Matisyahu's Blog

I have to prefix this by stating that I have a laundry list of issues with Labour at the last election (I voted Greens for my party vote and Chris Hipkins for my local MP (we have MMP in New Zealand)) but holy heck the train wreck that is unfolding with this current coalition government that make the left wing in New Zealand look like they’ve got their act together (link). As I’ve said in the past, I think that Shane Reti was setup to fail – how on earth can you expect the minister of health to overhaul the health care system if you don’t give them the resources to do it? oh, and as for the actual increase – that was to cover the back payment due to issues with the holidays act (which is currently being fixed up – I have my own rant on the whole holiday pay thing but that’ll be a seperate blog post entirely). I really do feel for Shane because the impression I got was a guy trying to do the right thing but hamstrung by the minister of finance (aka known by those online as ‘Nikki No Boats’).

What I do hope is that Labour has a plan this year – I can understand the impossible situation Christ Hipkins was put in at the last election but hopefully with 3 years under their belt there is the ability to control the narrative early on rather than having to spend a considerable amount of time tidying in the mess from the last leader then launching a new vision for where they would like to take New Zealand. It is a long shot because it is very rare that a government is thrown out after one term but anything could happen especially if the current government keep stoking culture wars in an attempt to pander to their voter base whose voting percentage are in the single digits. The big question when it comes to next election is whether young people turn out to vote to push back against the tide of reactionary politics – I’d love to be proven wrong and young people turn out to vote but if the past is anything to go by I’m not particularly confident.

I just realised something just then when looking at the nutrition labels where I wonder why the number of portions didn’t match the weight of the product – for example, I was having a look at some “Turks Free Range Chicken Nibbles Sriracha & Chilli” which come in a 1kg bag but on the bag it says that there are 5 servings of 125g per serving which works out to be 625g so where did the 375g go to? well, silly me I just noticed the note at the bottom of the nutrition information on the website: “All values above are averages, Average serve size: 125 grams, Based on edible portions only”. So the 1kg is the total weight including the bones and cartilage. I guess it is one of those things you don’t notice if you’re just simply chowing down on food rather than being conscious about what one is consuming. On a side note, it appears the salads I bought have a best before date of 28/01/25 so what I’m going to do on either Monday or Tuesday is that I’ll head down to the supermarket and pick up some salmon, chicken etc. to go with the salad so then I have food ready at home for the rest of the week so by the time Monday or Tuesday rolls around next week I’l head down to the supermarket again to top up the groceries once again.

It’s going to be a long uphill slog – putting on weight is very easy but losing it isn’t so easy. Just thinking about what I used to eat and how many calories, for example a large margarita pizza has 1336 calories and 213.6g of carbohydrates (not to mention the amount of sodium, fat etc) but even if I go for a thin base it still works out to be 880 calories and 88g of carbohydrates. The worse part, even if I were to have a couple of pieces of pizza with a salad to keep the calories under control, I would still end up feeling hungry afterwards because of the insulin spike from eating that many carbs and the lack of protein. Compare that to a salad and half a butterflied tandoori chicken the number of calories is just under half and the number of carbs is around 25g not to mention 45g of protein that will keep me feeling full for longer.