The Road to Whistler

(I've been having trouble with Blogger not finding my pics so will add them once I figure out the problem). In the meantime, check them out at http://picasaweb.google.com/vanbookinginfo/RoadToWhistlerPartII/

So now it's well over due that I post to my poor, neglected blog. I see that the blog that got lost is now found - I'll leave them both to confuse you even more.

I've been playing way to much at Tagoria!!!

Last weekend, my friend and I took a day trip up to Whistler, a well-known ski & sun resort north of Vancouver. Whistler is one of the major venues for the 2010 Winter Olympics and Para-Olympics, as well as being a top world vacation destination.

I plan to take plenty of pics to share on this site and on Picasa so dutifully recharge all my camera batteries the night before while packing a picnic cooler with strawberries, Camembert, crackers, egg salad, juice and granola bars. Mmmm.

Early the next morning we leave town and head over Lion's Gate Bridge, through West Vancouver, and soon after passing the Horseshoe Bay ferry turnoff we quickly join the Sea to Sky Highway. The drive up the coast is gorgeous on a sunny day. Most of the reconstruction on the highway is complete with only a few spots left where you have to slow down, but there are no delays. Howe Sound is calm, it's early spring so the trees are that amazing bright yellowy green that gladdens the heart and quickens our sluggish winter blood.

Considering the first few pics were taken through the windshield, and while travelling at speed, they turned out better than expected, but by the time we come into sight of The Chief, my camera is beeping its low battery signal. Eeek! Change batteries. Eeek! Same response from said camera. At this point I'm really ticked because of the crummy camera. We pull into the Shopper's drug store in Squamish and I fork out $18 plus change for new NiMH batteries. Same thing. Bloody cheap technology! So I resorted to turning the camera off, then quickly turning it on and snapping a pic or two before the camera dies again. Typical. First trip in ages and this happens.

Hence the title "The Road to Whistler".

The Chief is a 450 m cliff face that pro climbers love. They even sleep there, hanging from little hanging nets and tents. Weird. But there are paths of varying difficulty along the back of the mountain for those who are brave but not exactly crazy, like my daughters. Named for Chief Mountain, an ancestral Nisga'a, there are 7-10 kms of return hiking trails, depending on your route. One of several in the area, it is estimated at 93 million years old; as volcanic monoliths go, it is one of the world's biggest freestanding mounts. On the Picas site I've placed markers on the google map for you.

I will post more later.

Oh...when I got home that night, I tried recharging the batteries again, but in a different wall outlet. It worked fine. So not only did I not get the pics I wanted, I also had forked out $18 for dead NiMH Duracells from a brand new still-smell-the-paint drug store. Go figure...

The Road to Whistler

I'm spending way too much time at Tagoria.com!!!

Anyway, I've decided to tell you about my trip to Whistler, one of the best sun & ski resorts on the planet (and probably one of the most expensive, too). This is one of the major venues for the 2010 Winter Olympics and ParaOlympics. I had planned to do a whole series of pics as the drive up the coast is as spectacular as the surrounding mountains. Half way up the highway my camera started blinking that the batteries were dead. I changed them. Same thing. Thinking it might be a problem with the camera, we stopped at a shop in Squamish and I forked over about $18 for extras. They didn't work either! Definitely the camera. Very depressing. It wasn't until I got home that night and plugged the recharger into a different outlet that I discovered it wasn't the batteries at all. It was the bloody wall plug I'd used the night before...which also meant I'd forked out $18 for 2 dead NiMH Duracells from the brand new Shopper's drug store...

Anyway, I did get a few shots before the batteries died. Some of them were taken through the windshield of a car going well over the speed limit, so take this into account when viewing. The lake shots were taken at Porteau Cove Provincial Park. There is a beautiful campground there. If planning to camp at any BC Provincial Park, book well in advance and have your credit card ready.



