Sunday Salon: What We Talk About When We Talk About Running

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Today's post is a continuation of a conversation Verena and I have been having on and off for the better part of the last three years. Why does everybody tell you that running is such a cheap sport and that all you need is a pair of running shoes? And if that is true, why do we have so much running stuff? Do we really not need most of it?

Verena and I started running around the same time and started running together two years or so later. We spent the the end of my time in St Andrews running, going to spinning classes, discussing our current running shoes, the running shoes we were going to buy once the next shoe in our rotation was going to break, good and bad sports bras, the fact that Verena thinks most of my sports clothes are too tight or too short and trying to find good deals on sports clothes in general.

I think it's also fair to mention that Katharina thinks my persistence in running in cotton t-shirts is ridiculous

We've been running all alone in different cities for the better part of 18 months now but we still spend our time talking about running shoes and workout gear.

Katharina:I started running while writing up my undergraduate project, trying to deal with the now ridiculously seeming stress I was putting myself under. I used a pair of old trainers that I think I had bought three years earlier and that had come nowhere near that 500k mark. At that point I was mostly running in yoga clothes, listening to Robert Ullrey's Couch to 5k podkast (http://www.c25k.com/). Two months and an undergraduate thesis later I first treated myself to a pair of lululemon pants, had my gait analysed and got myself a new pair of running shoes.

Verena:
I am still in denial about being a 'runner'. I have little to nothing in common with spandex clad near-olympians sprinting through the park at 6am on a Saturday morning. Or with the lean beef jerky types training for their umpteenth triathlon/iron man/ultra marathon.

I secretly wish I had the stamina to train for a triathlon and get a good time...
I sometimes still wear the same shirt that I had when starting to run (incidentally an old one of Katharina's - thanks!), and breathe like an asthmatic bulldog running after the ice cream van. But I have persisted for a few years now, and maybe it's time to admit that I actually like it. I started to run with the popular Couch to 5k running plan (hiphop version - I will always associate Eminen with my early runs), starting at 6am because I was so ashamed that someone would see me. I quickly discovered I had splayed feet and needed 'real' running trainers. Since then I have gone through quite a few pairs (and in the process became an expert at making use of warranty statements on shoe boxes). To my own shame I have to admit that I recently acquired a pair of running tights (and fell on my face on the initiation run, breaking them in the process). I have recently joined the increasing number of weirdos enjoying running in toe shoes. I have only overtaken one person whilst running, and it felt fantastic. I then turned round and saw that the person was well over 60 and had a wooden leg.

We got the idea for this post because I ran (haha - good one) into someone who was proclaiming that running is not only a great sport, but it is also one of the cheapest ones out there - you only need two legs (or one, or none). After hearing this, I just started a calculation in my head of how much money I have spent on running shoes alone. And how much you can spend if you really want to.

Almost every beginner's guide to running that I looked at on the interweb tells you that it is totally ok to run in t-shirts, shorts, sweatpants, ball gowns, etc. - the only thing you really need is a good pair of shoes.Unfortunately choosing a 'good pair of shoes' is a bit like signing up to a cult: there are motion control shoes, running flats, stability shoes, neutral shoes, shoes against suspination, and (maybe the current trend) minimalist shoes. I felt as beginner that I was pretty much at the mercy of the guy in the shop trying to sell me shoes - and I still feel that I don't really have much of a clue of which shoe is "best". 
I guess there are about 10-15 established manufacturers of running shoes. Their products are put through tests and assessment by e.g. runner's world every year. And these are are mostly what you would find in a shop doing a gait analysis. At the same time, these models are all in a higher price range.

I currently have 3 pairs in my running-shoe rotation. One pair with quite a lot of support for long runs (though those have been getting shorter and shorter). One pair with little support that is more of a forefoot one that I really like for short, fast-paced runs. One off-road pair that I wear when it's raining or when there's some snow on the ground. If I had to choose one pair I would probably chicken out and go for the support one because I know they will get me through short runs in the dark, long runs when I'm tired, and everything else you could throw at me (even some ice as I found out this winter). Currently, those are a pair of Brooks GTS (which are normally around $100 unless they are on sale).But, once you are wearing running shoes you like and you are running for more than 500 metres or so all the other stuff becomes important as well. There is nothing worse than a sports bra that doesn't fit. Or trousers that keep falling down or keep riding up. Anything that chafes. Oh, and contrary to Verena's opinion, I think the only time it might be ok to go running in cotton is if it's a t-shirt and you are going to the gym.

I think it's all got a bit to do with personal preference. I like running in football shorts (of a certain brand, and one particular model). They're great. Have pockets. Don't chafe, ride up, fall down. For this kind of thing, I don't see how 'specialist' equipment could make my running experience better. Most running tights don't even have space for my housekeys, let alone a tissue.

So tell me about the outfit you're currently running in. If you added up how much you spent on everything, would you die from a heart attack?

©Verena Kersken

-Fivefinger Komodo Sports shoes(bought for 99eur in the sale)
-Injinji toe socks (on ebay for 10eur)
-Football shorts (if they're not on sale they cost about 25eur)
-Nike sports bra (25eur on some website)
-Helly Hansen thermal (under €20)
-T-shirt (skull design, €1.50 from the 1 Euro shop)
-Hoodie (I guess those can easily be obtained for about €20)
-Nike gloves (€5 from TkMaxx)
-A buff (I would guess €12 -15)

I am quite surprised how easily this adds up...what about you?
I just realised that I buy most of my stuff while travelling....anyhow, here is my roundup:

-Saucony Kinvara shoes (bought for $99 not pictured because I forgot to put them in the picture...)
-Thorlos  mini crew socks ($15)
-Lululemon Runder Under Pants ($92, impulse buy at the lulu store, lovelovelove them!)
-Lulu sports bra ($58)
-IronMan Thermal ($12 or so at TJMaxx)
-UnderArmour top (€19 at TKMaxx)
-Rain jacket (not a clue, that one was a present from my parents, I have a second one I got for €59 at TKMaxx)
-NB gloves ($12 on sale at TJMaxx...I bought the expensive ones because they match my bike helmet...no judging!)
-Fleece headband to keep my ears toasty (€5 or so about 10 years ago...that was a good investment :) )

At least both of us are missing out on the really bells and whistle stuff: heart rate monitor, GPS, compression socks...I think the really shameful section is the footwear.

