Brad Lauster .com

Here’s part two of my friend Brad’s primer about fat:

So then, you may ask, why is vegetable oil bad for me if it isn’t partially hydrogenated? The simple answer is oxidation. Double bonds are less stable than single bonds and therefore the more unsaturated an oil is, the more prone it is to oxidation. Oxidation of fats is bad.

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I’m not sure what my deal is today, but I suddenly have this amazing proclivity for recalling numbers.

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My favorite word to type has got to be interested. I just like how the keys for “terested” are so close together. Give it a try. You won’t be disappointed. What’s your favorite word to type?

Just wanted to let you know that I registered for DUX 2003 today…hope you can join me!

Hello there! If you’re still following this string of nutrition-related posts, you’ll have read “The Oiling of America” and “Soy Alert – One Woman’s Story.”

I felt better informed after I read them, but as I mentioned in my last post, I still had some questions. So, I wrote my friend Brad Marshall, asking the following:

1. So let’s say it was the soy that was the primary cause of her cancer. What do you think it is about the soy that caused it? The trans fats?
2. What’s the difference between olive oil and, say, corn oil. Is it simply the monounsaturated fatty acids (in the olive oil) vs. polyunsaturated fatty acids (in the corn oil)?
3. So what exactly is the difference between a “fatty acid” and just “fat”?

Brad responded with an interesting and entertaining primer about fat. Click below to read it.

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Matt Jones asks, “If you had to get someone of guru-status to both introduce and inspire a group of about 100 designers from various backgrounds about the field of interaction design, who would you pick?”

Here’s my list:

John Grimes — professor of Interaction Design at IIT. I saw John speak at Intel’s Human-Centered Product Innovation Conference II. It was hands down, the best talk of the conference. Very highly recommended.

Gillian Crampton Smith — director of the Interaction Design Institute at Ivrea. Really attune to the challenges facing the Interaction Design community. Good speaker. Highly recommended.

Alan Cooper — the obvious choice. Depending on the audience, he might be the best choice. His message remains pretty consistent though, so if the audience has seen him before, they might not hear something new to inspire them. Highly recommended.

Some others suggested:
Bill Moggridge — I’ve seen him speak several times and I’ve never really been impressed. Definitely knows what he’s talking about, but comes from an Industrial Design background, so I think he focuses too much on “what looks cool.”
Bill Verplank — coined the term Interaction Design with Bill Moggridge. Great teacher but unlikely to get the audience fired up about Interaction Design.
Nathan Shedroff — never seen him speak.
Jared Spool — Great speaker, but I think of him as an evaluator of the Interaction Design community rather than a participant and as such, probably not the best choice for this talk.
Jef Raskin — more curmudgeonly than inspirational; not really attune to the interaction design community either.
John Maeda — never seen him speak.

I introduced myself to Andy Hertzfeld [image] at my favorite local restaurant (La Morentia) this evening.

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Now that you’ve read “The Oiling of America” (which was linked in the entry I posted on March 13, 2003) you might want to take a look at this article, also from the Weston A. Price society, “Soy Alert – One Woman’s Story.”

This is one woman’s claim about the affect of soy-based products on her health. In particular, she claims the soy was the cause of her cancer.

This was a pretty disturbing and sad story, but it wasn’t based on any studies or real data, so it left me with a lot of questions. Luckily, I had my friend Brad Marshall was around to give me some answers.

My questions were:

1. So let’s say it was the soy that was the primary cause of her cancer. What do you think it is about the soy that caused it? The trans fats?
2. What’s the difference between olive oil and, say, corn oil. Is it simply the monounsaturated fatty acids (in the olive oil) vs. polyunsaturated fatty acids (in the corn oil)?
3. So what exactly is the difference between a “fatty acid” and just “fat”?

My next entry on nutrition will be part one of Brad’s answers to my questions.

Last year, my friend Brad Marshall sent me an article that challenged just about everything I knew about what it meant to “eat healthy.” That New York Times article, called, “What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?” set off a several-month-long process, educating me about diet, nutrition, fats, oils, hydrogenation, vitamins, minerals, organic farming, grass-fed livestock, raw milk, et cetera and so on…

Yesterday at lunch, my friend Lisa and I had a brief discussion about nutrition. I asked her if she was of aware of the ridiculous set of circumstances that led to the current set of dietary recommendations in the United States.

The Oiling of America is a fascinating look at how a combination of bad science and politics led to a set of recommendations that both make up the most basic components of what you think to be true about nutrition, yet at the same time are certainly not the best for your health.

I encourage you to read “The Oiling of America,” for your own health and because it will be the basis for a string of nutrition-related entries I’ll be posting to brad lauster (dot com) over the next month.

Here’s to your health!

There I am. Look at me! At the Google Blogger party.

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