A Resting Inspiration

Alex the African Grey parrot died earlier this month, at the tender age of 31 years. Alex was made famous by Dr. Irene Pepperberg's studies into intelligent use of vocalizations by parrots, which have also inspired me in my care and interaction with my own flock members.

Here's a video obituary from ABC news that shows some of Alex's responses, and as well, here's a CNN live interview with Irene Pepperberg after Alex's death. The part when he asks Irene about Alex also being her friend was very moving for me. I interpret Irene as trying to protect Alex's legacy, as well as her work, by refusing to explicitly acknowledge any emotional attachment she felt for her avian colleague. Perhaps more revealingly, she also doesn't explicitly deny caring for him as a friend.

In Alex's memory, I'm also including a favourite anecdote about him from "That Damn Bird", a 2003 talk with Pepperberg:

We were training Alex to sound out phonemes...to see if he understands that his labels are made up of sounds that can be combined in different ways to make up new words... Thus we are trying to get him to sound out refrigerator letters, the same way one would train children on phonics. We were doing demos at the Media Lab for our corporate sponsors; we had a very small amount of time scheduled and the visitors wanted to see Alex work. So we put a number of differently colored letters on the tray that we use, put the tray in front of Alex, and asked, "Alex, what sound is blue?" He answers, "Ssss." It was an "s", so we say "Good birdie" and he replies, "Want a nut."

Well, I don't want him sitting there using our limited amount of time to eat a nut, so I tell him to wait, and I ask, "What sound is green?" Alex answers, "Ssshh." He's right, it's "sh," and we go through the routine again: "Good parrot." "Want a nut." "Alex, wait. What sound is orange?" "ch." "Good bird!" "Want a nut." We're going on and on and Alex is clearly getting more and more frustrated. He finally gets very slitty-eyed and he looks at me and states, "Want a nut. Nnn, uh, tuh."

Not only could you imagine him thinking, "Hey, stupid, do I have to spell it for you?" but the point was that he had leaped over where we were and had begun sounding out the letters of the words for us. This was in a sense his way of saying to us, "I know where you're headed! Let's get on with it," which gave us the feeling that we were on the right track with what we were doing. These kinds of things don't happen in the lab on a daily basis, but when they do, they make you realize there's a lot more going on inside these little walnut-sized brains than you might at first imagine.

I also figured out how to update the links section on the right sidebar of my blog, so now there are finally some real links in there instead of the dummy default links. Amongst others, I've included a link to The Alex Foundation, where more information on Pepperberg's research can be found. I even managed to hack a bit of html in the template (which is really not my forte, so this is a big deal for me!) to include an inspiring bit from Unger in my sidebar, so I hope these changes will improve the blog and encourage further exploration.

Rest in peace, Alex.

Verbal Birds

After a couple weeks with the N. hollandicus research on operant conditioning with target stick, both subjects were doing quite well. On July 3, we had Bird C giving 91% success rate at 21/1 (#Successful Repetitions/Errors) and Bird B at 87% success with 15/2. I thought they might be getting bored with touching the rocks, so I decided to move on to training with verbal cues only after one normal session each -- that means no target sticks to give them the answer.

Results were less successful. In general, there was much more trial and error, although I think the subjects have "favourites" where they often get the right rock on the first try with certain colours. I say "Touch green" or "Touch green rock" and B almost always gets it. Bird C seems better with "Touch pink". I started with 4 targets (green, clear, shiny, pink) then reduced to 2 targets (clear, pink) then added 1 more target (green) and sometimes another target (rust). Perhaps I should be more consistent. I realized 4 was too many to start with, so I just concentrated on teaching "pink" and "clear" until they seemed to get it. Data was not collected for these sessions, which went on several days, since I haven't figured out how to make pretty charts and graphs with the data yet. Sometimes, I'd pull out the target stick to help them learn the answer. Sometimes I'd hold the correct rock up to their beak so that they would learn that touching that green rock when I said "Touch green" would get a click and treat. Then we took a break from training for a few days and just started again today.

