Right or Wrong!

When one chooses to follow a vegetarian, vegan or raw lifestyle it invariably leads to frequent conversation on the subject of diet & health. I find that it often creates a nutritional apartheid. Carnivore’s v/s Herbivore, high protein v/s low fat, carbs v/s calories, agave v/s sugar. Crunchy v/s just plain crackers.



I will begin and end on the same note: "There is no 'right' (or 'wrong') answer for the masses." It is a system, a chain, and you can not have a circle of life without both the hunter and the hunted.

With all of these debates raging about what is 'right', or even the comparable debates on what is 'popular' or worse yet 'trendy' (when was nutrition & health every supposed to be 'trendy'?!) it is nearly impossible to keep sight of what is "Natural".
So we're going to review...
Many vegetarians & vegans say that eating meat is not natural. That argument fails as soon as you turn on the animal planet channel, visit a zoo, take a walk in a park, have pets that breed, or own an indoor/outdoor cat!


There are well over 1,000,000,000 species of animals that are carnivorous.
Not natural? = Not serious. The largest mammal on earth (blue whale) is carnivorous. Even some types of coral can be cannibalistic when comes to its carnivorous little diet!


Omnivores. They say they are opportunistic, I say they are smart! They eat what is available, when it is available and keep right on surviving.


Ever looked closely at the animal kingdom's food chain?


Setting, It rains a little more the trees grow bigger and provide more food. The giraffe eat more plants and grow in size & population, thinning out the trees. Because there are more giraffes the lions have more to eat & they set about thinning out the giraffes who ran out of food when they ate the excess of the trees. This gives the trees a chance to catch up and recover from the herbaceous feeding frenzy. Pretty soon the lions run out of spare giraffes, they go hungry and down goes their population. Now there are fewer predators, plenty of new trees and poof, suddenly we're flush on giraffe again!


Omnivore Win! Salad, giraffe, lion - who cares. So long as there is food & someone to eat it, an omnivore will never go hungry.


Who is going to turn their nose up at day old lion? ...
That would be your basic herbivore. So if there are so many other options why limit yourself?
Because there is only ONE source of energy through nutrition.
Sun + Air + Water = Energy. Plants are convenient containers for this process.


Every life form uses the same energetic equation to live. Everything that is alive gets their energy from plants! (No Lie!)


In a food chain, energy is passed from one link to another. When a herbivore eats, only a fraction of the energy (that it gets from the plant food) becomes new body mass; the rest of the energy is lost as waste or used up by the herbivore to carry out its life processes (e.g., movement, digestion, reproduction). Therefore, when the herbivore is eaten by a carnivore, it passes only a small amount of total energy (that it has received) to the carnivore. Of the energy transferred from the herbivore to the carnivore, some energy will be "wasted" or "used up" by the carnivore. The carnivore then has to eat many herbivores to get enough energy to grow.
Because of the large amount of energy that is lost, the amount of energy that is transferred substantially decreases with each link in the chain.


The largest land mammal? Herbivore!
(elephant, by the way)


Why am I prattling on about this? Yeah, yeah, yeah we all know herbivores eat plants and carnivores eat meat. What is the big deal right?
Here is the big deal.
Sunlight + Air + Water = Energy.
Energy + Person = Life.
Life = Good.
The Blue Whale eats 1 pound of krill for every 4 pounds of body weight, per day.


The Elephant eats 1 pound of vegetation for every 10 pounds of body weight, per day.


Krill is only 1 step up the food chain and the whale has to devour 2.5 times the volume of food! The more links in the chain the less you gain (nutritionally)..


There is just no way around it. Plants are Vital for health!


If you like meat, be an omnivore! But it might be a good idea to finish your side salad before you have that steak. And you may want to skip that burger if you're hungry and have some vegetables when your tummy is growling. Plants will fill you up and provide more nutrients to your body than something a step or ten down the food chain.

Myths and Fact

Myths and Fact on Mental Illness

Myth: Mental illness is not a “real” or “true” medical illness like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Fact: “Brain disorders, like heart disease and diabetes are legitimate medical illnesses. Research shows genetic and biological causes for psychiatric disorders, and they can be treated effectively.” Stuart.W, 2009.


Myth: “If you have a mental illness, you can will it away. Being treated for a psychiatric disorder means an individual has in some way “failed” or is weak.
Fact: A serious mental illness can not be willed away. Ignoring the problem does not make it go away, either. It takes courage to seek professional help.” Stuart.W, 2009.


Myth: “Depression results from a personality weakness or character flaw, and people who are depressed could just snap out of it if they tried hard enough.
Fact: Depression has nothing to do with being lazy or weak. It results from changes in the brain chemistry or brain function, and medication and/or psychotherapy often helps people recover.” Stuart. W, 2009.


Myth: “People with a severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, are usually dangerous and violent.
Fact: Statistics show that the incidence of violence in people who have a brain disorder is not much higher than it is in the general population. Those suffering from psychosis, such as schizophrenia, are more often frightened, confused, and despairing than violent.” Stuart.W, 2009.


