Peanut Butter Addendum

Last Friday’s blog post, Nuts, Peanuts and Health, reviewed how researchers have linked nut and peanut consumption with reduced mortality, yet they’ve found no such link for peanut butter. Somehow, I doubt that will affect its sales. Peanut butter has been around a long time.

Newspaper clipping from
The Comet, Johnson City,
Tenn., 30 Dec 1897.

History of Peanut Butter

Haitians pounded peanuts into paste at the end of the 17th century, Africans ground peanuts into stews as early as the 15th century and the Chinese have crushed peanuts into creamy sauces for centuries. But the peanut plant originated in South America and the prize for the first peanut butter is probably awarded to the Aztecs, who reportedly roasted or pounded peanuts into a paste. (They also ground peanuts between stones to extract the oil and used the residue to make flat cakes.)
 

The first U.S. patent for peanut butter, No. US306727 A, 21 Oct 1884 (filed 3 Sep 1884), “Manufacture of Peanut-Candy,” was held by Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal. His patent described a process of roasting and grinding peanuts to produce a paste, then adding sugar to manufacture sweetmeats and candy.
 

Newspaper clipping from
The Wichita Daily Eagle,
Wichita, Kan. 11 Dec 1898.

Though there are different accounts, it seems that an unidentified physician encouraged George Bayle, the owner of a St. Louis food products company, to mechanize the hand-grinder process and become the first to sell peanut butter as a snack food in 1894.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek, Mich., filed a patent, “Process of Preparing Nutmeal”--No. US580787 A, 13 Apr 1987 (filed 4 Nov 1885) that would produce an improved alimentary product as both a dry nutmeal and a pasty adhesive substance termed nut-butter. The peanuts were steamed rather than roasted before grinding, and the product was not very tasty. He and his brother turned their attention to breakfast cereals.

Newspaper clipping from
Mower County Transcript,
Lansing, Minn., 19 Jul 1899.

Dr. Ambrose W. Straub, of Philadelphia, is credited with facilitating the production of peanut butter with his “Mill for Grinding Peanuts for Butter,” Patent No. US721651 A, 24 Feb 1903 (filed 20 Feb 1901). His invention related to improvements in portable mills adapted for grinding peanuts, used in the manufacturing of peanut butter, and all kinds of hard, friable, tough, and moist substances.

Some accounts link Straub with George Bayle, but I found no connection other than both being born in Philadelphia. It’s likely, however, that it was Bayle Food Products that featured peanut butter at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair, after which major food companies introduced it nationally.

One of the most important advances in peanut butter industrialization was made by Joseph Rosefield in 1922. He developed the hydrogenation process which prevented peanut oil and solids from separating in the container, extending the shelf life. In 1928, Rosefield licensed his invention to the company that created Peter Pan peanut butter, and in 1932, he began producing his own peanut butter under the name Skippy.

Advertisement from
Akron Daily Democrat,
Akron, Oh., 28 Oct 1899.

The only patent I found was filed years later by Marvin, Jerome and Joseph Rosefield, “Peanut Butter and Process of Manufacturing the Same” Patent No. US2397564 A, 2 Apr 1946 (filed 7 Oct 1942), which was an improved process especially efficacious for producing a highly stable, emulsified peanut butter having enriched nutritive value.

Things You Need to Know about Peanut Butter

-Over half of America’s peanut crop is used for peanut butter.
-One 12-ounce jar of peanut butter requires about 540 peanuts.
-Americans eat some 700 million pounds of peanut butter a year.
-60% of American consumers chose creamy over crunchy peanut butter; women, children and people on the East Coast lean toward creamy, while men and people on the West Coast prefer crunchy.
-Archibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth.

And don’t forget that January 24 is National Peanut Butter Day. Yes, I know it’s also National Compliment Day and Global Belly Laugh Day. Anyway, if you miss it, March 1 is National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day, which is also National Horse Protection Day.

Advertisement from Perrysburg Journal, Perrysburg, Oh., 1 Nov 1901.

P.S.