The very high (450 m), bare stone cliff is a very popular climbing wall, experts only. You can also climb up the back end to reach the top. Clearly marked paths, but still steep and not for the faint of heart...literally. Google Stawamus Chief Provincial Park for info. Might as well check out Pemberton info as well. It's world famous for the eagles and bears that enjoy salmon fishing priveleges. Cameras are de rigeur, but leave your weapons at home. Canadian folk don't take kindly to anyone messing with the wildlife. You won't be invited back EVER and the monetary penalties are very high, but still way too low in my humble opinion.


That said, British Columbia is a truly spectacular place to live and I love it here.

MSG - Deliberate Obesity for Fun and Profit

I don't usually do the soapbox thing but I've been aware for a long time that MSG is not nice stuff and have tried to avoid it when shopping or dining out. Given the info below, it's been a bit of a fool's errand.

Convenience foods are just that - convenient. When you are in a rush to get food on the table, or if your kids are fussy eaters and prepackaged foods are all they will eat, if you are on a tight work schedule and have to grab lunch on the run, please remember what you read below. It's a long article but worth the read.

MSG is usually made from the fermentation of corn, cane sugar or beet sugar, and further processed to make the fine white crystalline product that is then added to foods.

For a partial list of the major offenders go to the website listed at the bottom of this post.
**********************
Shamantra,

A friend sent me this email. I found it very informative with good resources. I hope that it will at least generate some critical thinking regarding additives on your part - even if you do not agree with the writer. If you are concerned, please pass this on. Thank you.

"MSG The food additive MSG (Mono-Sodium Glutamate) is a slow poison. MSG hides behind 25 or more names, such as "Natural Flavouring." MSG is even in your favourite coffee from Tim Horton's and other brand-name coffee shops!

I wondered if there could be an actual chemical causing the massive obesity epidemic, and so did a friend of mine, John Erb. He was a research assistant at the University of Waterloo in Ontario , Canada , and spent years working for the government. He made an amazing discovery while going through scientific journals for a book he was writing called, "The Slow Poisoning of America."

In hundreds of studies around the world, scientists were creating obese mice and rats to use in diet or diabetes test studies. No strain of rat or mice is naturally obese, so scientists have to create them. They make these creatures morbidly obese by injecting them with MSG when they are first born. The MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing rats (and perhaps humans) to become obese. They even have a name for the fat rodents they create: "MSG-Treated Rats."

When I heard this, I was shocked. I went into my kitchen and checked the cupboards and the refrigerator. MSG was in everything -- the Campbell 's soups, the Hostess Doritos, the Lays flavoured potato chips, Top Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper, Heinz canned gravy, Swanson frozen prepared meals, and Kraft salad dressings, especially the "healthy low-fat" ones.
The items that didn't have MSG marked on the product label had something called "Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein," which is just another name for Monosodium Glutamate. It was shocking to see just how many of the foods we feed our children everyday are filled with this stuff. MSG is hidden under many different names in order to fool those who read the ingredient list, so that they don't catch on. (Other names for MSG are "Accent, "Aginomoto," "Natural Meat Tenderizer," etc.)

But it didn't stop there. When our family went out to eat, we started asking at the restaurants what menu items contained MSG. Many employees, even the managers, swore they didn't use MSG. But when we asked for the ingredient list, which they grudgingly provided, sure enough, MSG and Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein were everywhere.

Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, every restaurant -- even the sit-down eateries like TGIF, Chili's, Applebee's, and Denny's -- use MSG in abundance. Kentucky Fried Chicken seemed to be the WORST offender: MSG was in every chicken dish, salad dressing. and gravy. No wonder I loved to eat that coating on the skin -- their secret spice was MSG!

So why is MSG in so many of the foods we eat? Is it a preservative, or a vitamin? Not according to my friend John Erb. In his book The Slow Poisoning of America, he said that MSG is added to food for the addictive effect it has on the human body.

Even the propaganda website sponsored by the food manufacturers lobby group supporting MSG explains that the reason they add it to food is to make people eat more. A study of the elderly showed that older people eat more of the foods that it is added to. The Glutamate Association lobbying group says eating more is a benefit to the elderly, but what does it do to the rest of us?

