A Trip down Memory Lane

I love to troll the free bin at the library.  Lots of good, really old stuff to be discovered, or re-discovered.  A certain person has been decluttering their library of all diet and recipe books, and several low carb favorites or classics have shown up.

A recent find is "The Steak Lovers' Diet" by Melvin Anchell, MD. 

The foreword by Dr. William Campbell Douglass is worth a read.  He is sort of an obscure alternative medicine author, and despite the foreword having been printed in 1998, it contains lots of information that has been popularized by paleo authors over just the past few years.  You know, stuff like Weston Price and how we don't need all that Vitamin C and how vegetarians are wrong and there's just too many of them, and how the American Heart Association sucks.

I checked out another of Douglass' books, "Into the Light", and it is a fascinating read, if not a bit out of date.  Some of the chapters read just like you might have found them in Jack Kruse's blog.  All that quantum stuff, and light.  Maybe that is where he got his stuff.   It is too bad that the dominante alternative medicine folks didn't feature him more, perhaps because he wasn't a vegetarian by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyway, where was I?  Oh, the Steak book.  This diet is apparently a rehash of the Pennington diet.  You know, THAT Pennington who has a research center full of obesity researchers that we all love to make fun of.  The original Pennington diet was rather low carb compared to today's standards.  Apparently, Pennington didn't think people needed to eat lots of carbs for their brain.  His patients lost weight on the diet by starting a meal of all types of meat, cooked in all sorts of ways (except breaded and stuffed) and afterwards, they could have one serving of a "second course".

The second course could be:  white potatoes, sweet potatoes, grapes, watermelon, rice, grapefruit, banana, pear, raspberries or blueberries.

That's pretty much it.  Coffee, and a bit of lemon is OK, NO artificial sweeteners.  Notice that there is NO bread.

The original tater tots over there at DuPont lost a bunch of weight on this.  Of course, they were execs, so they were all men.  But, I am sure that "their women" as some paleo-writers like to phrase it, followed the diet, as they were frying, broiling and braising all the big game the men dragged home from their long day at the chemical plant, and probably got a bit envious of both the weight loss and the yummy food.

It is interesting to take a look at the carbs.  They are mostly foods that contain quite a bit of glucose and little fructose.  These are pretty much the foods that Dr. Rosedale says NOT to eat, presumably because of the high glucose content.  This diet would probably send the majority of the woo-fueled-jihaddists into a tailspin.

Dr. Anchell has an interesting section on the recommendations of the Drs. Wortman, and their financial involvement in a recalled weight loss drug that might have colored their approach to weight loss recommendations.  Never heard about that before.

Slouching Towards Macrobiotics - Who thought of it First? Part 2

I love how a blog series drives up my traffic!!  Today's quiz will be easy for most of my dear and faithful readers.

This diet was promoted by a concerned fellow citizen of the world who felt that our diet was ruining the planet.  Not ecologically, necessarily, but spiritually, or morally, well not sure on that.  Of course, the experts thought all that was bunk....

To correct the imbalance, food was supposed to be grown, harvested, prepared and eaten in a natural state.  Meats were to be a small item on the table, and all food was to be gently prepared by steaming, braising and cooking with low heat.

Food was not to be seasoned with gobs of sugary and chemical-laden sauces purchased from the grocery store, but was to be carefully seasoned with tiny amounts of natural ingredients or home-prepared condiments.  Most foods were to be eaten plain, with no seasoning added at all.  Herbs and spices were discouraged, and reserved only for special occasions, like illness.  Herbs and spices were seen more as a drug, and with unintended consequences (like lack of balance, or even obesity) if consumed regularly.

OK, you're probably thinking right now, trick me once, but never twice, 'cause you can tell by the title that this is the same sort of trick that I tried to pull when I used that title the last time.

