I wanted to reduce the sodium content. A little more bland but still decent.
1 cup oat flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder (adds about 480 mg sodium)
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2 cups milk
2 egg whites
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
mix the dry, mix the wet, mix em together and cook em up. makes about 8-12 6″ pancakes
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For a better tasting, less bland pancake, add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 3-4 shakes of salt.
I found this article which reviews the mountain bike cassettes:
Shimano XTR CS-M960
Shimano XT CS-M760
Sram PG990 (either red alloy or prior model)Sram PG980
Sram PG970
Sram PG950
The problem is that certain mountain bike cassettes get stuck on the freehub because they have a poorly designed spider section (where the cassette contacts the freehub body). This article attempts to review the various readily available cassettes and recommends the Shimano XTR as the best cassette with the Shimano XT cassette second. Cassettes without a properly designed spider can get stuck on a freehub and may totally destroy it in the long term.
I was fooling around in the the kitchen today trying to come up with some descent healthy pancakes. Here’s what I came up with, measurements are estimates of what I remember, a lot of times I just added it by sight/texture.
1 cup whole grain wheat flour
Dry oats that I ground in a sifter to a coarse flour, 3/4 cup of this flour, this took a ridiculous amount of time
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/8-1/4 tsp salt ( I used an 1/8 but probably would taste better with 1/4, and still be relatively low in sodium)
MIX THESE DRY INGREDIENTS IN A BOWL.
IN ANOTHER BOWL COMBINE:
1 1/2 cup milk (approximate, I used 1 cup and had to keep adding more to make it thin enough, I used 1% milk)
2 egg whites
1tbsp honey ( I just squirted an amount that looked good in)
1 tsp vanilla extract
MIX WELL.
ADD WET INGREDIENTS TO DRY AND MIX A MINIMUM AMOUNT. I overmixed because I kept adding more milk to get the batter thin enough.
COOK & ENJOY… makes quite a few pancakes, golden to deep brown.
NEED TO IMPROVE:
RISING, LIGHTNESS, QUICK COOKING THROUGHOUT WITHOUT BROWNING TOO MUCH. TASTE IS GOOD, A LITTLE BLAND DUE TO LOW SALT. A BETTER WAY TO MAKE OAT FLOUR.
I have a quality unique site that is totally Supplemental at Google and gets nearly zero hits from Google. I thought looking at Google’s Sitemap feature might help me figure out what the problem is in Google’s eyes.
No luck, Google says:
Home page crawl: Googlebot last successfully accessed your home page on Dec 7, 2006.
Index status: Pages from your site are included in Google’s index.
Everything looks good.
Great, now what? Yahoo and MSN like the site, my customers like the site. What’s Google’s problem?
A few weeks ago, Google removed the total number of search results from the top of page position on their SERPs. I find this annoying. The total number of search results is very useful to the searcher and may indicate spelling problems, the types of pages that will be listed first or that the query may need to be revised to achieve more or fewer results.
Now, I have to scroll to the bottom of the page to see the total number of results. What is the point? Put it back on top.
More and more I find myself going to Yahoo to find any useful/unique information about a subject.
Lately it seems a search in Google turns up results from the same handful of large sites with little uniqueness or user content. The first few results seem to always include wikipedia and similar dull info sites, granted they provide good info, but it is generally much more general than my search requires. It is getting harder to find unique user content on the countless smaller sites which often include great pictures and much more detail on a particular subject. I go to page 2 of the results thinking there must be some good content buried and it just quickly gets to be off-subject content. Google seems to be showing more and more general results for specific search phrases and then quickly tailing off to other general sites with content that is more and more off-topic.
I personally have a few sites with good unique content that Google likes to keep supplemental. Why, I don’t know, but my info simply cannot be found in Google and is usually on the first page of Yahoo. These are not pages that I’ve promoted or tried to rank well on for any particular term or at all for that matter, they merely contain the detailed information that a person searching for information about would like to find. They are useful pages with useful info and pictures and the results that Google gives in most respects does not compare to the unique content that my pages contain. Again, I go to page 2 thinking I will see my results there…. around page 10 I change it to show 100 results per page and give up after a few pages of 100 results per page in a myriad of totally off topic pages that aren’t even close to what the search qeury is about.
It is also harder now to find results from forums on Google, which is where much of the useful content of the internet is stored. Now I know a few years ago it was easy to find quality specific term results in Google for informational queries. Since that time, the internet has only grown and the body of available quality data on the internet has only grown, but one would not know this by searching Google, it seems as if the bulk of quality, detailed data has vanished.
