Ah, Shadow. If an idea or topic comes up and generates an emotional storm, there’s work to be done.

A lot of reaction depends on -how- a message is delivered. If it is delivered as an attack, the person’s response may be to the attack instead of the content. If you told me I’d put on some pounds, I’d respond much more pleasantly than if you told me I looked like a fat cow. One of the dangers of feeling “rightous” about something (diet, religious beliefs, parenting skills, etc) is that it is easy to step over the line into insulting or attacking the people around you.

Social bookmarking sites are an interesting phenomenon. I’ve gotten many traffic surges from such sites this year, but it’s a mixed bag because those surges often include a high percentage of trolls. Out of each batch of new visitors though, there’s also a percentage who are genuinely interested in personal growth.

For example, if you seem to have a problem with time management or procrastination, and you’re well aware of the problem and working on it but still not making progress as fast as you like, it could be that it’s the areas you aren’t exploring that are contributing to the problem. Perhaps you don’t manage your time well because you don’t have strong enough reasons to do so, and those reasons may be found by balancing other areas of your life. You could get a big boost in overall motivation by improving your relationship. There’s a great deal of overlap between these different areas. Whenever I have a problem in one area, it’s often the case that the true source of the problem is somewhere else.

As an alternative to making polarized posts, I could also make posts that simply ask questions and invite debate. However, I find that taking a stand works best when the issue is very lopsided. For example, if there’s only 1 vegan out of every 500 Americans, I feel I’m better off making the case for the vegan side, since most people are far less educated on that side, especially given the billions of marketing dollars spent to promote animal products. This seems to foster a more thorough exploration of the topic. However, I find that open-ended questions work better when a controversial topic is more balanced and much less lopsided.

Even so, it’s still challenging to figure out the best way to present ideas… whether to take a strong stand on them, to take a moderate stand, or to simply ask questions and take no stand at all (like Socrates did).

But I understand the fustration people “New Agey” thinking: not that your thinking is “New Age”, but I really think that people aren’t used to thinking like: “OK, let me experiment for myself for the next 30 days and see what happens and follow that.” Because I think that people have be “forced” (since a young age) to listen to experts and follow what they have to say. We have all be conditioned to not live consiously, and to wait for other to decide many of the things for us.

And I don’t think there is lots of scientific research on many of the diet issues you talk about. But there are lots of flaky material in the New Age camp by scam-artists. So it is harder for people to accept ideas that look “New Agey”.

However, I want to add alittle bit to the entry: in my experience, emotional reaction defines not the most significant problems, but the problems the person is unaware of.
I mean, if you know you have a problem with time management, and you are aware of that problem, and you’re trying to solve it - you’re not likely to enter a heated argument stating your time management is fine.
But once you get defensive on some subject - that’s a hint that you should search for the problem.

And for the record, I’m also a big meat eater, but I’ll try to read more about other ways besides the Zone (I know, I know, at least it’s not atkins). Flame on!

I plan on eating less meat, dairy, and processed foods than I do now. Personally, I believe humans are historically omnivores, but because of modern agriculture and distribution, it is now easy to eat a vegan/natural/raw food diet that is nutritionally complete, healthy, varied, and delicious. The benefit is better health for the whole of a longer life.

My challenge is that my wife cooks all manner of meat deliciously, and our whole family really enjoys sushi.

I would really like to read your recipe ideas for meals and snacks.

Please continue to write about health and diet, I really enjoy it.