And....DING DING DING DING DING... you are correct.  This is a trick blog post.  Who is this guru?  It's Michio Kushi again.  Not Dr. Guyenet.  By the way, I eventually gained weight on this macrobiotic diet, so not only is Dr. G wrong, he's not even first!  Not good for a PhD, not good at all, to not be first, that is.  And to top all of that, a REAL doctor from a REAL school like Harvard has declared macrobiotics to be a fad diet and many of its fans to be eating-disordered, at least more disordered than paleo.

And here's a little end-note, to educate some of the experts.  People who flock from fad to fad are just seekers who haven't found the diet that is right for their situation.  Maybe some of the anxiety is caused by brain chemicals, but I'll suspect lots of the anxiety comes from the trashy way society treats fat people, and the un-ease fat people feel about their continued placement in that fat camp.  So, it is good that Dr. Emily continues to clarify her position on eating disorders, and I hope she continues to herd the tribe towards a suitable and civil response to the camp.

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.

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.

Interrupting our Regular Program

Take Five everyone.

Here's a Benefit - Eat Less Clean Moore

One of the nice things about being kicked off [redacted]people is that now I have time for my real life.  Instead of handing out goodies, I am handing out excess produce to casual friends in grocery store parking lots.  Yum.  A whole trunkful of eggplant and thyme seedlings has much more fiber than any of the virtual goodies.

I am also free from searching for un-banned peanut butter.  Yippie!  We do have some peanut butter left from the last trek to Costco.  But, I need to get back there now that, like some other independent countries, I have run out of butter.  I did get some non-organic Challenge butter on sale, but it is insipid.  I don't know what they feed those Costco cows, but their butter actually tastes like food instead of a stick of fat.  Costco is always out of peanut butter, and that is fine with me.

Anyway..........I think it is due to the re-introduction of progesterone in my beauty/wellness regime regimen.  (Been reading too many lipstick magazines????)  Since I have been using it for almost two weeks now, I have had fantastic sleep, have been completing all my daily action items, have reduced my appetite and changed my body composition.

Here's the weird thing.  Am I normal?  I few weeks ago, I discovered something really unusual.  I was out for the day and had a piece of fruit and some other carby stuff, and found that I was no longer hungry.  Hey, this was just like the experts say happens.  You eat, and then you aren't hungry anymore so then you don't eat any more.

Yesterday I cheated by having a pastry bite.  I like to call it arugala because it sounds so healthy, but we all know that those concoctions of wheat and fat, filled with a homeopathic amount of fruit and topped with chunky sugar does not contain any real arugala.  Yep, I ate it, and then had a burst of energy, so ran around for ten minutes or so, decluttering and clearing out a bunch of projects.  Lunch time came and went, and oh, did I forget to eat again?  Off to the store, and the distribution of the turnip-truck of veggies, and another free baby coffee.  Still not hungry.  I ate a handful of nuts around 4 pm.  Then, someone mentioned,

"What's for dinner?"  Dinner?  Oh yea, the reason I went shopping.  OK, I think I got some chicken.  Guess somebody should go into the kitchen and start making some.  OK, that would probably be me.  Maybe by the time it is done I'll be hungry.

It took me a long time to peel and chop all the tomatilloes, yellow tomatoes and long fresh cayenne peppers.  I also had the last zucchini of the season, and a fresh red onion.  I ate a bowl of chicken with the vegetables, and then a few extra pieces of chicken, but I was really too full for much else.   I don't think I even got 60 grams of protein for the day.

Oh, weight?  Hmmm, I think I am losing, hey, don't care.  I haven't been weighing myself because I am too busy getting up before dawn, organizing the yarn closet and then making a 4-alarm breakfast for anyone who is also up that that hour.