B's flying is becoming much more confident. Scary incident last week: We're outside on the back deck and B is getting more and more excited. Suddenly he launches himself off, flies straight down the driveway at the side of the house, and toward the front. We've spent most of our time in the back, where it's quiet and safe, without pedestrians, cars or other vehicles, so I'm nervous and frantically running off to the street in my slippers and pajama pants with C on my hand. I can hear B calling and calling, regular screams, but I can't spot him no matter how much I search the trees and roofs of the neighbouring houses. Usually, he won't fly back towards us unless he can see us. And often, he doesn't unless I see him first and get his attention off his screaming long enough to attempt a flight back.

Suddenly, I see a grey blur zoom from my side of the street across to the other side of the street. I can barely see what it is, but it's not moving like a normal wild bird, so I start screaming his name and waving my arm wildly from the end of the driveway. He must have seen or heard me because the grey blur then takes a sharp turn and veers straight toward me, fast. Then, B lands past me on the driveway. He must have been flying too hard to aim for my hand, because when I pick him up, he's completely out of breath and looks all panicky.

Thank goodness I was there to call out to him so that he could fly back to our driveway instead of getting more lost from a panicked flight. I'm guessing he must have come across a cat, and took off like the devil then. Otherwise, I don't think he would have been flying when he was already tired -- usually he takes his sweet time up on some choice perch while C and I are calling and begging him to come back down for 20 minutes. Plus, we've seen a cat in the area, and I think the house a few doors down has one -- right around where I sawthe grey blur emerge.

B's been a very good bird lately though. Today I took him outside for a flight, and he flew around the backyard twice before landing in the garden, then came right back to us as soon as he could. He's not very good at aiming for a landing on my hand. Sometimes he ends up on my shoulder or the top of my head, or more painfully, scrabbling off my forehead, and sometimes he misses me altogether. I'm not sure if he's landing in low spots (driveway, garden) on purpose these days, so that I can pick him up easier, or if he just runs out of steam at the last minute.

Or maybe he doesn't like the roof any more. A couple of days ago, it was sunny and I took them outside; as usual, he flew and landed on the roof. Sunny day and the black shingles must have been hot. As usual, he likes to run to the edge of the roof before flying, the lazy thing. He'd try running down towards us, but then he'd stop to pick up one of his feet. I tried yelling at him to just fly over, so that he could be off the hot roof, but he'd just take a few steps, then stand there on one foot, beaking the lifted foot. I'm starting to question how clever B really is. He may be too much in the moment to be able to do any of the thinking and planning ahead that would require higher intelligence. I felt pretty helpless, since I knew it must have been really hot, yet I couldn't just get him off that hot roof. When I finally got him back, his feet were baking hot all right, so I took him inside and ran his feet under cold tap water. I hope he didn't get too burned.

Q: What is the victory of a bird on a hot tin roof?
A: Just staying on it I guess, long as he can.

Avians With Rivalry

I'm posting more about the birds and the research we are undertaking into Operant Conditioning and Model/Rival strategies in training. Irene Pepperberg has found the M/R much more effective than classical OC, and I definitely saw that it was effective with at least one of the birds. I originally started the conditioning, hoping to train on recall so that I would feel safer taking the birds outside, that if he flew off by mistake, he would come back. While we're not progressing on that aspect of the training, their enthusiasm has inspired me to see how much more they can learn. We'll be somewhat limited in communication since the birds don't speak English, and my Cockatiel is not exactly fluent. I'm improving, though -- I think!

An unfortunate side effect from the Model/Rival technique and my inexperience with all this:
Since B has been jumping down to compete with C during C's sessions, I have tried to be consistent, and if B touches the indicated target during C's session, I reward him accordingly before bringing him back to the perch. Well, I guess the Model/Rival now works both ways, because now C sometimes jumps down during B's sessions to compete with B back! Chaos. Without thinking, I inadvertently taught both birds to interrupt each other's sessions for rewards! It's cute that they're so excited about it, though, and I'm gratified to know that they're so smart. (The alternative -- that I am so dumb -- is considerably less gratifying.) So now I just need to pick up the interloper as soon as he starts clambering down, without giving him a chance to get the right target, in which case I will be committed to supplying the reward as I have been trained.