Newspaper clippings and ads are from the Library of Congress website, chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ which I was alerted to by odnp.uoregon.edu/2011/09/29/the-history-of-peanut-butter-in-the-u-s/ 
Patents are through Google or the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, www.uspto.gov/
Primary references:
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/22/peanut-butter-history_n_1222585.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_butter
www.kitchenproject.com/history/PBJ/peanutbutter.htm
www.amazon.com/Handbook-Aztec-World-Manuel-Aguilar-Moreno/dp/0195330838
articles.latimes.com/1990-04-01/news/mn-739_1_peanut-butter
www.amazon.com/Creamy-Crunchy-All-American-Traditions-Perspectives/dp/0231162332
nationalpeanutboard.org/the-facts/fun-facts/

Nuts, Peanuts and Health

Welcome back. If you’ve been following this blog (thank you) or ever clicked on “Food” on the blog topics list (it’s on the website’s right margin), you’ve seen posts on breakfast, broccoli, chili peppers, chocolate, dining out, entomophagy (insects), Isaan Thai food and more. Although nuts and peanuts (a legume, not a nut) were pictured in the food pyramid in a Mediterranean diet post, the time has come to give them star billing.

Unsalted mixed nuts.

Why? Because I’m going shopping this morning, and we’re out of nuts. (I eat a handful of unsalted nuts and peanuts every day.) Also, there was a study linking nut and peanut consumption with health, specifically lower mortality. It’s far from the first study to find the association.

Nuts and Peanuts Lower Mortality

This latest study was by researchers at the Netherlands’ Maastricht University Medical Centre. They analyzed dietary and lifestyle habits of 120,852 men and women, age 55-69 in 1986, and both total and cause-specific mortality 10 years later. The dietary data included how often nuts, peanuts and peanut butter were eaten as well as the amounts.

Dry roasted, unsalted peanuts.

Like earlier studies, they found nut and peanut consumption were associated with lower mortality due to cardiovascular diseases. But they also found the association extended to other causes, including cancer, diabetes and respiratory and neurodegenerative diseases.

Two other findings were particularly noteworthy. The first is that lower mortality was associated with an average daily consumption of as little as 15 grams of nuts or peanuts or about half an ounce or half a handful; eating more did not reduce the mortality risk. The second is that the association with lower mortality did not hold for peanut butter, presumably because of its added ingredients.

Lest you entertain the notion that the study population might have been too narrow or homogeneous, let me add that a different large scale study found the association with decreased mortality held for low socioeconomic status Americans of African and European descent and Chinese in Shanghai. That study, published a month before the Dutch study, was led by researchers from Vanderbilt University.

Nut Nutrition and Calories

There’s no question as to why nuts fit well with a good diet. Reporting the positive results of still another large scale study of nut consumption and mortality--this one led by Harvard researchers--the authors characterized nuts as being nutrient-dense foods that are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and many other bioactive substances, such as phenolic antioxidants and phytosterols. That’s hard to beat.

Probably the only drawback of nuts and peanuts, other than a possible allergic reaction, is the relatively high fat and calorie content. With moderation that may not be much of a drawback.

Calorie and fat content of selected nuts and peanuts. (Compiled
in www.builtlean.com/2013/07/31/calories-nuts-chart/
from ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/search/list)

Based on a systematic review and meta-analysis of 31 published clinical trials, collaborating researchers in Spain found diets with 1 to 3 ounces of nuts a day, for from 2 weeks to over a year, showed no increase in body weight, body mass index or waist circumference compared with control diets. Moreover, in trials that required limiting overall calories, participants in the groups that ate nuts tended to lose more weight than participants in the control groups.

Wrap Up

Large scale studies like those done or led by Maastricht, Vanderbilt and Harvard universities are critical and convincing, yet there is a caveat. They’re cohort studies, a type of longitudinal study I described in an earlier post (I’m Shrinking!).

These studies identify correlations from questionnaire data. They are not clinical trials in which participants receive one or more interventions, or none, in order to evaluate the effects of the interventions. There is no testing of consuming different amounts or types of nuts against control groups, as in the clinical trials reviewed in the Spanish study.

