Ex Navy Officer. Owner of Businesses. Digital Entrepreneur. Expat Living in Thailand. 5,000 Biting Blog Post on Everything since 2003.
Did the ADAs, the FDA, the Department of Agriculture and their major funders and lobbyists in the grain and pharmaceutical industries tie you to the Whipping Post in 2009 and beyond, going back forever?
Just like Greg Allman?
You don’t have to be tied up in 2010. And there’s my end of year message. (Though a few have requested a Rush number and I hate to disappoint, and so…)
That’s Lierre Keith, describing the email she gets from her book, The Vegetarian Myth (see previous link for reviews & to get the book). She’s talking about those 80% of vegetarians and vegans who fan-mail her; those relatively new to it (all life is style, nowadays), suffering from anxiety and depression.
Good for you, Lierre: best of all, cut off or cull the supply of new victims; double-edge-sword, create advocates for sensible eating as added leverage against The Myth! Many of the old-timers will sacrifice their own health for the sake of misery-loves-company. They confuse misery and bliss — like a damaged soul confuses love & hate.
Alright, let’s just admit there’s selection bias here. Certainly there are vegetarians and vegans who are fortunate — and I wish them well — to have no such problems, and they aren’t emailing Lierre. Prolly not fans of her book, either.
But the fact is there are those who suffer. And there’re those commenting on this blog and elsewhere, proclaiming how meat eating is so satisfying for them. That means something simple: the argument that anyone and everyone ought to Go vegan! is falsified. It should end. No, they do not have and so certainly should not proclaim to have the diet to end all diets. And Paleos should not claim that either. Everyone is individual. People fare differently; paleo is merely an excellent place to start. Our job is to convince them it’s the best place to start. That’s how we got here, evolved, so give that a college try, first.
Oh, I almost forgot. That bit is at around 56 minutes into her interview with Sean Croxton, right here. Go listen.
Via my good buddy Chris Highcock in Scotland, this is hilarious. And I love how they used computer-generated voices. Maybe I’m weird.
It raises the possibility of a decent New Year’s Resolution: maybe we all — especially us bloggers — ought to take ourseves a little less seriously.
Alright, back to serious nutrition & diet, next post. 🙂
This post is basically for the purpose of highlighting a couple of others’ posts on grains in case you haven’t seen them.
First, Mark Sisson took on the "Better Fed" and "Feasting on Grains" nonsense I posted on the other day.
Let’s suppose that Mercader’s dating estimates are correct. Let’s also suppose that the tools Mercader tested had indeed been used to prepare food, as the presence of other food residues suggest. First off, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the sorghum was also used as food. Tools, for prehistoric humans (if not for moderns as well) needed to serve multiple purposes, supporting not just food preparation but shelter construction and other daily living tasks. As one archeologist skeptic, Curtis Marean of Arizona State University in Tempe, explains, grasses were regular parts of “bedding” and “kindling.” Another critic, Huw Barton from the University of Leicester, questions Mercader’s assumption that the sorghum had been used for food based on the curious presence of the residue on tools not associated with food preparation, including drills.
See Mark’s entire post. And I suggest also reading the article Mark links to.
Next up is the always pointed & frank Dr. kurt harris, MD. While he doesn’t take on this piece of nonsense garbage that I and Mark did — probably because it’s just too stupid for his tastes — he takes on grains themselves: as poison garbage. And, too, he takes on the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) for their silly insistence on what should really be termed ‘proper preparation of poison.’ Now, I certainly don’t want to become and enemy of WAPF, I’ve linked to many of their articles many times, and Price, as Kurt says, was a giant in nutrition. But I do not get this insistence on "neutralizing" what’s just toxic poison.
The larger point is this – The whole exercise of finding a way to justify eating gluten grains is beyond pointless.
We have here a class of plant proteins derived from the seeds of plants that do not want to be eaten and that we did not evolve eating – cereal grains. These gliadin proteins (glutenins and gliadins) have known effects on gut permeability even in those without celiac disease via the innate immune response. These effects are in addition to those of wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), a secondary plant compound found in wheat germ that is elaborated solely to discourage consumption of seeds by animals.
The WAPF position is that, rather than simply avoiding eating things with gluten, we should soak, sprout and ferment these noxious plant seeds and eat them anyway, in hopes that our preparation has hydrolyzed enough of the gluten to make short enough peptides that the immunogenicity is diminished.
I suggest wheat advocates who worship tradition pay for access to this short report published in GUT – I did – and then explain why a celiac, or indeed anyone with a gut should expose themselves to even microgram amounts of incompletely hydrolysed gluten when 5 out of 6 people without evidence of CS (Celiac Sprue) have evidence of an abnormal innate immune response using a highly sensitive assay.
[…]
You can live fine with zero gluten grains in your diet. Wheat flour is vitamin poor, has no nutritious fat that isn’t rancid, and the proteins in it are incomplete in their amino acid complement. There is absolutely no upside to eating wheat if you are not starving
So why engineer some convoluted preparation ritual in order to eat it? Why not just avoid it?
At any rate, see Kurt’s post to get the real scoop on what’s going on with grains, gluten in particular. And the comments have to be seen to be believed. Also in the comments, Kurt demonstrates why dairy is not at all in the same category as grains from an evolutionary, paleo diet standpoint.
Last year while vacationing up here at the cabin, I did a dozen reasonably substantive posts in one day — for fun (alcohol being a function of the last few, and just getting the last off by midnight — make sure to check out LSD Chicken). Here’s the wrap up post with the links to all 12.
This year I’m going to do something different. I’ve noted from emails received from so may new readers (500%+ at least from last year) that while they have gone through archives and read past stuff, they may not have gotten what I think are the best. So. I’m going to resurrect a choice few over the next few days, perhaps three or four per day.
Hope that doesn’t irritate the long-timers, but at least you know why. Heres’ the two I highlighted earlier to Facebook friends & Twitter followers.
From the archives: The Perverse Positive Feedback of Stress – http://su.pr/2QsWDn
180 Degree Errors: Excess Fat as a TUMOR. Archives, before I read GCBC – http://su.pr/3aWXUI
Thanks for your enormous support, folks. Over 500% increase in a year.
I’m humbled. More and more. You’re making me watch my Ps & Qs, goddammit!
I might have to put updates up as I continue to gather information (emails out to vetting sources) but I thought I’d put this up as a starter, maybe generate some conversation.