My tights were about as much as my shoes....I find that actually quite scary....but they're very pretty, have reflective stripes and they are reversible...so I guess I got two for the price of one...

See, but with the tights, you don't change them every couple of months. With shoes - you should. I am not even sure, whether that is actually the case, but that's what they tell you.

I think what it's really all coming down to is an honest answer to a couple of questions:-Is this piece/level of equipment necessary?
-Is it making my run better (either is it making me feel better, or if you're into that, making me faster/last longer)?
-What level of quality is there - and what is best for me?
-Where can I get honest information about things?

I think I noticed in the last few weeks of how easy I fall into the trap of reading up about things, getting more and more interested in them, wanting to try them out, and spending money on them - without changing the amount I run or the speed. Eventually I will end up with the equipment of a professional athlete, but will still run the duckpond round I have always run. Maybe it's also an image thing - I mean, I wouldn't mind having some of the umph of the dude or lady on the poster in the running shop.

I think you are completely right about the whole reading about things and then wanting to try them thing. The thing is, even if I (consciously) know that having a fancy heart rate monitor is not going to make me run more or faster or whatnot, I am still secretly convinced that the second I end up buying said fancy heart rate monitor I will magically transform into that triathlete you were talking about earlier.
But overall, even if you try not to buy things you don't actually need, it still adds up.

I just think it's a bit of a scam... I mean you re told you don't need anything - BUT good shoes (which will cost you), and then of course all the cheap stuff is crap, so spend some money.Then, maybe the biggest piece of irony... you read 'Born to Run', read about these little indigenous people who run superfast and far in a loincloth...and go out to buy minimalist shoes for the same price as walking boots.
And proper clothes because you would be freezing in this weather :)
I think that's rather subjective. I am wearing shorts, still (or rather, again)
Well, you might not be the only one on the short-front.

While we were thinking about our own running clothes, we did some super empirical research (i.e. we asked a few of our friends to take pictures of their running gear and asked them to tell us a bit more). If you are as nosey as we are - here is what we heard back :)


Alex:

©Alex Chase

-Headphones - Philips SHQ4007 (around £40) -two eGear Guardian lights, one red and one white (about £15 each) 
-aLOKSAK dry bag to keep my iPhone in (4 for £10) 
-Under Armour Draft Catalyst shorts (£28)
-Coreshorts (£35)
-SmartWool Mini Crew socks (£17)
-Nike Vomero 5s (£74)
-not in that picture is the LP knee brace (£17) that I occasionally wear
-Under Armour Compression t-shirt (£26)
-Howies merino NBL Classic (£55)
-old Gap t-shirt (£9)
-my next purchase is a Brooks Essential Run Jacket II for £60-odd...

So if I had to replace all of my running gear tomorrow it would cost over £300, but then I'm not a good example for keeping things cheap. I think I'm just too much of an [Katharina did some censoring here :)] when it comes to having nice things haha... Nobody *needs* £40 headphones, but mine do sound amazing; and there are cheaper shoes out there, but mine are designed for people who under-pronate; and a pair of shorts could cost less than a tenner, but mine are made from recycled plastic bottles... It's probably a placebo effect (or just in my head), but I do feel that if I have stuff I'm happy with, I'll run better.

I started running last January, and made it through to June going 3 times a week until my knee gave out. I kind of quit for the rest of 2012, and I restarted again this January (with a new stretching/yoga program: fingers crossed...). I'm not sure it would be fair to call myself a "serious runner" yet, but I am very committed. 
Things I won't leave the house without: headphones and my iPhone running RunKeeper: I like to keep track of where I've been, but I really need that app telling me how far I've gone and how fast I'm going every few minutes for motivation/to make sure I'm pacing myself.


Bettina:

©Bettina Trueb

- hat, 30€ (?)
- thermal long sleeve (gift)
- running hoodie, can't remember how much it cost!
- running tights, don't remember but they were on sale and a very good bargain!
- 3/4 tights for extra warmth, stolen from mum
- gloves, 20€ (?)
- socks, no idea
- shoes, 80€ (end of season sale, down from 120€)


Sally:

©Sally Newman-Carter

-trainers £70
-socks £10
-running capris £20
-t-shirt £12
-running bra £25 (but totally worth it!)
-jumper/jacket £15
-sweatband £3

I dont mind spending this on it all - the only thing that really wears out and I have to replace are the trainers, the rest of it has lasted me years. The only thing is I run 5 times a week and can't wash it all quickly enough so I do need duplicates of everything + seasonal variations of course.
I certainly did not used to consider myself a runner, but I think the marathon [I ran a few year ago] changed me - I definitely am now! How many miles per week depends on what stage of training for a particular race I'm at, it can range from 15-30.
The one thing I never run without is my phone - not only for security should I get injured or something, but more importantly(?!!) the runkeeper app! I use it to track every run to keep a record of my pace, improvements, distance etc. absolute essential!