[By the way, the above isn't an image of their rivalry but rather the opposite. I took them outside to sit in a tree, which is something that birds like to do. It was such a nice day that C started singing to B. You can see in B's expression how excited and pleased he is to be serenaded...]

I'm still doing flight training every day with Bird B, to practice several things: i) flying from high to low; ii) angling and flying around corners; and iii) flying back to me and Bird C, especially when called (although he pretty much does it whenever he wants, which I figure is also good, as long as he's safe). The flight training seems to be helping. We were practicing outside the other day, where Bird B typically gets "blown upwards" whenever he tries to fly down to us. B was on the roof and I was on the ground with C, urging B to come to us. Suddenly, B launched himself into the air, flapping so hard and fast, fighting frantically to fly down without getting lifted up, and then in seconds, he had made a perfectly abrupt landing right onto my hand! I was so proud of him for that flight! I piled on him much praise and admiration as his little body was heaving from the effort.

Observations: 1 target added since previous session.
7 targets used: pink, clear, green, shiny, rust, purple and orange rocks.
2007/06/30
B1: 65% correct. 17/9 successful repetitions over errors. 5 errors on rust rock. 3 errors on shiny. Target to stick on clear. While target to stick is recorded as an error, I think that strictly speaking, it's the researcher's fault rather than the subject. Researcher must withdraw stick in time so that it is not in the way. 1039-1044h.

C1: 89% correct. 25/3. One error each on purple and clear. Target to stick on rust. 1044-1051h.

B2: 58% correct. 18/13. No errors on green. Extremely poor performance. B's performance deteriorating today with repeated sessions. 1052-1059h.

C2: 76% correct. 22/7. Many errors are target to stick. No errors on rust or orange. B jumps down to join C toward end of session. 1100-1108h.

C3: 79% correct. 19/5. Three errors on orange. One error each on clear and purple. No errors on pink, rust, shiny, green. 1948-1953h.

B3: 82% correct. 9/2. One error each on orange and shiny. Session interrupted by telecommunications. B eager to continue his training session and insisted on finishing training before researcher should finish telecommunications session. 1954h.

B4: 73% correct. 16/6. Three errors on orange. Two errors on purple. One error on clear. No errors on pink, rust, shiny, green. 2014-2019h.

C4: 93% correct. 14/1. Single error was target to stick on green. B jumped down during this session. 2019h.

B5: 76% correct. 13/4. Two errors on pink. One error each on purple, orange.

C5: 86% correct. 19/3. One error each on rust, orange, clear. One error due to researcher impatience as subject still masticating. 2030h.

Trends in errors: I have noticed a trend that I will call the Ultimate Indolence Effect. The birds often have errors with any targets that are at the end of the array. They almost always go for the penultimate target, too lazy to go all the way to the end to get the correct target. This appears to be ineffective, since it only delays when the subject will get the reward. Nonetheless, the UIE seems to be a factor with both birds. I have since tried to rearrange the targets so that they will be roughly equidistant to the subject in a surrounding arc, instead of in a straight line where the ends are much farther away. I hope this will negate the Ultimate Indolence Effect.

I should probably feed data into a spreadsheet for analysis, as typing up notes on each session and the errors isn't getting anywhere.

Up to the minute news!

Data from N. hollandicus Operant Conditioning
Criterion: Subject must beak target rock as indicated with target stick. Beaking the stick or beaking another rock before indicated target is counted as an error. Subject is still rewarded upon successful touching of target, even if numerous incorrect trials are made first.
5 targets used: pink, clear, green, shiny, rust rocks.

2007/06/28
Session C1: 82% correct. 14 successful repetitions, 3 errors. Errors with "pink rock" and "clear rock". [Session interrupted near start. Bird B jumped across to the treat dish and gorged himself while researcher was distracted with telecommunications.] 1226h.

Session B1: 33% correct. 5 successful repetitions, 10 errors. Zero correct repetitions with "rust rock" and "shiny rock". Some errors with "green rock" and "pink rock". No errors with "clear rock". I've observed that Bird B appeared to dislike the rust rock the most, often throwing that one off the table first. Animosity toward rust rock appears to have declined recently. 1233h.