This is off the topic but I have another problem with Google listing results from subscription-only sites. If Googlebot is able to see the info and a click on the search result puts me at a subscribe-now page to view the content, then the site is delivering a cloaked page to Google (confirmed by viewing the page source), which to my knowledge is against their webmaster guidelines. While the cloaked page may have contained data pertinent to my search, arriving at a subscribe-now page is just plain spam. Consider if Google did not allow sites to block the page from being cached. No-cache should mean that the site will not get indexed either. If a site is authoritative enough to be subscription-only, why does Google need to waste my time by sending me to their subscribe-now page? Accordingly, why does Google want to increase the 3rd party sites’ revenues by sending me to their subscribe page? There are some well known, high traffic, authoritative sites that do this and have gotton away with it for years.
Back in about 1999 when I first started using Google, the big advantage it had over the “other guys” was exactly that one could search for a very specific term and get results from the small sites with the best info. Google delivered the information one was looking for when the other guys failed. Chances are, without Google, one could search the “other guys” for hours and not find anything close to the information needed. The “other guys” did more what Google is doing now…. giving general results for a specific search term and the same or similar general results regardless of query modifications to make the search string more specific.
Another thing is that Google seems to be somewhat stripped of sites that sell stuff. The problem is, sometimes I’m looking for more than just to find info on a subject, sometimes my search is directed at finding a website that sells a particular type of product. Granted, Google has done an incredible job with Froogle, but the general web search for a type of product fails pretty bad on Google… there’s nothing to buy…. but the Adwords column is usually full of things to buy, often unrelated to the search string. Adwords is sort of the “buy stuff here” column on Google, thus directing the user to click there. However, again there is a problem because these results are usually clogged with affiliate links, ebay links, large companies, large price comparison outfits, and tons of sites that look like spam and just have sponsored links to other sites. By clicking anything in the Adwords column, I feel like I’m just going to get the run-around of multiple clicks on multiple sponsored ads to make multiple people a few cents and cost multiple others a few cents and still never arrive at anything that really helps me on my search to buy something.
So at Yahoo then, there seems to be a better mix and a less-overzealous use of PPC advertising hogging any potential click to buy something.
Bottom line: I’m not happy with the results I’m seeing at Google lately and it seems to be getting worse every month. I turn to Yahoo and I’m finding the info I need quicker and easier. All in all though, I feel let down by the search engines. Can’t these guys do a better job? Multi-billion dollar companies? At one time in the distant past, Google had it very right. Yes, there was spam back then too, tons of it. Google seemed to be nearly spam-free compared to the “other guys” and still delivered the results. Granted, Google’s popularity back then was not that of the “other guys” so it may not have been the target of the spam as it may be today. Still, Google had it worked out, now it seems as if they are just floundering at trying to be a quality search engine. There is tons of good content out there that a searcher will never be able to find on Google, regardless of how closely it matches the search query or how many different variations of the search query one tries. It’s time for something new.
If you like my views and/or see this as a call to action, please Digg this article by clicking below.
Note on Sram X.0 trigger shifters: Front cable is easy to replace. Rear cable is difficult. For best results, use cables that do not have to be cut (not the double ended cables where you have to cut one end off to use it). The cut end is difficult to keep from fraying when installing the cable.
To replace, take off black shifter cover by using pliers to turn the silver star shaped nut on top of the plastic, this will remove the cover. Do not use an allen wrench on any of the bolts or you will end up taking the shifter apart. For the rear, remove the spring. One end of the spring goes in the smaller rectangular hole in the circular tray, the other end goes between the post and end of shifter and sits up in a groove… it takes a little tension to get it into this position.
Use cables that do not have to be cut. If cable is the kind that has to be cut, paint the end with something to keep it from fraying, nail polish hardener, or clear coat of some kind and let it dry. Put shifter body into vise to hold it and have 2 hands free, insert rear cable into slot on round plactic tray and push around the corner, easing it around with the point of a small paperclip and trying to avoid fraying it, pull the cable through the tiny hole and bend it around the plastic tray to ease the pulling and pull the whole thing through, then shift the aluminum lever to turn the tray and insert the cable through the hole at the end of the shifter body and pull through.
Done.
How do you find a simple, easy, quick healthy meal when travelling that will actually fill you up?
When I’m on the road I usually have a loaf of bread, jar of peanut butter, and a bunch of clif bars, and maybe some apples or oranges, and maybe some chips, and usually some candy or chocolate bar of some kind. This is fine for a day or two or three but after that it gets pretty old and I start to get pretty hungry from lack of getting a larger size meal or one with just more palatable calories.
Usually around day 3 I break down and find myself pigging out at a fast food joint with a cold drink. Warm water and peanut butter sandwiches on old smashed bread just looses it’s appeal after a few days.
