Why Kids Shouldn't go to College

By the time you are done reading this you might get the idea that I think education is a bad thing. Far from it, it is one of the most important things in anyone's life. However as you will hopefully understand the economics of the higher education system, particularly in the US, has become skewed to the point that more education becomes a financial burden that is not worth the cost.

That's right, it might be a better idea to NOT go to college. In this case I mean college specifically as the traditional four years of school the majority of high school students assume to be the next step in their lives. You know the ones where they spend 100,000 to 200,000 dollars of their money, their parents money or someone else's money for the privilege to attend.

That is the main issue facing students today, the cost. Is it really worth spending that much money (no matter who's it is) to get a basic college education where sadly, 80% of what you learn will never be applied for practical purposes in their entire life? Full disclosure, yes I went to college, yes I got decent grades, yes it is a well regarded institution and yes I graduated. But, I also know from my own experience, and the experiences of many of my friends and classmates that their liberal arts college degree didn't help them all that much. So why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to gain knowledge that will be largely unused and forgotten? Answers to those questions are one each person must decide on their own, but let me give an alternate direction to the usual answers.

This is not the "the world needs burger flippers too" speech. This is the, "you probably can get the education you need elsewhere, without going into a massive financial hole" speech. I work in computer software. There are trade schools that can teach the basics of what is required for a career in the same field, for a quarter of the cost (or less) than what it would cost a most colleges. So why would someone want to start their independent life with 100,000 dollars in debt, when they can achieve the same level (or better) of job preparation and knowledge by being 20,000 dollars in debt? It makes zero financial sense. Spend an extra 80,000 for a different piece of paper?

Lots of "educated" people will use statistics to try to shoot holes in such an argument. College graduates earn and average of 1,000,000 dollars more over their life time, is one of the favorites. Well that only serves to remind me of one of my favorite quotes from Mark Twain, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics." The rate of increase in college tuition has outpaces the rate of inflation 4 to 1 over the past 15 years, so that statistic has become outdated and not at all reflective of students long term prospects in today and tomorrows world (it is primarily a reflection of their parents time).

Let's relate this to the doom and gloom perspective of the current economy. What would help get consumer spending moving, homes selling and highly qualified people filling job openings? Is it lots of 22 year olds that struggle to pay for a small apartment because of the burden of big student load payments, while working their entry level job and hoping they can pay down their six figure debt in the next 10 years? Or, is it those same 22 year olds taking some of the money they saved, and maybe mom and dad saved, to comfortably have a start in their small apartment (or even small starter home!), while working their entry level job, knowing the little debt they have will be paid in a year or two? Seems like a pretty straight forward answer to me.

There are careers where the traditional college education and beyond are needed, but this is a smaller percent that what many would believe. Doctors, physicists, researchers all provide huge benefit to the world and largely need that college education. There are also many benefits for the students, communities and world that colleges provide. Colleges are not bad things, they have just largely lost focus. Many have become run away financial based institutions where more facilities, more sparkle and more prestige have become the focus instead of how prepared are students for their currently chosen career path.

Bottom line, choose wisely. There is not one best path for everyone and college is not always the best place to go.

Paleo eating and does it all make sense?

The paleo diet, caveman diet, clean eating, I have heard it called lots of things. So is this really the best food lifestyle to keep you healthy? Notice I did not say diet. In our modern vernacular diet has generally come to mean temporary, so I'll skip that can call it a food lifestyle. In the strictest terms the paleo diet can be summed by saying, if cavemen didn't eat it you shouldn't eat it. Meaning no sugar, no legumes, no farmed grains, no dairy (these are the main ones). The idea is that millions of years of evolution have predisposed our bodies/genetics to efficiently process and use certain foods. Since farming and other modern practices of food production have only been around thousands of years, most of these things should not be consumed. Our bodies do not like these foods as much.

