Hey, CSPI Guy, keep your mitts outta my Food!

The CSPI guy is at it again.  After demonizing coconut oil, now they are going after real food.

I read in a recent issue of their rag (still behind a paid subscription wall) that they are still trying to get SNAP to encourage eating "healthy" foods like fruits and veggies and healthywholegrains.

Then I found this article on the internet that explains pretty much the same plan.  I hope the initiative fails, and here's why.

I used to work at the local food bank, mostly because I used to deliver fresh fruits and veggies to them, and then they just kept asking me back.  So, I know how easy it is to get lots of fresh fruit and vegetables around here.  Currently I am accepting tons of lemons and limes, but also oranges, and later in the year, I will be able to access other citrus fruits, as well as all the cherries, apples and grapes I can process.  Fresh produce and healthywholegrain breads are frequently available at local community centers. 

I am not on the SNAP program, but if I qualified, about the only thing I would be purchasing through the program would be meat, eggs and some avocados.  OK, maybe a bag of carrots out of season.  This means I probably wouldn't get many "healthy" points for buying stuff I don't need or wouldn't eat in favor of all those arterycloggingsaturatedfatladen foods that people don't give away for free.

I already get some weird stares from some of the skinny yoga moms at the local farm-like store.  Their carts are full of organic veggies and juice boxes, and their kids are already eating organic cookies out of the box before they get home.

So yea, let's let the rich moms buy whatever crap they want to, and legislate food morality through all those po' people.  And why is some vegetarian guy running around the country telling people what they gonna eat?

Super Bowl food madness

I don't know about you, but I am finishing all my outdoor chores early so I can watch all those great commercials.

It seems like every year, Super Bowl displays at the store get grander and grander.  One store I visited had an entire pool of avocado, fresh hot peppers and white onions at the entryway.  One had to search hard for the chips.  That is the way it should be.

After a month of checking, I finally found the turduken on sale.  It was featured around the fall and winter holidays for an astounding price.  This weekend it was marked twenty dollars down, to the amazingly low price of nine ninety-nine!

So, I bought one one of these LOU-siana specialties for the big game.  That is less per pound than even the cheapest meats.  It is thawing in the fridge right now, and I'll put it in the oven when the game starts.

Spiceless in Seattle

The first few days of the Guyenet-endorsed Dan's plan didn't go according to plan at all.

I just could not stick to only one spice in my coffee!  I had just "booted up" a new nutmeg, and took a whole 20 minutes while monitoring the pressure cooker to grind the WHOLE THING.  It is fresh and fragrant, and I wanted to use it while it is hot.

So, cinnamon and nutmeg into the coffee.  I can feel myself gaining weight already.  Boo hoo!

There is another known danger of using multiple spices.  Since we piled on the cinnamon and put it in everything, when one container was completed, I pulled out another.  I got complaints from the "service dining room" that they couldn't find the cinnamon.  So I solved that problem by putting the cinnamon in a large cinnamon container and the nutmeg in the small cinnamon container.

And, you are probably laughing right now with the container mix-up, but I am telling you, living with all these spices confuses judgement even more.  One of my diners sheepishly entered the kitchen to explain that he had accidentally put tons of cumin into his coffee, instead of taking from any of the numerous containers marked "cinnamon".  Worse yet, the cumin doesn't have a shaker top.

I tasted the concoction.  It was exotic, floral, strangely Indian, but also not.  I longed for cardamom, and then disappointingly realized that cumin is just the gateway drug for all types of Indian food debauchery.

My thoughts went to giant platters of papadam, topped with bright green mint-coriander condiment, then drifted off to chick-pea sweets and tandoori chicken.  If you need a visual, check out the video accompanying this post.  (And look how fat and lazy they are!)

Now I am 8 pounds higher than when I drank yesterday's coffee, and I am certain that if we had just stuck to plain cinnamon, non of this tragedy would have happened.