Session C2: 80% correct. 12/3 R/E (# of successful repetitions over errors). 2 out of 3 errors were targets to stick rather than pink and clear rocks. Touched green rock instead of rust rock on the other error. No errors on green and shiny rocks. 1233-1238h.

Session B2: 50% correct. 10/10 R/E. 1 error was target to stick. 1238-1243h.

Session C3: 100% correct. 10/0 R/E. 2027h.

Session B3: 83% correct. 10/2 R/E. Both errors on green rock. 2029-2031h.

2007/06/29
C1: 57% correct. 8/6. Zero correct on green rock. Some errors on rust, pink, clear. No errors on shiny. 1339-1343h. Recorded on video 6915.

B1: 82% correct. 9/2. Errors on rust and pink. 1 error on rust was target to stick. 1348-1351h. Recorded on video 6916.

C2: 83% correct. 10/2. 1 error on pink. 1 error on rust was target to stick. Duration 2:36 minutes, ended at 1355h. Recorded on video 6917.

B2: 64% correct. Errors on rust, pink, and clear. Duration 2:41 minutes, ended at 1355h. Recorded on video 6918.
1 target added: purple rock (polished amethyst)
6 total targets used: pink, clear, green, shiny, rust and purple rocks.
C3: 100% correct. 19/0. 1403h. Recorded on video 6919.

B3: 82% correct. 9/2. Duration 1:48 minutes, ended at 1408h. Recorded on video 6920.

C4: Data lost and estimated at 57% correct. Estimated #R/E at 8/6. Many errors, subject disinterested. 1756h. Video recording attempted but failed. Possible distraction?

B4: 50% correct. 4/4. Subject disinterested. 1800h.

Bird C's performance is quite consistent, and successful repetitions usually increases with repeated sessions in succession. C appeared to be stimulated by challenge of added purple rock, and gave a 100% success rate on 19 repetitions immediately after. As previously noted, Bird B's performance and interest fluctuates wildly with his mood. I believe many of B's errors are in fact expressions of frustration as he attacks various targets before focusing on the task. Some of B's errors are due to laziness/efficiency as he beaks all targets in vicinity to procure reward with the least amount of effort.

+++

Garden update: 2 tomato plants have survived transplanting to the garden, and while not exactly thriving, they are surviving. A couple of tomato seedlings have sprouted out in various containers. Unidentified green lettuce in garden along with other plant life (unsure if it's mesclun lettuce or weeds) are doing well and some have been harvested. Red butterworth lettuce in containers also doing well. Several sweet pepper plants are growing, with one in particular growing leafier and larger. Others are tiny.

I'll post another version of the flyaway bird photo. Can you spot him?

Cut On The Bias

Details of Operant Conditioning Study Procedure on Nymphicus hollandicus
I realize I need to expand on my Step 3 from last post instead of lumping all the progressions into one.

3. Introduce secondary target: a green tiny plastic sword for cockatails - haha. Secondary target is touched with target stick, and N. hollandicus must touch secondary target, rather than target stick itself, in order to procure reward.

4. After success with Step 3, multiple secondary targets are introduced in addition to first, for total of 3 targets. All targets are plastic cocktail sticks, referred to as "swords" with the subjects due to characteristics of first target used, i.e. "green sword", "clear sword" and "white sword". (I'll have to teach the birds how to read 1950s Vegas typefaces another day, then we can use "Mirage swizzle" and "Bellagio stick" as alternative names.)

5. After success with Step 4, a different and larger set of targets replace the "swords".

Observations:
I don't have notes on the early period of the experiment, but after a few sessions, both birds had learned to touch the stick for a treat (Steps 1-2) and after a few more sessions, had readily learned to touch the green TPS for their treat instead (Step 3). After several days on Step 4 (about two sessions per day), both subjects were regularly attaining an estimated 90% success rate with the 3 "sword" targets. I would touch a given swizzle stick with my own target stick, give the verbal cue, e.g., "Clear sword", and the bird would touch the correct "sword" on the first try.

