When is 0, not 0?

Years ago, Adria Steinberg described math at the Met as doing simpler problems in complex ways rather than more complex problems in simpler ways. Last week in the New Yorker, an article about a small town druggist, Dr. Don, discussed how living in a small town has many assets. One section I really liked went like this: “Maybe I can describe it this way,” he says. “I like to play chess. I moved to a small town, and nobody played chess there, but one guy challenged me to checkers. I always thought it was kind of a simple game, but I accepted. And he beat me nine or ten games in a row. That’s sort of like living in a small town. It’s a simpler game, but it’s played to a higher level.” I feel this is an appropriate metaphor for our school design and schools. In the school reform arena, we are a simpler way of doing school played to a higher level.

A few weeks ago I attended a food lifestyle conference at the Dr. McDougall’s Health and Medical Center in Santa Rosa. Here are my notes. In many ways, my lens is through what we do at BPL.

“You are what you eat and you are what you eat, eats” – Wild deer eat in cornfields with genetically modified corn. This is not organic. - the Bigger Picture

How do you make a mouse live longer? Methuselah Study points out that mice that ate fewer calories lived longer. – We should have students count calories in advisory and discuss.

“Walk more watch less TV ”TV kills” – I’m glad we do walk and talks.

“We weigh the salad but not the dressing” – The calories listed on the salad are without adding the dressing, and the calories are in the dressing. Duh! We feel good because we think we are eating healthy but in reality we are being fooled by companies using data to trick us. As a society we insist on data, but we actually pay little attention to why the data maybe wrong and even less attention to changing how we behave once we discover the date is wrong. Once we have the data, how do we really use it to make changes? 

Seventh day Adventists live longer than anyone. Life expectancy is mid-80’s. They are vegetarian. They have their own schools and colleges.

When is 0, not 0? Answer: When we count grams of fat.

“We are allowed to lie.” The front of the PAM spray bottle states, PAM is fat-free but PAM is nothing but fat.  FDA allows companies to lie in writing. Here’s the reason:

“PAM and other oil sprays claim that each serving has 0 grams of fat. But the fact is: the only ingredient in the can is oil, which is 100% fat.

So how could manufacturers say this product is free of fat? They're sneaky. They posted a ridiculously small serving size of .25 grams. That's 120th of an ounce – or one teensy one-quarter-of-a-second squirt.

There isn't much of anything, oil or otherwise, in 120th of an ounce, which manufacturers love because the FDA states they can "round down" ingredients that are less than half a gram to 0. Hence, the food label says 0 grams of fat. But if you eat multiple servings – if you coat an entire skillet with oil spray – you're tallying up multiple calories, all 100% fat.” 

What the data shows you need for a healthy lifestyle:

Time for yourself

Regular exercise

Mindfulness

A healthy way of eating

Renewal back in the groove

Walking an hour for yourself – connects to creativity

Children changing the world:

Dr Rosati, a speaker at the conference from Duke told a story about his grandchild asking about a lobster they were about to eat. He did not want his grandfather to eat it. He said, “I won’t eat it but this won’t change anything about the world eating lobsters.” His grandson looked at him and said, “I just changed you.” This is exactly how children changed their parents smoking habits.