Doof Archives - Page 3 of 3

A polluting cafe illustrates our how our culture values and promotes polluting and depleting

The picture below shows a new cafe down the block from me that shows how polluting our culture has become. Let me count the ways. First, it has no seating. You buy your coffee and walk away. They save rent for not providing space for customers. They give you disposable everything. They save the salary of someone washing, the rent for space for a dishwasher and cups. It's glowing red because it's using heat lamps despite there being nobody there. Like many local places, they're heating the outdoors. On the other side of all these savings for them: everyone pays the costs in health from plastic in our bloodstreams, pollution in the air, sickened wildlife, people displaced from their land to access minerals and fuel…

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February 3, 2025

Addiction / Doof

Is most of the economy transaction costs?

I was learning about the economist Ronald Coase and a topic he focused on: transaction costs. A person in a video described how businesses and technology help lower transaction costs. The person used Amazon.com as an example, pointing out it takes less time to search the marketplace and buy what someone wants. My experience is different. When I look up what people buy most on Amazon.com, a lot of it is stuff that won't improve the life of the buyer before ending up in a landfill. In my conversation with Lorna Davis after she stopped shopping Amazon after taking my sustainability leadership workshop, she saved time and money. She didn't think she was wasting time or money. She probably thought she was saving them by…

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January 9, 2025

Addiction / Doof / Education

The Thanksgiving Day Parade from inside the barricades

I served in my first Thanksgiving Day parade this morning. The role of an auxiliary police officer at a parade for families and kids isn't to keep the peace. I saw it as more for structure. A little to keep order, but more fulfilling a civic role for kids to see government in a peaceful role. I enjoy fulfilling civic duty, so despite the cold rain, I enjoyed playing that role. People in the crowd thanked me, asked me to pose for pictures, and offered me coffee. I found the content of the parade, however, gross because nearly all the floats were commercial, aimed to attract and hook kids. The parade was mostly commercial. There were a few marching bands and one small track that…

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November 28, 2024

Addiction / Doof / Fitness / Freedom

Ozempic: A drug that achieves what sustainability does, but sustainability doesn’t trade one dependence for another

The New York Times wrote a piece "Ozempic Could Crush the Junk Food Industry. But It Is Fighting Back" that reported people happy with results that I've found from living more sustainably. Except my way didn't cost me anything, trade one dependence for another, or risk any side effects. It didn't require willpower either. People think it did, but I think they just don't know how to change habits without using willpower. The quotes in the article of people's results from taking Ozempic sound almost as desirable as mine, not counting their extra costs, side effects, and dependence. For decades I couldn't stop from consuming doof. I concocted bargains and elaborate attempts to reduce, but failed, at least as long as I just tried to…

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November 25, 2024

Doof / Fitness / Hands on Practical Experience / My Favorite Posts / Tips / Visualization

Vegan Seitan Stew, 4 minutes prep time (video)

I saw a post on Reddit's community on vegan fitness that talked about making seitan with a prep time of 90 minutes. I responded 90 minutes sounds insane. I make mine with a prep time of about two minutes. Add water and soy sauce to wheat gluten, mix with spoon then with hands, cut into pieces. Then put in pressure cooker with stew for a few minutes cooking time. Maybe I should make a video. They asked me to make the video, so I did. If you want to see just the seitan-making part, jump to the 2-minute mark. Otherwise you can watch me make the whole stew. Including talking to the camera, the prep time is about five minutes for about five meals. Learning…

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March 4, 2021

Doof / My Favorite Posts / Nature / Pollution and Depletion

Avoiding food packaging

In the fall of 2014, I noticed a lot of my garbage came from food packaging. I don't like when people pollute my world, so I try to avoid polluting theirs. I thought of an experiment: to try to go one week without buying any food where I'd have to throw away food packaging. For six months I planned and thought about doing it until one day I realized all the planning and thinking wasn't getting me anywhere. I decided to start the week then and there. I knew I wouldn't die. It turns out you succeed more when you act instead of planning for six months. You just go to the store, buy food without packaging, and don't buy food with packaging. You have…

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August 21, 2019

Doof / Fitness / Habits / My Favorite Posts / Nature

To avoid “processed” or “refined” foods, avoid food with fiber removed

In response to someone posting how he avoided sugar, I shared my practice, which I find simpler, less artificial, and closer to the original plants and fungi, which is to avoid foods whose fiber has been removed. (EDIT: see an image of the results at the bottom of the page) Here are a few posts I wrote, first my original response, then my responses to responses. I worked at finding a simple policy for myself and settled on: I avoid food where fiber has been removed. That cuts out sugar, white flour, corn syrup, oils, and basically all junk, forcing me to eat tons of vegetables, fruit, legumes, and nuts. I already didn't eat animal products. I haven't cut them to zero, but fiber-removed foods…

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February 3, 2017