Certainly this thought process is logical, but there are some flaws in it. When farming of plants and domesticates animals began is somewhat questionable, but most estimates place it around 20,000 years ago. Modern humans (homo sapiens) evolved around 250,000 years ago (not millions like many paleo proponents mention). So farming has existed for around 10% of our species existence (since all of these historical numbers age just reasonable estimates). Personally I find it difficult to believe that 1,000 generations of humans (farming humans) failed to produce any adaptations to changing dietary availability. Yes, 230,00 years of evolution trumps 20,000 years but also remember the 20,000 are the most recent changes. There is a good amount of conjecture on both sides of the argument to weather or not this food lifestyle is preferable for health. The studies are out there, Google works, so I will be lazy and not post them (plus there are way too many).

The second flaw in this argument comes from modern transportation. Most experts agree modern humans first showed up in Africa. So if we take into account the time and speed at which these people migrated to various part of the earth, I am guessing most early humans weren't eating asparagus and buffalo (things included in paleo). So if we adapted to certain foods how did each regionalized group of humans (African, Native American, Australian) develop the genes to use foods from other places? There were no planes or trains to get fresh foods from one place to another. Even with the development of larger boats, most foods from other places were dried or salted to preserve them first (even this was only the past 5,000 years).

There are also several variations of what people call paleo, some of which are more restrictive and many which include other food groups based on their reported benefits. Again, these are out there for you to find, and too many to list.

Where does this leave us, is this paleo thing good or not? Since this is my blog, I do what I want and I will tell you what I believe. The paleo food lifestyle is a very good thing, but not for the reasons commonly stated (mainly a genetic predisposition to use certain foods). I try to keep my food consumption to what I call pre-technology. Mainly before, we as humans, figured out how to develop chemical pesticides, refined sugars, processed dairy, factory farming techniques, growth hormones, antibiotics, etc... These are the things, in my opinion that led to many of our modern health problems. So stick with local and seasonal fruits and veggies (when you can), grass fed/free range meats, raw milk and dairy and nuts and seeds. If these things are the base and majority of your food consumption then you should end up with a long healthy life (if you are not hit by a bus).

Intermittent Fasting - Does it (will it) help?

Doing some browsing around random CrossFit and fitness sites the other week I came across this concept call IF (Intermittent Fasting). A first glance it sounded like some "diet of the week" or just another bad idea that someone was pushing. But, I always like to check out some information first, because often times bed ideas have little bits of solid evidence behind them.

There are two basic ways to do IF. First is a food window each day. Badsically a 4-8 hour time period where you consume all of your calories each day. The second is to pick 2 or 3, 24 hour periods each week and eat nothing (coffee and water are ok when not eating). I am trying version two.

I managed to find a few more sites (links later) and proponents for this idea of food consumption and how exercise and fitness figures into it. The more I read the more it made some sense. The biggest concept that I came across which is completely logical and fits into what I have observed in myself in others is how exactly calories are counted. IF in most interpretations (not all) relies more on a weekly calorie count, instead of a daily one. As numerous studies have shown the overall affect of the calories in versus calories out depends little on how much you consume in a single day, but more so how you continually eat over a period of time. An over simplified example of this that we all have experience is when you sit down for your favorite meal (like Thanksgiving) and make a complete pig of yourself. Having consumed 5000 calories one day you do not instantly wake up the next day with an extra pound of fat on you. You body can withstand that day (as long as you don't repeat it on a regular basis). So why should we consider how many calories we consume in a day (mostly because its a simple concise time period that is easier to track).

IF takes this long term calorie input and does two main things with it. First is if you consume no calories for a 24 hour period, it is very likely that you will consume less overall calories in a week/month/year. Along with fitness this can lead to fat loss. The second thing it does is way more biological. You get a better explanation here if you care to read it. But a simplified way of stating it is, when your body gets no new calorie sources in 12-18 hours it will start pulling energy store from your body's most abundant store. This is typically belly fat in men and butt and leg fat in women. This will help many people lose some fat in tough to target areas. Combine these two things and you can see the potential of IF.

I started this about two weeks ago and it has been surprisingly easy to stick to. Anyone who knows me knows I love to eat so if I can manage it most people probably can. I'll update every few weeks on my progress to really see if this is fact or fiction.

Here are some links to a few studies...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21410865?dopt=Abstract

http://www.ajcn.org/content/86/1/7.full

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19943985