, those six penguins kept swimming laps all day long. Day after day. They must have been using a very effective antiperspirant.

The newcomers would start early in the morning and keep swimming in circles until they would “stagger” out of the pool at dusk.

What is most amazing, though, is that the six penguins ended up convincing the other 46 to join them. Hitherto “society” penguins are now swimming the whole day through like commoners. No more rest, eat. Now it was just swim.

What is the secret to the Ohio penguins’ success?

I don’t speak “penguin” very well, but I think I overheard the following conversation:

“C’mon, what are you, a penguin or a rock?”

“Why, I’m a penguin, of course.”

“You don’t look like a penguin. All you do is sit around like a rock.”

“That’s not true. I swim … sometimes.”

“Ha! A true penguin swims all day long. Geronimo!”

SPLASH!!

“Hey. I’m a real penguin, too.”

“Who you shouting at, Percy?”

“That swimmer with too much adrenaline in his feathers. He says I’m not a real penguin because I don’t swim enough.”

“Oh, yeah? We’ll show him, won’t we, Percy?”

“You bet! Uh, how?”

“By out-swimming the showoff penguins.”

SPLASH!!”

“Oh, oh. I guess I better get swimming right away.”

SPLASH!!

Foreign penguins show their leadership and their penguinhood

OK, so I might be a little off on my translation, but somehow those six penguins changed the entire lifestyle habits of the other 46. The zookeeper is reported by the wire service to have said:

“We’ve completely lost control.”

 

The wire story quoted an aquatic biologist as saying she would be more surprised if the six had taught the other 46 how to jump through hoops – something few penguins have been known to do in the wild with any success.

The point is not that the 46 penguins have learned to swim, which they had always been doing as a leisurely pastime, but that they are now in full aquatic stampede mode … and that they were convinced by the other six to change their entire lifestyle.

How did the six penguins do it?

Well, I was suspicious about penguins that come from Ohio. Everyone knows that penguins come from Antarctica. Last I could recall, Ohio was nowhere near Antarctica. Sure, it’s chilly in Ohio this time of year, but not THAT chilly. My atlas confirmed that Ohio is indeed still in the United States, not in Antarctica, meaning that these penguins were foreigners, perhaps victims of persecution – refugees from their homeland?

So these foreign penguins have come in and motivated the local penguins to live up to their full … ah … penguinhood. What an accomplishment! What success! And what great leadership lessons we can learn from this.

Lesson number one: don’t be afraid to try new things and accept outside influences.

Lesson number two: be a penguin not a rock (unless, of course, you are a rock).

And lesson number three: don’t give up. If six penguins can whip 46 homebodies into shape, imagine how you could kick-start your own fitness program (or any other goal you set your mind to).

True friends are not dream-slashers (friendship poem) 18 Nov 2019 2:35 PM (5 years ago)

What does friendship mean? Let’s take a clue from the Friendship Poem.

The secret to choosing the right friendships for you, starts with a short friendship poem (perfect for International Friendship Day, July 30)

Choose friends wisely, the portrait they paint
Is who you are and who you ain’t.
Friendship is life’s great support
When friends are of the right sort.
For all your dreams do they make room,
Or bring you down with doom and gloom?
You will know a friendship is true
When it brings out the best in you.

 

It’s true. You can tell a person by the company she keeps. Our friendships not only tell a lot about who we are — they make us who we are.

The friendship poem above says it all. “You will know a friendship is true when it brings out the best in you.”

Take a look at your friends. Do they bring out the best in you? That might seem like a silly question. We all tend to think, “Of course they bring out the best in me. I wouldn’t be friends with them otherwise.”

How true friendships are born

But stop and think why you are friends. Here are a few common reasons why people become friends:

• Common background, sharing a comfort level in company from “the same side of the tracks”.
• Common current situation, being able to discuss parenting, home renovations, or some other major life circumstance.
• Common interest, such as cards, bowling, hunting, etc.
• For shy people, a person who actually approached you is a candidate for friendship.
• For leaders, somebody who seems content to follow is a likely candidate. Somebody you spend time with anyway, such as a colleague, sibling, etc, often becomes a friend.
• Somebody you see frequently anyway, such as a neighbor, store clerk, etc, could become a friend.

These are just a few reasons people choose friends. It is the easy, natural way, but it is not always in our best interest. Sure, we should always want to get along with colleagues, neighbors, siblings, and anybody else.