Myth: Addiction is a lifestyle choice and shows lack of willpower. People with a substance abuse problem are morally weak or ‘bad’.
Fact: Addiction is a disease that generally results from changes in brain chemistry. It has nothing to do with being a ‘bad’ person.”


Myth: “People with mental illness are poor and/or less intelligent.
Fact: Many studies show that most mentally ill people have average or above-average intelligence. Mental illness, like physical illness, can affect anyone regardless of intelligence, social class or income level.”


Myth: Mental illness is a single, rare disorder.
Fact: Mental illness is not a single disease but a broad classification for many disorders. Anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, personality disorders, eating disorders and organic brain disorders can cause misery, tears and missed opportunities for thousands of Canadians.


Myth: Words can’t hurt
Fact: Words like "crazy," "cuckoo," "psycho," "wacko" and "nutso" are just a few examples of words that keep the stigma of mental illness alive. These words belittle and offend people with mental health problems. Many of us use them without intending any harm. Just as we wouldn't mock someone for having a physical illness like cancer or heart disease, it is cruel to make fun of someone with a mental illness.”

HAppY PonGal

HAppY PonGal, hope that this year will be a good and fruitful one. I need more luck. Looking back at 2010, it wasn't a bad year though there were some hiccups here and there as well. One cannot wish for everything to be perfect but of cause any marginal improvement is always welcome. Let's hope this year will be better than the last!

Be Different

On the path of evolution, we move from being a willing and obedient member of the group to wanting to take control over our own lives. This is a necessary but difficult transition.


At this point we are afraid of being ourselves. We are afraid of being unique and different. We are afraid of being individually powerful, and even successful. For all of these things stand against the old ways that told us that conformity was right and individualism was wrong.

For as long as we possibly can, we make a compromise. We try to live both lives - the dependent tribal life and the independent personal life - as contradictory and opposite as they are.

We want approval from others. We want to be accepted and popular. We seek this comfort to overcome our fear and feel more secure. ...So, at times when we conform, we don't feel the fear of living. But we might lose the new sense of adventure, discovery, daring and enthusiasm for life that the questioning and questing have brought us.

Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another.

Attempt to grow further!

As my friend was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from the ropes they were tied to but for some reason, they did not. My friend saw a trainer nearby and asked why these beautiful, magnificent animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away.

"Well," he said, "when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it's enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free." My friend was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn't, they were stuck right where they were.


Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we failed at it once before?


How many of us are being held back by old, outdated beliefs that no longer serve us? How many of us have avoided trying something new because of a limiting belief? Worse, how many of us are being held back by someone else's limiting beliefs?


Whatever you can conceive and believe, you can achieve!


So make an attempt to grow further.... Why shouldn't we try it again?

Gratitude in Action

A couple of days back I had a chat with few managers who shared their success stories with each other, based on the actions they committed. One of these people is the manager of a large tier one telecommunication sector. One of his commitments was to meditate for 10 minutes every morning to clear his mind and then to write in a gratitude journal for a few minutes to start his day.


At first, as he began to keep this goal, he felt a little silly. Many negative thoughts would flow to his mind while he tried to think of things to be grateful for. He would think of the person who had to back out of a meeting and rescheduled everyone’s calendars in the wrong way which created all kinds of difficulties for him. The manager would stop and analyze the negative thought and look for ways to be grateful instead. He recognized that this person was hard working, well meaning and didn’t intentionally try to make things difficult for people. He started to realize that people who got in his way that worked for him were not coming to work thinking they were going to try to ruin his day.

As my colleague continued this practice, he began to see many of the people in the division differently. He became more grateful for them, treated them accordingly and found that these people started working with more effort, quality, and commitment as a result. Over time he literally started seeing more of what was right around him rather than always seeing what was wrong.

Art of McSweeney

McSweeney's is an award-winning American publishing house, known for its innovative design and use of illustration and its belief in the book as a desirable object. Founded by Dave Eggars, the author of books including A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the novelisation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, McSweeney's publishes books, a quarterly journal, a magazine (The Believer), DVDs and a website, all of which have evolved their own distinctive visual aesthetic. In the last decade they have solicited contributions from many of the world's leading authors, artists and designers and produced some of the most beautiful books of recent years.


This book showcases the extraordinary visual appeal of productions across the range of their activities, taking the reader behind the scenes at McSweeney's. Hundreds of images - from napkin sketches to final objects - give insights into the creative process, and interviews with participating designers, artists, authors and illustrators explore the incidental, accidental and even deliberate ways McSweeney's has transformed the experience of reading.

Contributors include Michael Chabon, Rick Moody, Jonathan Lethem, Charles Burns, Dave Eggers, David Byrne, Nick Hornby, Joyce Carol Oates, Jordan Crane, William T. Vollmann, Lawrence Weschler, Sean Wilsey, Marcel Dzama and many more.