I’ve posted a lot about cholesterol and how and why I don’t generally see it as a problem for most people on a good (paleo-like) diet. In other words, the diet is the problem causing the inflammation markers, small dense LDL, low HDL and high triglycerides (fat in the blood, caused by sugar, not dietary fat). So fix the diet. The problem, of course, is that the standard from-on-high dietary advice is precisely what’s behind those aforementioned problems. A Paleo diet doesn’t seem to work for everyone to get the sort of lipid numbers I enjoy, so that leaves the question open as to whether "bad" lipids are generally only a concern with a bad diet of processed foods, high sugar and omega-6 polly unsaturated fats. That’s where I’ve placed my bet.
But what about familial hypercholesterolemia? Does that not substantiate if not prove the lipid hypothesis? After all, even children and infants afflicted with this genetic disorder get heart disease. But is it the high LDL itself, or what it’s able to act upon? For an amazing education in all things cholesterol, take a listen to Jimmy Moore’s recent interview of Chris Masterjohn who specifically addressed this disorder and argues that it’s rather like having a ton more cars on the road (LDL) and the real problem is that because they’re on the road so much longer that it makes them far more susceptible to oxidative stress; and combined with chronic inflammation caused by a nutritionally deficient, low fat, high sugar, high omega-6 diet, that’s the real underlying cause of the plaque buildup. Give it a listen.
Added later: Think of the causal chain mixup like this when it’s claimed that LDL is causal. It’s like having a gunman shoot you through the heart and you die, and cause of death is that your heart can’t stop bullets. So, when the underlying cause is inflammation and oxidized small-LDL, the "cause" is claimed to be that your heart can’t withstand small-LDL, inflammation and oxidation.
Now comes the added complication. Via reader Dexter I got a link to an article about this very recent study today. Be warned: it’s not a light read, at least not for me.
Strongest evidence yet that Lp(a) causes heart disease
Oxford, UK – New genetic research has identified two relatively rare single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that explain just over a third of the variance in lipoprotein(a) (Lp[a]) levels in individuals of European descent. The work confirms unequivocally that Lp(a) is a causal factor for coronary disease, say Dr Robert Clarke (University of Oxford, UK) and colleagues in their paper in the December 24, 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
"This is the most convincing evidence so far that this protein [Lp(a)] is directly part of the pathway that causes heart disease rather than a bystander. If we can target it through treatment, we might expect to lower the risk of disease," coauthor Dr Hugh Watkins (University of Oxford) told heartwire.
Well I’ve known for sometime that high Lipoprotein(a) — Lp(a) — is a strong risk factor for CHD (mine is 4 mg/dl with "standard range" <30, so presumably low risk on that score), but that’s based on association, not causation. But now they’re saying it’s unequivocally causal. OK, good, and I’ll get to how you can naturally lower your Lp(a) in a bit. But first, here’s what really struck out at me, making my head spin around and around a bit. From the article.
In a press release issued by the British Heart Foundation [3], which describes Lp(a) as a "third type of cholesterol," senior author of the new paper, Dr Martin Farrell (University of Oxford), tries to put the findings into perspective: "The increase in risk to people from high Lp(a) is significantly less than the risk from high LDL-cholesterol levels. So Lp(a) doesn’t trump LDL, which has a larger impact. The hope now is that by targeting both we could get an even better risk reduction."
Say what? Here’s what I’ll state unequivocally: high LDL is only associated with CHD and even that’s tenuous because I have many times (check the cholesterol links above) demonstrated that very low LDL is also associated with CHD (as well as increased all-cause mortality, particularly in the elderly and slam dunk in women). So let me get this straight: the risk from high Lp(a) that they are calling "unequivocally causal" is a significantly less risk than a mere association?
What say you, experts? I’m confused.
At any rate, and again not a light read by any means, but one blogger and good friend, Dr. BG really stands out in blogging about Lp(a) and other risk factors.
Cardio Controversies: Lp(a) Dangerous at ANY Value (link removed)
Can Lp(a) create more damage than we previously thought?
Dr. Hecht has apparently showed it with his examination of lipoprotein, cardiac and metabolic parameter comparisons with the real measure of heart disease risk: EBCT-determined plaque burden. Lp(a) was 3rd after HDL and LDL particle diameter in being highly associated with coronary calcifications. See below. Free PDF HERE. Normally at TrackYourPlaque we consider Lp(a) greater than 20 mg/dl as a high contributor toward accelerated plaque burden. When I look at Dr. Hecht’s graphs, what I notice is that indeed this may not be true.
It appears to my observations that at ANY Lp(a) value, plaque burden is quite high reaching even 97th, 98th or 99th calcium percentile for CAD risk (of population norms) at severely low Lp(a) levels of 5 mg/dl or 10 mg/dl.
OK…what the heck?
I can make the same observations for my CAD (heart), PVD (peripheral), or CVD (stroke) patients and individuals with extensive diabetic complications. At any Lp(a), the extent of disease can still be quite pronounced.
What other factors are correlated to vascular damage?
1. Low HDL2b
2. High small dense LDL.
These THREE factors determine almost entirely the extent of disease. Both visionaries Dr. Davis and Dr. Hecht focus on these predominantly to control and halt the progression of calcifications.
How are these 3 metabolic parameters created in the first place?
–low fat SAD AHA low cholesterol low saturated fat diet
–saturated fat deficiency
–excessive carbs (>10 g/d, >20 g/d, >50 g/d, >100 g/d — depending on a person’s insulin and insulin sensitivity and pancreas/adipose/hormone status)
–inflammation (excessive omega-6 oils)
But she has a lot of stuff on Lp(a), so here’s a search link (link removed) for those wanting to dig super deep. For those of us wanting to cut to the chase, how best to lower Lp(a) and keep it low? You know what I’m gonna say, dontcha? You guessed it: high saturated fat from natural sources, i.e., animals, butter, coconut oil. The Doctor again, from another post (link removed):
Lp(a) Reduced By Saturated Fatty Acids and Raised by Low-Sat-Fat Diets
Benefits of Krauss high-saturated fat diet cannot be overstated. Saturated fats control CETP and thus control the amount of Lp(a) individuals produce. In fact, when an experiment group was put on a low fat, high veggie diet, Lp(a) increased significantly by as much as 9% (Silaste ML et al Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2004 Mar;24(3):498-503. Free Full Text)
Additionally, the low fat diet produced HIGHER oxidized LDL (OxLDL) by 27%. Recall the small dense LDL are less resistant to oxidation than buoyant large LDL and transform to OxLDL rapidly.
Not good.
For. Plaque. Burden.
OxLDL causes fatty/calcified organs: arteries (atherosclerosis); endothelium (hypertension); liver (NASH); pancreas (diabetes, MetSyn); thyroid (Hashimoto’s), visceral fat (obesity); etc.