Oh, now on to Moore.  It's really about More magazine.  I got an old copy from friends, and read all about the right and wrong ways to do a detox.  Here's a sampling of More's clean detox, developed by a venerated RD, Keri Glassman.  Day one is a bunch of tofu, green tea, lemon, pear, kale, salmon, walnuts, lime, edamame, spinach salad with other veggies, olive oil, broccoli, turkey, raspberries.  If this sounds a bit like Perricone, that is what I thought too.  Notice the abundance of healthywholegrains.  Except for all the nasty soy, it looks pretty much like paleo/low carb, except for the third day, which introduces dairy and turns it into a primal-type/low carb thing.

Here's what Leslie Bonci, RD, says, "There's something to be said for limiting choices.   You're giving your body a chance to rest, and that's a good thing."  Of course, unless you are "resting" with a good paleo or LC diet and you are eliminating entire food groups, and then the coaches[redacted] seez its dangerous for you.

Thank goodness it is only for three days.  'Cause after that, the diet that makes you feel better and "more energetic" will kill you due to the loss of B vitamins in enriched healthywholegrainfoodgroups that you have eliminated entirely from your diet.  But no worry, the article says.  "This 1,000-calorie-a-day regimen is loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, lean proteins, omega-3 fatty acids and fluids -"

I am impressed just with the fact that they call it a regimen and not a regime.  That is a pet peeve of mine.  A diet regime would be the ADA or the academy or whatever they call themselves these days.

Rowing for dinner

What a heat wave we have been enduring!  I had the opportunity to spend one of the hottest days on the other side of carmageddon, at the ocean, kayaking and paddle boarding near the Channel Islands. 

I had hoped to get in a bit of CT, but the water wasn't too cold.  Granted, I wasn't out in open water, where the cold water and most of the waves reside.  When I got hot, I just dunked my feet into the water to cool down.  When I tumbled off the paddle board, the water felt so refreshing that I stayed in, and swam the board to shore.

There is something both relaxing and serene about personally powering a water craft, and it is more than just the lack of a gasoline motor.  I was able to glide into a flock of resting seagulls without causing them to fly away.  If I had a net, there could have been something on the grill that tastes like chicken.

There is time to think when out on the water, and time to pull up the oar and just keep gliding.  My thoughts drifted to the first people, who would have traveled this area in straw kayaks for food and fun.  I could do this.  The water is not too cold.

It was also a time to have fun with physics.  I tried paddling the board while on my stomach, butterfly style, hoping to get enough speed to pull along another surfboard, to go so fast that the kid on the surfboard could stand up and start surfing.  If you have lived in a very cold climate, you have probably attempted the same thing on a frozen pond.  The last kid on the chain can get pretty fast.

This morning, as I watched the local news, I had to grin at the coverage of a local triathlon.  All the world-class people lining up for their day in the surf.  Every single athlete had a wetsuit on.

I am not sure where I am going with this.

Can we really have a cheeseburger?

I read the article about how impossible it is to make a real burger.  And about all I can say about THAT is that if you are going to use a cheeseburger as the gold standard recipe, and all the stuff you put on it identifies it as a California burger, it might be a good idea to try it in California first before declaring that it is impossible.

I am sure the typical hamburger can easily be made in the fall.

Although I don't have a steer to slaughter this fall, I am sure people could butcher a goat at any time.  Of course, with goats being about the only local livestock, one would expect an abundance of goat milk in the spring and summer.  No need to wait a year to harvest some rennet.  Goat cheese can be made in a couple of hours with plain ole goats milk and some lemons.  Now if you insist on that square orange stuff, there is no hope for you anyway, and it is probably best that it is impossible for an average person to make just so you don't hurt yourself.

Cucumbers come into harvesting from June to September, giving any cook ample time to make pickles and store them hassle-free until the rest of the ingredients are ready.

Lettuce grows extremely well in the fall, and people here harvest lots of lettuce right about the time when the last of the summer tomatoes are harvested.  Of course, the tomatoes can be picked and the vine hung up right out on the patio, and you can have a fresh sliced tomato up to and including New Years day.  (Ask me how I know this....)  If that isn't good enough, you can grow tasteless winter varieties that will mimic the one they put on your fast-food meal perfectly.