As you can see - running isn't cheap. However the reason may be that getting into running is highly corelated with an interest in running stuff (which of course needs to be tried). I think we all have something we had for a number of years, and it just turned out to be the best piece of equipment... but there seems to be room for more at every corner.

I guess what it boils down to for me is the following: Whatever sport you do, there is no point in doing it if you will end up hurting yourself. For running, that starts with what shoes you wear and ends with wearing clothes appropriate for your run. Wearing sweatpants and buying yourself a yoga book is probably going to be cheaper. Though, if I'm perfectly honest, I have spent just as much money on a yoga mat as I spend on a pair of cheaper running shoes. It's the best mat I've ever had. And it gets me doing something in the morning before I head to work. 
But back to the running gear - we wouldn't know what kind of shoes we like if we hadn't tried them at some point. I discovered that I do actually quite enjoy landing on my forefoot by accident - I was in the store buying some trusty Brooks GTS and didn't want to leave because it was raining cats and dogs outside. After chatting with the salesperson for a while he told me about how he had shifted from midfoot-running to forefoot and let me try out the model he liked. I walked out with a second pair of shoes that day and haven't looked back. Yet, if you had asked me whether I would ever buy a pair of forefoot running shoes when I walked into the store I would have told you 'no way'.

I guess that's true. (You should all try fivefingers - just saying... also they should probably give me a free pair for saying this... ).

But, as Alex said, it is more fun to run in 'nice stuff' - whether that stuff is new, exciting or just works. In the end you will end up spending money on a bunch of clothes that you will wear twice and then keep in the closet. You will spend money on dressing appropriately for every weather. You will replace your shoes regularly because you will wear them out. You will end up with umpteen pairs of running socks. At the same time, you will hang on to your 5 year old hoody because it just feels the best.
Trends in running will keep on coming - and I am sure I will fall victim to a few. But maybe I will end up with the perfect leg wear, which will finally convince me to sign up for a race. I am still unsure of how to tell apart fads from useful developments - or which sources and people to trust on equipment advice (not those who spend a fortune on a yoga mat). I am still convinced that no one who starts to run will end up only spending €100. But that's ok. I mean, considering the time you spend doing it - money well spent.
So the bottom line should be: you don't need a lot of stuff for running - if you have comfortable sports clothes that will work, then you're set. The only thing you should probably spend some more money on are running shoes, but if you don't want the newest model and don't care about their colour you could even get those fairly cheap.

...so it took us an endless debate to arrive at the conclusion put forward by every running site out there. Well done.

But we have pretty pictures :)

Sunday Salon: Taking a Breath

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This week I am 'taking a holiday'.
The fact that I am writing should probably already tell you how much lying on the beach or sitting around doing nothing will actually be happening this week but that's not where I want to start off. Let's take half a step back.
Lately, I've been exhausted. I wake up in the morning and I am already tired, I go to bed and half the time I fall asleep with my light on because I am gone the second my head hits the pillow. I'm not telling you because I'm asking for pity but I'm more stating the obvious - if you're spreading yourself too thin and working on too many different projects, sometimes you just need to stop even if the things that you have to stop doing for a while are all things you love.
The reason I have decided to write about this today is because lately,every time I talk to someone we seem to be comparing who's had more migraines over the last feeks or who feels more rundown, who managed to hurt themselves worse while exercising in order to come down after a long day at work. I'm sure this has something to do with the fact that my circle of friends and acquaintances has a fairly high proportion of people who are at the beginning of their career, who have just moved to new cities, who are still trying to find their place in the 'real world'. But is that really it?
Sometimes I wonder - how much of it hast something to do with moving and starting a job and the whole 'real world' thing and how much has something to do with not being able to take a break.
After Preston wrote the last Sunday Salon post I had a whole list of things I wanted to write about, I had a list of people who had losely commited to writing a post, I had a backlog of 10 recipes, all waiting to be written out and uploaded.
And then I realised that I didn't care.
I didn't care whether you got my post on gay marriage exactly 4 weeks before the US election. I mean I care quite deeply about equality irrespective of gender or sexual orientation or religion, but at that point I had stopped caring about whether you care about what I have to say.
A while ago there was an article on the NYTimes opinionator blog by Tim Kreider making the rounds that discussed the idea that we 'enjoy' being stressed and that it's become somewhat fashionable, that it gives us purpose.
When I look at myself, when I look around me, I don't see that many people who enjoy being stressed out - yes, it's always fun to complain about how much you have to do and where you have to be when you have the time to do so, but more often than not people just disappear in that cloud of stress.
When was the last holiday in your adult life where you didn't think about work or brought your laptop or stuff to review or whatnot? Actually, let's include the last year or two of high school.
I had two times when I really didn't do anything for a couple of weeks - the sumer before starting university and then the summer before starting grad-school (but here I already have to make the concession that I went on a summer school at the beginning of that summer...).
There have been a couple of half-hearted attempts to go off the grid for winter holidays and then last year I went on a trip to the US with my mum last year that was supposed to be completely work-free...but neither attempt really worked out - it turns out I can't relax, even remotely when there is no internet whatsoever. I am that person who walks around a room with laptop or phone for better reception, who gets absolutely antsy if they can't check their email for more than 2 days in a row. I'm told it gets quite hilarious for others.
Have I actually become unable to take time off? Am I just a workaholic, or a person with an isolated problem? I don't think so. I am actually convinced that I am just an example of my generation (tell me if I'm delusional in that respect). I feel, unlike the generation Kreider is talking about our generation never learned to deal with having time off and never really learned to say no where work is concerned.
In a way we are incredibly lucky, having grown up in a time of relative prosperity, when so much seemed possible. No more cold war, the beginning of internet for everybody, one European currency...we grew up in an environment that allowed us to pursue our interests and talents. Most of us ended up studying things that weren't really practical but things that allowed us to grow and to develop our talents even further. So many of us were lucky enough to end up in a field that we are interested in and that we identify with (I don't think it matters whether that turned out to be Psychophysics or Political Science or Game Design or Theoretical Mathematics). Unlike the generation before us that, according to Kreider, likes to keep busy what we do has become entangled with our view of ourselves, it is linked to our self-worth. And that is where I think the trouble starts. When you need to take a break because you have no energy left, how does that affect how you see yourself as a person? If you need to slow down and do less of one of the things you use to define yourself, where does that leave you?
I don't know the answer to all of this, I don't know whether I have managed to explain any of those thoughts I've been trying to express. What I know, though, is that I will enjoy my little work expedition to DC as much as i can :)
I hope you have a lovely rest of your Sunday!