Extremely Disrespectful Zealot - Is it really n=1?

Dr. Guyenet has really become unglued on his blog site lately, and the purpose of this post is to clear some things up and set the record straight.

Dr. G said on one of his posts that there are many examples of folks gaining weight on a low carb diet.  Now, I know plenty of people who have lost lots of weight on a low carb diet, and plenty of people who gradually gained a few pounds of that weight when they went into maintenance mode.  My theory, if you will, is that that so-called maintenance mode the low carb diet authors promote is unworkable for many.  That maintenance mode includes, surprise, more carbs!

For the record, I NEVER GAINED WEIGHT ON A LOW CARB DIET.  I ONLY GAIN WEIGHT WHEN I ADD IN MORE CARBS.  (OK, now for the inside voice.)  I seem to lose the low carb magic after about three days of eating a typical carb-laden whole foods diet, and it is especially worse if that diet includes wheat or corn.  If I go back on a low carb diet, I can usually lose the added weight quickly, but this seems to be harder in the winter and summer.  It works better in spring and fall.  For me, at least, I seem to leave my ability to burn fat very quickly.

I am annoyed at Dr. G's current attempt to discredit and belittle anyone who has data points that do not correspond with his theories.  Despite his insistence that he removes "extremely disrespectful" posts from his blog, I have only seen him do this with people who disagree with him.  Not with all the other "extremely disrespectful" posters that populate the paleo cesspool.

This issue came up for me well before the famous G-T dust-up at AHS11.  There were some particularly "disrespectful zealots" that IMHO were so bad that I called out by name here on my blog.  One gained the title through her continual bashing of anyone interested in Jack Kruse and an award for the most creative use of moderatorship, and the other gained the title through his constant and creepy support of Dr. G on various websites.  You can read about it here and here and here. Note that both the zealots came by, and instead of offering an apology, continued with more denial and lies.  Go read the comments for yourself lol.  It was during the comments section of Dr. G's blog where I first read Woo.  I have continued to read her blog because despite the wackiness and mis-placed passion, she continues to supply good information in an entertaining fashion.

And just a shout-out to the other zealots.  Carbsane has never gone after me, anywhere, as far as I can tell, so, like Woo, she gets a free hall pass.  But, Jack!  Quit hatin' on Jimmy and his struggles with weight.

Well, Gee....

I am still reading Dr. Kruse's latest blog post, but this one has been bugging me so I'll discuss it now.

Jack says that the 4G phones are so bad because of all that high frequency stuff.

The "G" in the phone is not gigaherz, or even grounding, gravity, goose liver.  It's GENERATION.

A long long time ago, back when electronics was all analog, different folks were allocated various amounts of bandwidth to do all their fun radio and cosmic ray stuff.  The voice radio we all know and love has a fairly wide band, to make sure that voice quality is adequate.

As radios became more sophisticated and bandwidth availability became tight, it became easier to design phones and other devices with faster less-error-prone data transfer while keeping the bandwidth as small as possible.  Back in the old ham radio days, everyone knew that you could transer Morse code messages much farther distances with the same power than a full voice, because they were basically just clicks.

Later and later generations of cell phone data protocols went from a digital/analog combo to full digital, with increasing improvements in speed.  The way this was done was to go from full voice to just a bunch of really fast clicks.  Along with the explosion in the use of wireless devices, additional bandwidth at higher frequencies was allocated, but again, the overall power of the devices was minimized compared to the earlier models.  Every time the changes were great enough, a new Generation was named.

Oh, heck, what do I know?  I don't have a cell phone.  I have a land-line with a handset with a real cord with power supplied from the phone company.  Why you ask?  OK, this home is a geekdom, we have all sorts of phones and wireless devices, and of course that wirefull phone we use during an earthquake when the regular power is down and we want to call mom and tell her we are still alive.

The Answer to the Universe - Why I am not a Webinarian

Jack Kruse posted his epic ("I promise") blog post today.