But we should choose our friends, the people we open up to at the deepest level, very carefully. For instance, even a sibling can bring you down, pooh-pooh your dreams and load you up with negativity. “Ha! You think you can teach? What do you know about teaching?”

Even well-meaning friends can be dream-slashers. “Oh, do you really think you should go into business for yourself? I mean, what about security?”

On the other hand, some friends have a way of building up your dreams. “Go for it! You could really do well. And at worst, you’ll at least have given it your best shot!”

Friends will often lend a hand. “Gee, I don’t know much about fitness, but is there any way I can help you reach your goal?” Dream-slashers usually don’t. “Hey, if you insist on pursuing this crazy scheme, leave me out of it.”

As the friendship poem says …

A true friendship should:

• Encourage you to live your dream.
• Support you toward your goals.
• Sympathize for your losses and help you find a silver lining.
• Build your self-esteem.

If happiness and life-satisfaction are your goals, your friends should be chosen on the basis of how well they can accomplish those four goals.

Happiness is a personal choice that comes from within. But, as my short friendship poem says, it sure doesn’t hurt to have supportive friendships that help us achieve our goals.

 

Are you an angry hippo? 27 Jun 2019 6:05 PM (5 years ago)

The hot days of summer are about to transform you. To find out how, let’s take a stroll down to the Luangwa River and commune with our friend, the hippopotamus.

Ahh… the hot and lazy days of summer. Time to relax. Time to take it easy. Just like the hippos in Africa’s Luangwa River.

What do hippos in Africa have to do with you?

Very little – until the hot weather turns dry. During the dry season, an amazing thing happens to the Luangwa River. It shrivels up. Bit by bit it recedes until nothing is left but a few pools of water.

Most of the animals leave for higher ground, seeking water and food.

Not the hippos. They stay in their water – their ever shrinking pools of water. As the water recedes, they grow hotter. As the water evaporates, they grow more crowded. As the heat and crowding increase, the hippos grow ever more surly.

They bare their teeth.

They snarl.

Tempers flare.

They pick fights.

It’s river rage!

It’s river rage. (If you’ve ever come face to face with an angry hippo – all 5,000 pounds of it – you will understand why all the other animals have sense enough to seek other watering holes.)

Humans do not always have the same sense that other animals have.

River rage: humans do not always have the same sense that other animals have.
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Sometimes we can be more like the hippos. Sometimes we just get nasty and snarl and pick fights.

This brings us back to those hot and lazy days of summer. Those same days that seem just made for relaxing and taking it easy – until we get stuck in traffic or in a ticket line-up or just about anywhere we have to wait. The combination of heat and crowding gets to be too much for us.

Welcome to road rage, air rage, parking lot rage, supermarket checkout lineup rage, and just about every other rage they may someday name.

Rage does not equal happiness. It is virtually impossible to be happy when we are angry.

While anger is a natural emotion, and justifiably expected as a response to an injustice, it is not something we really want to hold on to.

How to cool the anger on hot days

So what do we do? There are many ways to avoid anger. Here are just a few.

• Before heading out onto the highway, into the malls, to the theater or anywhere people may gather, remind yourself that it is summer and time to relax.

• Air conditioning can help. I am not the biggest fan of fake air, but a little cool can go a long way to avoiding a temper tantrum.

• Music, it is said, can sooth the soul of savage beasts. I do not know if it has ever been tried on hippos, but it sure works on humans. Put some soothing music on in your car on the way home from work instead of listening to shock jocks or the latest song about violence.

• Plan extra time to run your errands so that delays are more bearable.

• Before leaving, remove the crowbar from your trunk. Yes, it’s true. Some people keep a “weapon” in their trunks in case they feel the need to explode.

• When I am in my car and somebody tries to cut in, I usually let them. I say to myself, “She seems to be in more of a hurry then I am, so let her go.” Then I think how good it feels not to be under the other driver’s stress. Of course, this only works when I am not the one in a hurry. And I admit I find this much harder to do when I am face to face with people in a lineup.

• Then, there is the old standby of counting to three before saying – or doing – anything you might regret.

I don’t know about you, but I want to enjoy these hot and lazy days of summer. And there is no way I can enjoy anything when Im angry. If you feel that way, too, why not try one of the techniques I mention to avoid all the pain of inflicting anger on yourself. After all, your anger hurts you the most.

Enjoy your summer … every hot and lazy day of it.