Nevertheless, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of adding nuts and peanuts to your daily fare. Just don’t overdo it. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

Maastricht University study on nuts, peanuts and peanut butter in International Journal of Epidemiology and article on study on Science Daily and Forbes websites:
ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/05/26/ije.dyv039.full.pdf+html
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150610190920.htm
Vanderbilt-led study on nuts and peanuts in JAMA Internal Medicine; mentioned in article on Maastricht University study on Forbes website:
archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2173094
www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2015/06/11/nuts-reduce-risk-of-death-from-any-cause-study-finds/
Harvard-led study on nuts in New England Journal of Medicine:
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1307352
Spanish study on nuts in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition:
ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2013/04/17/ajcn.111.031484.full.pdf+html
Examples of older studies on nuts and peanuts in 2008 Journal of Nutrition and 1996 Nutrition Reviews:
jn.nutrition.org/content/138/9/1736S.full
nutritionreviews.oxfordjournals.org/content/54/8/241.long

Awesome Addendum

Last Friday’s blog post, Awesome!, addressed the awesome power of the feeling of awe. As such, I know you’ll agree this addendum should address the expression “awesome.” The focus, of course, is when awesome is used to mean excellent or the like instead of its traditional meaning--to inspire admiration, apprehension or fear.

It’s only an expression.

I never used the expression before last Friday’s post. I’m not bothered if others use it. It’s not at all like substituting “no problem” for “you’re welcome,” a grave error I discussed in an earlier blog post (Linguistic Longings). To me, “awesome” falls more in line with “cool.” There are alternative words for both, and both can be overused, which definitely isn’t cool.

History of Awesome

Robert Lane Greene, who grew up using the expression, traced the etymology of awesome from biblical references of awe, to its inclusion in the 1598 Oxford English Dictionary, through its evolution over the centuries, to its definition in the 1980 Official Preppy Handbook as “terrific” or “great.”

A few months ago, Ammon Shea summarized much the same history and compared it to the history of “awful,” which once meant inspiring dread. The article also noted that, in 1977, a letter-writer to the Los Angeles Times questioned the overuse of awesome.

Overuse of Awesome

Overuse is the common complaint. In 2011, Barb Sawyers wrote an article, 'Awesome': The most overused word in English. To aid those who are “too lazy, busy, insecure, stupid or whatever to think of a more original or relevant word,” she listed 45 alternative descriptors. (She began with A-Amazing, ended with Y-You rock, and in between included Heart-stopping, Shazam and Un-freakin believable.) Apparently the article didn’t work, because it was reprinted in 2013.

But the clarion call to “retire awesome” was repeated in a 2014 article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press. To support the action, the article mentioned Googling the phrase “overuse of the word awesome” and getting more than half a million matches. 

Steps to be awesome. (Modified
from graphic on multiple websites.)

Perhaps the complaints are finally working. When I Googled “overuse of awesome,” I got fewer than a half a million results, about 481,000. For comparison, when I Googled “overuse of absolutely,” I got over twice as many results, about 1,130,000.

Most important, when I Googled “use of ‘no problem’ instead of ‘you're welcome,’” there were nearly a million results!

P.S.

Robert Lane Greene’s article on awesome:
moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/robert-lane-greene/just-awesome#
Ammon Shea’s article on awesome: blog.dictionary.com/awesome/
Barb Sawyers article on awesome: www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Awesome_The_most_overused_word_in_English__42972.aspx 
Chattanooga Times Free Press article on awesome: www.timesfreepress.com/news/life/entertainment/story/2014/jan/05/lets-retire-awesome/128030/

Awesome!

Welcome back. I’ve been reading about research on the power of awe. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt a sense of awe, but this isn’t about me. It’s about two studies I thought were particularly interesting.

It’s hard to beat nature for
triggering awe. Take Heavenly
Lake in northwestern
China, 1982.

One suggests that positive emotions, especially feelings of awe, boost the body’s defense system, influencing health and life expectancy. 

The other study suggests that awe promotes “prosocial” behavior–actions intended to benefit one or more people other than oneself.

Awe Promotes Health 

To understand the relation with health, it helps to know about cytokines. These cell-signaling molecules support immune response by aiding cell to cell communication.

What’s key is that cytokines stimulate the movement of cells to sites of inflammation, infection and trauma. That’s good. But sustained high levels of cytokines are associated with poorer health as well as with type-2 diabetes and other disorders. As markers go, low cytokine levels signal good health.

Sometimes nature gets an assist, as
on my first evening at the Arecibo
Observatory, Puerto Rico, 1965.