Mustard is just about the easiest condiment to make.  My mustard seeds would be ripening by now, had the goldfinches not stripped the plants clean of all seed pods and flowers.  If I really had to have mustard, I would have planted more.  If I hadn't gotten around to fermenting last fall's apples into vinegar, I'd just make mustard with sauerkraut or pickle juice.  It works really well.  The reason I didn't get around to planting more mustard for seed is that I grow plenty of hot mustard plants in the fall, and a nice hot mustard leaf can do double duty on the hamburger instead of the mustard and the lettuce.  And it is much easier since after the goldfinches get into all the seed, they toss it all around and it reseeds itself everywhere and all I have to do is sit around and marvel at the efficiency of laziness.

The hardest thing to duplicate is the bun, but that is easy for me since I don't eat that stuff much anymore and would just leave it out entirely.  But in earlier times I have actually planted, harvested, winnowed, ground and baked wheat.  Believe me, the people who say our diet should be based on healthywholegrains and other seed foods just don't know diddly-squat about growing and securing their own food.  It is really hard to grow seeds.  You might plant a whole row of something, and then have mice come by and take much of it at the last minute, or have it shatter all over the place.  Even for something super easy like amaranth, gathering even a cup of the seeds takes many hours and it tastes like red poi.  (Ask me how I know this...) There is good reason why the Chumash put a much higher price on chia seeds than on acorns.  If you have actually tried to harvest chia or basil seed or acorns, you will immediately notice the difference in time needed to get a cup of seeds vs. nuts.

Around here, I might be able to make a steamed pile of acorn flour, and this would take quite a bit of time.  I don't know how it would taste because every time I attempted to make food from acorns, it was a failure.  There is a good reason why the Chumash acorn-grinding stones were near the ocean.  They could have just grabbed more seawater for soaking, bypassing the moldy stage that my acorn mess got into.  And they did.  Acorns made up around forty percent of their diet.

Actually, the hardest food around here to replicate in a fast food meal is the potatoes.  They only grow in the spring, and are usually rotten by summer.  I grow a few of them, but mainly it is "you want sunchokes with that?"  And if you want to supersize THAT, well there is still no hope for you.

An Uneasy Emulsion - Mixing Food and Science

Once again, Jack Kruse and his detractors are at center stage this week.  Food fight anyone?

Here's an interesting blog post about Jack and others before him who did "stupid" medical experiments on their own.  It's worth a read, and worth the time to translate.  (I know, your languages are probably rusty, so use Google translator or something....)

And now I'll leave you with another wonderful personal story, an account of my first introduction to adult-level unbridled nutritional idiocy and stupid group-think games.

When I was winding up undergrad studies, I took some time to visit the library to browse through some magazines.  In one magazine, I think Discovery or Omni, I found a small article about a theory of the cause of stomach ulcers, that they were caused by bacteria.

Now, this was of interest to me, since I grew up with people who suffered with ulcers, despite doing everything the doctors said.  And, one of my dorm mates suffered terribly from ulcers.  We shared many dinners together at the downstairs cafeteria, so I got to hear plenty about her continuing misery.  She always included two glasses of milk with her meal, and it didn't seem to help.  Well, I didn't have an ulcer, but I knew how drinking just a bit of milk made me feel, and that it conventional wisdom never worked for my family members either.  I suggested that she try something else to ease her pain, maybe drinking less milk, or eating or eliminating other foods.

After I read the ulcer article, the subject came up at the dinner table.  I suggested that the ulcer wasn't due to stress or some sort of milk deficiency.  My friend was upset about the discussion, and as she downed another whole glass of milk, she blamed me for all her pain.  We dropped the subject.

A few weeks later, I was called into the RA's room.  Since the RA was also a good friend of mine, I didn't think much of it until I entered the room and there were all my dinner mates, sitting there with straight faces.

