I was able to catch up on some reading and read books such as The End of Overeating and Foods that Lie. A common theme from the books is that flavor is the dominant attraction for eating junk food.

Now this is somewhat obvious, but it does lead to some other insights. These insights are developed in the excellent book Nourishment by Fred Provenza. He discusses how flavor in whole foods is an indicator of its nutritional value. For example, if an apple tastes good, it is probably in in-season and at its height of nutrient density.

This flavor-nutrition relationship has been taken advantage of with modern processed foods. Now you can eat some cookies that taste great but have no nutritional value.

Hunter-gatherers all consumed some ratio of plant to animal food. These differed based upon latitude and season.

Some modern diets try to push the ratio to the extreme: either in the form of all animal food (carnivore) or all plant food (vegan). Neither of these two approaches are healthy or sustainable in the long-run.

A new study re-analyzed the macronutrients prescribed by the original Paleo diet. They found there are wider ranges for carbohydrates and fat than previously reported.

The exact ratio of plant to animal food consumed probably does not matter that much in the long run. What’s more important is that the foods should be relatively unprocessed.

If you look at the data, about half of the daily calories consumed by a person in the US are in the form of ultra-processed foods. There is tons of evidence now linking ultra-processed foods to metabolic problems.

The simplest place to start any diet then is to reduce ultra-processed foods to a lower amount. Moving to unprocessed foods can lead to weight loss and improved health.

I had a couple of minor running injuries this spring, and so I wanted to re-evaluate my running form. It turns out ChatGPT has been a tremendous help in this. You can upload what you feel is the ideal running form and then have it compare your form to the ideal.

I recorded a number of running videos over the course of a few training days. Often, I would try a new training cue, upload the video, and then get real-time feedback.

I was able to correct some minor overstriding that I think was contributing to my issues. I ran a four-mile trail race last week and felt my running form was improved.

I walked by a Starbucks the other day, and I was curious as to how many people drink coffee or consume caffeine. I was shocked to find that 85% of the US population consumes caffeine regularly.

I’ve never really liked caffeine, and so I’m in the minority here. The last time I had caffeine was 30 years ago in graduate school.

Now is coffee healthy or not? No one really knows. The research is unclear, but perhaps that’s due to the role of Big Coffee on the research funding.

Still, I find it hard to believe that caffeine is truly health-promoting. One clue is that it’s not recommended for children. Therefore, it may not be that great for adults either.

My original plan was to run through the whole winter running barefoot on grass on warmer days. I have made it so far to mid-January, but I have noticed some things.

When running barefoot in the cold, it’s hard to feel your feet and so the running stride can easily get sloppy. It also takes a lot longer to really warm up and get going.

I did some research on hunter-gatherers and whether they ever took “breaks” from endurance running throughout the year. The answer is yes. Due to weather patterns, hunter-gatherers would usually have an “off-season” of 30 to 90 days with no endurance running.

So the answer to my question of how to run barefoot in cold weather appears to have a simple answer - don’t run. I plan to run sparingly in February and then get back to regular running in March.

A growing trend I see in grocery stores is that the parent puts a tablet or phone for the child in the shopping cart. This is in no way healthy for the child.

There is tons of research on this, showing screen time is not beneficial for young children.

Parenting young children is a ton of work, let’s be honest. But screens don’t help young children in any way and are not necessary.

I remember reading years ago about things like “heart-healthy” red wine and such. I never believed any of it.

The research now is pretty clear that no amount of alcohol is actually good for you. Small amounts of alcohol probably don’t cause much damage in terms of health. But alcohol is not a health-promoting substance.

This doesn’t mean that drinking alcohol is bad - it just means there are costs and benefits. Lots of actions have risk yet we undertake them anyways. Driving on the interstate is a risk but it gets people where they want to go.

And so like anything else, having accurate information as opposed to wishful thinking can help people make better decisions.

This is one of the more interesting papers I have read. It shows how with all the digital media and entertainment available, people are becoming increasingly bored in the modern age.

It discusses how digital media is an ineffective coping strategy for boredom.

For most of human history, creativity was not self-motivated. Art and music emerged as responses to shared environments. People lived close together and moments of quiet or emotion naturally invited song, drawing, rhythm, or story. Creativity happened because the situation called for it.

Modern life removed those signals. We work indoors under artificial light, often alone, with no shared stopping points and no communal sense that “now is the time.” After removing the conditions that once made creativity automatic, we tell people that if they can’t draw, play music, or make things consistently, they lack motivation or discipline.

If making art or music feels hard when you’re alone at home, that doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means the conditions have changed. Motivation used to be environmental, not psychological. It arose from presence, rhythm, constraint, and shared attention. When those cues disappeared, effort had to replace response — and creating became more difficult.

The issue, then, is not individual capacity but environmental fit. Ancient human behaviors are being asked to function in settings that no longer support them. Seeing this clearly reframes the problem and shifts the focus towards understanding the kinds of environments in which creativity naturally emerges.