Breaking Up is Hard To Do

Another diversion from healthy eating, this time to tell you about a stressful situation in our lives right now.  Stan and I have decided to leave the investment club we joined a bit over a year ago, after gradually realizing our ideas about investing and how an investment club should operate are incompatible with those of the club founder and president.

It's funny how stressful this can be - sort of like quitting a job or getting a divorce.  Leaving any group of nice people can be sad, and I think this situation is extra stressful for two reasons - first of all, besides just not attending meetings any more, we will be withdrawing the money we have invested over our time in the club.  This is not a great time, as the stocks held by the club have been in a swoon lately, and we'll be leaving with a significant percent less money than we have put in.  Second, I think having shared investments may make the group a bit closer than just having fun together.  We've all contributed a lot of time not just for meetings, but doing homework, attending educational workshops and even a weekend retreat.  In the process we've enjoyed getting to know these folks.  It's fun to be part of a diverse group of smart people, working together for a common goal.

So why are we leaving?  Two reasons:  one, the way the club chooses and invests in companies is not compatible with what we have learned about investing, and two - the more important to me - instead of discussing and comparing companies and voting on every purchase or sale, the president has great latitude to buy and sell, based on a few loose, and we think faulty, criteria.  This is fair, as that one person owns a large proportion of the club's funds, but makes it less satisfying for us.

A bit of background:  our club is part of Better Investing, a national non-profit organization that helps educate people about investing, and provides an umbrella organization with chapters throughout the country for many, many individual investment clubs.  I've been a member of the organization for many years, part of the time in a different club and part as an individual.  We're leaving our club, but will remain individual members of Better Investing and perhaps find a different club.  I am on the board of the Puget Sound Chapter, (board Secretary, woo woo) and will remain so for at least the rest of my one-year term.

We feel the method of investing we learned from the organization is a solid strategy for people who want to choose individual company stocks.   We just attended our chapter's annual educational conference a few weeks ago and it was wonderful - very motivating to hear successful folks who are also great teachers talk about investing, stressing the organization's goal - to buy fundamentally high quality companies and only when their price is lower than average. They teach a specific way to study and compare companies and it works!

This is Costco's yearly Sales, Pretax Profits, and Earnings.  Better Investing likes to see these lines up, straight and parallel.

 Here's Starbucks.  That dip is the recession of 2008-9.

 Look at Priceline!

Other companies are more cyclical - not necessarily bad investments, if you buy and sell at the right time, but Better Investing recommends against them unless you are an experienced investor.

For example, Ford:

or Century Link:

So, we sent our resignation email last week, having waited until after the conference so as not to cause any drama or awkward feelings during the weekend.  We felt a bit sorry about talking with our fellow club members as though nothing was changing, and we said so in the email, as well as saying how we have enjoyed the social aspects of the club and hope to stay in touch at Better Investing events.  We kept it as brief and positive as possible.  We are gratified to see the emails that have arrived in response from club members, although a bit sorry to have no acknowledgement at all from the President or Treasurer.

I have changed jobs many times and I have noticed that after announcing I'm leaving a company, several people who I didn't know very well during my time there would come and talk to me.  It is though it's now "safe" to express their discontent, since I have obviously expressed mine by planning to leave.  We're seeing some of that now in emails from our club-mates, all so far expressing disappointment that we're leaving.  Some have expressed interest in what we'll do next and in staying in touch in the future, to which we are replying we'd love to stay in contact.  I'm not interested in starting a club myself - too much work and responsibility - but we're happy to discuss our ideas with anyone who asks.  It's nice to know they like us and will miss our participation  : )

 On a lighter note, I'm writing this post from a nice little house in Cannon Beach, Oregon.  Stan and I are spending some time here both as a relaxing get-away, and also to see a bit of what it would be like to retire to a smaller town, maybe on the coast.  (No near-term plans - I know it will probably take decades for me to pry Stan and his treasures from the big house we have now.  I just wanted to see what it would be like.)