Saturated fat lowers and controls Lp(a) and coconut oil is one great example (Muller H et al . J Nutr. 2003 Nov;133(11):3422-7. Free PDF HERE). In this study by Muller et al women with elevated Lp(a) in the 30s mg/dl were provided a coconut oil-rich diet (22.7% sat fat; 3.9% PUFA) was compared with a high PUFA-diet (15.6% PUFA !!yikes). Lp(a) was reduced 5.1% compared to baseline habitual diets with the high saturated fat diet whereas in the high PUFA diet, Lp(a) increased a whooping 7.5%. The difference between Lp(a) on the high sat fat compared to the high PUFA diet was 13.3%.
Here are the conclusions from those two study links above, respectively.
The question remains as to why the Lp(a) levels increased in response to the dietary changes. The basal levels of Lp(a) are primarily genetically determined, but some data suggest that Lp(a) may act as an acute-phase reactant under some situations.40 In a previous study, a diet high in SAFA was found to produce approximately 10% lower plasma Lp(a) concentration than diets high in oleic acid or trans-fatty acids.41 This observation is consistent with our study in that both diets led to lower SAFA and consequently increased Lp(a).
In conclusion, we found that a diet traditionally considered to be anti-atherogenic (low in saturated fat and high in polyunsaturated fat and naturally occurring antioxidants) increased plasma levels of circulating oxidized LDL and Lp(a). The question of whether the changes observed in the present study are, in fact, pro-atherogenic or anti-atherogenic remains to be solved.
And…
The connection between Lp(a) and atherosclerosis is not entirely understood. Different studies have provided strong evidence that Lp(a) level is an independent risk factor for developing coronary artery disease in men (47,48), but the question of causality continues to be debated. Recent data suggest that Lp(a) might be atherogenic (49), in particular when combined with other risk factors. High levels of Lp(a) combined with other risk factors such as the ratio of plasma total/HDL cholesterol have been shown to increase the risk for coronary heart diseases (50). It has also been reported that when substantial LDL cholesterol reductions were obtained in men with coronary heart disease, persistent elevations of Lp(a) were no longer atherogenic or clinically threatening (51).
In conclusion, the present results show that the HSAFA- diet lowered postprandial t-PA antigen and thus potentially improved fibrinolysis compared with the HUFA-diet. Diets with either high or low levels of saturated fatty acids from coconut oil beneficially decrease Lp(a) compared with a HUFA-diet. The proportions of dietary saturated fatty acids more than the percentage of saturated fat energy may be of importance if the goal is to decrease Lp(a).
Alright, so for us KISS folks, it all just comes down once again to a natural, Paleo-like diet plenty high in delicious and healthful saturated fats.
12/31/09: Welcome boingboing readers and a hearty thanks to Mark Frauenfelder for the feature. For those interested in the dietary and fitness aspects, check out the Overview, and also see results from some of the readers.
01/04/11: Welcome again boingboing fans, a bit more than a year later. Thanks to Sean Bonner for the link and congrats on his success. I still have no idea why it works so marvelously for some, marginally or not at all for others (though I think they are decidedly minority given the many comments and emails). At any rate, I had tweeted Mark Frauenfelder and emailed him about an update post I did just a few days ago, so this is opportune and coincidental. Here it is: A Most Successful Self-Experiement: Over 18 Months Soap and Shampoo Free. For those who might be interested in the other aspects of my "Free the Animal" life way…such as fat loss, strength gain, awesome sleep, getting off meds & more, stay tuned for a beginners primer at the top of the blog by Friday, 1/7.
~~~
Well it’s over six months, now, and I really don’t want to do this post.
Why? Cause it’s too weird, I fear. We don’t live in caves without modern convenience, I’d not want to, and I loath the possibility of paleo becoming a Luddite-esque religion. I blogged about that (The Paleo Principle is Neither Authoritative nor Dogmatic), and it got picked up by Sisson in a Weekend Link Love issue.
So, I guess, take this with a grain of salt. I’m merely reporting on my own experience.
I haven’t used soap or shampoo anyplace on my body for six months, save hand washing in advance of food prep. That’s it. let me just report my observations and leave you to judge.
I could go on, but ultimately you’re gonna self-experiment or not. But if you do, give it at least a month. Weirdness cleared up for me in two weeks or less, but we’re not all the same. I suspect that women who wash furiously and slather all manner of lotions might take a year or two to normalize.
Alright, I know this is out there and it has NOTHING to do with anyone’s success in a paleo plan and should not be taken as even necessarily desirable. I will surely not expect anyone to try it. And you can have at me if you want. I’m just saying that I’ve tried it, I waited a long time to mention it, and in the end, I’ll never use soap or shampoo on anything but my hands for the rest of my life.
Later, and maybe TMI: My wife now mentions more than ever before that "you smell good." OK, I had to post that only because some might worry on that score….
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Indeed Whole Foods does. Thankfully, they also sell a lot of good stuff, albeit expensive good stuff — and in an environment I find quite pleasing most of the time. Mackey in the New Yorker.
A year ago, Mackey came across a book called “The Engine 2 Diet,” by an Austin, Texas, firefighter and former professional triathlete named Rip Esselstyn. Basically, you eat plants: you are a rabbit with a skillet. Mackey had been a vegetarian for more than thirty years, and a vegan for five, but the Engine 2 book, among others, helped get him to give up vegetable oils, sugar, and pretty much anything processed. He lost fifteen pounds. This thinking about his body dovetailed with a recession that left many shoppers reluctant or unable to spend much money on the fancy or well-sourced food that had been the stores’ mainstay. Mackey, in a stroke of corporate transubstantiation, declared that Whole Foods would go on a diet, too. It would focus on stripped-down healthy eating. Fewer organic potato chips, more actual potatoes. He told the Wall Street Journal in August, “We sell a bunch of junk.”
Yep, Whole Foods isn’t really ALL whole foods but increasingly processed stuff with labels like "organic," "vegetarian," "vegan." The tofu processed "food" section is an abomination and probably — given the unfermented soy — worse than Hot Pockets. On the other hand of being fair, a vegan that gives up vegetable oils (go Nutiva coconut oil, John! You sell it and that’s where I buy it), sugar and processed food just might be reasonably OK. But at least understand Kleiber’s Law, and realize that we had to evolve eating meat to get a big brain and small gut, unlike our primate ancestors. And John? Read The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith who spent 20 years as a vegan.