Sunday Salon: Something on Grief

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Today Preston talks about grief and how there is a space for grief not just at funerals.
Preston normally writes over at see Prestonblog where he writes about art and faith and about writing (because he does a lot of that).
I met Preston through my dear friend Anna who organised for the three of us to have an amazingly fun dinner (you see, the three of us - we like to cook, eat good food, and talk about our blogs). Since then, Preston's writing has made me laugh, has made me cry, has made me think. I hope you get the same joy out of reading his words.

I don’t cry at funerals.

I feel that it’s important to inform you of that upfront. The rest of this would be an exercise in a kind of cheap sentimentality if I did not.

I cry in other circumstances: moments of joy, ordinary graces, when the Host is lifted during the Eucharist, when films end with impossibly true endings—either for the better or the worse. I weep for the sad things, I weep for the sad, but funerals have never moved me to tears. Sometimes before, sometimes after, but not during.

A fistful of dirt upon the coffin. A lily dropped into void. My face offers nothing but solemn recognition, an awareness that something has been lost, but I know then only the smudgness of it, not the something of it.

It is, ultimately, an exercise in self-preservation.

II

My grandmother wore black for weeks after my grandfather died.

I’m not sure many people noticed. It was an old custom, the mark of the widow, the mark of the grieved, but it didn’t translate.

Would you like to try this perfume? Perhaps entice some man?

That was in a mall once, I think but a few months after. I think she had stopped wearing black by then. I think the sales girl who asked meant nothing of offense. I think these things over and over as my grandmother tells me the story and fights not to weep over it again.

I think I should know what to do in this moment, but I can offer nothing beyond what I think is but an empty bowl, outstretched, to catch her words and hold them for a time as my own.

III

And what they have stammered ever since

are fragments

of your ancient name.

Rilke, to God, on the fracturing unwholeness of death.

IV

I am a Christian, so I believe in the resurrection of the dead.

I say that as preface to this other bit I want to focus on, which is not about resurrection but the question of before, or, rather, the question of endurance. The question of during.

In the Gospel of St. John, when Mary and Martha mourn the loss of their brother Lazarus, we glimpse the culture of the day. Their mourning is not in isolation or in measured moments, but with a community around them. Their home, full of those who mourn along side them, who sit and listen, speak nothing, allow grief to be a palpable thing, something that sits in the space with them, speaks to them, threatens, perhaps, to overtake them.

There is the moment when Martha rises to meet Jesus far off, to demand why He did not come sooner, to confront. And this is the image that resonates, the image I think of before I think I am a Christian, so I believe in the resurrection of the dead.

When Martha goes to meet Jesus, everyone who was with her follows. They say nothing, from what we can tell, but they follow all the same. Where her grief takes her, they go. The question of duration. Grief observed, not cast aside.

V

What am I trying to say here?

I am trying, in fragment, to suggest something about how we understand death. Modern culture has insisted that we grieve in haste, that we leave the infirm in their pain until they are numb enough to sit in our alleged peacefulness once more.

Here, my bias is showing, I grant. But what I am saying is this: perhaps we need to be a collective people when grief comes. Perhaps, when I can’t cry at funerals, I can cry in the before and after because tears are needed in those moments, too. Perhaps.

And what they have stammered ever since

are fragments

of your ancient name.

Rilke.

I keep turning it over.

I keep hurtling it up to the vaulted heavens, wondering if it should reach the throne of God.

As I sit, here, beside the one now having lost. As I weep in the before, the after, and ponder this strange place of during.

Sunday Salon: The Protest

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I am very excited about today's guest post - Brittany writes about taking a stand for who you are and what you believe in. Brittany is currently pursuing her PhD  at the University of St Andrews and she's one of those people who make me think that I shouldn't have left before finishing up my write-up. 
I find it frightening that, in a world where we have access to so much knowledge and information, people are judged not based on their choices and their actions but based on how they were born. I am not trying to offend anyone here, but to me that is like saying 'I don't think people who are not part of the majority race should be allowed to go to the swimming pool' (which then later develops into taking away more and more social rights, then legal rights and economic rights). Oh, but isn't that already happening again? Anyhow, I am awed by the strength it must take to stand up in a situation like the one Brittany describes below.

On April 15, 2012, Cardinal Keith O’Brien came to speak in St Salvator’s Chapel at the University of St Andrews.  His bigotry and narrow-minded views preceded him; in response to his previous statements, the University of St Andrews LGBT Society staged a silent, peaceful protest.

Have you read this man’s words? I have. And because of his words, his proclamations of abhorrence and intolerance, I went to the protest. How disappointed I was.  To set the scene: St Salvator’s chapel is extremely old (est. 1450).  The kind of old where pews are in vertical rows, people facing each other rather than an altar.  Ostensibly good for a protest – visibility central! Unfortunately, the members of the LGBT movement were seated in chairs at the back of the church, barely in the peripheral vision of the rest of the audience.