We have some goals while we're here - mainly to do some study work on our stock portfolios and to lose a bit of weight.  I said I planned to walk every day we're here, rain or shine.  Well, for several days it rained really hard!  I walked one day in the rain and nearly got blown off the beach!  Since the sun has come out we've walked a lot.  Here are some photos Stan took yesterday and today:

Stormy Weather

Stan and I are in Cannon Beach Oregon.  We decided to spend some time here in the off-season to see what life at a small coastal town would be like.  Well, whew!  It has been very stormy!

We have gone to the beach several times with the plan to get some good photos, but it has either been fogged in, or very windy with rain or hail beating down and we're afraid of destroying the camera.  The waves have been very big, and we're hoping they'll still be big when it dries up a bit.  Here are a few shots we took.

Stan took this panorama with his new camera.  Nice!

The night before the big storm, when we had first arrived, we saw these birds all facing south.  I wonder if they knew a storm was brewing, or do they just face into the wind?

Needless to say, we've spent a lot of time snug in our rental house with books and computers.  It's quite comfortable, and the power's still on, though it has blinked a few times (fingers crossed!)

After a few days of cozy resting, we ventured out... groceries called!  What an interesting trip!  Sorry I don't have photos to show you - I was too scared and amazed.   The Safeway is in Seaside, 9 miles up the coast, and all along the way there were little creeks that you would normally not even notice, only now they are giant lakes, right up to the sides of the road.  At one point there was a traffic jam where the road actually went under the water for 100 yards or so.  Cars were slowly going through it, so we did too.  Glad we brought the Subaru with 4-wheel drive and all-weather tires!  I was afraid they would close the road before we got back, but it looks like they're used to this here.  On our way back, the water was even higher, I would say a foot deep, and there was a rescue vehicle parked ready to pull out anyone who got stuck.  No one had, and we got through fine.

Look what else we encountered in a semi-dry moment!  We hiked from Cannon Beach to Ecola State Park.  The map said 1.5 miles to the park, but didn't mention it was quite uphill.  The woman in the Tourist Info center looked surprised when we mentioned we were walking there, and advised us it could be very muddy.  She didn't mention the mud would be on a very steep trail, sort of like a ski run in spots.  We made it up hill okay, but it was quite slippery going down.

Another traffic jam as we headed back into town.  Can you see this big guy eating the hedge??  There was a whole family of elk grazing and resting in a vacant patch of grass.  Great photo op, but I was scared!  The other folks were in cars, but we were walking along the sidewalk right by them, and I was afraid they might get startled as my umbrella flapped in the wind.  (Of course it was raining.)  We avoided eye contact and they let us go by with only a cursory glance.  I was a bit grateful Stan didn't have his camera, as he doesn't scare as easily as I do!

This picture shows how close we were - scary!

Cannon Beach is such a nice little town.  I love the idea you can leave home on foot and get a coffee, some library books, visit the quilt shop and yarn store, and eat at any number of good restaurants.  My plan was to walk on the beach every day for exercise...  not working so far, instead we've been staying home by the fire with wine and snacks.  Oops.

The library is all-volunteer, and they let us join for $5 so we can borrow a few books.

I browsed through this yarn shop thinking a crochet or knitting project might be fun, but I didn't actually know what to get.  Some of the yarn is really beautiful, but also pretty expensive.

I had almost given up my walk as the rain beat down, and then I turned the corner and came upon this rainbow.  I walked a bit further, and came out into the sunshine that you see in the photos above  : )

Say Cheese!

