Of old and new waters

It is already a year that I was writing something similar from the City of Utrecht in the Netherlands. It is amazing how fast time goes by, and it is also amazing to realize how many things it takes with it, and how many things it brings along. It is as if we were swimmers in a river of time. I like to think of time as a river in continuous flow (even if for some this sounds cheesy), and as a river, time is never the same, and neither are we the same swimmers. 

Very often do we think that we are skilled swimmers and that we master the currents only to be thrashed about and smashed by treacherous waters. It is then when the river can take some of the stuff we were holding on to. Some other times, along our way, we find other very pleasant swimmers who want to tag along our course. In short, swimming through time is quite a life changing adventure.

For me 2011 was quite a year. I had the chance of spending the first half studying in the Netherlands. Staying completely on my own in such a country where I knew nobody was a very enriching experience and made me realize quite a lot about myself. I am certainly not the same person who was writing something similar a year ago. I do believe however, that everyday is full of newness, of opportunities, of blessings to be discovered, and we should not wait until January 1 in order to commit with something, still, as a society, we have marked this day as a reminder of how far we have swum, and I do believe it is a great moment for us to stop for a while and look around and question ourselves.

During 2011, many remarkable changes occurred in my life. I had to face some of my worst fears by myself, and I had to say goodbye to a very important person, but also I met new people, some good, some bad, and some excellent, I learned many great things, I had second chances, and I experienced feelings that I have never felt before. 

Here I am, a few hours away from this thing which we call the end of 2011, and still alive. Many blessings I had before are still with me, and I happened to receive some great new blessings throughout the year. I don't know what I did to have them, I really can't answer why me, all I can do is thank God for giving me these opportunities, and promise that I will try to the best of my ability to make the best out of them. I am also a bit nervous, just like many of us, about what might be comming in this wild river, and while it is impossible to know, the one thing to do is to surrender, to hold God's hand tightly and trust that we are built to resist the worst of the rapids on this river.

It is for sure none of us swimmers are the same swimmers as the year before, that is why I want to thank each and every single one of you people for contributing in any dimension on making me who I  am today. I wish that every single one of you and every person on earth, has one great 2012, full of awareness, of health, and the best blessings from God. We are all responsible for that since we swim on the same waters. Let's try to make of 2012 the best year so far for every single person, let's be catalysts of a world with less sadness. One tear less in the world during 2012 will already mean an enormous progress.

The things in your food!

This week I decided I would change the tone of the usual pitch of the blog to address a topic which seems to be interesting for many people. Even if we all have our very own preferences and beliefs when it comes to our food choices, most of us look for good quality options.

Unfortunately, food quality is a very elusive concept as it is often confused with consumer preference. While food quality is influenced to some extent by consumers' preference, food quality involves much more variables which may be invisible for most of us. Such factors include the processes used to stabilize the product and extend its shelf life, the additives, ingredients, and nutrients which might be added to give the product certain properties.  All these, however must be always reported on the product's label. Knowing how to read a label will shed some light on the product's quality giving a very broad idea of everything that is behind the product.

The purpose of this post is to offer some guidance on how to read a label, and to inform about some tricks that companies use to praise their products.

Even if regulations regarding food products and their labeling vary from country to country, they share many similarities. Most of them include a list of ingredients (which might offer more or less information), and a nutrition facts table as well as all the information regarding the producing company, the net content, the alcohol content, the expiry date, and the batch number.

The nutrition facts table must always include the portion size, the amount of portions per package, and the energetic content of the portion (also known as calories [kcal]).

Nutrition Facts Label, taken from www.nutritionamerica.org.

If you are someone who is concerned about his energy intake, you can pay attention to the size of the portion you are eating and make a ball-park estimate on the amount of calories. For example, any given chocolate usually contains around 500 kcal for every 100g, and you ate just a couple of pieces of the whole 100g bar. You do not need to weight what you ate, just approximate it! Let's say those pieces weight at most 10g, that means you ate 50 kcal. The number of calories is calculated differently in every country, but it depends on the amount of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins in the product, the rule of thumb goes like this:

1 g carbs = 4 kcal

1g protein = 4 kcal

1 g fat = 9 kcal

1 g alcohol = 7 kcal 

Carbs are found in almost every food product and are usually given in Total Carbohydrates which is divided into Sugars and Fiber. Sugars are the simplest type of carbs and are used mostly as sweeteners. Sugars include fructose, glucose, and the standard sugar that you put into your coffee. Sugars are very important for the body as they are the first source of energy. The cells in the brain can only use sugars in order to survive. A no-carb diet will only damage your brain, and put your body into stress, however it is a fact that most of us consume much more sugars than what we actually need. Fiber is a generic term for all the carbs (and other substances) that are not absorbed in the guts, but are great for asisting the food along their transit through the intestines. It has been proven that people who have fiber rich diets have healthier lives! Still, most people do not eat enough fiber. Vegetables and whole cereals contain quite a lot of fiber. The difference between the sum of sugars and fibers and Total Carbohydrates include all the rest of the carbs which the body can absorb and breakdown into simple sugars. Some carbs like starch can be used as thickening agents, and some of them can even form firm gels.

Protein is found mainly in products of animal origin, cereals, and some other vegetables. Protein deficiencies are often quite harmful and might even be deadly. Proteins are chains of smaller components called aminoacids. The body does not absorb the whole protein, it first breaks it down into it's smaller components. The body uses these aminoacids to build up new proteins such as certain hormones, muscles, antibodies, and other stuff. Proteins vary in nutritional value depending on which and how many of the 20 different aminoacids they have. Only under extreme situations such as famine, does the body use protein as a source of energy. In order to confer certain properties, sometimes protein is added into a product. Some proteins can help to create a stable foamy product like ice cream, a firm gel like gelatin or even to mix oil and water.

We have grown to believe that fats are the bad guys, however this is far from truth. While the excessive consumption of fats is definitely going to cause severe damage on the long run, fat deprivation can result on a very painful dead. The truth is that the body uses fats for everything, cell membranes are composed by fats, the lungs absorb oxigen through a fatty layer, many hormones are fats, and still there is myriad of other uses. Fat is also an energy reservoir, once the carbs are gone, the body will start using the fat deposits in the body. When the energetic needs of the body are all covered,  the excess of sugars will be converted into fats. Most of the fat deposits in the body come from sugar excess! Fats are found in animal products, nuts, some cereals, and two fruit (olives, and avocado). In food, fats tend to give lots of beneficial sensory traits. Fat improves texture, mouthfeel, and flavor. There are many products used to immitate the effect of fat in the food, however there has not been a single product that can reproduce all the sensory experience given by fats yet!! When a product is rich in fats, you will usually find in the ingredients label some antioxidants which will prevent fats from decaying and forming rancid flavors.

Among all the many nasty effects of alcohol, there is still another downside which still remains unknown: is almost as "fattening" as fats themselves! Alcohol calories sometimes are called empty calories because the body ends up transforming most of the alcohol it into fats without giving it any use. Just to give you an idea of how caloric alcohol is, when you drink one glass of whiskey, it is as if you were eating a sandwich, two glasses of whiskey are the same as eating a little bit more than a LARGE Lindtt chocolate bar completely, while every glass of vodka is a slice of white bread!! (See the source in spanish)

Something else you might find written in the Nutritional Facts Label is the vitamin and mineral content. Minerals do not have any caloric input but are necessary for the body. The most common mineral in food is sodium that comes from salt. The excessive consumption of salts lead to many problems which derive from high blood pressure. Just as with the sugar, most of us consume much more salt than needed! Vitamins are a very diverse group of substances which assist the body in many metabolic processes. They are classified into Vitamin A, group B, C, group D, group E, and group K. Vitamins of the group B, and C are non toxic as the excess will end up in your toilet, however excessive consumption of vitamins A, D, E and K can be quite harmful as they can accumulate in the body. 

Next to the content of any of the aforementioned components is the percentage of the daily intake. This number will tell you how much of the total daily amount of any of these ingredients you have consumed in that portion. Let's say you ate something that had 5 g of component X, and that is 20% of the daily intake. That means you still have to eat 25 g of component X during the day in order to reach the optimal 100%.

Maybe the most important part of a label is the ingredients label. Here you will find every ingredient added into the product in decreasing order, all the ingredients at the beginning are the most important, while the ones at the end are in a very small proportion. Some ingredients are compound, and in some places it is not necessary to disclose their composition.

I hope this has given a good insight on the things that are contained in your foods. Soon I might post something related with the ingredients label.