As we filed in and took our seats, the rest of the audience looked on with curiosity – the other students had probably heard of our protest, and those who hadn’t were surely tipped off by the solid-coloured t-shirts in various colours of the rainbow. Their staring was full of discomfort, perhaps from pity, or uneasiness with overt displays of pride, or both. It is already strange to be outcast by virtue of sexual orientation; even stranger to have this ‘casting out’ embodied in a seating arrangement, where we were virtually unable to look the rest of the audience in the eye, people trying and failing to subtly look at us from their peripheral vision.

I’m not one to case wanton judgement. From most of his speech, I could see that the Cardinal was indeed a scholar well versed in scripture. But near the end of his speech, his voice took a hard tone. And his words, his very manner, were so hard and full of hate. My blood was running hot with fury as the ‘normal’ listeners cast awkward glances and pitying looks, fully aware that the subtly virile comments were most certainly offensive to us.

It was the first time (mark it: the first time) that I had ever, ever felt ashamed, judged, or disrespected. A feeling caused by a leader – leader! –of an organization I was raised in, an organization my partner loves and forgives for its firm disbelief in her kind of love. A feeling caused by other members of the audience, who shifted uncomfortably in their seats or snuck glances at us from the corners of their eyes to see if there were any sort of overt reaction.

Now, I am notoriously strong-minded. I like to say what I think, and I like to say it loudly. And there, in that chapel, I considered all the things I would say to this little man after his speech finished. I debated lambasting the University of St Andrews for the role it played in propagating the staring and ridicule. I drew parallels in my mind of Rosa Parks, relegated to the back of the bus, and me, relegated to the back of the church. Oppressed for different reasons, but both the victims of injustice. I thought of Mrs. Parks, and how brave she was when she sat in that bus seat and believed in her equality to the white person who wanted her seat. I wanted to follow her example as best I could.So I stood.

I turned to the boy next to me, a stranger. “Stand up with me. Really – stand up with me.” So we stood, the two of us; holding hands (my knees were shaking as people stared). My partner stood. And slowly, one by one, with an increasingly obvious scraping of chairs, everyone at the back of the chapel stood as the rest of the audience watched (I will admit to some small satisfaction that nobody seemed to be listening to the Cardinal’s words at this point).

We did not raise our voices; we did not cause a scene. We only stood silently, and somewhat ridiculously, in our rainbow t-shirts, a bright reminder of what we literally stood for.  We held hands with the person next to us (Stranger…if you read this…I’m sorry for my sweaty palms).  We were respectful, but pointed. With that small act of standing, thirty or so St Andrews students demonstrated their worth to a man who actively oppresses them with his ardent opposition to gay marriage, and to an audience who glossed over us in shame.

As the sermon ended, I turned to my left and whispered, “Thanks for being so brave and standing with me”.  The stranger looked at me for a moment, considering my words, and said only: “It felt good”. Yes. It did.

Brittany Fallon

Sunday Salon: We're not just losing a Currency, we're losing a Dream

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Today I am sharing this space with my dear friend Bettina. Which is really exciting. Because Bettina is way smarter than me an can put her amazing thoughts into really pretty words whereas I just make it up as I go along. In real life, Bettina is a political scientist and has a passion for Europe and Latin America. Her second passion is literature which she is channeling into her own literary blog - liburuak. Today, Bettina is writing about the Euro Crisis and how it is about a lot more than just our shared currency or about a mountain of bureaucracy but how we are in danger of giving up on ideals that should unite us and a system that most young people seem to take for granted (and that both Bettina and I were able to take advantage of when we went and did our undergraduate degrees in this place far far away called St Andrews). I hope you enjoy today's post!

First of all, let me thank Katharina for hosting my rant on here. I've been waiting to get this off my chest for a while, and with this, I had an excuse.

Let me start with the obvious. A lot is wrong with the Euro, a lot is wrong with the EU, and a lot is wrong with how the crisis is being dealt with. I have to admit I have no idea how to fix it and, most likely, neither do the "experts", really. The Eurozone, and more importantly the world economy is one of those complex systems where if you tighten one screw, another one will come loose somewhere else.

The economic effects of the crisis are frightening, but what frightens me just as much or perhaps even more at this point is how easily we have let go of a dream Europeans had previously been constructing for six decades.

Before all economic hell broke loose, I never thought we could go back to old stereotypes so easily. Anyone not living under a rock will have known that they were still around within Europe, but I honestly never thought they would get this nasty again this quickly. From German "newspaper" Bild naming the Greeks almost exclusively with the word "bust" in front,* to Greeks burning German flags and equating Merkel with Hitler, negative national stereotyping has become wide-spread in Europe at an alarming speed. You see, Bild is the most-read "newspaper" in Germany. It's not just some idiotic right wing nutters who are going crazy here, it's a mass phenomenon.

Equally fashionable, closely related and nearly as scary is the Europhobia - because what we are seeing here is beyond Euroscepticism - that is spreading like wildfire across Europe. The crisis-ridden countries of the South blame "Europe" for strangling their economies, while the less afflicted countries blame it for having to fork out "their" money to finance Southern mismanagement. It seems as if many, if not even a majority of Europeans couldn't care less if Europe were to fall apart. And nowhere have politicians risen above exploiting the crisis for national and even sub-national electoral purposes.

What worries me most is that for the first time, Europhobia is gaining a strong following in Germany, traditionally a very pro-EU country, and for good reason: the standing we have in the world, economically and politically, we have thanks to European integration. And we are forgetting that.

