Tag: diet

Intermission

Get your facts, please, and then you can distort ’em as much as you please.

-Mark Twain

I haven’t had time to sit down and do the final installment on salt. In the interim, however, I cannot too highly recommend Zoë Harcombe‘s latest blog post. In which she takes apart a recent British “health” program with such salient gems as these:

What this experiment has done is to make food less digestible so that it doesn’t produce the physiological changes that occur when the body registers that we have eaten food. The ultimate indigestible substance would be the cardboard box from which the pasta came. “But that would be stupid – it has no nutrients“, I hear you cry and you would hit the nail on the head. This experiment seems to completely disregard the reason why we eat. We eat food because we need nutrients to survive: essential fats; complete proteins; vitamins and minerals. This experiment is celebrating indigestibility – the pointlessness of eating something.

 

You have to love it when someone can boil down the presentation of a major Western news outlet in such a lovely manner.

 

 

 

Mass Confusion

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are many confusing things in the world today. Just scroll through the headlines.

I know I’m confused. For example, I’m confused about why anyone cares if Alec Baldwin yelled at someone again? And I’m really perplexed about why anyone with the sense God gave a squirrel–celebrity or not–would take a picture of themselves naked and then put it into a “cloud” of digital information that is out of their own control. And why are people confused that nations who have been enemies for all of their existence are shooting at and invading one another? And those are just the first three questions that popped into my head after scanning this morning’s headlines.

Continue reading Mass Confusion

Results

Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.

― Clive James

I would like to explain to you today the results of my personal test of the Resistant Starch Craze. I wrote about this starch in this post, which also contains links to both pro- and con- arguments about the stuff. I’ll very briefly summarize here. The craze is largely in the Paleo world, and what everyone is saying is that resistant starch is starch that doesn’t get digested; thus will not spike your blood sugar; is found in potatoes, rice, green plantains, bananas, and a few other things; and will feed your gut biome and result in better energy, blood sugar control, sleep, digestion, weight loss, etc. I believe the gut biome will also volunteer to babysit your children if you feed it enough. I also believe doctors have known about this for ages, and call it indigestible starch.

Continue reading Results

Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
― Voltaire

I was going to write about salt today, but before I could sit down and do so, I found an interesting article. Two actually. One is from the New York Times, the other from the LATimes. We’ll start on the West Coast since that’s closer to me.

You’ll be thrilled, excited, and basically all-around adrenalized to see the headline: “FDA Approves a New Artificial Sweetener.” I know I’m beside myself.

Continue reading Let Thy Food Be Thy Medicine

Where Angels Fear to Tread

Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.

–Leonardo DaVinci

If you read any news from the low-carb/Paleo sort of world, you can’t help but have been assaulted recently by all the screaming about resistant starch. It’s the New Big Thing.

Now, don’t let my sarcasm fool you. There might really be something to it. The theory seems sound. It’s just that a lot of stuff remains unproven and is down to personal experience. That doesn’t mean everyone promoting it won’t be proven correct in the next few years. It just means a lot remains unknown. Plus, I’m always leery of the New Big Thing. So let’s talk very briefly about what it is and what’s going on. I’m just going to do a basic rundown because there are far better, in-depth analyses of this that have been done by others. If you want to really get into this, I recommend these:

Continue reading Where Angels Fear to Tread

What’s In Your Fridge

May your phone never run out of battery and your refrigerator never run out of food.

–Ancient Cathodic Blessing

Here’s what’s in mine after a month’s meat order arrived and two weeks of grocery stocking:

  • Coconut milk–1 gallon
  • Mascarpone–2 pounds
  • Creme Fraiche–35 ounces
  • Greek yogurt–25 ounces
  • Coconut oil–.5 quarts
  • Soda water–10-15 cans
  • Eggs–94
  • Bacon–4 1/2 pounds
  • Beef in steak, ground and roast forms–22 pounds
  • Leg of lamb–5 pounds
  • Chickens–8.3 pounds
  • Goat’s cheese–2 pounds
  • Cow’s cheese (different kinds)–2 pounds
  • MCT oil–20 ounces
  • Butter, salted and unsalted–3.5 pounds
  • Lettuce
  • Onions
  • Bell peppers
  • Mint
  • Tomato
  • Cilantro
  • Cucumbers
  • Strawberries
  • Dill pickles
  • Pepperocinis
  • Apples
  • Coconut–a
  • Lemons–many, many lemons

I’ll also be eating some chocolate, some pecans, some macadamia nuts, a little peanut butter, cocoa powder, and the occasional raisin. But what’s in the fridge is pretty much it.
Continue reading What’s In Your Fridge

Why I Can’t Overeat

Hunger is insolent, and will be fed.

–Homer

Ever since I started eating this way, I wanted to eat eggs. I know they’re relatively cheap little powerhouses of fat, protein, and nutrition. But I’m allergic. Finally I ran across a mention that most people with an allergy to eggs don’t show allergy to raw egg. It’s the “scrambling” of the cooked proteins that makes them indigestible to some. Sure enough, that turned out to be true for me.

Continue reading Why I Can’t Overeat

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly III

Just because something isn’t a lie does not mean that it isn’t deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.

― Criss Jami

We’ve looked at the good. We’ve looked at some bad. Now…the ugly.

  • Eating protein will kill you in middle age, and then somehow–magic, I think we can assume–becomes protective after age 65. Variations of this article came out all over the news about two weeks ago. It was such a headline that I had several people ask me about it. It took me about a week to get the time to find the actual study, and then more time to get around to writing about it. But here we go.

As you probably already guessed from the idiotic statement that the same protein that will kill you if you’re 64 will suddenly protect you from death once you turn 65, this is a load of baloney. This contention alone ought to be enough to put every reasonable person on alert. Continue reading The Good, The Bad and The Ugly III

Ours is But To Do Or Die

“Poirot,” I said. “I have been thinking.”
“An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.”

–Agatha Christie

In the last post we asked the question: WHY? Why so much sugar in a recipe when it wasn’t necessary for taste or texture?

Today I have a new “why.” It comes from this article, a form of which has come out on every major American news agency going. If you don’t care to read it all, I’ll summarize: you should now brush your baby’s teeth with fluoride toothpaste so he won’t get a cavity before he’s five, like most kids do.

WHY? Why should I give fluoride to a small child? Why has the cavity situation grown so dire that kids are developing them that young? I want to give the American Dental Association the benefit of the doubt. I can’t imagine it’s fun for a dentist to treat a five-year-old’s cavity, so I understand the dentists’ perspective here.

Continue reading Ours is But To Do Or Die

Ours Is Not To Reason Why…

In the information society, nobody thinks. We expected to banish paper, but we actually banished thought.

― Michael Crichton

The Peanut Butter Conundrum

I was at a friend’s house earlier in the week, and she being a lovely person had thoughtfully made a dessert that didn’t include any wheat. Chocolate on the outside, peanut butter and butter on the inside, she said. I had several. I had several because I really appreciated her going out of her way to make something without wheat in it, we were having an engaging conversation at the time she brought them out, I was a guest in this woman’s home. I know her to be a person who thrives on knowing that what she’s made in the kitchen is enjoyed by those who eat it.

But after eating two, I found myself having a sudden urge to eat the entire tray.
Continue reading Ours Is Not To Reason Why…