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We’ve all heard that phrase, and I think it was originally intended as a reminder to eat healthy. In my family, it’s used as a put-down (a good-natured one, but a put-down nonetheless.) But then I started looking at the things we eat, and I got to wondering. . .

I’ve had some of my kids’ friends ask why we don’t eat certain foods (like the cracker packs they sell for 50c at karate class.) After two years of graduate level biochemistry courses, my rule is this: if I can’t identify the ingredients, probably no one should be eating it!

Lately, though, I have been questioning even some of the things I can identify. I think a lot of us are familiar with this standard food used to get gum out of hair: peanut butter. Apparently, it’s just so greasy it breaks the gum right down and out it slides. Did you know you can make your dishes sparkle with a dash of lemon juice and then use that same lemon to remove stains from all matter of things? That is pretty common knowledge. Though it’s not a stretch to realize you can keep your hinges from squeaking with olive oil, you may be concerned to find that it also removes make-up and shines stainless steel.

I start to get worried when I see that vinegar will clean my house. It will make my glass clear and my surfaces shine. Lots of older people associate the smell of vinegar with cleanliness as it was apparently the cleaning agent of choice back before everyone had Windex and 409 in their closet. But when you add in that vinegar will also set dyes (like your easter eggs) and kill weeds (!) I start to wonder. What am I eating???

Don’t worry, the list gets even longer and more disturbing . . .

It’s not surprising that Vodka has a use other than just getting you plastered. That high alcohol content (paired with almost no flavorings) makes it great at killing odors. Like the nasty ones in your sink. Or your sneakers . . . What’s next? A vodka body spritzer after the gym? You wanna disinfect something? Vodka is a great go-to agent.

You may have heard of using mayonnaise as a hair conditioner, I’ve known that for a long time. But recently, I heard of another use from a friend: a de-louser. Yup! If you can’t use that RID stuff to kill lice, you can use mayo! Slather up your kid’s head like a slice of white bread in a southern household! Then wrap it in Saran Wrap and sleep on it. Wash it (and the lice!) out in the morning. Apparently, it works BETTER than the chemical stuff – to which many lices have grown resistant. Is it really good to know that no nit survives a full-scale mayo onslaught?

A lot of people think they are healthier for cutting sugar (and its associated calories) out of their diets. But it gets replaced with things like aspartame. Some people will tell you that aspartame was originally designed as a poison, then one day a lab tech tasted it and thought “Hey! Artificial sweetener!” If that wasn’t bad enough, try this alternate use: ant killer. Yes, ants will make it through nuclear war, but that little pink packet on every diner table will take them out!

My dear friend Coca-Cola is probably the most disturbing of all. We know it’s a tasty beverage, but were you aware it’s also a drain cleaner? (I’ll give you a moment to get that look off your face.) And, even better, Coke will eat the corrosion off your batteries. This is really useful if you drive an old car and it won’t start. Yes, a Coke for you and one for the car, starts like a charm every time.

I have eaten all the things on this list in the name of health! Though I did cut out aspartame out of my diet in favor of real sugar, the rest can be found in my kitchen at this very moment. (Though I’m mostly an organic food person, Coca-cola remains a weakness. . . )

As I pop open the top of a cold fizzy coke to enjoy with the mayo-laden BLT I lightly toasted in olive oil, I hear those words . . . You are what you eat.

But maybe I like it. When I think about what these foods can do, I think to myself “If I am what I eat, then I’m frickin’ invincible!!!”

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Most of us are familiar with the image of Albert Einstein in his black suit, black shoes, black tie (if he was wearing one) and hair that looked like it hadn’t made friends with a comb in maybe all of his life. You may not be as familiar with the explanation for this that’s floating around out there. It seems to come from ‘they’. You know, the great and infamous ‘they’ who say any number of things that have no true source. I have heard this one from several people who both started the explanation with “They say that Einstein dressed that way because his brain was too busy with the Theory of Relativity to be bothered with things like his clothes.”

I’m not sure I fall into that belief system. I’m not sure I’m buying what ‘they’ are selling here. If Einstein was so smart, how come he couldn’t contemplate the universe AND look good while doing it? This makes me question his genius all together.

Maybe Einstein wasn’t crazy smart, maybe he just used what little brain power he had and laser-focused it to that one thing. I’m thinking he no longer recognized his own home or even his sister, Maja. You didn’t know he had a sister, did you? This is because for all his writings and works, he didn’t mention her. I’m thinking it’s because he forgot he had a sister. (Is it okay that I point out the irony that this man came up with the ‘theory of relativity’ while leaving his sister out of the picture?)

