At a recent check up my doctor advised me that my blood pressure was unhealthily high. There’s lots of factors going into that of course, but one relatively easy step to reduce blood pressure is to reduce your sodium intake.
The recommended daily allowance of sodium (RDA) is 2,300 mg. However the average american probably gets 4,000 – 5,000mg. The main culprit is of course processed food. But I don’t just mean pizza’s, and frozen dinners (both guilty). If you eat a bag lunch at work then lunch meat is also a major source of sodium in your diet.
On average people put somewhere between 3 and 6 slices of lunch meat in their sandwich. Each slice probably has at least 250mg of sodium in it. That’s 750 – 1,500mg of sodium just from a lunch sandwich and it doesn’t include the bread itself!
There’s a solution though. It’s economical, it’s healthy and it actually tastes better. Best of all it’s easy.
Go to your local grocery store and purchase boneless, skinless chicken breast (or tenderloin). Make sure it hasn’t been pumped with brine (a common practice now). 3oz of chicken breast (around 6-8 slices of lunch meat) could have as little as 30mg of sodium in it. While you’re at it pick up some sodium free poultry seasoning.
Now chop up the chicken into strips, season to taste and grill. Separate the strips into bags (2oz per lunch for however many lunches you want that week) and then freeze them.
Simple as that. They taste better than the processed lunch meat, you can stock up and do weeks at a time (I’ve done two months worth before) and you’re cutting hundreds of mg of sodium a day out of your diet. Personally I dropped 2,500mg per week off my diet from this single step.
Updated to let those of you searching for news on the HTC Droid Eris Android 2.1 update know that as of 2/23/10 the only known date is Q1 2010. So, before the end of March is all Verizon is saying right now.
There’s a lot of hype behind the idea of real time information flow on the internet. In particular the idea of getting news updates in “real times” is floated as a holy grail of the information age. But is it really such a good thing to get instant reports? I present to you the Android 2.1 Non-Release for the Droid Eris.
The HTC Droid Eris is a Verizon phone that currently runs Google’s Android 1.5 mobile phone operating system. It’s owners (myself include) are eagerly awaiting an update to the latest and greatest Android 2.1. An upgrade that has been promised by Verizon for Q1 of 2010.
On February 17th there was a post on the Droid Eris forums at Android Forums from someone someone claiming he’d received an OTA (Over The Air) update to 2.1. Of course posters started speculating. Screenshots were posted to back up the claim and they appeared legitimate.
Fast right? Just one problem. Android 2.1 hasn’t been released on the HTC Eris yet. It is however available to a small number of Verizon testers.
In each case the reports were almost identical and they were clearly based off the same handful of forum posts. These reporters were in such a rush to give us up to the minute, “real time” news that they didn’t bother to apply even the most basic of common sense to the information they read on the forums. Just a few minutes of thought and fact checking would have quickly debunked this rumor.
But hey, it’s more important to be fast than right yeah?
When I heard this week that there was a new Doctor Who trailer being shown on the BBC this Saturday, I was far more excited that I should be over a TV program. Particularly when all we were getting was a 1 minute trailer that’s obviously designed to look impressive in 3D more than anything else.
New Doctor Who Logo
But… it’s Doctor Who. And it feels like it’s been a very long time since we had a full season of Doctor Who. I mean, sure we had the specials. But they were spaced so far apart, that you got that brief moment of joy and then nothing for months.
And we still don’t have an air date. Spring 2010 is all they’re saying. So the earliest it could be would be the end of March and if I was to guess I’d say mid-April is a more likely date. That’s still two months away!
Patience is a virtue, but there’s so much to anticipate. A new Doctor. A new companion. A new TARDIS interior. A new producer. I’m generally in the wait and see before judging camp, but I am oh so curious about how the feel of the show may change from series 4 to series 5 (or 1 or whatever).
I’m a huge fan of Steven Moffat and have been since I first saw Press Gang many years ago. The man has rarely if ever put a foot wrong in my book. Jekyll was fantastic and his Doctor Who stories have been hands down brilliant. But there’s a huge difference between writing 1 or 2 episodes a year and writing 6-8. And what affect will he have on the other writers for the show this year?
I’m curious about the new lead too of course. Matt Smith looks distinctly different to either David Tennant or Christopher Eccleston. And he’s younger, but I’m not too concerned about that. I’ve been watching Who for a very long time and I expect my Doctor’s to change on a regular basis. I don’t think there’s been a bad one yet so I’m sure he’ll grow on me quickly. Takes most of them a few episodes.
Lots of questions that need answers, but more importantly I just want to watch more Doctor Who! I want adventures in Time and Space. Lets see more of the TARDIS. More alien planets. By all means bring back some familiar faces. Not too many Daleks, but some other classic monsters would be good to see again.
