What we can learn from men

Sometimes I like to travel to Mars, step back, and appreciate what men do and have to offer. The following observation isn't meant to depict a good man, rather it is meant to reflect on what quite a few men do.

Lesson 1: Keep it to yourself
When women face a problem, or a moment of excitement, they go and surround themselves with girlfriends, gossip and Facebook/text messaging. It usually ends up in some sort of a newspaper headline: "Best friend Debbie discovers a cute guy and makes eye contact at a coffee shop." Of course, this is something women do because it is in their nature to surround themselves with other women and relieve their stresses in such a way. However, we never see men do this and it is quite fascinating. Men don't brag unless they have that job/girlfriend/vacation ticket in their pocket. Not only do they NOT walk everyone and their mother through every cycle of their dirty laundry, but they also appear significantly mysterious and headstrong.

Lesson 2: Solutions vs. Emotions
It is natural for women to look for sympathy and this goes in hand with the previous observation. When women face a problem, or a moment of excitement, emotions run high. This is actually how women tend to solve problems — women let emotions confuse the heck out of them until there is a solution. For example, if I were to fail a class, I would probably cry for a few days and then come to terms with it. A man would deal with this differently by keeping cool and by coming up with various solutions to the problem on the spot. Of course, men and women are socialized differently and it may be hard to act like a lady and think like a man.

Men and women tend to have this miscommunication in relationships, especially when a woman complains to her significant other and he (quite annoyingly) tells her what to do, without realizing that she is actually looking for sympathy/something comforting, and not for a solution. But, when I consider these two different approaches, it is clear which one is more logical and can solve the problem more efficiently.

Lesson 3: Eat an elephant for breakfast
I clearly noticed this good habit while hanging around various men and living with one. I will pick at my breakfast or skip it altogether while he will eat an elephant (not literally). Because of this, women may overeat at lunch and dinner while men may maintain a consistent diet throughout the day because they filled up at breakfast. BUT, it might take serious training (for me) to wake up with this kind of man hunger.

Lesson 4: Soap is good for everything
While women have various bath products (shampoo, body wash, face wash, etc.), men really only rely on one —  BAR SOAP.  Of course, there are many high-maintenance men out there with more beauty products than I will ever own, but that is another story I wish not to get into.

The soap idea appears crazy to me. But really, all of the bath products have the same chemicals in them and not much changes between one product and the next. So, it's actually quite smart to replace everything with just one type of product. After all, our ancestors did it and still had nice hair and skin.

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Why is rice white and what is the hype with it?

First cultivated by Asian farmers in 3000 BC, rice is a hot commodity and one grain that requires real mass production. An average North American consumes 22 pounds a year, while residents in some Asian countries consume as much as 300 pounds a year!

If rice was on the hotness scale, it would definitely be a 10. Why? Because wandering around the grocery store, you will find shelves filled with rice. All types of rice: long-grain, medium-grain, small-grain, white, brown, basmati and wild, among others (To be more specific, there are actually over 40,000 varieties of rice in the world).

But as someone who spends quite a bit of time at restaurants, the type of rice that I come across most often is white rice. On many occasions I find myself asking "What is the hype with it?"

When rice is harvested, it goes through a process of milling, which removes the outer grain husks. Brown rice only has the outer grain husks removed while white rice has the husk, bran and germ removed. Not only does white rice take additional steps to this preparation process, it also seems less healthy and less environmentally friendly. Not to mention, it is polished with talc and glucose after. Due to this, even more nutrients are lost, so to fix the issue, white rice is then sprayed with nutrients and advertised as "enriched." It was rich in the first place!

One explanation for the popularity of white rice could be that it is traditional. Classic. Staple. The other explanation is that white rice stores longer and is faster to cook, and this is important because rice feeds more people in the world than any other grain. Oh I get it...in the case of an apocalyptic event, it won't be brown rice that saves us.
One more (amateur) explanation is that white rice doesn't have much flavor and is easier to mix with other food.

While the rice question is (somewhat) answered, I am now wondering about white bread and pasta. But that will have to wait until next time, dear readers.

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