Sunk costs, body image, and rationality

This week I'm reading a book on Rational decision making that claims that sunk costs should not be considered when deciding where to go from here.  By sunk costs, they mean time, energy, and/or money already expended prior to the current decision.  For example, suppose you have already paid for a weekend vacation.  Once you get to your destination, you get sick and realize that you would probably enjoy driving home and curling up in your own bed better than staying in the hotel bed.  In such a case, it would make sense to ignore the cost already spent and go home.  The sunk costs of the vacation should be ignored because staying at the hotel will only make you more miserable.  The sunk cost provides an opportunity, but that does not mean you should take that opportunity.  The rational question is "What should I do now?"

This past week, I read a similar idea in a Facebook discussion on body image.  Someone made a comment (I can't remember the specific comment that inspire my post, but it started with Kelly Elmore) that you should not set the standard for your body image based on where you may have been in high school or college, but accept where you are at now in order to move forward.  Anything less destroys your self-esteem.  Accept your body in its current form and condition.  Recognize the value that your current body brings to you.  While there may be room for improvement to bring more value, people should not conceive of their current body as a dis-value or as a negative.  Doing so is a common mistake, but a mistake non-the-less.

The similarity - the past is in the past.  While it might not seem appropriate to consider body image in terms of sunk costs, an alternative might be to think of it in terms of sunk opportunities.  Opportunities missed, passed up, and regretted.  Things we could of or should of done the last 5 years so that we would not regret the place we are in today.  Certainly, regret can inflict our conscious (that's not a bad thing), but it should not consume our conscious.  We should use regret as motivation to change, not as a reason to avoid change.  We should use the regret to identify what is of value, so that we may act to gain and/or keep it.  That is the rational thing to do and the rational way to act.

While we have a body we have inherited from our past, we are not controlled by our past decisions.  There may be limitations on time, capabilities, energy, and opportunities.  But we can change the hierarchy of our values and shift around priorities if need be.  The key take away - discover your hierarchy of values and act accordingly.  And above all, don't let your past stand in your way. 

Now that's thinking rationally :)

As a disclaimer - I found the books' discussion of rationality too pragmatic in nature.  Hopefully, I'll get a chance to write more about that later.

Value dense gardening

This is the first year I've planted a vegetable garden, although last year we started an herb garden which we continue to cultivate.  After subscribing to the oGardeners email list and reflecting on my experiences gardening, I was struck that my effort with a garden should be value-dense.

I have 3 basic reasons for gardening:

1. To eat fresher, better tasting veggies
2. As a learning experience for myself and the kids
3. To save a little money (especially on the herbs)

However, while I enjoy some time gardening, I really do not enjoy spending lots of time weeding and caring for the plants.  With this in mind, I've been thinking about what vegetables I want to grow next year.  This year, we're growing tomatoes, broccoli, sweet peppers, lettuce, and spinach.  Tomatoes do taste much better fresh, rather than off the shelf at the grocery store.  My daughter picked broccoli, which has been growing wonderfully (will she eat it???).  The peppers, lettuce, and spinach are a bit of an experiment.  So far, they are all growing nicely, but I'm not sure how much better they will taste than store bought, or whether the effort is worth it.  We should do a blind taste test with the kids and see.

Next year, I'm considering adding corn, onions, and garlic.  Sweet corn is known to taste significantly better if eaten shortly after it is picked.  The starches in the corn begin to change quickly after its picked, so fresh corn should have a substantial value.  Onions and garlic are supposed to be super easy to grow and can be stored for long periods, giving us something to enjoy throughout the year (not just in the summer).  However, onions and garlic have no advantage in taste over store bought and are mostly hidden from our eyes as they grow, limiting the learning experience and joy for my kids.  We would save a little money from growing them.

I've been staying away from most vine plants because they take up a lot of area considering how little food they produce.  And I always detested picking peas and green beans as kid, so I'm not all that interested in growing those veggies in our garden.

The herbs were mostly selected by my wife.  Because herbs can be pretty expensive and Brenda uses them liberally in her cooking, we do save significantly.  So far we have: cilantro, dill, chives, parsley, mint, sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary, basil, and tarragon.  Luckily, they have all been really easy to manage.  The thyme, oregano, and mint have been growing so well, we might start giving it away.  The rosemary does need to be dug up and brought indoors for the winter if you want to keep it alive in Michigan.  But otherwise, I just plant the annuals in the spring and harvest and annuals and perennials as necessary throughout the summer.

With a few more years of this, I should hopefully have a system down to make the effort minimum, but enjoyment maximum, for a value-dense experience.

