I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube since the pandemic started. I’ll admit that it is a central source of information for me. If I’m repairing a car, all I have to do is search for my vehicle and the problem, and I can usually find a few helpful videos on the subject. That’s not to say I’m not wading through a bunch of crap to get there, because I am, but the helpful ones truly help.

I went to Mexico this Winter and found a ton of helpful information. Of course, there was a lot of fear mongering as well. And some fears were probably justified. For instance, while I felt very safe and I was careful of travel scams, there was a cartel shooting not long after I left in the town I was in. You can’t avoid real problems that exist like drug turf wars. But I avoided all of those problems and had a great time.

I saw a video yesterday of a heart doctor saying to not ingest vegetable oils. I also saw a RD (registered dietician) say how ketogenic dieting is so terrible. You really have to take things with a grain of salt. There is implicit bias in everything we do. Truth be told, I work for the government and I know how it works. You have to protect your own. The Federal government subsidizes things like food grains, electric vehicles, ethanol production, solar power, the Post Office, and AMTRAK. If they didn’t, all those endeavors would fail. So if the USDA and FDA supports grain production, then that also must be in the textbooks in college education. So then, all the dieticians that go through school base their food pyramids on grains. You rarely hear a dietician decry whole grains as a substantial part of a diet. When scientifically, carbohydrates are not an essential part of any human diet. But if you read any mainstream health magazine, like Men’s Health or otherwise, their RD’s will toe the line on grains and lowfat diets. These are people who live in upper-middle class neighborhoods devoid of people of color. I was just in Oklahoma where I attended a family gathering. A large percentage of my family passed away due to diabetes that is rampant in Native America. I had an aunt who hobbled around because she recently had two toes amputated due to diabetes. Now, go ahead and preach how carbohydrates are OK for people who just lost toes due to diabetes. Insulin drives everything where I live. Eating a bran muffin every day doesn’t make that go away.

I am getting ready to go backpacking in August. So I am gathering gear and reading up on latest recommendations. I plan to go ultralight. I am all to familiar with carrying to much gear in past trips and I want to avoid that this time. I had already gone to trail runners in previous trips, but I’d like to go with sandals this time. I’ve run ultramarathons in huarache sandals and teach yoga, so I’m barefoot most of the time anyway. I used to go to the CrossFit box and did everything barefoot. But when you watch the videos, they talk about stability, ankle support, toe protection,… {cough!!}. Boots make you clumsy. They desensitize you to proper foot placement. Its like putting casts on your hands when you are doing work. But you cover your feet with huge boots and ask them to be nimble. It doesn’t work that way. I much prefer a more natural approach. Nomadic aboriginal people in Africa, Australia, Central and South America, and Native North America survived their existence without heavy boots. Yet the more evolved among us say you need ankle and arch support. They are certainly the ones with the weakest ankles and feet. When I left 14 years in the Army where I had to wear boots everywhere, I was very prone to twisting my ankles. Years of wearing those leather casts cause everything to weaken. It wasn’t until I shunned shoes whenever I could and adopted shoeless activities like martial arts, yoga, and running that I haven’t had a twisted ankle since. Ankles and arches definitely abide by the use it or lose it mantra. They have to be strengthened regularly with your lifestyle.

I’m not saying to play opposite day with all the central dogmas people put out there. But I would highly question the functional reasoning behind everything. Always ask why? I know so many people who do things just because its what they read in a popular magazine or its what they’ve always done. Many of it makes no sense at all. We need to start thinking for ourselves. Chart your own paths. Now take those shoes off and eat some good fat.