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When I was in elementary school, I liked to read books at the dinner table. Harry Potter, Tintin, Redwall, Encyclopedia Britannica, Ender's Game, etc. This practice unfortunately caused my parents to flip a shit, and about half the time they noticed they would snatch the book away and bring my glorious immersion to a screeching halt.
Why? One justification I heard was that reading at the table was rude, which was probably justified. But the far more common explanation was the completely BS traditional Asian myth that "if you're reading then all the blood flows to your head and you can't digest the food properly, HURR DURR [sic]". I categorized this explanation with the other pseudo-scientific junk they fed me as a kid and never paid attention to it again.
Well, until last week. My parents had bought me a trail guide to the awesome Issaquah Alps in Washington, and I wanted to hike as many of the trails as possible before school started again. On this particular day I settled upon the following schedule:
1) Grab a Chipotle burrito
2) Trek to a deserted lake in the middle of the woods
3) Enjoy the burrito with a nice view
4) Hike back
Tiger Mountain, eff yeah
+ Show Spoiler +
I left home at around noon and picked up the Chipotle in half an hour. But then I took a wrong turn on the freeway and spent thirty minutes turning around (it went across a bridge), which cut seriously into my super-tight schedule. This is because the sun basically dive-bombs the horizon around 5:00 pm during the Washington winter and makes it nearly impossible to navigate a trail at dusk. Calculating the distance and speed, I realized that I would have to merge steps (2) and (3) and eat the burrito while hiking. No prob, let's go!
On an uphill switchback stretch two miles in I unwrapped the burrito and started chomping away. Except instead of the normal ecstasy you get from eating a Chipotle burrito, I started getting the worst heartburn. Even worse, although I could typically sprint up switchbacks of this grade, I started running seriously out of breath. The cheese-and-tomato blend of saucy goodness seemed to fade into the backdrop of my exhaustion, and it felt like I was pouring the cilantro rice directly into my lungs.
SNARF. PUFF. SNARF. PUFF. FUCK. As a desperate last resort, I initiated the Chipotle panic protocol, which consists of ripping off the tinfoil and trapping the unshielded tortilla explosion in your mouth (this procedure is typically reserved for when the burrito reaches critical entropy and begins to uncontrollably leak past the foil wrapping). The last mouthul felt like a rock going down my esophagus. I had to sit on a trailside log for two minutes to recuperate. I didn't even make it to the lake before having to turn back due to sundown. 
Coming back, I passed a jogger and his two dogs. Apparently some of the rice fallout had stuck to my muddy shoes and the mutts started to nibble at my food-encrusted boots. Insult, meet injury.
Myth: Reading at the dinner table interferes with digestion.
Status: PLAUSIBLE. Physical activity will definitely destroy you.
This educational episode was sponsored by Are You A Fish's parents, who generously supplied the trail guide.
 
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WTF I just wrote a blog on Asian food. Your blog has nothing to do with Asian food.
And yes, physical activity during/after eating isn't recommended. I thought this was common knowledge.
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On January 12 2012 14:28 Newbistic wrote:
WTF I just wrote a blog on Asian food. Your blog has nothing to do with Asian food.
And yes, physical activity during/after eating isn't recommended. I thought this was common knowledge.
Title was quite deceptive. I was definitely left disappointed as I expected some tasty food.
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I expected a blog on asian foot fetish so I guess joke's on me. OP Don't apologize to these guys, nobody expects you to make sure someone else didnt blog about the same thing you're blogging about.
edit: and this is actually funny. good blog
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Osaka27174 Posts
Good read haha. Title is a little misleading but I know where you were going with it. You just had to make mythbusting = myth busting. Guess that TV show is pretty popular.
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Ibn al-Haytham is turning his grave over your application of the scientific method.
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Australia3894 Posts
I used to hate that moment when after years of denying that my parents knew anything, I realised they actually did 
Great read, pity about the hike. I can imagine an oily burrito is definitely not going to settle easily.
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This had nothing to do with Asian Food but it did include food and Asian.
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well, your first mistake was going to chipotle.......
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On January 12 2012 14:28 Newbistic wrote:
WTF I just wrote a blog on Asian food. Your blog has nothing to do with Asian food.
And yes, physical activity during/after eating isn't recommended. I thought this was common knowledge.
I understand that you shouldn't do sports during lunch but why not after that? I thought you should walk for a bit or something of that nature after lunch.
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On January 12 2012 17:41 surfinbird1 wrote:
I understand that you shouldn't do sports during lunch but why not after that? I thought you should walk for a bit or something of that nature after lunch.
I've found that sports/exercise after eating (a significant meal, such as lunch) more often than not results in muscle cramps and 'stiches'.
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Hey me and a friend have hiked that place before! :D And yeah from my personal experience with hiking and working out it's good to eat a bit before (30-60 minutes) physical activity, and after, but not during.
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I expected something about testing whether asian food was flammable or something. Or maybe something about how Asian people don't all eat eggrolls.
But this is good too, I guess....
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I thought I was the only kid who wasn't allowed to read at the table.. actually, I thought I was the only kid who wanted to read at the table. Good to know it wasn't just me.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/o29t8.jpg)