I just read an interesting article in the newsletter of our local food co-op, PCC Natural Markets, about cheese, and I'm happy to see it because I've been trying to eliminate dairy, after reading Loren Cordain, author of The Paleo Diet and The Paleo Answer, and I love dairy!  Of course, our paleo ancestors didn't consume dairy after infancy.  (Paleo Leap says: Not practical to milk wild game.)  But here's what the PCC article says about it:

 For decades, we've watched the French eat twice as much cheese as us Americans, while enjoying much lower rates of heart disease.  This "French Paradox" led researchers on a quest to explain why French people's extraordinarily high saturated fat intake doesn't lead to more heart attacks.  

The latest research on cheese and other fermented dairy foods, such as yogurt and kefir, suggests it might not be a "paradox" at all.  Instead, we just now may be starting to understand the health benefits of cheese and other fermented dairy.

One of our go-to snacks

The article points out that recent research is disproving the dire warnings about saturated fat that many of us have been hearing much of our lives.  The saturated fat in dairy comes from short- and medium-chain fatty acids which have beneficial or neutral impact on blood cholesterol levels.  Milkfat is the best source of naturally occurring trans fatty acids that provide health benefits, unlike the synthetic trans fats found in margerine.  The natural trans fats are produced during digestion in ruminant animals such as cows or goats, and are in largest quantity in 100% grass-fed whole-milk dairy products.

I founds several studies about the benefit of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) to humans, but most are about how we make our own when plant fiber is fermented in the colon.  One paper, from the National Center for Biotechnology Information, talks about getting them from dairy.  It stresses that the makeup of the fatty acids depends on the animals' feed, which is an argument for milk from grass-fed animals.  Another paper, in Nature Communications, discusses how SCFAs may reduce appetite.

The PCC article points out that cultured dairy products such as cheese, yogurt and sour cream taste less sweet and more tangy because the lactose (milk sugar) has been used up by the healthy bacteria during fermentation.  Even for people who are not lactose intolerant, lactose can contribute to inflammation.  Fermentation also increases the vitamins and natural trans fatty acids in milk and adds pre- and pro-biotics.  Proteins are broken into smaller peptides which may improve blood pressure and immune function.  The article says molded cheeses produce even more nutrients (though probably not enough to tempt those of us who don't care for the taste of those moldy ones!)

A favorite cottage cheese lunch

I checked with my friends at Paleo Leap and they even have some good to say about dairy - although in the context of the "good, bad and ugly".  They said if you're going to consume dairy, fermented dairy is the best choice, because the fermentation process adds good bacteria and consumes most of the sugars, reducing the insulin response.  Their post ends with:

It can’t get much better than this (raw, pasture-raised, grass-fed, full fat goat’s yogurt)!

So, I'm going to start eating more cheese, sour cream and yogurt without guilt  : )   The article listed butter, buttermilk, cottage cheese and cream cheese as "sometimes fermented".   I love cottage cheese so I checked and found that Nancy's brand cottage cheese advertises that it is cultured and contains live probiotics.  Yea!  (It is lowfat only, I didn't find any Nancy's full fat cottage cheese.)

And so is their cream cheese!

Sunshine Dairy also lists cottage cheese on their page of cultured products, although it doesn't say specifically that it has live cultures.  I will read the label carefully next time I shop!

I found cultured butter too - at Organic Valley.  We use a lot of butter so I'll see how it tastes and how much it costs.  It would be nice to know our butter is actually good for us!

I checked our current favorite butter, Kerrygold Irish Butter, but they don't mention cultured, either on the website or on the package I have in the fridge.  I did run into this yummy-sounding recipe on their site however, Butter Braised Nectarine and Aged Cheddar Salad.  I'll be trying it next summer, or hmmm, I could try it now with some leftover peach slices I have in the freezer!  (It was good!)

The PCC Natural Markets article points out that much of the recent published research on dairy is from Denmark and Sweden, two countries with high dairy consumption, and much is funded by the dairy industry.  However, they are glad to see a distinction being made between fermented and non-fermented, and also between whole and low-fat.  The article's final point:

It's very likely that the difference between "drinking milk" and "eating dairy" is a significant and important distinction.