* NOTE: This was adapted from a speech entitled Hippo Rage.

Canada’s food guide 2019 – finally science-based healthy eating guidelines! 23 Mar 2019 3:44 PM (6 years ago)

The new Canada’s food guide is the first that puts the science of healthy eating squarely before politics. Here’s what’s new in the Canadian food guide.

The new Canada’s food guide has generated a lot of buzz. Much of the buzz has focused on reducing the four food groups to three, replacing the “Milk and Alternatives” and “Meat and Alternatives” food groups with “protein foods”.

What is Canada’s food guide? It is a guide that everybody, young and old, can use to ensure they are eating a reasonably healthy plate of food. These are healthy eating guidelines, but the details are up to you. TIn essense, it answers the question: “How can I eat healthy everyday?”

he Canadian food guide has been revamped for 2019.

The evolution of the food guide can be seen in these images of the covers. Below are previous guides from 1942, 1949, 1977 (the food guide I grew up with) and 1997. As you can see, the notion of a balanced diet has evolved over time

Another major focus has been on removing food guide servings or portions. Dr. Hasan Hutchinson, director general the Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion at Health Canada says, “It’s not about portion per se, but perhaps about proportion,” now. That makes the Canadian food guide a bit more like the concept of the “food pyramid”, as is found in the American food guide.

Eating well with Canada’s food guide?

Most of the changes are science-based. One of the best known secrets in Canada (and in the USA food guide, too!), is how the dairy and beef industries have been able to twist the official food guide in their favor for decades, at the expense of sound nutritional advice. As a result, many Canadians simply ignored the guide, figuring that it was not a credible document.

No more! Canada’s food guide is now based squarely on science. It represents the best understanding of nutrition that we have today. At last, we have a “nutrition food guide” or a “healthy eating guide”, not just a political compromise.

What are the new Canada’s food guide recommendations for 2019

There are new recommendations in the Canada’s food guide. Some old recommendations have been removed. Others have been changed. Let’s look quickly at each change.

Eat more plants

“Eating plant-based foods regularly can mean eating more fibre and less saturated fat. This can have a positive effect on health…”

 

My vegetarian friends will surely be pleased that they no longer have to eat their fellow Earthlings.

But note that the guide doesn’t say not to eat animals or animal products. The cover, which shows the three new groups, features an egg, some yogurt, and what looks like some beef, chicken and fish. But these form about half of the protein food group. There also three types of nuts, three types of pulses (legumes), tofu and some seeds. Now, that’s healthy food!

I wrote earlier why removing the dairy food group is a good thing.

Having condensed “Milk and Alternatives” and “Meat and Alternatives” into a single group, the guide explains that the “plenty of vegetables and fruits” group should form half of our diets. The cover features a healthy plate with ideal proportions, just in case some people find this concept challenging.

Make no mistake, this is the central message of the new Canada’s food guide:

“Many of the well-studied healthy eating patterns include mostly plant-based foods.”

 

Interestingly, the US Food Guide Pyramid gives more weight to grains than to fruits and vegetables combined.

The cover of the new Canadian guide features nine types of vegetables, but just three types of fruit, two of which are berries. Pay attention to that message.

Eat fewer processed foods

“You should limit highly processed foods and drinks because they are not a part of a healthy eating pattern.”

 

Yes, yes, yes! One of my two guiding principles to eat healthy is to eat as close to nature as possible (the other is to eat as much variety as possible).

The more processed, the less nutrition a food has, and the more bad things you will find in it.

• Extra salt, fat and sugar are often found in pre-packaged foods.
• Heat destroys many nutrients, so pre-cooked or canned foods lose nutrients (the food guide doesn’t mention this).
• Processed foods often contain artificial coloring, artificial flavoring, preservatives, emulsifiers and all sort of things that are at best useless to your body, and at worst harmful (the food guide doesn’t mention this, either).

Healthy eating habits mean eating more raw food and cooking food yourself, rather than buying ready-made, processed food.

Here’s something that’s gotten no buzz at all. I’ve read a couple dozen articles on the new Canada’s food guide: and I’ve seen not even a passing mention. White bread is out. Finally! The official food guide recommendation is to eat a variety of whole grains.

“Choose whole grain foods.”

 

White bread, with its bleached flour, is more processed than whole grain foods. So this is 100% in keeping with the recommendation to stay away from highly processed foods.