For the study, collaborating researchers from the University of California-Berkeley and University of Pittsburgh took gum and cheek tissue samples (oral mucosal transudate) from over 200 participants on the day the participants reported experiencing positive emotions, such as amusement, awe, compassion, joy and love.

In a nut shell, they found that participants who experienced more positive emotions, especially awe, wonder and amazement, had the lowest levels of a specific pro-inflammatory cytokine, Interleukin 6.
 

And sometimes what humans built
is itself enough, as I found
walking through the ancient
ruins of Palmyra, Syria, 1983.

Awe Promotes Prosocial Behavior

For the second study, researchers from New York University, the University of Toronto and the University of California-Berkeley conducted five experiments. In the first, they had a nationally representative sample of 1519 participants complete questionnaires, which examined individual differences in morality and tendencies to experience seven positive emotions--amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, enthusiasm, love and pride.

Participants then played a game in which they were given 10 raffle tickets. They had to decide how many tickets, if any, they would share with another participant who had none. In one version of the game, the raffle drawing was for $10; in another, the drawing was for $500.

The experiment showed increased tendencies to experience awe and certain other emotions were significantly associated with generosity in both versions of the game. When the researchers accounted for overlap among positive emotions and demographic variables, they found awe was a statistically significant predictor of increased generosity in the $500 raffle though not in the $10 raffle. 

Music has charms to stir the feeling of
awe. Try Fanfare for the Common Man.
This may not be the best video, but
Aaron Copland conducts:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgj7_DmgDqs
(Photo cut from score at
www.jwpepper.com/)

In four follow-up experiments the researchers had groups of 75 to 254 participants take part in an activity (e.g., recall, watch a video or gaze at something in their environment), which was designed to elicit either awe, a neutral state or another reaction, such as pride or amusement. The participants then engaged in an activity designed to measure prosocial behaviors or tendencies.

Awe was significantly associated with prosocial behaviors in every experiment. Inducing awe caused participants to endorse more ethical decisions in one experiment, be more generous to a stranger in another experiment, and report more prosocial values in a third experiment. Inducing awe by having participants gaze up at a grove of towering trees in the fourth experiment led to increased helpfulness, greater ethicality and decreased entitlement. 

The elegance of an
equation can inspire awe.

Wrap Up  

The sense of awe may be fleeting and hard to describe. There are many stimuli and not everyone responds the same. Yet the studies suggest that awe serves an important social function by encouraging people to improve the welfare of others. And though awe diminishes the emphasis on one’s self, it may still contribute to improving one’s health and well-being. That’s awesome. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

Background on cytokines: www.news-medical.net/health/What-are-Cytokines.aspx
Awe and health study in Emotion journal and article on study on Science Daily website:
psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/emo0000033
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150203133237.htm
Awe and behavior study in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and on first author’s website, and article on study on Medical Xpress website:
psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/pspi0000018
paulpiff.wix.com/paulpiff#!publications/c240r
medicalxpress.com/news/2015-05-awe-altruistic-behavior.html

Conspiracy Theories, Continued

I hope you read last Friday’s blog post, Conspiracy Theories, because today’s post jumps right in with one more area of research on the topic: medical conspiracy theories.

Belief in Medical Conspiracy Theories

Researchers from the University of Chicago organized a national online survey in 2013, which collected data from 1351 adults on their (i) awareness of six specific medical conspiracy theories, (ii) level of agreement with each theory and (iii) health behaviors.

Celebrity anti-vaccine advocates
compete with medical experts.
(multiple websites)

Stated loosely and with the percentage of respondents who were aware of each, the conspiracy theories listed were: doctors and government know vaccines cause autism and other disorders (69%); the FDA is suppressing natural cures because of drug companies (63%); health officials know cellphones cause cancer but corporations stop any action (57%); the CIA infected African Americans with HIV (32%); water fluoridation is a secret way for industry to dump phosphate mine byproducts (25%); and global dissemination of genetically modified foods is a secret program to shrink population (19%).

The survey found that the respondents’ agreement with the theories ranged from 12% to 37%, varying with the specific theory; disagreement with the theories ranged from 32% to 51%; and neutrality on the theories (neither agreeing nor disagreeing) ranged from 31% to 46%. 

