Blog of Buffalo

Hello,

My name is Kevin Teague.

Buffalo is my nickname, but I’ve also been called Wheat.

As a computer lover

I have an affinity for the computers. I’ve been developing for the net since 1995, before that I had a Commodre 64 in 1983, and fantasized about the net through cyberpunk literature and dreams of owning a 2400 baud modem. I’ve done programming in a multitude of languages, but I pragmatically prefer to write in Python.

I started programming Python in 1999, when I installed Zope 1 (yeah, that was “1.1″ not Zope 2) after spending a couple years writing Perl/CGI. These days I use Grok, which I really enjoy, although I like the lean nature of the BFG framework, but the Django and TurboGears guys also do some pretty cool stuff.

As an explorer of the natural world

I’ve done a lot of mountain climbing and backcountry exploring, mostly around the province of British Columbia. I was born in Fruitvale, British Columbia, and being native to British Columbia means I’m proud to say that, “I’m very provincial” – the variety of outdoors in the province is spectacular. I rarely leave the Province, with old growth ancient cedar forest, alpine ridgewalks, glaciers, pristine forest lakes as a backdrop for hiking, scrambling, mountain climbing, snowshoeing, and skiing, there is a lifetime of adventure in this corner of the world.

I take a lot of photos in the outdoors, and post them on my Flickr Account. I’ll sometimes write up trip reports on post them on ClubTread.

Climbing mountains also means being physically fit, and I also am a keener in many forms of physical fitness.

As a homo sapien on the planet earth

I was a vegetarian for 19 years, primarily for ethical and environmental reasons. Lierre Keith said, “Vegetarians are well meaning people without all of the information”.

For me, this information came when I read “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes. This book is a tour-de-force of nutritional studies done over the last 150 years, and presents a very compelling case for sugars and refined carbohydrates as being a primary driver of degenerative diseases: cancer, arthritis, and autoimmune conditions. It is essentially the science behind low-carbohydrate diets. From this interest in pursuing a low-carb diet, I learned about paleolithic diet. This diet can very easily defend the claim, “the healthiest diet in the world”.

This only covers the health aspect of eating animals though. The environmental aspect is detailed in Lierre Kieth’s book, “The Vegetarian Myth”. Vegetarian’s typically eat a diet high in grains – I know my diet was this way. Grains are produced through industrial agriculture. Industrial agriculture kills the top soil, drains rivers, and pollutes the ocean. The monocultural crops of agriculture exists in disharmony with nature, and is an unsustainable method of food production. It’s dependant upon fossil fuel, fossil water, and worst of all erodes the top soil at a rate much faster than it can be replenished and can also desalinate land. Some of the most fertile areas in the world are now dead-zones, all caused by industrial agriculture. In many parts of the world, animals could be raised on pasture, with the land allowed to revert more or less back to it’s natural state. In many cases, just as much food can be produced on land this way as agriculture provides. Agriculture can only provide the human race a great expansion in population, and then a great collapse as the top soil becomes depleted and areas of the world that were once the most biologically dense become dead zones.

On the morals of eating meat, I avoid any animal products which were produced using factory farming methods. I also try and get pasture raised animals as much as possible. Not only is grains very harmful to the digestive systems of humans, but it’s also very unhealthy for animals.

In november of 2009, I switched to a primarily paleolithic diet, initially guided by the book, ‘The Primal Blueprint’ by Mark Sisson. Meat, eggs, fish, nuts, fruits and vegetables became my staples. Gone are sugars, grains, or refined carbohydrates. Within thirty days on the diet my health, vitality and energy made a major change for the better. Gone was my brain fog and sluggishness throughout the day. I now wake up in the mornings and feel great, instead of having to creak and groan out of bed.

As for eating sustainable, healthy food in harmony with nature, in British Columbia the buffalo roams wild and is raised on ranched land, and is why I chose my nickname.