I need to put a new battery in my electronic scale, I haven't used it in quite a while. The news won't be good if I do, but I have been making a diet shift in the last couple of months that should eventually show up. I'm making a concerted effort to have different colors of vegetables and fruits in my diet; not just green salads or broccoli, but red beets, oranges, yellow squash, etc. Broccoli is a good green, but so are asparagus and zucchini, etc. - getting different plant families in there. This has been suggested in the health notes part of my Hinge exercise program, and also turns up in places like the little Consumer Reports health book they send out to subscribers.

Making this a personal goal was capped off after hearing a local NPR radio interview program with a science writer for Harvard and other places of note. Mark Schatzker's book is The End of Craving: Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well, in which "craving" was a good thing - it was your body telling you it needed something. Processed food, with so many vitamins added (a long-standing practice in things like milk and breakfast cereal, going back to before WWII) it short-circuits our own sense of what we might really need. I've taken several of the supplements out of my daily routine, so when shopping and the asparagus or the onions really appeal to me, I buy them to use. Spinach is something I'm eating more of because it really appeals to me. This process also means that getting off of sugar addiction, off of daily alcohol, etc., is important, because they become part of our routine and can be an unhealthy craving.

Michael Pollan has been writing about this for years, and there are other authors out there who have been whistling in the wilderness. It took realizing that dietary supplements were a culprit to help me shift my practices. I took a core of basic supplements, C, A, E, etc., but would never touch a product like those "Balance of Nature" things advertised on AM radio that are "a full day's supply of fruits and vegetables" in their doses (those are probably are going to kill people.) I'm surprised the FDA hasn't shut them down by now.

This isn't something that is a new year resolution, I've been working on this for several months and plan to continue with it.

Good job with the microwave donation, Charmion! They will find a good home (and perhaps on a counter or rolling cart so moving it won't continue to be an Olympic event)! The box I took to UPS yesterday was 16 pounds, it had a cast iron pot and lid. It cleared a couple of square feet of space in the front room, and now that my dining table is emptied (I put away the ornament boxes) I can use it to stage a few more items to list this week. The photo cube is in the front room but I can put the boxes and packing material in the den. Especially for the first couple of weeks when I'll isolate here to avoid Omicron, there will be no social occasion requiring a large table top. (A good note - so far my elderly friend and her son who were exposed to the daughter/sister's COVID have tested negative.)