Nutritionist’s book on belief that,
because of drug companies, the
Food and Drug Administration
suppressed clinical studies on
the essential role of vitamins
and minerals in preventing
diseases. (www.amazon.com)

For example, 37% of the respondents agreed that the FDA was suppressing natural cures, while 20% of the respondents agreed with the conspiracy theories about cellphones and vaccines. 

Overall, 49% of the respondents agreed with at least 1 medical conspiracy theory and 18% of the respondents agreed with 3 or more.

Relationship with Health Behaviors

The researchers then related the respondents’ health behaviors to whether the respondents agreed with either 3 or more conspiracy theories, 1 or 2, or none.

Health behaviors considered included: an annual physical, visiting the dentist, a flu shot, taking vitamins, taking herbal supplements, buying local/farm stand food, prioritizing organic food and using sunscreen.

The results suggested that endorsement of conspiracy theories correlates with use of alternative medicine. Differences between numbers of respondents who agreed with 3 or more theories and those who agreed with none were greatest for buying local/farm stand food, taking herbal supplements, getting a flu shot and an annual physical and visiting the dentist.

As examples, 37% or those who agreed with 3 or more theories bought local or farm stand food, compared to only 14% of those who agreed with none. The corresponding difference for taking herbal supplements was 35% vs. 13%, getting a flu shot, 39% vs. 25%, getting an annual physical 37% vs. 48% and visiting the dentist, 33% vs. 44%.

The tallies for all but one health behavior had the number of respondents who agreed with 1 or 2 theories falling between the numbers of respondents who agreed with none and those who agreed with 3 or more. Taking vitamins was the only exception.

Wrap Up

So what have we learned? The studies reviewed in last Friday’s blog post suggested that acceptance of conspiracy theories was tied to the need for control over one’s life. But it’s clear that the best predictor of belief in one conspiracy is belief in another.

Although adherents of conspiracy theories are commonly thought to be on society’s fringe, the study reviewed here suggests that at least medical conspiracy theories are widely known in the United States, endorsed by a rather broad segment of society and generally predictive of common health behaviors.

P.S.

Research letter on medical conspiracy theories in JAMA Internal Medicine: archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1835348

Conspiracy Theories

Welcome back. Did I ever tell you about the talk radio show I listened to during my drive from Virginia? That was two or three years ago after I’d gotten our old house ready for sale and was heading to our present home here in Wisconsin. Prior to that trip, I’d always driven with Vicki and we never listened to the radio.

The New World Order conspiracy theory
portends a totalitarian world
government. (multiple websites)

I had probably reached Indiana when I tuned in a show I initially thought was a satire. Nope, the host’s discourse and conversations with callers about black helicopters, weapons and the government breaking down doors were serious.
 
I wasn’t shocked or unaware of such shows; I’d just never heard one. And it’s not that I was new to conspiracy theories. My first was in the early 1960s--fluoridation of public water supplies was a communist plot. 

Shadow directions were offered as evidence
the Apollo 11 moon landing was fake.
(multiple websites; BBC documentary,
Moon Landing Hoax, 42:19 minute video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj5r3jXhV2Q)

The first time I realized that otherwise rational people could buy into a conspiracy theory was when the fellow who worked in my father’s store told me the 1969 moon landing wasn’t real. My exposures grew, especially following Kennedy’s assassination. For sure, the number and variety of conspiracy theories have gone out of sight with the Internet.

What a rich topic for research! How about if I sample a few studies?

Belief in Conspiracy Theories

There’s a recent report from the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, VU University Amsterdam and Otterbein University, Ohio, on why people believe in conspiracy theories. Noting that conspiracy theories often arise during times of uncertainty or fear, the collaborating researchers conducted two studies.

For the first, they divided 119 participants into two groups. One group wrote down times they felt in complete control; the other group recorded times they felt they were not in control. The researchers then surveyed both groups about a local incident, which many people believed was the result of a city government conspiracy. Participants who had written about feeling in control were less likely to accept the conspiracy theory.

For the second study, the researchers analyzed data from a U.S. national survey conducted just prior to the year 2000. At that time, because of the common practice of truncating a 4-digit year to the last 2 digits, there was apprehension about the change from 1999 to 2000--would 2000 be recognized as 1900?--the Y2K millennium problem. Although the potential problem was recognized and being addressed, it spawned any number of conspiracy theories.