I realized that with only 3 targets total to choose from, it was pretty easy as a challenge. I needed to change the targets for several reasons: i) to ensure that the subjects weren't unduly focusing on the swizzle sticks and missing the point of targetting; ii) to get more persuasive results with a more difficult task; and iii) to keep them stimulated and interested in "playing clicker". Furthermore, the green sword had been broken by a certain bird who shall remain nameless, so my idle fantasy of teaching the birds a little fencing routine were dashed for the time being. They did like picking up the green sword and swashing it around, though, and I still think they're handsome and charismatic enough to be movie stars!

It was time to move on to Step 5. I needed some new targets that were colourful, distinct, in a set greater than 3, and preferably less fragile than the swords, so I got the Fisher Price kids. I'll post a photo of all the Materials used in the experiment, which will better explain my problem.
The Fisher Price kids turned out to be a Pandora's Box of linguistics.

Upon first glance, they appeared to be a fairly simple set of toys: 2 girls, 2 boys, 2 in green, 1 in blue, 1 in red, 2 hairless, 1 with blonde hair, 1 with red-orange hair, 3 with peach complexion, 1 with dark brown complexion. I first referred to them by clothing colour and gender, i.e., "green girl", "red boy", "green boy", "blue girl", before I realized that I was imposing my own cultural bias. The toys had no genitalia, and I was assuming their sex based on hair, clothing and torso shape. Of course men could wear long hair, pigtails and frilly collars as well as women, and women could be hairless also. Who am I to judge someone else's gender based on my own antiquated notions of masculinity or femininity? I'm not proud of my prejudices, and I didn't want to pass them on to innocents.

The verbal cues became longer, to the tune of "yellow-haired blue kid" and "bald kid in red" and other equally long-winded and inconsistent phrasing. Not only were the birds unlikely to learn the names of the colours, but I was worried that they were not even associating the verbal cues with the proper targets, even if they understood the concept of colour. When the toys were standing upright, the birds would often touch the head of the toy, not the coloured torso. I then tried to rename the targets but I couldn't come up with neutral and sensible names for them based on their upper characteristics. Was the hair "blonde" or "yellow"? "Red" or "orange" or "red-orange" hair? Were the follicularly challenged toys "bald", "shaved", "hairless" or just "sparse"? Was the dark-skinned toy "black" or "brown" or what?

An added complication was that Bird B would often get frustrated during training and throw or shove targets off the work table, and he appeared to have a particular distaste for the "red kid with no hair" who happened to be the only one with a dark brown-skinned head. Now, I don't think B is racist, but rather that he has some unresolved issues with brown plastic things (if you know him, you know what I'm talking about, and if you don't, I'm not at liberty to discuss his personal history here) but I still wasn't wild about the implications of training B to peck at and attack brown anthropomorphic entities on the head. His attack instincts are well-honed enough for me already, thank you very much.

The birds must have been about as confused as I was, since they never picked up on the training with the Fisher Price targets to any great degree of success. I think Bird C did do a bit better than B, as usual. Bird C tends to pick up on new challenges faster, and Bird B seems to learn from C's success (Model/Rival, much like what I read about in Pepperberg's The Alex Studies) as long as he's not too frustrated and if he's in the mood to indulge me.

A couple days ago, I moved on to the semi-precious gemstones as the new targets, starting with the set of 5 as pictured. These targets were comparatively easy to name by physical characteristics: "green rock", "clear rock", "shiny rock", "rust rock" and "pink rock". I've become more aware of the importance of simplicity in verbal cues, and now I simply say firmly "green rock" or sometimes "touch green rock", instead of "[Bird C], touch the green rock, please." I do praise quite effusively when I get excited, but that's when they're eating their rewards and not likely to be distracted by anything that comes out of my mouth. I figure the verbal cue needs to be clarifying rather than confusing, and it's not worth the confusion to impose human etiquette on them right now.

2007/6/27 Notes
I did 4 early sessions yesterday, and repeated this twice more through the day, whenever the birds seemed receptive and a bit hungry, thus motivated. I alternate sessions with each bird so they don't get too frustrated watching the other one eat.

Session C1:
A lot of misplaced targetting as C goes for stick quite frequently, rather than target rock. B gets excited watching C get rewards and jumps down to compete. I separate them before an all out rumble ensues.