Here’s the problem though: I can go to Taco Bell and get a couple bean burritos. In that I get about 2400 mg of sodium which is outrageous and don’t even get full from it. I can go to Subway and get a turkey & cheese sub sandwich which is more like bread, lettuce and a hint of meat, leaving me hungy shortly after eating a 12″ sandwich and also containing far too much sodium. Blimpee puts more meat in their turkey sandwiches than Subway but accordingly also contain more sodium. So then I really break down and end up in Burger King getting a whopper, fries, soda, and maybe a chicken sandwich too. Now I’m getting even more sodium, tons of saturated fat, tons of trans fat, tons of cholesterol, but bottom line, after I eat that, I feel full and don’t have to slop together another peanut butter sandwich in an hour.
But what if there was a place with a quick healthy alternative fast food that could really fill one up? I guess these are considered to be places like Subway or Blimpee but, how does one get full off these meals without getting far too much sodium? At home I can load up on chicken, pasta, vegetables, potatoes and only get a few mg of sodium. But try to get this food out and the amount of sodium you get with it, it’s pretty much toxic with sodium.
So what is a healthy alternative when you want a home-cooked healthy meal but are not at home? One that is widely available while travelling and quick and easy and cheap. A healthly meal in my mind should be extremely low in sodium, low in saturated fat, absolutely no hydrogenated oils, low cholesterol, and preferably containing some amount of vitamins and minerals, but at the same time has to be substantial enough and palatable enough in large quantities to have a high fullness factor and allow one to get full from it without much difficulty. If you have any ideas kindly let me know.
In the mean time, I will keep searching and packing the peanut butter and clif bars.
An exercise stress test is performed by qualified medical personnel. The person undergoing the test will run on the treadmill for up to 15 minutes including a warm-up and cool-down period. The test is used to detect heart, coronary artery disease.
The exercise stress test is measure in METs which stands for “metabolic equivalent tasks” and is a measure of the person’s aerobic capacity and an indicator of overall health. Essentially the test will measure a persons peak aerobic capacity.
From reading about the exercise stress test and METs, if the person reaches 13 METs then the exercise stress test is considered adequate. Apparently the test is controlled by the person undergoing the test and can be adjusted accordingly to accomidate the person’s age or fitness level. In some cases the exercise stress test may be performed on an exercise bike rather than a treadmill thus accomidating persons who are incapable of moving on the treadmill.
1 MET = 3.5 mL/kg/min aerobic capacity
Some interesting reading on exercise stress testing
http://health.drgily.com/walking-test-peak-aerobic-capacity.php - This site has an interesting calculator that will tell you your overall fitness level with a 1 mile walking test.
http://www.myfooddiary.com/resources/ask_the_expert/exercise_stress_test.asp - some basic info
http://www.postgradmed.com/issues/1999/05_01_99/driggers.htm - some more in-depth info
Tried something new for breakfast this morning.
Baker Mills Kodiak Cakes, 100% Whole Grains, Frontier Flapjack & Waffle Mix
Whole wheat, oat & honey, add water only, no added fat, no cholesterol, no added sugar
I made some pancakes with this mix, which is a bit expensive, it was $4.99 for a 24 ounce box which makes 17 1/3 cup servings. But the ingredients are all natural, whole grains. It’s nice to see a box mix of pancakes/waffles, just add water that doesn’t have partially hydrogenated oils, tons of sodium, sugars and all the other unhealthy stuff that these box mixes usually contain. I made 1 cup of mix, which means add 1 cup of water and mix just a little. The batter was pretty runny but it turned out to be perfect. Out of it I made 2 medium pancakes (4-5 inches), 2 large pancakes (7-8 inches), 1 small pancake (3-inches). I ended up eating the whole 1 cup of mix and it was a nice size meal but still light.
The result: The thin chunky batter made for a nice pancake maybe about 3/8″ thick. I cooked them on the stove top in a pan. They turned a very nice golden brown color. They came out light and fluffy. The pancakes tasted very good, actually almost unbelievably good for the ingredients listed on the box which is nothing more than whole grain wheat flour, whole grain oat flour, dry milk, honey, leavening, egg whites and salt. I highly recommend. Worth the price compared to what you get for the other box mixes and their unhealthy ingredients, but would be nice if they were a little more affordable. Only 1 gram of total fat per 1/3 cup serving, 130 calories, 216mg sodium, 27 g carbs including 4 g of fiber and 2 g sugar, 7g of protien. Cholesterol free & contain 15% calcium and 8% iron per serving. In my opinion, the mix doesn’t compare with the big name brand box mixes, tasting much more like a homemade mix and they are healthy but don’t necessarily taste like it. Great product! Try some today!
Check out their website at
The website features online ordering, some recipies, stories of the product, cooking instruction and info which is interesting, for instance don’t flatten a pancake, don’t overmix the batter, don’t flip the pancake more than once, etc…..