This is not only a German phenomenon, though. All over Europe, we are forgetting what Europe really is: an idea, a dream. A dream that we can work together to live in prosperity and in peace, in tolerance and in freedom. What is at peril in the crisis is a European Dream that is just as great and possibly even more ambitious than the American Dream. Because while the American Dream is about achieving your aspirations by working by yourself, in Europe for decades we have dreamt of achieving them by working together.

We have good reason to be proud of Europe and its achievements. Because apart from creating a number of bureaucratic monsters - although bans on bendy bananas and curvy cucumbers are largely mythical - Europe has done an awful lot for each and every single one of us. We have come to take these achievements for granted, and it seems to me that people are just not aware of all the amazing things that would disappear if the European Dream were to break down. Let me give you a few mundane examples.

Thanks to the European Dream, can travel freely across Europe. Wherever you go, you are covered by health insurance just by waving a little blue card with the sexy name EHIC (if you're interested, it stands for European Health Insurance Card). You can work in another country, earn pension rights, and take them with you when you leave. Granted, it's a little complicated in practice, but at least you can do it at all. Thanks to the EU, my boyfriend and I can live in the same country without one of us having to worry about residence and work permits or visa. We just live.

You can study abroad thanks to an elaborate party scheme called Erasmus. You can study abroad outside the Erasmus framework and be spared having to pay ridiculous overseas fees because the European Union deemed discrimination among different EU nationals illegal on your behalf. If you return to your home country or move somewhere else, your university degree will be recognised. You may have to jump through some hoops, but you will get there in the end.

Throughout the Eurozone, you can pay with the same currency. If you're a little older than the Euro, you'll have (hazy) memories of how much of an enormous pain it used to be when you had to exchange money everywhere you went. In fact, if you've recently travelled outside the Eurozone, you will have quite a vivid memory of it. Thanks to the European Commission's "regulation fever", mobile roaming fees are getting lower and lower (they are still excruciatingly expensive, but we're making a start).

If you are travelling outside Europe and find yourself in trouble - say, you've been robbed or lost your passport - in a country where your home country doesn't have an embassy, you're not alone. You can go to any other EU country's embassy and they will help you as if they were your own. The idea is so awesome it gives me goose bumps.

Listing these things harbours the danger of boiling the European Dream down to a few practicalities. These are just a few of the achievements the European project has brought to our everyday lives in the EU.

But the European Dream is so much bigger than that, and we are watching it crash and burn without doing much about it, indeed some seem to be betting on its failure and spurring it on. At the first sight of adversity, we are letting the dream that we can live together in a space free of borders go in favour of a bunch of narrow-minded, simplistic stereotypes.

And the world is watching us, with many onlookers shaking their heads in disbelief. Because here's the thing: the European Dream is not just our dream. In many places, more or less successful attempts have been made to recreate what was perceived as a zone of economic prosperity, democracy, and personal freedom. We're not just endangering our own dream, we're destroying the aspirations of many who wanted to live in an environment a little more like Europe.

Believe me, I am aware of a lot of the one-size-fits-all, sometimes neo-colonial external relations the EU has been involved in where it hasn't exactly covered itself with glory. I am also aware of "fortress Europe" that has sought to shut others out of our prosperity and freedom by building high external walls.

But even so, it is my belief that if we continue to watch the European Dream shattering around us, we make ourselves responsible for other, similar and more fragile dreams being suffocated before they have even been fully born. As European citizens, we bear a responsibility that goes beyond our own borders.

Let's keep dreaming, and let's work to rescue our European Dream. Let's rescue Europe.

* I tried hard and unsuccessfully to find a translation that would even come close to the demeaning term "Pleite-Griechen" Bild is using. There's a linguistic connotation here with the word "Pleitegeier", originally from the Yiddish and meaning someone who goes bust (Wikipedia enlightened me on that one). "Geier", however, also means vulture in German. Mix that together and you hopefully get exactly the yucky feeling that overcomes me when I hear the term "Pleite-Griechen".

Sunday Salon: Of sports and gender equality.

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Today, rather than giving you a new recipe, I continue what my friend Mick started us off with a fortnight ago with ramblings on something I care about. And since Mick told us something about himself I think it is only fair if I do the same. So here it goes  - three things you might not know about me :)
When I am not pretending to write a food-blog I keep myself busy by trying to get my head around how light things we look at appear and why, by going to lacrosse practice (my sister finally convinced me and now I'm hooked) and by complaining about how I don't really understand the articles I am reading, how my legs hurt, and how I am really not good at the whole sprinting for the ball thing. 
And this gets me to what I actually want to talk about - our perception of women who do sports (at all different levels).

Perhaps I never noticed before, perhaps the newspapers and blogs I read just picked up on it more than in the past, but I was shocked during this year's Olympics by the number of comments that people made that pretty much reduced female athletes to their looks.
I was shocked to see that apparently there is still a large enough number of people who think that it is acceptable to discuss an athlete's performance in a sporting event and focus either on their gender or their looks.

This in turn reminded me of how growing up I was always told that there was no difference between men and women. That I could become whatever I wanted to be, whether that was a nutritionist, a teacher, or an engineer. That it does not matter what you do as long as you give it your best. I think the only times I had a slight discussion with my parents about my career choices was when I decided to drop Management in University to focus on Psychology (where my dad told me about the bad employment statistics for Psychologist and asked me where I could see myself working) and then again when I decided to go to grad-school (where our discussion focused on whether I would still be able to find a job in industry if I decided against academia).

Watching athletes, who decided to turn the thing they are good at into a job, who work incredibly hard to be the best at what they do, who I am pretty sure had a lot more conversations with their families about their career choices (at least I hope so), who had to sacrifice time with friends or just time off in order to be where they are is simply amazing.