Drink water

If you want to reduce your intake of processed foods, drinking water makes sense. It is the least processed drink. And it is what keeps us hydrated best. It’s also calorie-free, and as the guide notes, it is free of sugar and sodium.

If you think dairy is the big loser in the new food guide, consider fruit juice manufacturers. They used to be part of the recommended fruits and vegetables group.

Now the guide recommends against them, as well as other sugary drinks.

Fruit juice is processed food. It is not healthy food. It is so much better to eat the fruit, including all the pulp and skin (and sometimes, even the seeds).

There has been a lot of buzz about alcohol not being recommended. Despite the chatter, one doesn’t notice much about alcohol in the food guide. The detailed guidelines that the public will rarely see actually do make a big deal of alcohol:

“Alcoholic beverages can contribute a lot of calories to the diet with little to no nutritive value. When alcohol is mixed with syrups, sugary drinks such as soft drinks and fruit-flavoured drinks, or cream-based liquors, they can be a significant source of sodium, free sugars, or saturated fat.”

 

These detailed healthy eating guidelines go much further than ever before, launching pretty much a full frontal attack on alcohol:

“Further, the substantial disease burden attributed to alcohol intake is a leading global health concern. There are well-established health risks associated with long-term alcohol consumption, including increased risk of many types of cancer—liver, oesophageal, mouth, pharynx, larynx, colorectal, and breast (post-menopausal)— and other serious health conditions (such as hypertension and liver disease).”

 

And it recommends to the public:

“People who do not consume alcohol should not be encouraged to start drinking. If alcohol is consumed, Canada’s Low-Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines can be used to provide information on how to reduce the risk of alcohol-related harms in both the short and long term.”

 

Alas, few people will see these detailed guidelines. In the main sections of the guide, alcoholic drinks are mentioned only in passing, along with all other juices and drinks.

The fact is that alcohol is a highly processed food. Want to put barley or grapes in your body? There are much healthier ways.

Which brings me to one of my beefs about political interference. Have you ever seen a nutrition label on a bottle of beer or wine or whisky? Me neither. Every other food and drink is subject to nutritional labeling. Not alcoholic drinks. Somebody must be lobbying hard.

If people saw how many calories were in a glass of wine or how much sugar was in a bottle of beer, some people would limit their drinking, to the health and well-being of society.

Feel good about healthy eating

This is a tricky bit. The Canada’s food guide now recommends eating with others and enjoying our food.

“Enjoying healthy foods with family, friends, neighbours or co-workers is a great way to connect and add enjoyment to your life. It can provide many benefits and contribute to a healthy lifestyle.”

 

“Enjoying your food is part of healthy eating. Enjoy the taste of your food and the many food-related activities that go along with eating.”

 

What do either of these recommendations have to do with nutrition and healthy food?

I think the first recommendation is because we are less likely to gorge on stuff that’s really bad for us when we eat with others.

We are also likely to eat slower, as we chat. Eating slower means that after the first plate, we are already feeling the food in our stomachs (and less likely to crave a second helping).

I’m really not sure about this one, though. When people eat together, I find there is more likely to be alcohol flowing, as people don’t like to drink alone. There is also often pressure to eat dessert.

As for the second recommendation, to enjoy your food, I assume this means that you should use healthy ingredients to make food you will enjoy. Eating healthy doesn’t have to be celery sticks with peanut butter, for instance. Am I interpreting this right? It’s possible.

Proportions, not portions

This new food guide recommendation is less one of science as one of clarity. People trying to follow the old food guide got confused about what a portion is.

Is this big banana a portion? Or this little one?

Are these portions really right for me if I’m taller than average? Older than average? Fitter than average?

Instead, the new guide gives direction on what a healthy plate should look like in proportions:

• Half of what you eat should be fruits and vegetables.
• A quarter of what you eat should be whole grains.
• A quarter of what you eat should be protein foods.

A glance at the “healthy plate” illustration, lays out pretty clearly what the food guide servings are, even if you don’t read past the cover.

Of course, anybody who has ever taken even a tiny interest in nutrition and healthy eating already knows this. It’s certainly not news, nor has it been for decades. But it’s finally the basis of Canada’s food guide. Eating well with Canada’s food guide is not longer such a stretch.

There are lots of new recommendations in the new Canada’s food guide. If you’ve ever read about nutrition or eating a balanced diet, nothing in this edition should come as a surprise. Except that it’s finally based on science, not on industry lobbying.

Labeling on vodka, anyone?