The analysis revealed that the more people feared Y2K, thinking it was a conspiracy, a societal threat to control, the more likely they were to believe in conspiracy theories unrelated to Y2K.
 
Together, the two studies highlighted the fundamental relationship between the need for control over one’s life and the tendency to accept conspiracy theories.

Monological Belief System

As suggested by the Y2K study, conspiracy theories can form a monological belief system: Once an individual adopts a conspiracist worldview, it’s easier to embrace new conspiracy theories if only because they support that worldview. A study published a few years ago illustrated how the attraction of conspiracy theories can be so strong it leads to endorsing entirely contradictory theories.
 

In 2013, the supermarket
tabloid Globe was still
reporting a conspiracy
in the death of Princess
Diana in 1997.

Investigators from the UK’s University of Kent surveyed 137 participating students about the death of Princess Diana. The more participants believed there was an intelligence-service campaign to assassinate Diana, the stronger was their belief that she faked her own death to go into isolation.

To confirm that such inconsistent beliefs were due to suspicion of authorities, the investigators then surveyed 102 students about the death of Osama bin Laden. Participants who believed he was already dead when the raid took place were more likely to believe he is still alive.

The driver of belief in conspiracy theories does not appear to be one theory supporting another but simply support for conspiracy theories--even if the theories happen to be contradictory.

Wrap Up

There was a study on medical conspiracy theories I also thought was interesting, but I’d better save that for Tuesday. I hope you’ll be back. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

Discussion of conspiracy theories on Psychology Today website:
www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201504/the-psychology-conspiracy-and-cover-ups
Study on why people believe in conspiracy theories in Applied Cognitive Psychology journal and article on study on Time website:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acp.3161/abstract?campaign=wolearlyview
time.com/3997033/conspiracy-theories/
Study on belief in contradictory conspiracy theories in Social Psychological and Personality Science journal and article on study on Science Daily website:
spp.sagepub.com/content/3/6/767
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120126152134.htm
Live Science’s top conspiracy theories:
www.livescience.com/11375-top-ten-conspiracy-theories.html

A Monkey to Harvest Coconuts

Last Friday’s guest post by John Lukens (A Thai Holiday and Oil Palms) described how he and wife Thitiya traveled from their home in Bangkok to spend a few days with their friends Tiew and wife Aew in Ranong, where they had the opportunity to learn about oil palms. The learning opportunities didn’t end with oil palm.

Another early night and early breakfast. Tiew’s driver took Aew, Thi and me back over the mountains to a beach bungalow about 9 miles (15 km) north of Lang Suan, in Chumpon, on the Gulf of Thailand. The bungalow, whose verandah looked out to a blindingly white strip of sand, was on a small hilly peninsula in the middle of their coconut plantation.

Our hosts’ bungalow in Chumpon, Thailand.

After settling in, I was called by Thi to come quickly. Aew had hired a man to harvest the coconuts, and he was just arriving on an old motorcycle with a small gray monkey on the back of the seat.  

The coconut-harvesting monkey ready for work.

Immediately the monkey, on a long leash, jumped off the seat and awaited instructions. The man pointed to a tree, and the monkey quickly ran up it. I suppose if it weren’t for the leash, it would have been even quicker getting away and joining its mates in the forest.

So here’s how to harvest coconuts.

1) Buy a monkey and train it. Small ones go for about 30,000 Baht. (US$1,000). That monkey can harvest about 600 coconuts a day. The owner charges the plantation owner one Baht for each coconut harvested. At that rate, you’ve paid off your purchase price in less than a year--depending upon your expenses. The monkey gets fed and watered every hour while working and expects to have a couple of whiskey and sodas in the evening.

You can buy a bigger monkey for about 50,000 Baht, and this monkey can harvest 1,000 coconuts a day. But the big ones can get fierce.

2) Show the monkey whether you want green coconuts with lots of milk (really a sweet watery liquid) or older coconuts with lots of meat. This time the owner was after mature coconuts.

3) Point to a coconut palm, and send the monkey up to the top, where the coconuts hang out. Make sure it’s a coconut palm. If it’s a different kind of tree, the monkey gets cranky. They don’t have a sense of humor.