I’m guessing that Einstein ignored the rules of convention the deeper he got into his theories. I surmise that as his attention got more focused, he probably forgot to eat on a regular schedule, wake at an appropriate time, maybe bathe regularly? You can see where I’m headed with this.

Ultimately, this makes Einstein not the smartest guy out there. The smartest guy out there would contemplate the universe in a unique tie. He would have suits that at least appeared to be different, or he would simply hire someone to lay out some clothes for him each day – maybe his sister Maja would have been available for this. . .

I think this theory that his brain was too busy with other things is complete bull-hooey. But I think the rest of us can use this to our advantage. I call this the “Theory of Einstein’s Closet.”

Here’s how it works. Every one of us has something in our lives that we ignore. Usually because we just don’t like it. Personally, I don’t like to take out the trash or do dishes. I am also a picky eater – it runs on both sides of my family. So if I find a restaurant that I like, I will order the same food year in and year out. Really. I recently decided to try a new sub at my favorite sub shop – Which Wich. Upon biting into it, it occurred to me that this was only the second sandwich type that I had tried there, and when I back calculated when I had been introduced to Which Wich, I realized that I had been eating the same sub – toppings and everything – for three full years. I do have to report that after five bites of the new sub, I realized my first choice was better and I went immediately back to it and have never varied (it’s year four now.)

But the next time anyone calls me on my food foibles, or even on my incredibly messy kitchen, I’m going to tell them “That’s my Einstein’s Closet.”

To me, this says ‘that’s the thing I’m too lazy to pay attention to’ but to the world this says ‘I’m too smart and too focused on other wonderful things to pay attention to such trivia as my trashcan or my food choices.’

I encourage you to look around your own home, office and life. I’ll bet you, too, have something that you’ve ignored. Something that you shouldn’t have ignored. Up until now you may have felt bad about this or felt inferior because of your lack! But no! do not despair! You have simply found your “Einstein’s Closet”. And all is forgiven if your shirt and shoes don’t match. If you can’t cook a decent meal. If you forgot to change the oil in your car.

Um, you might want to get crackin’ on that brilliant theory you were working on. The caveat here is that the Closet Theory holds up a lot better if you have some kind of Relativity thing going to back it up. Just saying . . .

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Because Sometimes We All Just Want to Fly the Coop!

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It’s that time of year again, Chickens.
You just survived the most gluttonous of American Holidays: Thanksgiving.
Oh wait, that’s not the most gluttonous . . . there’s another one coming up.

Yes, that would be Christmas.
For some of us, it’s about the baby Jesus. For a lot of us it’s about being with family. And for Atheists and Agnostics everywhere it’s about . . . well, time off work or school?

Many Americans go into debt at this time of year. We need money to fuel our ‘roid-rage holiday. And, while I have not personally gotten into any Wal-Mart Fist-fights (ever), I have worn the letters off my debit card more than once.

But what do you expect from America?
We are the teenagers of the world. Though we aren’t fighting hundred-year wars, we have a lot of teenage qualities:
We have no concept of our own mortality as a nation.
We have no connection with history (it doesn’t apply! Our parents don’t know anything!)
We throw temper tantrums (The original Boston Tea Party)
A lot of times, the joke is on us, and we don’t even know it.

Really, Thanksgiving is a holiday (note: ‘holiday’ is a form of ‘holy – day’, though there is nothing holy about it!) about eating: celebrating the first feast by the settlers, and being thankful. Yet the majority of Americans will ask their foreign friends what they are doing for Thanksgiving . . . really?
I’m also particularly fond of some religious-snob friends of mine who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, because it isn’t part of their religion. Again, really?

If you are on American soil, and are (in any way) American, then Thanksgiving is a holiday for you. Are you so snobby that you can’t have food with family and say thanks? Where’s the harm in that? (Unless, of course, you are a Native American, in which case we need to have another discussion at a later time . .. )

Americans, in all our teenage wisdom, sing songs we don’t really understand. Anyone up for “Yankee Doodle Dandy” ? I bet you know it. I bet you learned it in school as an American Classic, patriotic even. But “Yankee Doodle Dandy” is an English song making fun of Americans. Yes, it’s a put-down to be called a ‘dandy’. And apparently, Yankee Doodle wasn’t even very good at being a dandy – the feather in his hat fell far short of English fashion at the time. Maybe this was the original instance where an oppressed group usurped the usage of a slur and made it their own. But . . . no . . . I don’t think so.

Here’s why –
Our national anthem is a drinking song. Yes, that’s why the notes are so hard to hit. It’s best to warble about the “Star Spangled Banner” when drunk! Maybe this explains the “for the remnants we watched” or the “highlights red gleaming”.