Session B1:
A lot of trial and error for B, as he touches different rocks for each task. High frustration, pushes rocks off table.

Session C2:
Higher success this round, about 5 minutes after Session C1. C goes for target rock instead of target stick, with high success in choosing correct rock. Sometimes, he seems to "forget" which rock I had touched. With a repeated verbal cue, C appears to pause and think about the verbal cue, then correctly touch the indicated target rock.

Session B2:
Higher success than B1 as well. Less frustration and more concentration on task.

Session C3 (hours later):
Very successful with target rocks. Good focus, long attention span.

Session B3:
Attacks targets. B quite successful when he focuses, but B is short on attention and long on frustration. (We need to work on that!)

I plan to record observations more quantitatively from now on. I also want to figure out how to incorporate the Model/Rival strategy more. As evidenced in the above notes, B often feels so compelled by the rival aspect that he jumps down to compete directly with C for the task's reward. B's success rate in these instances is close to if not exactly 100%. However, I don't want to encourage too much direct competition, since B is physically stronger, more aggressive, and has a sharper beak than C and I'd worry for C's safety. Not to mention a possible breakdown of the relatively harmonious relationship between the two if B saw C too regularly as a rival rather than friend. Looks like I can use a human model after all.

Added note: In previous Model/Rival strategies with the birds, B has always been very receptive. C did not care at all. It seems that C is internally motivated (by his stomach, to be exact!) to learn and succeed, whereas B is perhaps more motivated by the social interaction and by not being "left behind". (Insert further analysis of B's psyche based on past traumatic experiences.)

The O.C.

I haven't been taking notes on my experiment in Operant Conditioning with the birds, so it's probably time for an update.

Materials:
2 specimens of Nymphicus hollandicus, 21-22 years of age, chosen at non-random degree of randomness (not really random, but they should be unrelated at least)
Target stick (long wood stir stick)
Clicker (jar lid)
Brown and white rice as treats, steamed
Plastic cocktail stir sticks from my last trip to Vegas:
- A green tiny plastic sword
- A white/gold stick from the Mirage
- A clear/gold stick from the Bellagio
4 Fisher Price wood/plastic boys and girls of various colours & other targets

Procedure:
I read this page on clicker training birds online and have basically been attempting to follow it.

1. Reward N. hollandicus with rice treat and click for touching target stick.
2. Repeat until reliably successful.
3. Reward N. hollandicus for touching secondary target indicated by stick.

Observations:
Bird C quickly attained success with Procedures 1-2, surpassing Bird B's performance. After about 3 sessions, both were readily able to seek out and touch the stick for their treats.

We've done a few rounds of Procedure 3. Here's a picture for now... More later.

Training Days

I've started Operant Conditioning with the birds. This came about when a certain bird who will remain nameless (let's say, Bird B) starting flying outside despite an explicit understanding to the contrary. "No wings outside" was always the rule! To be fair, he was startled into flying when a small flock of wild birds took off, and he just went with the fly and flapped upwards. A panicked bird flies pretty hard so he quickly ended up in a tree, probably 20 m up. Then B couldn't get back down; he'd try to fly down and instead would end up in other, higher trees. Flying down at a steep angle is apparently much harder than flying up at the same angle. We were finally reunited after much coaxing and roof-climbing, and I thought he had learned his lesson from all the screaming panic and stress. But, nope, it soon happened again, and each time he seemed to enjoy winging about a bit more. I've posted a picture -- see if you can spot the flyaway cockatiel stranded in this idyllic scene.

I decided to start the clicker conditioning with B, in hopes of training him into coming when called. We also started flight training with steeper descents. The clicker training's been going well so far. Bird C has taken a surprising interest in it, to the point where he was surpassing Bird B, and B would fidget and look jealously on as C was getting all the treats! I now have the natural Model/Rival situation which has worked so well for Dr. Irene Pepperberg and her genius Grays like Alex, without even needing a human dummy!

At this point, I'm not sure who is being trained better: the birds at touching the target as I intend, or me at dutifully feeding them treats whenever they deign to humour me.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
- Mark Twain

Palate Experiment

Day 1 ends fairly uneventfully. I'm eating a lot more fruits and veggies than I usually do. I forget to keep good notes, but I ingest at least 5 celery stalk, 2 mushroom, baby carrots, 1 pear, and probably more of the same.