The monkey climbs the selected coconut palm tree.

4) Let the monkey go to work. It selects and grabs the coconut with arms or legs or both and twists it until the stem breaks and the coconut falls. Coconuts are quite heavy and hit ground with a thud. They bounce a bit and can roll some distance.

The monkey carefully inspects the coconuts.

The monkey uses arms and legs to twist the coconut from its stem.

(A tourist account from the 1880s stated that more natives were killed by falling coconuts than by any other kind of falling fruit, even the very heavy durian, which are covered with large, blunt spikes. Apparently the spikes act to cushion the blow. It’s not worth testing the theory.)

5) Pile the coconuts using a long stick with a spike on the end. You spear the husk and lift and twitch it onto the pile.

The coconut harvest.

6) Frequently light up a roll-your-own cigarette while supervising the monkey. This lets the monkey know you’re the boss.

7) Ride the motorcycle back home, monkey on back, once you’ve done a good day’s work. Don’t forget to buy tobacco, whiskey and soda. 

The monkey is ready to go home to relax.

It’s that easy. I was impressed. Oh, Thi advised me that Aew doesn’t sell the harvest. She gives it to their caretaker.

Many thanks to John for his review of oil palm and coconut harvesting in Thailand. And, as always, many thanks to you for stopping by.

A Thai Holiday and Oil Palms

Welcome back. It took three years, but I finally got John Lukens to encore his earlier guest posts on food in Thailand (Thai Food Travels - Part 1, Thai Food Travels - Part 2). John and his wife Thitiya still split the year between New England and Thailand. Instead of food this time, he’ll take us along as he’s introduced to Thai agricultural practices.

The first day of Songkran, the traditional Thai New Year, fell on Monday, April 13 this year. Water plays a major role in the celebration, perhaps in hopeful anticipation of mid-May’s monsoon rains. At one time, young Thais would respectfully greet their elders by gently pouring perfumed water onto their cupped hands. Today the younger set gathers on the streets and exuberantly douses passers-by, cars, buses and themselves with water, using buckets, water cannon and the occasional fire hose. Almost anything goes.

To avoid the splash and dash this year, we accepted an invitation to visit friends in Ranong, some 350 miles (570 km) south of Bangkok.

Map of Thailand with enlarged section showing cities mentioned.
 (Modified from www.travelblog.org/Photos/6547487)

The train ride took us along the coast, with views of limestone mountains on our right and glimpses of the sea across sugar-palm studded rice paddies on our left.  

Train #41 at Lang Suan Station, Chumpon.

We left the train in Chumpon, where we were met by Aew, my wife Thi’s friend from school, and her husband Tiew, a retired general contractor, now in the business of growing oil palms--among other ventures.

A sample of Tiew's oil palms.

The intense rain of the previous three days had cleared just in time for our visit. After breakfast the next morning, Tiew asked his foreman to give us a tour of the plantation, which covers 500 rai or about 200 acres. We were joined by his caretaker. Both men were in their 70s, pleasant, knowledgeable and in excellent physical condition. 

The author’s wife Thi with the plantation foreman and caretaker.

The foreman had planted the palms about five years ago. They bear fruit after three years and were laden at the time of our visit. With water and fertilizer, good quality fruit can be harvested twice a month. Tiew had installed spray irrigation as a precaution against drought, distributing water from a tiny dam high up in the watershed via a 4 inch (10 centimeter) pipe to a network of plastic pipes and hoses.

Walking to the dam, we encountered a harvesting party on the way. One of the young men demonstrated how he used a long, steel, sharp, chisel-like tool, to remove the fruit, cutting at the base of the stem.

Sharpening the tool used to cut the fruit from the oil palm.

Cutting the fruit from the oil palm.

The fruit looked like huge strawberries. It was judged ready for picking when the seed covering (exocarp) color was deep ruby red.

Oil palm fruit.

Ripe oil palm seeds.

Each palm yielded two or three fruits. These were piled by the plantation's dirt tracks to be collected in a few days and trucked to a store yard, sorted by quality and finally trucked to a mill where the fruit is cleaned, steam-sterilized and fed into huge steel rollers.