In fact we are such a young nation that we have no clue what we are doing. But we are full of bravado and belief that we know everything.

And for that, we give thanks!

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A new study was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine that today’s children have a shorter life expectancy than the previous generation – us. This is the first time that a parental generation of Americans has a longer life expectancy than their children. Pretty sad. There are two main reasons for this prediction: 1) obesity. We’ve seen this one coming at us for a while. Luckily, like most fat things, it doesn’t come at us too quickly! And 2) poor diet. Yeah, chew on that.

We live in a time and place where food is so plentiful that we can even claim we are allergic to it – you won’t hear any Ethiopians complaining about gluten! Surprisingly, despite this abundance, we have relatively poor diets.

If you’re a Smart Chicken, and you’ve been following this blog, then you know I’m one who leans to the green. I was shocked when ninety percent of my 7th grade science students didn’t recognize a whole, raw chicken. (These were private school kids from Southern California, too!) But I sat with my mouth open for about half an hour after watching a snippet of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. I wasn’t surprised that some inner city kids didn’t recognize the eggplant . . . but when they guessed it might be an apple or a pear, I was . . . appalled.

The problem is that so much of what we eat isn’t so much food as it is plastic. I think it starts as food, but then gets so hybridized with preservatives and guar-gums, that it’s edible, but isn’t really food by the time it’s done. It’s really more of a ‘food type product’.

A kid at my son’s karate school once asked why I wouldn’t let my kids eat the cheez crackers (with a peanutbutter-colored substance in between). I said “I had two years of graduate school biochemistry, and I can’t identify half these ingredients.”

This has all been building up for a while into a battle royale – known in my house as AJ v HFCS. (AJ being me, and HFCS being my mortal enemy – high fructose corn syrup.)

I am NOT a fanatic! (I know, famous words usually spoken by fanatics.) I eat HFCS. There are sometimes Pop-tarts in my house. Or Ho-Hos. (mmmmm Ho-Hos.) On the food-to-plastic scale these rank right next to margarine, which is only one small step below eating Legos. But the vast majority of our household food is actually FOOD.

Where I have issue with HFCS, is that it gets snuck into things where it isn’t needed or wanted. Like bread. Bread is bread. It isn’t dessert. But I stood in the aisle at Kroger one day reading the ingredients of loaf after loaf and constantly finding HFCS. As I got more frustrated, I slammed each package back into place and grabbed the next one. (Yes, that was me, and I’m sorry your bread was flat that week. My bad.) I checked the bakery bread, but it’s just as bad. Go figure. At last, I found one – a bread without HFCS! I went home, triumphant. I showed everyone the bag, so they could buy it the next time without reading all the ingredients. As I was making everyone recite the brand name, it was pointed out that no one would have to read the ingredients, because there was a big banner across the top of the loaf reading. “No High Fructose Corn Syrup.” (Again, I’m really sorry about your flat bread.)

The other one that just kills me – any may be killing kids now, too! – is applesauce. Did you know that it’s sweetened? Really? Really?!?! Who needs their applesauce with added corn syrup? Do you take a bite of that Snickers bar and stop, then pour sugar on it? Do you use Mrs. Butterworths instead of milk on your Cocoa Puffs? Why is it SO HARD to find applesauce without HFCS?? And when you do find the HFCS-free version . . . it has Splenda! Holy crap! This is why our kids are fat.

Did you know that Splenda and Aspartame are actually not on the food-to-plastic scale? They have a ranking on the ‘food-to-poison scale’. The next time you get ants in your house, put out a trail of Equal . . . in the morning, dead ants! If your car battery corrodes, pour a regular coke over it. Corrosion, gone!

Bread isn’t supposed to last for three weeks. And it isn’t supposed to be sweet. Neither is chicken, nor corn.

I may not be allowed back into my neighborhood Kroger after I started reading the spaghetti sauce labels. Most have HFCS as the second or third ingredient. I was so stunned that . . . um, it looked a bit like a murder scene.

My mortal enemy – whom I thought was only in treats – has been laughing at me all along. I thought spaghetti and applesauces were safe foods. Real foods even. I am in shock.

I need a Ho-Ho.

Listen to AJ's Podcast SMART CHICKENS

Because Sometimes We All Just Want to Fly the Coop!

Subscribe to my podcast SMART CHICKENS in iTunes -

Limited Time Offer – Get Your First 3 Months at Audible.com for $7.49/month!

Subscribe to my podcast SMART CHICKENS in iTunes -