Day 2: I think my palate and body are really starting to get cleaned up today, and it feels good to eat lots of healthy fibrous foods. Ingested: carrots, 2 celery stalk, grapes, 1 fig, 1/4 orange pepper, 1 tomato, 1 mushroom, 2 pears, 1 apple.

Day 3: I'm feeling more hungry and eating small meals or snacks about every 90-120 minutes. I suppose I don't really think of a piece of fruit as a meal. Ingested: 2 celery stalk, baby carrots, 1/4 orange pepper, grapes, 1 pear, 1 tangerine, more grapes, 1/4 red pepper.

Day 4: Today is tougher, more hunger. Starting to lose my concentration to fantasies about other foods. I stick with the raw fruits and veggies for most of the day -- and I'm happy to get both birds into the baby carrots! -- but I weigh myself and appear to have lost 5 pounds. Losing about a pound a day sounds a bit scary, and I realize that a week might be too long for me to go on just fruits and veggies. I figure that if I'm fantasizing about food, my body probably needs something it's missing. So I break my raw plant diet that night // and add some protein and fat. Brown rice never tasted so good!

Ingested: 2 celery stalk, baby carrots, 1/4 red pepper, 1/3 orange pepper, 3 tomato, 1 mushroom, 1 grapefruit, 1 fig? // brown rice, mixed salad greens, carrots, 1 mushroom, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, walnuts, 1 pear, apple cider vinegar, black pepper.

Day 5: I wake up feeling full and satisfied instead of hungry, so the oils and brown rice protein were a good idea. Much happier today, no longer consumed with food fantasies. I get hungry while I'm out with the birds, and I have a granola bar on me, but I don't want to break into the sugars too hard, so I'm sticking to the fairly whole foods. Ingested: carrots, 2 mushroom, 1 normal carrot, brown rice, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, black pepper, 1 celery stalk, mixed salad greens, 1 tangerine, walnuts, 1 pear, red wine vinegar.

Day 6: Today is Day 6 of My Palate Experiment, and I have lost about 7 pounds since before the experiment started. This is a bit much, even if it's mostly water. Ingested so far: baby carrots, 1 celery stalk, 1/2 orange pepper.

After talking to my friend who's a dietician, I realize my body probably needs a lot more protein than I've been giving it, so I decide to visit her for dinner and stop the experiment today intead of tomorrow. Not quite a week. I think my palate is pretty clean, since celery, mushrooms and peppers taste good and juicy to me. Fruits are just scrumptious!

Results: Palate feels clean. Weight lost. Muscle lost, probably. Body a bit hungry for different foods, but mostly craving healthy flavourful foods with spices, rather than utter processed crap. Probably lacking in protein, B12, Calcium.

Positive Side Effects: Birds are eating much better! They now attack organic baby carrots and celery (sometimes) with gusto. Take a look at the photo: Celery is today, Day 6, and carrot attack on the right is Day 4.

Playtime

Warm sun and fresh breezes through the green blades made another beautiful day today. I've made a play area for the birds outside so that they have a fairly secure home base from which to enjoy the outdoors. I fastened a birch branch down to the railing with some twine to make some chewable perches and there's a nice green potted plant underneath that they can fertilize. Almost an entire ecosystem. Not quite.

+++

Today is Day 1 of My Palate Experiment.

Yesterday was Day 0 and didn't really count since brunch included French fries. Yum! Later meals were good though: fruits only.

So today, I've been ingesting water, celery and organic carrots and mushrooms. I figure I'll leave the sweet fruits for later, or else it'll be harder to eat the veggies. One of the birds is following along with me; he shredded some celery, chewed up baby carrots, but he refused both of those as soon as he got a nibble off the organic mushroom. I bet he goes for those umami flavours from the glutamate, just like his mommy. He also tends to gorge on whatever food he likes the most and needs to be encouraged to eat a more varied diet. I hope he hasn't inherited poor eating habits from me.