The oil is extracted from the seed, filtering out impurities and using centrifuges to separate the oil from residual water. Eventually the refined oil finds its way into cooking oils, shortenings, butter substitutes, nondairy creamers and even ice cream as well as soaps.

Oil palm seed sliced open.

We left the plantation after an hour, following old laterite logging roads up the hill and passing stately lines of Areca palms, a small waterfall and several varieties of orchids, both on the trees and in the ground.

Plantation caretaker with orchids.

Author at rest stop on the way to the dam.

As it turned out, we were a convenient (and willing) excuse for the caretaker to examine the water supply. The intake was protected by netting, but a mass of leaves had to be fished out to clear it.

That task accomplished, we bushwhacked back downhill until we found another old logging road, which led to a rubber plantation, the caretaker’s house and the short distance back to our hosts’ house for our next holiday adventure.

Thi on the way down through the rubber plantation.

John's account of their holiday vacation adventures continues next Tuesday, when he shares the ins and outs of enlisting a monkey to harvest coconut. You won’t want to miss it. Thanks for stopping by.

Facial Expressions Addendum

So there I was, preparing last Friday’s blog post, Horse Facial Expressions. When I saw that the Equine Facial Action Coding System was based on the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) for human expressions, developed and modified by Paul Ekman and colleagues, it hit me: I had seen that name before. 

Examples of Action Units (AU) from the Facial Action Coding System for human expressions. (what-when-how.com/face-recognition/facial-expression-recognition-face-recognition-techniques-part-1/)

Well over a year ago, I came across two studies that almost had me blogging about facial expressions. As I got into the studies, I found both referring to Ekman’s FACS. Digging further, I discovered that Ekman was the inspiration and scientific consultant for Lie to Me, a television show my wife and I were streaming and actually liked. (There aren’t many of those.)

Here’s where human facial expressions get way more interesting than equine facial expressions. Ekman and colleagues had taken the next step. They went beyond developing the FACS catalog of facial expressions to interpreting the emotions behind the expressions. 

Examples of emotions interpreted from facial expressions--
Tim Roth, lead actor in the TV show Lie to Me. (Multiple websites)

If that weren’t enough, they also showed that very brief, fraction-of-a-second displays of the facial expressions can be spotted. These micro-expressions offer singular insight because they usually occur when a person is deliberately or unconsciously concealing a feeling--they might be lying.

Paul Ekman and Lie to Me

If you’re not aware, Ekman is an emeritus professor in psychology at the University of California-San Francisco who is recognized as a pioneer in linking facial expressions and other nonverbal behavior to emotions. The American Psychological Association named him one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, and in 2009, he was one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people.

After retiring from UCSF in 2004, he formed the Paul Ekman Group, which offers tools and training to “read” and respond to human facial expressions and micro-expressions--or, quoting from the company’s mission statement, to build competency in evaluating truthfulness, improving emotional life and compassionate connection.

Micro-expressions training video (7:47 min video from 2012: www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2EAD-b7zIM)

Lie to Me, which aired 2009-2011, featured a deception-detection expert and team based loosely on Ekman and the Paul Ekman Group. It’s all about helping individuals, corporations and government agencies get to the truth by way of facial expressions, speech and involuntary body language. I didn’t know it when we were streaming the show, but Ekman has critiqued each episode on his website, separating fact from entertainment fiction.

Research Studies

If you’re curious about the two studies I almost blogged about, one was from Scotland’s University of Glasgow. The investigators examined whether facial expressions transmit diagnostic signals simultaneously, to optimize categorization of the basic emotions, or sequentially, to support a more complex communication system of successive categorizations. Their analysis supported the latter.

The other study was from Ohio State University. Those investigators conducted a FACS analysis of 230 facial images, arriving at 21 distinct emotion categories which are different from though consistent with the basic categories (e.g., a happily surprised emotion combines muscle movements observed in the basic happiness and surprised emotions). They then used a computational model to demonstrate that most of these categories are also visually discriminable from one another.

There’s probably more recent research if you’d like to pursue the topic further.

P.S.

Paul Ekman Group website: www.paulekman.com/
Interview with Ekman on catching a liar. 5:55 min video from 2012: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq-poN6sLF8
University of Glasgow study in Current Biology journal:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982213015194
Ohio State University study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: www.pnas.org/content/111/15/E1454.full