Tuesday, August 3

I swam twice as far today as I did yesterday.  My knees are doing better, so I'll be walking again tomorrow.  I used the stairs again today.  I didn't start to feel tired until the 6th floor today.  I know these are small steps compared to you people who run marathons but for a very sedentary guy, it is big progress, and hopefully something I can keep up for the rest of my life.

I've been meaning to put up a post about food, and have forgotten to do it.  I have noticed that "wild" fruit is much smaller than commercial crops, but has much more flavor.  This is true of the bananas we have here as well as strawberries and many other kinds of fruit.  There are two grades of bananas that can be eaten raw, but both are from 2/3 to 1/2 the size of the South American commercial crop variety in US grocery stores.  The trees here have not been cross bred, hybridized, or anything else to increase banana size.  The fruit is firmer and more flavorful than the big South American bananas.  I used to get indigestion from bananas in the US, but Philippine bananas don't bother me at all.  The same thing is true of strawberries.  The giant US variety are nearly tasteless, compared to smaller berries from plants that haven't been engineered or hybridized.  Back when hybrid corn was first developed, farmers loved the bigger yields, but found animals were dying of malnutrition because the hybrid corn doesn't have all the nutrients of heritage seed varieties.  Today, corn based farm animal feed contains nutritional supplements to make up for what is lacking in hybrid corn.  If any gardeners read this, try growing some food crops with heritage seed and see if you don't agree that there is more flavor.