Flavours On My Palate

To go along with my Spring cleaning, I'm planning to do a little experiment cleaning my tastebuds. In recent months, I've been eating a lot of strongly flavoured foods: my favourite spicy curries and fiery hot sauces, potato chips and other snacks high in salt and MSG, processed sugars thanks to my weakness for sour keys... I'd better stop describing all these or I'll never finish this experiment.

Materials:
4 grapefruit
4 tangerines
8 pears
6 apples
2 figs
a bunch of grapes
5 sweet yellow/orange/red peppers
2 lb. baby carrots
1 lb. tomatoes
1 lb. of salad greens
a bunch of celery
broccoli
pear yogurt
vanilla yogurt
various organic soy milks, rice drinks

Method:
1. Avoid all processed foods with added flavour, for a week or so.
2. Drink water. Avoid alcohol, sweetened juices, syrups, etc.
3. Eat healthy: only whole foods, vegetables and fruits.

I'll try to stick to plain raw fruits and veggies, and if I get desperate, I can break open some yogurt/rice/soy milk with some muesli. Or have a salad with a simple dressing (olive oil, vinegar, mustard, herbs, minimal/no spices, no sugar, no salt). If I really get desperate, maybe a vegetable/cheese sandwich with some mustard on whole wheat or multigrain. Let's hope it doesn't come to all that.

Purpose:
The goal is to cleanse my palate. By the end of the week, I am hoping my tastebuds won't be so accustomed to oversalting, oversweetening and overspicing. I want to taste everything vividly.

Vegetable Soup

I'll post the final photographs for the Daucus carota experiment. Yep, we only talk about vegetables on this blog, be they carrots, peppers, or zucchini. The carrots got pretty disgusting and looked like they were moulding by the end of it; I think the difference between them became more pronounced. I did make vegetable soup, but not with the experimental carrots. Nope, these babies went to get composted.

I found out recently that Superman's Metropolis was based on the city of Toronto, even though it's often represented as New York, or maybe sometimes Chicago or somewhere in Kansas. Apparently, the original artist was from Toronto, and worked at The Toronto Daily Star which The Daily Planet was based on.

I've been wondering lately if ideals are dead in this world. Does anyone really like having an idealist around? What a drag. Who wants to be reminded of such lofty principles when they have to face a grim reality? Perhaps it's futile to think that ideals could ever have a place.

The Great Unwashed

Latest Results from Daucus carota research

Hour 93: Superman visits my laboratory and commends me on my research, then insists on posing for a picture with the infamous carrots. Superman remarks on how powerful his muscles are to be able to bend the carrots with only one locomotive hand. For the sake of his ego, I neglect to mention my observation that both carrots are considerably flexile. Surface of W carrot appears quite white and wrinkled, with little vibrant orange colour. Dirty carrot's skin is still orange with sporadic white spots.Hour 148: W carrot is developing dark streaks along with increased white wrinkles on skin and is getting quite soft and spongey. Dirty carrot has dry white spots and is becoming less rigid. Both are distinctly unappetizing.

Both my lab assistant and I conclude that the washed Daucus carota is more shrivelled than the dirty one. The dirty root matches the firm. Mr. Scientist admits defeat.

Next up: Carrot soup taste test.

The Carrot Experiment

I am undertaking research on the effects of dihydrogen monoxide on the Daucus carota. Do the unwashed survive longer than the washed? Does cleaning hasten the effects of old age? Basically, my friend Mr. Scientist, bet me that a washed carrot does not shrivel up faster than an unwashed carrot.

Materials:
Hydrogen oxide
Two whole samples of Daucus carota of approximately equal size, from the same source
Sharpie black permanent marker

Procedure:
1. Wash one specimen in dilute hydrogen oxide.
2. Label both specimen.
3. Store both in same location and record results.

Observations:
Hour 0: Both carrots similar in appearance. Lab Assistant labels control specimen "Dirty" and washed specimen "W" near tops.

Hour 45: Skin of W carrot has light white lines on the surface and appears a bit dry. Dirty carrot appears fresh on the surface. Both carrots fairly firm.

Hour 72: W carrot looks dry, with more whitish lines crossing the skin. Skin of W carrot feels soft and wrinkled to the touch. Dirty carrot remains firm.

[to be continued]