Have a great time :)

A nice story to remember

Descanso durante la huída a Egipto (1665). Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

A long long time ago, there was a girl who lived in Galilee. The story says she was a very nice girl, so nice she was chosen by God to perform one miracle: being able to bear a child virginally. Mary was the name of this girl, and she was to marry Joseph. One day, Mary received the visit of Archangel Gabriel who came to announce her pregnancy and recommended her to visit her cousin Elizabeth who was with baby too. Upon Mary's arrival, Elizabeth received her telling her "You are blessed among women and blessed is the fruit that is in your womb." Some people say Mary had to deal with many social problems related to her pregnancy. Eventually, Mary and Joseph did marry, and had to move to a very little town near Jerusalem called Betlehem due to the Roman census taking place at that time. Along the way, Mary was ready to deliver the baby, and Joseph hurried to look for a place where she could do it comfortably. Unfortunately for them, nobody had space in their homes, only one man was able to provide them with accomodation in his barn, and baby Jesus was finally born in a menger, between the ox and the ass.

  Other people say that while Mary was wondering along in the dessert she started feeling the pains of birth. Mary clung to a palm tree in dispair and screamed in pain, and it was baby Jesus himself who told her to shake the palm tree so she could eat the dates provided and calm down. Upon her return, the people from her town accused her for having a baby out of marriage. Her baby saved her by being able to speak telling the people what really happened. 

  While some consider this child to be the son of God, others just consider him an illuminated human who came to set an example. I cannot prove that this cute little baby is the son of God, nor do I intend to since that is only a matter of faith, and it will depend on each person. The one thing I do believe is that this baby lived a meaningful life that is still remembered even after more than 2011 years!

  Born in the most humble way possible, under a palm tree or in a menger inside a barn, this baby came with the simple task of telling us to be fraternal, to make other people's lives a little bit more liveable, and with a soothing promise of a loving God who put a tiny little bit of himself in each of us.

  For me, the arrival these very human, simple, and inclusive statements surrounded by such a tender story of humility and compassion are enough reason to celebrate.

  Yet, year after year many of us face December with some degree of bitterness due to big spends, social commitments, traffic, continuous mediatic bombing, and more traffic. We smile because that's what we are expected, but deep down some of us despise all of this. We feel lonely even if we are surrounded by friends, we might even feel empty in spite of everything around! It's the season of mixed feelings. Maybe we have forgotten what is it we are celebrating, being that we are filled with hopes. The truth is we all want something for the holidays.

  But what more can we ask for when it is in these days that we are reminded that a long long time ago, lived this very very nice girl who miraculously gave birth to a baby who lived to love, and kept reminding us to trust our very own personal link with God? It does not matter if you celebrate Christmas, if you are a Christian, or if you even believe in God, there was a man like you and me who, a couple of thousand years ago, was able to open his eyes to the others, someone who was genuinely able to recognize the humanity in every person and stood up for every single one of them, someone who seeked to include everyone rather than classifying them. That, is one lovely timeless testimony, even twenty one centuries later when we are still struggling to open our eyes, when we are still fighting to exclude in order to defend ourselves from self-created imaginary enemies. This is what I want to celebrate for Christmas this year.

That is why I just want to wish you: my friends, family, and the people I love lots of happyness and blessings during these holidays, and the best for the coming year!

Thanks to all!

I really want to thank all the people that were able to make it to the yoga lessons of the past weeks, besides making it possible for some children to have a little bit of joy this Christmas, you were all great and gave me the chance of getting to know a little bit of yourselves as well as a little bit more of myself.

The whole experience was just great, planning a lesson is quite a challenge as there are time constraints, and once you are at it you have to adjust your plans to each and everyone of the people, also guiding someone through the practice is even more exhausting than the postures themselves!

Each of us came into the lesson with our own baggage: some of us are scared of changing our perspective, some of us find it hard to trust ourselves and others, and some of us are terrified of hurting others... If we are attentive enough, we can even realize this by ourselves. Everyone practiced in a different but very genuine way: some were supple while others were strong, some kept trying while others knew when it was wise to stop, most gave much more than they thought.

All in all, it was a really satisfying experience and I hope I get the chance to repeat it. Thanks also to those who were not able to attend but were willing to donate some money, as well as to those who were always supportive and encouraging.