The RA tentatively started because nobody else would.  Wow!  This was an intervention!  I had seen them on TV.  One by one, these 5 women recounted examples of my harmful and inappropriate behavior.  The RA told me that some of my "friends" were so upset by my behavior that they went to their priest about it.  And, with oh!-such-a-heavy-heart, they discussed together, at multiple meetings, and fretted about what to do about me.  And, oh!, they didn't really want to do this, but it was necessary for my redemption or something like that, cause you know, they valued my friendship.

This priest, (who probably had like a year of psychology), suggested the intervention, and even told them how to do it.  After that nice warm intro by the RA, Ulcer Lady started in.  She said that she spoke to her doctor about me and that he said I caused her ulcer.  She was supposed to have a calm and relaxing dinner, so I wasn't allowed to talk about nutrition or science at dinner.

They tried to go around in a circle, each person in the lynch mob group explaining another thing I did that they didn't like that I must stop immediately.  One woman refused to say anything, and the RA timidly reiterated her concern that my roommate brought up.

OK, here's my roommate's beef.  I had this boyfriend.  (OK, they had boyfriends too, sometimes for a couple of weeks at a time, but my boyfriend and I were a long-term relationship.)  Actually, he was my fiance.  He lived across the country and though I seldom saw him, we were on the phone frequently.  The problem for my friends is that I talked about him.  They insisted that since they hadn't met him, he wasn't real, that I was just lying and made him up.  Yep.  After a year of talking to this guy on the phone, flying across the country to see him and lining up job interviews, "you can't talk about him because he isn't real because we don't know him."

By now, you are probably figuring out what happened.  I had had enough, and calmly walked out, never to have another real conversation with them again.  The woman who refused to speak told me they had coerced her to attend, but she did not think I did anything wrong.  She disagreed with all of this.  The RA mentioned that she was extremely uncomfortable as well, and that she was unprepared and disappointed in the disaster that followed.  Yet, they all got together in a group and did it anyway.

And you probably already know by now that the Nobel prize-winning Dr. Barry Marshall is credited with the discovery of the bacteria that causes most stomach ulcers, and that he actually ingested some of the bacteria himself to prove his wild theory.

And unlike Ulcer Lady's doctor, threatened by an early-adopter for everything and assisted in voting her off the island, my doctor tested me for H. pylori when I came to him for stomach issues.  My, how times change, and also when it comes to schoolyard games, some things never change.

So here I am, sitting in a cold tub, taking turns using up all the cold water with my very real former boyfriend who also enjoys the very real benefits from the leptin reset and CT.  I have jettisoned most of my old paleo haunts, yet I am sure that while I am away from Paleohacks, the minions are still doing all their downvoting in their pack when Ulcer Lady yells "fire".

Slouching back to Paleo - I thought of it first, and I was Right

OK, you heard it here first!!!!!, not from Robb Wolf.  Here's my prediction.  (This time, REALLY go back and read the Hancock links and see how much what he was saying mirrors what Robb Wolf says here.)

Now, the REAL reason we have to discover and re-discover stuff all over again is because the huge magnetic field created by Harvard-trained 'nana-eatin' PhD's who busy about with their cohorts, is resetting the hard-drives of the innovators, those folks who come up with all those crazy theories that the other folks in charge won't ever test.

Reminds me of our favorite [redacted]people coach, "One must be reading the research...."  All fine and dandy, but the real issue is not who has all the answers, but who gets to come up with all the questions.  Cause, people like that [redacted] coach keep saying that we need good studies.  Good studies are produced, but they still deny deny deny.  So what's up with that?  Certainly not science, there is something up there, other than science, which has always been more fascinating to me than actual science.

(Thanks to Dr. Feinman, the other, for the title I stole.  I know, you stole it too, but I am crediting you cause I just love yur blog and that other guy doesn't have a blog.)