Health
Gyms should Switch to Cloth Towels to Wipe-off Equipment, it’s Cheaper too!
My gym provides plenty of disinfectant and paper towels to wipe off equipment before/after each use. I have seen this in other gyms here in the US and it is a nice thing, especially during the fall and winter months when more people are sick. On the other hand thought, it is a bit sad to see all that paper get wasted every day, which probably can not even be recycled due to the disinfectant used.
So why not switch to cloth towels and natural disinfectant? I did some back of the envelope calculations and it seems to work out really well.
I figured that my gym probably has 500 people working out every day and that each uses 3 paper wipes. On Amazon you can find 2200 paper towels for about $40. So assuming people work out all year around, they spend about
365 x 500 x 3 x 2c =~ $11,000 per year in paper towels
Now, assuming to buy from Amazon 1500 good cloth towels (12×12 inches, they survive 500 washes) for $1 each and to wash one of them for each member every day with a cost of $10 for laundry/drying (3 loads) they will spend
$1500 + ( $10 x 365 ) =~ $5,150 per year using cloth towels
The actual cost may be even lower since this assumes that they will replace all of the clothes every year, while they should last longer. With part of the savings they could buy some natural and gentle disinfectant, so the facility can both save money and be more green.
Use Machine Learning to Redefine “serving sizes” and Slim Down the US
Although I have been living in the US for almost 7 years now, I still struggle with the concept of “serving” which one can find in the nutritional information label of each eatable product.
What I really do not understand is why certain food, clearly meant for 1 person to be consumed (e.g., a soda or M&Ms), contain more than 1 serving.
Yesterday I saw a men with a Coca-Cola drinking cup which probably contained 1/3rd of a gallon. I do not think anybody should drink that much soda. Ever. For sure, even if it was a “diet coke”, that contained more than the amount of sugar that the man needed in a day, and who knows what else.
Redefining the Concept of Servings
Assuming that in one day each person eats 10 items, and calling each of them a “serving”, we can quickly calculate the maximum amount of each nutrient (e.g., calories, sugar, sodium, fat, …) that one serving can contain.
For example, if one person needs about 2400 calories per day, one serving should not contain more than 240 calories. If 60 grams of fat is all we need in one day, each serving must contain about 6 grams. Putting enough of those “servings” together, one can also calculate acceptable ranges, so that if all the parameters are correct, but you are off 1 grams of fat, you can still call it a serving.
Once this is done, we will just need to clearly indicate the number of “servings” on the front of food, to allow better portion control: you can still have that Caramel Macchiato in the morning, but you will know that it’s using 2 of your 10 acceptable servings for the day, so you are left with only 8.
With something like this in place, consumers will be able to have about 3 items at breakfast, 3 at lunch, 1 snack, and 3 servings at dinner. Not too bad, right? And 240 calories per serving is not that low either. That giant Starbuck’s blueberry muffin is 380 calories right now, so we will just need to make it a bit smaller.
Minute Maid Lemonade contains 0% Lemonade. Really.
Yesterday I was at the Denver International Airport (which is commonly referenced as DIA, but the FAA code is actually DEN) and had a quick snack at Paradise Bakery. I like their menu in downtown Boulder so I thought, why not.
The beverage dispenser offered Minute Maid Lemonade. Sounded refreshing. Then I got closer and read on the label “contains 0% lemons”. Wow!
I do not think they should be allowed to sell something called “Lemonade” if it is not actually made from lemons. It’s Lemonade, it should be made from lemons, water and sugar. It can not be that hard.
Another interesting fact? Drink a couple glasses of that and you are done with 50% of your carbs intake for the day. Yes. from lemonade.
Prostheses Technology, the amazing progresses of last years
Losing my eyesight, my legs or arms has always been among my biggest fears.
I would love to be able to do research 24/7 in all the possible fields and help to improve the life of the less fortunates, but my knowledge in the medical field is very limited for now and I still have to finish my PhD in Computer Science before jumping into something else.
Luckily, other people are doing that and their progresses blew my mind. If you did not do that already, go read the article “Bionic Legs, i-Limbs, and Other Super Human Prostheses You’ll Envy” in this months’ Fast Company. Its amazing to see the progresses in Prostheses Technology of the last years.
Computer research is fun, but this is totally another level. Go guys, you are the real heros.
