Friday Blurbs

Happy Friday! Well, it's more like Hump-day for me, but I'm going to ignore that fact for now because I actually have a daytime shift today and will get to enjoy a Friday night date like a normal person.

First, my "breakfast of champions": Puffins (cereal, not the actual bird) & bananas w/ almond milk, coffee (of course), OJ, and a little vitamin cocktail.

I'm not a huge fan of pill-popping or supplementing with fortified bars, shakes or powders. However, I am also a mom and a mere mortal who has not figured out how to clone herself, which is to say that I can't always put together a full meal with everything I need to eat.

I think most people are wasting their money with those jugs of mega-protein energy powders, and I tend to shy away from people who suggest a new pill for each new ailment. But I do make an exception for a few supplements:

• Daily multi-vitamin: I prefer a low-dose multi, one that I could take two in a day if I wanted to, but one is usually sufficient. It supplies me with lots of essentials that I know I won't get enough of in diet alone, like iron, B-vitamins, and vitamin D.
• Base chain amino acids: Specifically, L-lysine, although there are several amino acids you can find in vitamin form. These amino acids will combine with others that I will consume in my diet to form complete proteins to repair and rebuild tissue (muscle).
• MSM: Methylsulfonylmethane, a sulfur compound that also aids in building and repairing tissue, including muscle, joints, and skin. 

Now, I am not a doctor, so I would not tell anyone else to take these without first getting a degree in nutrition, but I can tell you what works for me. And I can tell you that whenever considering supplementation, I generally feel the simpler the better. If you don't recognize the components in a particular supplement as vitamins or nutrients you might otherwise be able to get from whole food sources, it might be best to skip it!

Are you a pill-popper? Any vitamins you swear by?

Switching gears entirely to the news, did you hear about the students who were sent home for riding their bikes to school? The principle has since apologized and admitted her reaction to this senior "prank" was severe, but it came a little late, as she had already sent the students home, making them miss their last day of school and the "senior walk-through".

What's sad to me about this story is that of all the pranks seniors pull, this was probably the coolest, and hardly a prank at all as they notified local officials they would be on the roads and even had a police escort. I understand that we live in a fear-based society and, let's be blunt, bad things DO happen, but it's sad to think that trying to do something fun and healthy together would be as heavily reprimanded as if they had graffitied their school.

I hope this changes with my and my daughter's generation. I hope we can get back to a place where we form a community with our neighbors instead of secluding ourselves because it's not safe out there. What makes a place safe are the people who take ownership of it, so that our kids CAN ride their bikes to school and play outside.

What's your reaction to this story? Would you let your kids bike to school?