As to the environment, I suppose that in one respect it’s a sliding scale for me. Going to Costco is always depressing, and if not for the junk, the QUANTITIES in the shopping carts — though I realize that for some it’s the equivalent of a small restaurant supply. Next is the standard supermarket and I just marvel at the crap people fill their carts with (do I need to elaborate?). Next would be Trader Joe’s. Far better than the previous two. Then there’s Whole Foods. The environment is nice, and ditching the upscale crap, which is still crap, would be a very positive change.
I’m referring of course to this morning’s post which I’m not even going to link to. This is why I do this, folks and this is why I’m going to continue to defend the PRINCIPLES of the paleo and primal way.
Let’s go back to early November where Chris reported to me and I reported to you that since May of 2009 he had logged weight loss of 94 pounds (6 month’s time) doing the paleo / primal life way. And in the comments he was asked for photos and has complied. He’s put them on his own blog but I thought a nice montage would be appropriate. Here’s the before, mid-May ’09.
And this is at the end of Oct, ’09, compared with him in his barbershop quartet outfitting back in early May.
He’s gonna need a new costume soon, if not already. As he reports, his weight loss is 20 additional pounds from the photo on the right for a total of 106 pounds.
Go paleo. Go Primal. Rock on, Chris and a hearty congratulations. You deserve enormous credit, not just for your amazing accomplishment but for your willingness to share it and inspire and motivate others.
And thanks for turning the top entry on the blog to something so positive.
Well here’s the whole thread on his forum — currently at three pages worth of posts — about this post of mine and a couple by others (Castle Grok & Don Matesz). And in response to Nige, a valuable comment contributor here and author of his own excellent nutrition blog, pointing out the value of this blog to over 50,000 visitors per month, Lyle McDonald responds:
It only proves that most people are very silly and easily convinced by logical ‘sounding’ arguments.
So, I guess that’s what he thinks of you all. Now go line up and buy his books.
While it’s certainly true that the level of visitors here doesn’t singularly mean anything in terms of validity, you will note that this isn’t a commercial site either (unlike McDonald’s). I spend no money on promoting this site — it is through people telling friends & family that it has grown 500% in the last year or so. And how about the quality of the visitors? You’ve all seen how many PhDs & MDs comment here. There’s at least a dozen combined, and these are people who are involved in diet and nutrition issues and have been for years. Then again, McDonald thinks Gary Taubes is "full of crap;" so whatever, I guess.
I’m doing this because I’ve taken off 60 pounds nice & slowly, have increased strength dramatically, and it’s been not only easy, but very enjoyable. So it’s sustainable for me for the first time in years of trying and failing and, I suspect for a great many others. Is it the only thing that will work? No. Will it work for 100% of people? I seriously doubt it, even if they do everything right. It has worked for 100% of my family members of about a half-dozen who’ve given it a shot with results of 20 pounds to over 40 pounds lost and in the case of my mom, gotten her off insulin for her type 2 diabetes.
Lots more success stories here.
And it’s a pretty easy approach for those who just want decent lean health. While I’m sure that McDonald’s various approaches work for those who apply them correctly, I’ve purchased and read one of his books and it’s a complicated, disciplined plan to follow. Will it work? I have no doubt that it will for some, perhaps many. But he seems to hold that the only way to recompose one’s body is through his methods, and if he doesn’t state that explicitly (I don’t know), then isn’t it implied when so much of what he does is to criticize others? Even approaches that work for lots of people? He must have a shortcut key for this phrase that ones sees over and over, directed at about anything that isn’t authored by McDonald.
…it’s total garbage and utterly stupid.
Everything, save Lyle’s stuff, is "crap." Oh, and you’re "very silly" for being "easily convinced" and doing something that works for you, sustainably long term, rather than follow some complex and arduous program from one of his books, excellent and effective as it might be.
The final point I’d make is that Lyle isn’t even a reader here and never will be. So what does he know about what I’m really out here advocating? Even one of his trolls that showed up over the last few days was ignorant of just about everything, arguing against things I’ve never said or suggested — and he actually came to the blog. Lyle wouldn’t stoop so low, because everyone’s a moron, except him.
Have you read his "Mean Forum," (Monkey Island) the one you have to register (free) to read? Wanna know what Lyle McDonald really thinks about you and just about everybody else? Be warned, however, if you’re offended by vulgar language and dirty pictures.
Now I’ll leave you all, so you can rush right out and buy his books.
Later: Oh, I almost forgot. Apparently Weston Price, author of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, who travelled the world for better than 20 years to study what non-industrial peoples actually ate and to compare them with those who had migrated to civilization, is also full of crap, a moron, or whatever in McDonald’s eyes.
Like the paleo guys who like one of the researchers but not the other, becaue the one is anti-saturated fat. Which the cultists know is good in absolute terms. Because a dentist 50 years ago said so.
such goofs.
Did Price ever say that saturated fat is good "in absolute terms?" I wonder what McDonald actually knows about the cultures studied: "Some of the cultures studied include the inhabitants of the Lötschental in Switzerland, the inhabitants of the Isles of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, the Eskimos of Alaska and Canada, the Native Americans, among the inhabitants of New Caledonia, Fiji, Samoa, the Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, Rarotonga, Nukuʻalofa, Hawaii, the Masai, Kikuyu, Wakamba and Jalou tribes of Kenya, the Muhima of Uganda, the Baitu and Watusi of Rwanda, the Pygmies, and Wanande in the Congo, the Terrakeka, Dinka and Neurs of Sudan, the Aborigines of Australia, the inhabitants of the Torres Strait, the Māori of New Zealand, the Tauhuanocans, Quechua, "Andes Indians", "Sierra Indians" and "Jungle Indians" of Peru."
Did McDonald ever actually read the book or is he nearly completely ignorant about it and the depth of Price’s findings? Does he know anything about vitamin K2 Menatetrenone (MK-4) — "Activator X" — and its role in malocclusion, dental carries and periodontal disease?
Did McDonald expose his ignorance?
I’m not a Beatles fan, never have been. While I have all the albums out of posterity, only Let It Be is in my iTunes library. I might get up the energy one day to go through the rest an pick out a song or two here and there to include.
But here’s my favorite of all, so far as I know.
I’ve Got a Feeling
That’s from the famous London Rooftop Concert in 1969 and it was their last public appearance together.
My friend Robert snapped the picture to the left this was cropped from sometime in the spring of 2007, nearly three years ago. The one to the right was Christmas evening, cutting up the prime rib.
It was right around the time I began this most wonderful journey, though I initially began pretty much with the intense workouts first and didn’t incorporate a decent paleo diet and fasting until about six months in.