I'll admit that after scanning it I was unimpressed, but after sleeping on it, I decided to give it a good read-through before I blast it to pieces.  What I can say about it now is, "Jack! Get an editor!!!"  And gee, get a physicist.

OK, I have lots to say on this topic, and in case you were wondering, as a "Known Follower Of Jack Kruse" I do still read him and pay attention to lots of what he says.  He always makes more sense when he is talking over when you are reading him.

This post is more of a place-holder than anything, but I will leave my careful readers with a little story.  A buddy of mine used to have a high-powered job.  Lots of money.  Lots of deadlines.  Lots of frequent flyer miles.  You get the picture.

Eventually the stress and circadian disruption affected his sleep to the point he was unable to sleep at all.  And I know you are thinking, this can't be good, and it wasn't.

Pressured by his friends and business associates to take a break, he planned a visit to an exciting, bustling mega-city.  At the last minute, he cancelled his trip to go to some unnamed solitary place.  When a friend suggested Arizona, he agreed that it might be a good choice.

Arizona is the home of many beautiful places, and after visiting a few places, he headed to Sedona.  After a day at Sedona, he cancelled the rest of his trip.  He had the most amazing night of sleep, and longed to go back to the place that allowed him to start to regain his health.

After the trip to Sedona, my friend changed his whole way of life in exchange for his health.  It seemed like a good trade-off at the time.  Later on, as opportunities to re-enter his former crazy life appeared, he resisted.

Since that time, I have followed my friend's lead.  I have changed my whole way of life, too.  Every once in awhile I think it wouldn't be so bad to have another crazy job and make a ton of money.  But I have been able to rearrange my career so that I have the flexibility to wake up with the sun, go to bed with the sunset, visit the beach on a whim if the waves are right, and remove myself from "neo-lithic agents of disease" like cell-phones, TPS reports, high-heeled shoes, traffic jams, cube farms and fluorescent lighting.  Is all the extra money worth it?

Following my path has also meant a change in finances.  I just had to laugh when Jack said that the original cost of his webinar was about the same as a theater ticket.  Does he have any idea the size of my infotainment budget?  (I do get to the theater from time to time through trade, barter, freebies and other generosities from random and assorted people.)  My choice of lifestyle enables me to get to the beach and put my toes in the water, but I haven't a clue what my Pg/E2 ratio is.  I am one of the unwashed masses who "did not take the initiative" to become a member of one of the precious metals klubz along with thousands of dollars of quarterly testing.  I am afraid I can only afford the aluminum klub membership.  My cholesterol report does not even include the fluffy kind.

Jack may know all about quantum biology and all that stuff, but he seems to have hit a snag on seeing the difference between not having any money and living in poverty.  I think that while many in the paleo cesspool have re-thought that old idea that all fat people are lazy and stupid, I don't think all of us have extended that same line of thought to poor people.  Are all people who don't buy the webinars lazy, stupid and unmotivated?

I was encouraged by Jack's recent decision to offer the leptin reset to all levels of membership.  This is a wonderful start.

One week on MY Diabetes Prevention Program

Even though I had 6 months to do it, after only one week, I reached the halfway point for the weight loss goal outlined in the Diabetes Prevention Program.  I went through chapters 2 and 3 of the program, and everywhere it said to identify all the foods with lots of fat.  I did that.

Then I did the opposite of what they suggested and ate more of it.  This week I enjoyed soup made with ham bits and the all the fat around the edges and around the bone.  I actually cooked bacon and greens in the bacon fat, and then added additional butter to cook my breakfast eggs.  I ate it all and then licked the plate and didn't leave any for my cat.  I actually ate half a stick of butter with my dinner.

Here's a great quote from the handbook.  "Eating too much fat is what makes us fat." So I am sure that what is happening is the over three percent of the body weight I lost was just me gaining lots of fat like the experts say, and then correcting that gain through loss of even more water weight than usual.

Stay tuned.