Food and Nutrition - 3 books on its history

Over the past few months, I have read a three books on nutrition covering its history, its effect on physical development and economic growth, and the current controversies surrounding proper nutrition. These three books were:

• The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100: Europe, America, and the Third World by Robert Fogel
• Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price
• Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health by Gary Taubes

I must admit, that after reading these three books, I have a different outlook on the food in put in my body. As I child, I was lucky to have parents that feed me a very healthy diet - little junk food, lots of food from the garden and from grass feed cattle and chickens. Now I understand why it was so healthy and why I should be vigilant about the stuff I put into my body.

In Escape from Hunger and Premature death, my main take away was that the agricultural revolution (which closely coincided with the industrial revolution) lead to increasing calories available for consumption in Western European nations. The starting point was abysmal low levels of calories, close to starvation for large segments of the populations. With increased calories came greater energy and greater health. Greater energy and health led to greater productivity, further helping transform Europe's transformation into industrial society.

In Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Weston Price chronicles his decade long quest in the early 20th century to find primitive peoples and document their diet and physical condition. In particular, he establishes what happens to these people before and after the introduction of western diets with large quantities of white bread, sugar, and canned food. Traveling throughout North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Pacific islands, Price found that regards of the indigenous diet, all primitive diets resulted in strong health adults. Upon introduction of the Western diet of white bread, sugar, and canned foods, these primitive groups started experiencing degeneration of dental and bone health and increased occurrences of tuberculous and other diseases.

In Good calories, Bad Calories, Gary Taubes reviews the past 50 years or so of medical, nutritional, and diet research. In this review, he questions conventional wisdom that fat is the cause of modern diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. After navigating thousands of studies in a variety of disciplines, Taubes paints a convincing picture that fat is not the boogiman that its been made out to be. In fact, its carbs that are the most likely the biggest culprit in the increasing occurances of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Sugar in particular.

From these three books, a new picture of nutrition has formed in my mind. This picture consists of a simple view of food - each and every thing I put in my body should be for a purpose. Every thing should have nutritional content. Its not just the number of calories that I consume (although the number is important to maintain my energy levels), its the quality of the calories. In general, the more processing conducted on a food product, the less its nutritional value.

I've come to recognize that fat is not something that I need to be afraid off. In fact, many vitamins are only fat soluible, meaning that can only be ingested in fat. I've also found that pastas, rices, and breads have very little nutrition, so I have little motivation to eat them. Ingestion of simple carbohydrates like table sugar and high fructose corn syrup are perhaps the most damaging of to our bodies by creating widely fluctuating insulin levels.

Luckily, I have an understanding wife who has been trying to accomodate my change in diet. Her home cooking, besides being speculatory yummy, is also very nutritional. I still struggle at times when it comes time for me to make my own meals, such as breakfest and occasionally lunch, mostly because I like the convenience that comes with pre-processed foods. But as I discover ways to eat healthy with quick prep time foods (that are yummy), I'm sure I'll be on the road to maintaining my health in optimal ways.

I would particularly recommend Good Calories, Bad Calories if you are interested in personal nutrition. The other two books offer a good history of nutrition and a context for understanding Taubes book. Escape from Hunger is interesting from an economic point of view. It adds a perspective to the industrial revolution.

Put up or shut up?

Here is a man who is willing to stand, and eat, by his arguments. Ari Armstrong claims that the amount of money provided with food stamps is more than enough for a healthy diet. "Armstrong, who previously spent a month eating for $2.57 per day... will spend February 4-10 eating a highly nutritious, low-carb diet for less than food stamps provide. (Now at $4.74 per day)" [Bold added.] This diet will consist of mostly meats, vegetables, and fruits. No filler foods like pasta, potatoes, Ramon noodles, or the like.

Mr. Armstrong also offers to help evaluate family meal plans (for the first 5 interested) to achieve this goal.

Now this is a man I can admire. He decided to put up when challenged on his beliefs. He also rightly notes that government subsides do violate our property rights...stealing from one person to give to another. But the ludicrous assumption that we are not stealing enough from one person to give to another person so that other person can eat enough to live...well, its just flat wrong.

Family cooking

If you're anything like my wife and me, you are contently short on time but still desire yummy food. If so, try The Best 30-Minute Recipe by America's Test Kitchen (ATK). My wife swears by this cookbook.

The basic premise behind ATK publishing is that ATK chefs will make a standard recipe (say Mac and Cheese) 101 different ways, varying the amounts of each ingredient and using basic culinary knowledge to scientifically design the best tasting version of each recipe. A few years ago, I gave my wife a gift of the magazine Cook's Illustrated, the main magazine published by ATK. She (and I) immediately fell in love with their franchise. The only times we have been disappointed with a recipe is when our ingredients were poor quality (not the fault of the recipe, but of our grocery). But as we started having kids, my wife ran out of time to make some of these delicious meals. Hence the recommendation for the Best 30-Minute Recipe book.

The company also produces a TV show called America's Test Kitchen, which airs on local PBS channels.