Betcha can't eat [just] one," takes on a whole new meaning where MSG is concerned! And we wonder why the nation is overweight! MSG manufacturers themselves admit that it addicts people to their products. It makes people choose their product over others, and makes people eat more of it than they would if MSG wasn't added.

Not only is MSG scientifically proven to cause obesity, it is an addictive substance. Since its introduction into the American food supply fifty years ago, MSG has been added in larger and larger doses to the pre-packaged meals, soups, snacks, and fast foods we are tempted to eat everyday.

The FDA has set no limits on how much of it can be added to food. They claim it's safe to eat in any amount. But how can they claim it's safe when there are hundreds of scientific studies with titles like these:

-"The monosodium glutamate (MSG) obese rat as a model for the study of exercise in obesity." Gobatto CA, Mello MA, Souza CT, Ribeiro IA. Res Commun Mol Pathol Pharmacol. 2002.
-Adrenalectomy abolishes the food-induced hypothalamic serotonin release in both normal and monosodium glutamate-obese rats." Guimaraes RB, Telles MM, Coelho VB, Mori C, Nascimento CM, Ribeiro. Brain Res Bull. 2002 Aug.
-Obesity induced by neonatal monosodium glutamate treatment in spontaneously hypertensive rats: An animal model of multiple risk factors." Iwase M, Yamamoto M, Iino K, Ichikawa K, Shinohara N, Yoshinari Fujishima. Hypertens Res. 1998 Mar.
-Hypothalamic lesion induced by injection of monosodium glutamate in suckling period and subsequent development of obesity." Tanaka K, Shimada M, Nakao K Kusunoki. Exp Neurol. 1978 Oct.

No, the date of that last study was not a typo; it was published in 1978. Both the "medical research community" and "food manufacturers" have known about the side effects of MSG for decades. Many more of the studies mentioned in John Erb's book link MSG to diabetes, migraines and headaches, autism, ADHD, and even Alzheimer's. So what can we do to stop the food manufactures from dumping this fattening and addictive MSG into our food supply and causing the obesity epidemic we now see?

Several months ago, John Erb took his book and his concerns to one of the highest government health officials in Canada . While he was sitting in the government office, the official told him, "Sure, I know how bad MSG is. I wouldn't touch the stuff." But this top-level government official refuses to tell the public what he knows.

The big media doesn't want to tell the public either, fearing issues with their advertisers. It seems that the fallout on the fast food industry may hurt their profit margin. The food producers and restaurants have been addicting us to their products for years, and now we are paying the price for it. Our children should not be cursed with obesity caused by an addictive food additive.

But what can I do about it? I'm just one voice! What can I do to stop the poisoning of our children, while our governments are insuring financial protection for the industry that is poisoning us? This message is going out to everyone I know in an attempt to tell you the truth that the corporate-owned politicians and media won't tell you.

The best way you can help to save yourself and your children from this drug-induced epidemic is to forward this article to everyone. With any luck, it will circle the globe before politicians can pass the legislation protecting those who are poisoning us.
The food industry learned a lot from the tobacco industry. Imagine if big tobacco had a bill like this in place before someone blew the whistle on nicotine?
If you are one of the few who can still believe that MSG is good for us and you don't believe what John Erb has to say, see for yourself:

Go to the National Library of Medicine at www.pubmed.com
Type in the words "MSG Obese" and read a few of the 115 medical studies that appear.

We the public do not want to be rats in one giant experiment, and we do not approve of food that makes us into a nation of obese, lethargic, addicted sheep, feeding the food industry's bottom line while waiting for the heart transplant, the diabetic-induced amputation, blindness, or other obesity-induced, life-threatening disorders.
With your help we can put an end to this poison.
Do your part in sending this message out by word of mouth, e-mail, or by distribution of this printout to your friends all over the world and stop this "Slow Poisoning of Mankind" by the packaged food industry.
Blowing the whistle on MSG is our responsibility, so get the word out.

For a partial list of msg-added foods click on:

http://www.gather.com/