That’s the same shirt. The jeans to the left are 40" waist and to the right, 34s. I’ll be in 32s very soon now.
Here’s another for those of you with some time on your hands over this holiday season. Once again, I’ve known about this amazing video for some time but just finally got around to watching it yesterday.
Sugar: The Bitter Truth
In this video Dr. Robert Lustig takes you on an amazing educational journey about sugar and specifically, the vast difference between the two major types in your diet: fructose and glucose (regular table sugar is 50/50). Of the two, glucose probably isn’t that bad when consumed as a starch, whereas fructose is poison, out and out, and it’s every bit as poison in excessive quantities as is alcohol. It’s metabolized exactly the same way, and it’s what’s giving even children fatty liver disease, a precursor to cirrhosis.
Dr. Lustig raises one interesting aspect about obesity being no more complicated than a lack of activity combined with excessive caloric intake. If that’s true he asks, then how it is that he sees so many obese 6-month old infants in his practice? Obese infants; and we’re not just talking baby fat. Maybe here’s a clue?
What utter junk-crap-poison to be giving to an infant. You know what girls? If you don’t like breastfeeding then you should not have kids. It’s that simple. Do it right, or not at all. You don’t even have to Google for the composition of human breast milk to know that of the above, only the coconut oil is a wholesome ingredient. The rest is pure garbage that I wouldn’t feed to a mean dog. By the way, just to keep things honest, corn syrup solids are not anything like HFCS. It’s essentially dehydrated regular corn syrup and is almost all dextrose (glucose). As such, it would be far and away one of the better sweeteners to use in cooking, if you must, and far better than even table sugar that’s 50% fructose. But you ought never be giving it to infants and children and especially not as a replacement for, uh…actual FOOD!
Alright. I’ll stop stealing Dr. Lustig’s thunder, now. Do watch.
Being a hero or gaining respect is easy: be honest. Bonus points for being honest when it’s the very last thing you desire to do. How you deliver honesty is irrelevant. That’s why I do it a bit rough, now and then.
Dr. Gardner did it gently, and he did it in spades and spades all over, top to bottom & wall to wall.
Amazing.
I’ve had this video cued up for I don’t know how long; other’s have blogged it, but I didn’t have time to watch. I did just now, Christmas day, and I figure: maybe you have some time on your hands over the next few days. If you do, I urge you: watch this video. Are you going to learn much? Depends. If you are new to paleo, this is essential. If you’re an old hand, this should give you comfort, and its fitting for the season. So give yourself a gift.
OK, here’s the suspense. You’ve got a 25 year vegetarian, with three children as vegetarians and one on the way. And yet, he is going to tell you — and he’s extremely likable as a lecturer — that the Atkins diet (as practiced by subjects educated in it) kicked ass against four other diets (including chubby-face Ornish) in every single marker measured; i.e., weight loss and disease risk factors. So, it’s fun too.
"It was a bitter pill to swallow," says he. And he also covers paleo by minute 50 or so, and even touches on fasting in the Q&A. All in all, an amazing presentation and my hat’s so off to him. He has everything he needs to connect dots. He even mentioned traditional healthful populations whose members became diseased when emigrating to "civilization." He didn’t mention Weston Price, but I will when I come up with his email. [Note: I have the email. Thanks all for sending it along.]
Merry Christmas from yours truly. A little musical selection from my whacked out collection. Pink Floyd, Live at Pompeii.
I’ll have to file this as about the dumbest thing I’ve seen all week. Tons of readers have alerted me to articles out claiming that Stone Age man was "better fed than previously thought" and has been "feasting on grains for 100,000 years."
It’s nonsense.
Here’s a link to the actual paper (PDF), a pretty damn short read: Mozambican Grass Seed Consumption During The Middle Stone Age, Julio Mercader.
As with everything in this sort of vein I always begin with principles. So, "better fed" relative to what? Starvation, certainly. In comparison to a kill of game or fish? Not on your life. In comparison, grains are crap on every single score — every one. And in fact, given the phytic acid that prevents mineral absorption it’s difficult to view grains as anything better than a bare subsistence food to prevent starvation.
Feasting on grains? Please, Katherine Harmon; don’t be a ditz. Beyond even the arduous task of gathering wild grass seeds — absent "fruited plains" — they had to be heavily processed and cooked to eat. Without pottery or cooking vessels, perhaps you can explain to us how they "feasted" in this manner 100,000 years ago.
Here’s what I wrote on an email list when this news surfaced.
Why, with all the massive evidence showing we sourced animals above all is it a problem when one small population, probably faced with hunger resorted to the labor intensity of gathering seeds?
I think that’s a strike in favor of evolution, not against our primary sources of nutrition. I’d happily eat grains too, if I was hungry and couldn’t kill & slaughter enough animals to feed me and mine.
But I’ll bet they were still on the lookout. That’s why in addition to bakeries, nowadays, we’ve also got Ruth’s Chris. Yum.
Now, examine those two articles above and the actual paper. Nowhere in any of them will you find a single reference to meat as our prime evolutionary driver. That’s quite an omission that to me calls into question bias, if not outright ignorance. I quote the introduction to that paper.
The role of starchy plants in early hominin diets and when the culinary processing of starches began have been difficult to track archaeologically. Seed collecting is conventionally perceived to have been an irrelevant activity among the Pleistocene foragers of southern Africa, on the grounds of both technological difficulty in the processing of grains and the belief that roots, fruits, and nuts, not cereals, were the basis for subsistence for the past 100,000 years and further back in time. A large assemblage of starch granules has been retrieved from the surfaces of Middle Stone Age stone tools from Mozambique, showing that early Homo sapiens relied on grass seeds starting at least 105,000 years ago, including those of sorghum grasses.
The "…belief that roots, fruits, and nuts, not cereals, were the basis for subsistence for the past 100,000 years and further back in time." "Basis for subsistence…relied on grass seeds?" Please! That degree of ignorance truly boggles the mind.
Fortunately, Dr. Loren Cordain came to the rescue via my email box this morning out to his subscribers.
This is an interesting paper ( Mercader J. Mozambican grass seed consumption during the middle stone age. Science 2009;326:1680-83) as it may push probable (but clearly not definite) cereal grain consumption by hominins back to at least 105,000 years ago. Prior to this evidence, the earliest exploitation of wild cereal grains was reported by Piperno and colleagues at Ohalo II in Israel and dating to ~23,500 years ago (Nature 2004;430:670-73). As opposed to the Ohalo II data in which a large saddle stone was discovered with obvious repetitive grinding marks and embedded starch granules attributed to a variety of grains and seeds that were concurrently present with the artifact, the data from Ngalue is less convincing for the use of cereal grains as seasonal food. No associated intact grass seeds have been discovered in the cave at Ngalue, nor were anvil stones with repetitive grinding marks found. Hence, at best, the data suggests sporadic use (and not necessarily consumption) of grains at this early date. Clearly, large scale processing of sorghum for consumption for extended periods seems unlikely.