Watching female athletes who do the same thing being reduced to their bodies and even harassed for it makes me sad. While you might say that this is only a small proportion of people who behave like this on the internet, I fear the fact that this group of people thinks it is ok to do so means there is a much larger proportion of people who do not care about whether this happens or who even implicitly support ideas such as the one that female weight lifters might not be as womanly or feminine. Both options have somewhat scary implications.

This kind of behaviour makes me wonder about two things - what is feminine, who gets to decide? And, I think more importantly, what does this tell us about some of the deep-rooted beliefs we share as a society?
When I asked a completely non-representative group of friends about what sports they perceived as feminine gymnastics ranked quite high on everybody's list. I definitely agree that these athletes look incredibly graceful when they are doing but when I watch gymnastics I am actually more impressed with how they are able to make an intense and strenuous routine look easy. The same goes for cheerleading or ballet. These athletes work for hours to make things look easy that most of us will never be able to even do. Yet, a lot of the time they are not perceived as athletes.
Interestingly, the sports that women tend to be perceived as athletes in, such as soccer, or cycling, or swimming, or weight lifting are all sports that I have heard people mention words such as 'tough' and 'muscular' negatively.

Is it really the case, that when we practice a sport that emphasises 'making it look easy and graceful' we will not be perceived as athletic whereas when we practice a sport that does not we are perceived as less feminine?
I have never competed in a sport at a national or even international level, but thinking about the sports that I have and am practicing, when I dance in front of people and get off the stage I don't feel feminine, I feel strong and powerful and proud because I know how much work went into that performance and I know what kind of strength it takes to leap across a stage and make it look effortless. When I was kayaking I didn't feel any less feminine (because nobody cared about your gender, it was about whether you made that line or not...). I also think that some of my friends whom I consider extremely 'feminine' are though as nails when they are out there playing soccer, lacrosse, or volleyball.

So why am I going on about this today? Why does this concern me? Or you?
To me, it is a scary thought that nearly 40 years ago our mums and aunts were protesting and burning their bras and whatnot in order to achieve gender equality. On the one hand people are somewhat enraged that until 1977 women in Western Germany needed permission from their husband in order to get a job. Yet we are still holding on to archaic concepts of what it means to be a woman and what a woman should act like. We are also still expressing this by treating sports and jobs that are more feminine as somewhat less valuable than their male counterparts. It is perfectly acceptable to want to work in an office, but how often are parents who decide they want to be a stay-at-home mum or dad judged for that decision? How much are professional football players paid, and how much does a professional ballet dance make? I think the length you can expect your career to last is roughly the same and the injury potential should be similar as well.

Sometimes I feel like we stopped working towards gender equality (yes, it might be there on paper in most developed countries, but I mean real equality).We cannot change the world in one day, but acknowledging female athletes for what they do rather than discussing their performance in relation to their looks seems like a good place to start.

Sunday Salon: Feeding the Caveman

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You have no idea how excited I am about today's post. My friend Mick has agreed to be the first one to post in this new series of posts that I decided to call Sunday Salon late one night after brainstorming with a friend and my other good friends gin & tonic. I've lined up some amazing people who either write blogs that I read myself or who do other cool things that I admire (like do really cool research, or have a hobby that I think is really impressive) to write about something they care about.
Mick (who writes a lovely blog about living in the States - Legal Nonresident Alien) is starting us off writing about the paleo diet and I am really happy he decided to write this post because it pretty much sums up my feelings about this 'diet' just more eloquently. Since I hope you will leave a comment if you have thoughts about this you want to share I'll add mine as the first comment myself.

Hello. I’d like to thank Katharina for giving me a whole new audience to rant at. My name’s Mick, and I’m a neuroscientist by day, and a drunken Glaswegian by night. Two of my favourite pass-times are ranting about things that annoy me, and food (cooking or eating, both bring me immense pleasure). So I’m going to combine my passions and rant about a food-related issue: fad diets. Well, one fad diet in particular, the paleo diet.

The paleo diet (or paleolithic diet, to use its Sunday name) is a fairly new food fad which recommends that we only eat foods which were available to paleolithic man: fruits, some vegetables, meat but (allegedly) no grains such as wheat. I’ll get into specifics later. The premise of the paleo diet is that modern humans evolved in the paleolithic time so we should only eat foods that were available at that time because evolution hasn’t equipped us to deal with many of the foods in the modern diet.

The argument is usually framed in two parts: firstly, that we have only evolved to digest and metabolise foods available 20,000 years ago. Secondly, that modern hunter-gatherer tribes do not suffer from the “diseases of civilisation” such as heart disease, high blood pressure or cancer, so the modern diet is obviously the cause of all our woes.

The sharper of you may already be starting to see the holes in the argument and be wondering who could be taken in by this diet. However, there have been quite a few scientific papers published espousing how good the paleo diet is. And I'm sure it is purely co-incidental that some academic researchers have also published books on things like how to eat the paleo diet. Science is the noble pursuit of truth in a messy world and academics write books all the time, so if they happen to do research that could influence book sales well, that’s just a lucky coincidence. 

Anyway, my arguments against paleo will vary from petulant ones which will be mostly petty point-scoring, to more detailed ones backed by scientific fact. Extra points for those who spot which ones are which. I’ll begin by discussing which foods are acceptable in the paleo diet, and which are verboten.

Foods allowed in the paleo diet are those which were available to a hunter-gatherer: fish, meat, eggs, insects, fruit, vegetables, nuts and mushrooms. Oh, plus herbs and spices. Foods not allowed in the paleo diet include grains (corn, barley, wheat, oats, rice, etc), dairy products, refined sugar, salt, processed oils, starchy vegetables (potatoes, sweet potato, cassava, etc) and, oddly enough, legumes (all beans, peas, lentils). The grain list also includes stuff made from grains, obviously, such as bread and pasta. Just think: a world without cheese, beer or bread?

