Membership Services
Eat well, fly well: Dine Around to offer food, conversation
Conventional wisdom states that we have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Others hold that our sense of position in space, proprioception, is a sixth sense. My wife maintains that her sixth sense provides insights into the fundamentals of life, the universe, and everything. Stimulation of our senses allows us to connect to the outside world and provides pleasurable experiences. The consumption of food energizes all five senses (although excess Chardonnay consumption can impair the sixth sense referenced above). Yet eating is so often a hurried afterthought and poor eating habits—not just the food we eat but how we eat—can lead to all sorts of problems including obesity, bowel disturbances, and indigestion.
At prior AOPA Aviation Summits, AOPA has organized special dinners for members to spend quality time with representatives of various aviation-related disciplines. At the upcoming Summit in Hartford, Conn., I am thrilled to be co-hosting a health-related dinner on Friday, Sept. 23, at one of the town’s finest eateries. Now before you groan at the thought of a dinner of lettuce leaves, grass extract, and tofu, I hold that wine and chocolate can be healthy (at the right time and in the right quantity) and as I get to select the menu, I can assure you that the food is going to be scrumptious and guaranteed to stimulate all your senses. I will have Gary Crump, AOPA director of medical certification, with me as co-host, with some excellent dinner guests: astronaut Dr. Scott Parazynski, NASA Chief Health and Medical Officer Richard Williams, the “Duke of Sleep” Duke Naipohn, and several other smart, entertaining folks. These guys are all fellow pilots, and we can address all your questions while providing some thoughts on how to eat well and remain as healthy as possible. Register today! www.aopa.org/summit.
Additionally we will have a fun quiz and I promise, this is not going to be an evening of preaching but rather enjoying the camaraderie of aviators and kicking our senses up a notch. So please register for the Fly Well Dine Around and also consider joining me at the three Fly Well panel discussions during Summit (“Ten stupid things pilots do to sabotage their medical” “Me doctor, you pilot, you pilot, me doctor” and “I’m just a doctor, Jim.”) as well as the three AOPA Live sessions that will focus on health issues for pilots. One of these will feature our very own President, Craig Fuller, who has been on his own mission to eat well, losing some extra baggage from his waistline in the process! See you in Hartford.
To your good health!
July 14, 2011