Further, It should be pointed out that consumption of wild grass seeds of any kind requires extensive technology and processing to yield a digestible and edible food that likely did not exist 105,000 years ago. Harvesting of wild grass seeds without some kind of technology (e.g. sickles and scythes [not present at this time]) is tedious and difficult at best. Additionally, containers of some sort (baskets [not present at this time], pottery [not present] or animal skin containers are needed to collect the tiny grains. Many grain species require flailing to separate the seed from the chaff and then further winnowing ([baskets not present]), or animal skins] to separate the seeds from the chaff. Intact grains are not digestible by humans unless they are first ground into a flour (which breaks down the cell walls), and then cooked (typically in water – e.g. boiling [technology not present]) or parched in a fire which gelatinizes the starch granules, and thereby makes them available for digestion and absorption. Because each and every one of these processing steps requires additional energy on the part of the gatherer, most contemporary hunter gatherers did not exploit grains except as starvation foods because they yielded such little energy relative to the energy obtained (optimal foraging theory).
If indeed the grinder/core axes with telltale starch granules were used to make flour from sorghum seeds, then the flour still had to be cooked to gelatinize the starch granules to make it digestible. In Neolithic peoples, grass seed flour most typically is mixed with water to make a paste (dough) that is then cooked into flat breads. It is highly unlikely that the technology or the behavioral sophistication existed 105,000 years ago to make flat breads. Whole grains can be parched intact in fires, but this process is less effective than making flour into a paste and cooking it to gelatinize the starch granules. Hence, it is difficult to reconcile the chain of events proposed by the authors (appearance of sorghum starch granules on cobbles or grinders = pounding or grinding of sorghum grains = consumption of sorghum). I wouldn’t hang my hat on this evidence indicating grains were necessarily consumed by hominins at this early date. To my mind, the Ohalo II data still represents the best earliest evidence for grain consumption by hominins.”
Don Matesz also did a really good reality check on this "news."
And very curiously, Lyle McDonald seems to have fallen for this "news" lock stock & barrel, using it to finally come forth with his long awaited post with the working title on his Monkey Island forum of F#[email protected]* Paleoman. Castle Grok took care of that one.
I do agree with Lyle, however, here.
I’d note that it’s unlikely that there was any singular evolutionary diet in the first place. Humans have shown the ability to adjust to all but the most extreme environments and show an amazing ability to adapt to drastically differing diets as well. Human ancestors evolving in say Alaska would have had far different foods available than someone living in the arid plains in Africa. Even examining the extant hunter-gatherer tribes demonstrates this in spades: the diet of an Alaskan Inuit is radically different from say an African Bushman simply due to the difference in environment and what is available to them. So there is no single ancestral diet in terms of the quantities, proportions or types of food that would have been eaten in the first place.
I often point out to people that “paleo” is anything from a Kitavan diet of 70% carbs to an Inuit diet of 80% animal fat, and everything in-between. If you want to practice paleo, then find what works for you within that range. For me, about 70/20/10 fat/protein/carb seems to work best, but I also do potatoes and other dense starches now and then. And sometimes I do almost zero carbs for a few days at a time. And I fast randomly and intermittently and work out fasted. The other side of the paleo equation is that we went hungry sometimes.
For what reason I don’t know, but this January 2009 editorial by William Faloon of the Life Extension Foundation is making the rounds. Perhaps it just came available on the web.
It’s a good read, particularly in light of the billions and trillions of dollars the thieves & thugs in DC are about to flush down the crapper on your behalf. Some notable excerpts.
A large number of new vitamin D studies have appeared in the scientific literature since I wrote my plea to the federal government. These studies don’t just confirm what we knew 16 months ago—they show that optimizing vitamin D intake will save even more lives than what we projected.
For instance, a study published in June 2008 showed that men with low vitamin D levels suffer 2.42 times more heart attacks. Now look what this means in actual body counts.
Each year, about 157,000 Americans die from coronary artery disease-related heart attacks. Based on this most recent study, if every American optimized their vitamin D status, the number of deaths prevented from this kind of heart attack would be 92,500.
To put the number of lives saved in context, tens of millions of dollars are being spent to advertise that Lipitor® reduces heart attacks by 37%. This is certainly a decent number, but not when compared with how many lives could be saved by vitamin D. According to the latest study, men with the higher vitamin D levels had a 142% reduction in heart attacks.
[…]
The evidence supporting the role of vitamin D in preventing common forms of cancer is now overwhelming.
Vitamin D-deficient women, for example, have a 253% increased risk of colon cancer. Colon cancer strikes 145,000 Americans each year and 53,580 die from it. Based on these studies, if everyone obtained enough vitamin D, 38,578 lives could be saved and medical costs would be reduced by $3.89 billion.
A study published in January 2008 showed that women with the lowest level of vitamin D were at a 222% increased risk for developing breast cancer. Most studies show that higher levels of vitamin D can reduce breast cancer incidence by around 30-50%.
Each year, approximately 186,800 women are diagnosed with breast cancer and 40,950 perish from it in the United States. This needless toll of suffering and death caused by insufficient intake of vitamin D is unconscionable.
Prostate cancer will be diagnosed in an estimated 189,000 American men this year. Almost 30,000 will die from it. Men with higher levels of vitamin D have a 52% reduced incidence of prostate cancer.
[…]
In a study published in September 2008, blood indicators of vitamin D status were measured in 3,316 patients with suspected coronary artery disease. The subjects were followed for 7.75 years. For every small decrease in blood indicators of vitamin D status, there was a startling 86% increase in the number of fatal strokes.
The doctors who conducted this study concluded: “Low levels of 25(OH)D and 1,25(OH)2D are independently predictive for fatal strokes, suggesting that vitamin D supplementation is a promising approach in the prevention of strokes.”
[…]
According to John Jacob Cannell, MD, founder of the non-profit Vitamin D Counsel: “Current research indicates vitamin D deficiency plays a role in causing seventeen varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, and periodontal disease."
[…]
Vitamin D seems to reduce the risk of almost every killer disease of aging. In fact, a recent study shows that humans with low vitamin D status are twice as likely to die over a seven-year time period!