Paleo flaw number one: the list of allowed and forbidden foods is based on our best guesses of what paleolithic man (and woman) ate. This list is based on a lot of assumptions that are not, really, testable. Inferences can be made from modern hunter-gatherer populations and also from archaeological evidence, and this is what paleo proponents do. Unfortunately for the archaeologists, evidence of diet is hard to come by (squishy stuff like vegetables and people don’t preserve very well) so concluding anything other than looking at gnawed bones and saying “we ate meat” is tricky at best. 

Paleo defenders will then tell you to look at modern hunter-gather tribes to see what they eat. They will generally cherry-pick the tribe that most suits the particular angle that they are trying to defend. In my field, we call cherry-picking your evidence Bad Science. Do you really think that the diet of modern Inuits, mostly fish- and meat-based because not much grows in the Arctic, will be similar to that of tribes living in the South American rain forests, sub-Saharan Africa or in the middle of a desert in the Australian outback? The truth is that humans are bloody resourceful animals and will always manage to survive with whatever is available, be that grubs, tubers or Big Macs.

Let's take a look at the foods that are forbidden in the paleo diet. How about grain? Paleolithic man didn't eat or process grains so modern man shouldn't eat them, right? Two years ago, an article published in PNAS demonstrated that processing of grains and perhaps even production of flour was being carried out 30,000 years ago, so caveman did actually eat grains. We can go even earlier: another PNAS article shows us that Neanderthals were also processing starchy grains, related to sorghum, as well as plants from that other class of foods forbidden on the paleo diet, namely legumes. Did I mention that our Neanderthal cousins were cooking these foods as well? The YOUNGEST Neanderthal remains found so far are around 32,000 years old, although DNA evidence suggests that some of their genome lives on in us. Further evidence of this can be seen in my home town of Glasgow: try Sauchiehall St around 2am on a Saturday morning and you'll see what I mean.


If one were to follow the spirit of paelo to its logical conclusion, other foods that should be avoided are anything that comes from the New World as none of these foods were available to paleolithic woman. So no tomatoes, bell peppers, chilies, blueberries, avocados, squash, or pumpkins, to name but a few. And domesticated animals are nothing like their wild ancestors, so paleo adherents should only eat wild-caught game, although I won't insist that they only eat game caught with stone-age weapons. Of course, paleo people don't take it this seriously.


Another of the paleo assumptions is that we evolved in the paleolithic era and not enough time has passed since for evolution to shape us in a way that is suited for the modern diet. This argument is, quite simply, wrong, and is based on a very weak understanding of biology. Alcohol dehydrogenases, the family of enzymes that metabolise alcohol, have been adapted and selected for recently in our evolutionary past. Dairy is also prohibited from the paleo diet because it wasn't around in hunter-gatherer times so we haven't evolved to handle it. Right? Wrong: Lactase persistence into adulthood is a recent evolutionary adaptation, having arisen in the last 5000 to 10,000 years, or after paleo man became neolithic man. These are just two examples from the top of my head, so I'm sure there are many others.


What annoys me most about paleo is that it tries to use science to justify some of the dafter elements of the diet, such as avoiding legumes. This argument is based on the concept of "anti nutrients", enzymes or proteins found in plants which inhibit absorption of other minerals or nutrients from food, or inhibit digestion. Examples include lectins and phytic acid, large amounts of which are found in grains, seeds, nuts and legumes.


Lectins break down via cooking, so the argument against them is just silly. Phytic acid is a bit more interesting - it forms complexes with metal ions, making them much harder to digest. While they are present in some non-paleo foods such as rice, oats and lentils, even higher levels are found in many nuts such as almonds, brazil nuts, hazel nuts and walnuts. Nuts are recommended paleo-snacks because they were available to the cave-man. I also came across this when gathering my references, which sums the argument up with more vitriol than even I can manage.


Basically, these so-called antinutrients are found in most plants because they serve various roles, such as natural insecticides. But this is also why we use that neat trick of cooking plant matter to increase the nutritional content. As I said before, even our Neanderthal cousins stumbled across that one. Pretty much every plant contains these compounds to some degree, which is why we evolved to eat a wide and varied diet.


As an aside, something that is generally over-looked in nutrition studies is the role that gut bacteria have in digesting our food and providing us with nutrients. It is well established that gut microbes are one of the main sources of vitamin K and some B vitamins in the human diet -
our gut flora mooches on our meals and, in return, they provide us with vital micronutrients.


Our symbiotic bacteria are also capable of breaking down phytates in our diet, thereby taming the evil antinutrients. What is REALLY cool is a paper from a couple of years ago showing that gut flora of Japanese people picks up genes from marine microbes which are eaten along with seaweed. This horizontal gene transfer gives the gut flora an ability to break down sugars in the seaweed which humans can't digest on their own. How amazing is that!?


So, to summarise, is the paleo diet actually bad? Not in itself - any diet which recommends avoiding processed food and eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables is a good diet. However, paleo excludes so many foods which are both beneficial and necessary to feed the entire planet. If everyone tried to eat meat at every meal, we'd not have much of a planet left, yet this is what paleo people tell you to do. The fact that they use bad science in an attempt to justify their position really makes me angry.


I suppose a lot of food is not about nutrition, but is cultural and a way of identifying with a certain group. Paleo seems to me to be a diet which is even pickier than veganism, but for guys and girls who still want to eat lots of meat. By all means, pick a diet that makes you happy. But trying to emulate the diet that humans ate when most people died in their 20s, either of disease, during childbirth or by becoming food for something bigger, well, that seems a bit daft.


© Michael Craig