That’s a lot of quoting, but there’s a point to it. This weekend while researching the vitamin D connection to various forms of heart disease (post forthcoming) I found this figure. on the Grassrootshealth website. Click to enlarge, or access the PDF here.
Legend:
All percentages reference a common baseline of 25 ng/ml as shown on the chart.
%’s reflect the disease prevention % at the beginning and ending of available data. Example: Breast cancer incidence is reduced by 30% when the serum level is 34 ng/ml vs the baseline of 25 ng/ml. There is an 83% reduction in incidence when the serum level is 50 ng/ml vs the baseline of 25 ng/ml. The x’s in the bars indicate ‘reasonable extrapolations’ from the data but are beyond existing data.
In this Part IV of the series (Part I; Part II; Part III), I have decided to do go about this in a different way than I’d indicated before. I covered the Paleo Principle in Part II, but more in terms of our having evolved to eat meat and not with a lot of specifics about saturated fat in particular. Accordingly, this is perhaps what Part III would have been had I not got sidetracked on cognitive dissonance.
One of the pioneers of the paleo Diet is Dr. Loren Cordain, PhD. Back in the early 2000s he wrote and published The paleo Diet. It’s a frustrating read because, whereas he got so much right, he just wasn’t correct on the issue of saturated fats in the view of so many, including myself. I’ve blogged about this before. While he was certainly correct about the fat composition of wild animals vs. today’s manufactured ones, many believed he went way overboard in recommending lean meats, avoiding chicken skin, using processed canola oil for god’s sake, etc. And many rightly pointed out that everything we know about hunter-gatherers suggests that they prized fat above all.
What’s now important, however, is that Dr. Cordain recently got wind of something that has caused him to backtrack on saturated fat. His latest paper:
Dietary Fat Quality and Coronary Heart Disease Prevention: A Unified Theory Based on Evolutionary, Historical, Global, and Modern Perspectives
Christopher E. Ramsden, MD; Keturah R. Faurot, PA, MPH; Pedro Carrera-Bastos, BA; Loren Cordain, PhD;
Michel De Lorgeril, MD, PhD; Laurence S. Sperling, MD
The money quote:
The Seven Country Study, a cross-cultural analysis, reported strong positive associations among a population’s average SFA intake, serum total cholesterol concentrations, and 25-year death rates from CHD. However, it is important to note that several groups with very high SFA intakes from coconut fat (up to 40% of energy) and apparently low CHD rates have since been identified. In the Nurses’ Health Study, a large prospective cohort study, a weak but significant positive association between SFA intake and CHD risk was initially seen. With long-term follow-up, this association was no longer significant. Any association between SFAs and CHD appears to be a small fraction of that observed for TFAs [trans-fatty acids]. Other observational studies and dietary trials have been unconvincing or even contradictory. In general, experimental evidence does not support a robust link between SFA intake and CHD risk.
Coconut fat is almost 90% saturated fat. I’ll save the details on those populations for a subsequent post in the series.
And there’s more, from Dr. Cordain’s newly minted blog. Just a couple of days ago he fielded a question about saturated fat.
In summary, high total cholesterol or LDL levels do not increase CVD risk–rather oxidized LDL increases risk of CVD. To produce oxidized LDL requires the factors mentioned above. Hence, consumption of saturated fatty acids is not an issue if we control several other factors such as those mentioned.
Now that’s an enormous step from using the arterycloggingsaturatedfat mantra over and over in his book. So then, Dr. Cordain seems to have realized that fear of saturated fat just didn’t pass the smell test. While he chose to focus in on epidemiology that I’ll address later, here’s four good reasons to believe that saturated fat is not only not harmful but on the contrary, quite healthful.
1. Guess what happens to 100% of excess dietary carbohydrate, i.e., once liver and muscle glycogen (stored carbs) is full up (about 2,000 kcals)? It gets converted to fat. What kind, you ask? I’m glad you asked: palmitic acid. And what’s that, you ask? I’m glad you asked again: saturated fat. The evildoer.
I wanted to confirm this once again so I asked Dr. Stephen Guyenet, PhD (biology):
If it isn’t burned or stored as glycogen, it’s turned into palmitic acid in the liver and exported in VLDLs. It’s called de novo lipogenesis. There’s a caveat though: under average fat:carb ratios not much de novo lipogenesis (DNL) happens. Fructose and alcohol gets turned into palmitic acid pronto, and very high-carb diets promote DNL too. The Kitavans have a bunch of palmitic acid in their lipoproteins even though their dietary intake of palmitic acid is low.
Yes, so even if you aren’t eating carbs to super excess, still, all fructose and alcohol go straight to the liver and converted into saturated fat immediately.
2. What’s the composition of your own body fat which, actually, is in a constant state of turnover?
Lard: 38 percent saturated, 11 percent polyunsaturated, and 45 percent monounsaturated with the rest being trace fats.
Human: 35 percent saturated, 51 percent monounsaturated, and the rest polyunsaturated and trace.
Pretty similar. So if saturated fat intake above 10% of total calories is such a killer, then how come your own body uses it to the tune of 35% of all fat storage?
3. And how about all that fiber you are admonished to eat? All those fruits (oops: fructose; palmitic acid), vegetables, legumes & grains? Ever heard of Butyrate? You can also call it butyric acid and it’s a saturated fat. Guess how you get it in your diet? Well, the chief source is butter (get it: BUTyrate). But there’s another source too. Turns out the bacteria in your gut produce it when they go to work on fiber, both soluble and insoluble.
Dr. Guyenet recently posted all about it for those who want the depth.
…In industrialized countries, fiber may contribute 5 to 10 percent of total calorie intake, due to its conversion to short-chain fatty acids like butyrate in the large intestine (free full text). This figure is probably at least twice as high in cultures consuming high-fiber diets. It’s interesting to think that "high-carbohydrate" cultures may be getting easily 15 percent of their calories from short-chain fats. Since that isn’t recorded in dietary surveys, they may appear more dependent on carbohydrate than they actually are. The Kitavans may be getting more than 30 percent of their total calories from fat, despite the fact that their food is only 21 percent fat when it passes their lips. Their calorie intake may be underestimated as well.
4. And last but not least, human breast milk is a whopping 41% saturated fat.
Saturated fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids and monounsaturated fatty acids of human milk constituted 40.7 ± 4.7%, 26.9 ± 4.2% and 30.8 ± 0.6% of the total fatty acids, respectively.
~~~
So, given the above and pretending you know nothing of the bad reputation of saturated fat over the last four decades & more, would you not be quite surprised to be told it was unhealthful, a killer? Since it exists in such high concentrations in our own biology, would you not rather assume it to be rather healthful?
Saturated Fat and Coronary Heart Disease, Part V: The “Science”
I’m over fighting the good fight.
Lurkers and posters welcome, as always. My posts begin right here. Curiously enough, I’m holding my tongue and have become a shining example of civility! 🙂
Interesting article from reader Jim.
Meat may be the reason humans outlive apes
Even hunter-forager humans have twice the life expectancy as wild chimps
Genetic changes that apparently allow humans to live longer than any other primate may be rooted in a more carnivorous diet.
These changes may also promote brain development and make us less vulnerable to diseases of aging, such as cancer, heart disease and dementia.
Chimpanzees and great apes are genetically similar to humans, yet they rarely live for more than 50 years. Although the average human lifespan has doubled in the last 200 years — due largely to decreased infant mortality related to advances in diet, environment and medicine — even without these improvements, people living in high mortality hunter-forager lifestyles still have twice the life expectancy at birth as wild chimpanzees do.
Now, we understand that chips cooperatively hunt, capture, and rip their prey apart limb-from-limb to great tribal fanfare and meat loving…
Here’s one that shows their hunting tactics from above, via infrared.
So what gives, then? Well, perhaps it’s because bi-pedal hominids began using stone tools upwards of 2.5 million years ago and probably longer. In so doing, they were able to scavenge the high density nutrients (fats, mostly) in bone marrow and brains, inaccessible to carnivores.
Then, as Max Kleiber showed in 1947, humans, chimps and virtually all animals follow a linear function of mass to metabolic rate.
So, essentially, all animals that weight the same have the same metabolic rate. And in comparing us to chimps, we find that all the major organs have the same metabolic cost. What’s different is our brain size vs. gut size. From the article:
The oldest known stone tools manufactured by the ancestors of modern humans, which date back some 2.6 million years, apparently helped butcher animal bones. As our forerunners evolved, they became better at capturing and digesting meat, a valuable, high-energy food, by increasing brain and body size and reducing gut size.
Now for my first complaint: how come on the one hand it talks about butchering animal bones, leading to capturing and eating meat, yet no mention of fats? What’s inside bones is extremely high in fats. Why not acknowledge that?
At any rate, I’ve posted on Kleiber’s Law and the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis recently, for those desiring more in-depth:
And if you want to really dig deep into it, see Dr. Mike Eades post, Are We Meat Eaters or Vegetarians?
Then we advance to unlock another piece of the puzzle from the original article cited.
Over time, eating red meat, particularly raw flesh infected with parasites in the era before cooking, stimulates chronic inflammation, Finch explained. In response, humans apparently evolved unique variants in a cholesterol-transporting gene, apolipoprotein E, which regulates chronic inflammation as well as many aspects of aging in the brain and arteries.
One variant found in all modern human populations, known as ApoE3, emerged roughly 250,000 years ago, "just before the final stage of evolution of Homo sapiens in Africa," Finch explained.
Well that’s all well and interesting, but I’m not sure how well that hypothesis (that ApoE3 arose primarily in response to parasites from uncooked meat) would stand if it turns out we began cooking much, much earlier (Is It The Meat, or Cooking The Meat?), maybe even at the advent of homo Erectus 1.8 million years ago. We do know from even modern hunter-gatherers that cooking vessels aren’t needed, that the meat is often just tossed in the fire and retrieved to eat. Speculating, could we have gotten a taste for cooked meat very early, say, from scavenging meat burned during a quick forrest or brush fire ignited by lightening?
But I’m getting a little suspicious. Is there a "meat is inherently unhealthy" bias, and we had to evolve ways to not die from the very thing that they just claimed made us human in the first place…? Does this not strike you as somewhat circular? I mean, it couldn’t possibly be that we evolved to live longer than apes naturally (all else remaining equal) because of numerous factors, evolutionary pressures, surviving great odds against us, and/or that there’s one hell of a lot more bioavailable nutrition in a diet of cooked meat, fat, vegetables, fruits & nuts than, say, cellulose?
Is this yet another example of unbridled reductionism — that it’s necessary to find a single magic switch in a gene that protects us from awful meat & animal fat? Well, I suppose that’s where you have to look if you accept the premise.
So now for the obligatory anti-meat & animal fat part, signaling the bias I was beginning to detect.
"I suggest that it arose to lower the risk of degenerative disease from the high-fat meat diet they consumed," Finch told LiveScience. "Another benefit is that it promoted brain development."
Curiously, another more ancient variant of apolipoprotein E found in a lesser degree in all human populations is ApoE4, which is linked with high cholesterol, shortened lifespan and degeneration of the arteries and brain.
Yep, that’s what it looks like to me. The very thing that drove our evolution profoundly forward is a-priori unhealthy and instead of wiping us out, we eventually developed a coupla genes that keep us alive (and for longer than our ancestors!). But, if I get the implication right, do lower your meat, animal fat consumption, and of course, watch your cholesterol!
That’s my take, anyway. Anyone see it differently?
I began with an entire chicken cut up, vacuum packed and cooked in the Sous Vide Supreme just like the Maiden Voyage. The one difference was that because of the bones, I left it in for four hours. It was still just as moist & tender.
I also decided to go with a treat of actual mashed potatoes instead of the typical celery root, parsnip or some combo. Our guest Julie did the potatoes, with plenty of butter, of course.
To top it off, giblet gravy, which my mom makes and I’ve loved since I was a kid. As always, click the picture for the high quality version.
To make the gravy, you first need to chop up the giblets (liver, heart, gizzard) and either roast them under the broiler, or, as I did, sauteed them in butter along with the neck.
Once nice & browned, add your high-quality chicken stock. If I don’t have my own, I get the free range organic from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. I used a quart and then just let it simmer for an hour or so. You want to taste for the watery taste to diminish to nothing. At that point, pull out the neck, let it cool and pick off the meat and add back in. Don’t add salt when you do a reduction, because it will become more and more concentrated. I usually find at the end that I need no added salt. This is also a good reason to use a quality stock as they’re not loaded with salt.
In the meantime, I boiled two eggs, hard. Once the flavor was right, I added about a half cube of butter, and the egg chopped up and the yolk mashed & distributed. Then, just add heavy cream until the consistency is right. I think it might have been 1/3 to 1/2 cup in this case.
Give that gravy a try. Very rich, creamy, delicious and fully of fatty goodness.
By the way, on the sous vide front, check out this writeup in The New York Times. Also, Diana Hsieh posts how she cooked up a storm with the contraption over a week’s time.