Archives for January 2010

Now how damn long do you think I had to search to bring this to you cavemen & cavewomen? Hah! I’m proud of at this point. If you check out some of their other UTube selections, you’ll see they perform shirtless often. And even rock stars today are lean. (Can you be a fat Rock Star, or is that what’s coming next?). Here you go, new study: "Lean Rock Stars associated with regular consumption of drugs & alcohol."

Written by Dave Mason, made most popular by Joe Cocker…but Grand Funk Railroad did it best, in my view. I just love the blues-i-ness of it. You know, the roots of rock & roll are in the blues, just like the roots of country are to be found in folk. I’m not a big country fan, and hence, I’ll take Dylan any day.

Alright, with that Dylan reference, let me toss up another one, altogether different, the Traveling Wilburys, Handle With Care. Watch George Harrison and especially, Roy Orbison, steal the show. This one’s in a link, cause the embedable one was shit.

There, I got off cuss word. I contemplated a birthday dispensation f-bomb, but I’ve successfully resisted. 

And none of it would be possible without the great readers of this blog. It sounds almost trite to say it — ’cause everyone always says it — but it’s true and it must be acknowledged.

I’m gonna take the rest of the day off, as it’s my 49th today, and I’ve already gotten an excellent birthday present. I just completed an hour interview with jimmy moore and man did we have a blast. He pretty much gave me free reign, I got in a cussword or two…it was so much fun and man was I pumped. And I did it 19 hours into a fast. I was alert. So I hope that when it airs likely in May, all y’all’ll have a listen.

This is just the latest event in a pretty surprising month. On December 31st it was looking like I was going to fall short of making another successive traffic record. I needed to break 56K visits and I went into the 31st with only about 50K. Then, all of a sudden, traffic was pouring in from boingboing, then Fark. They had picked up on my no-soap, no-shampoo post. By the end of the day, 85K visits and nearly 150K page views. Now here we sit with still a couple of days left in January and I’m pushing 115,000 visits and 230,000 page views. Wowzers.

And then just in this last week I’ve done interviews on the paleo / primal / evolutionary fitness life way with Der Spiegel and then a couple of days ago, with Maclean’s, Canada’s largest weekly news mag. I’ve got to thank Art De Vany for the Der Spiegel deal. They spent a whole day with him and requested to speak with others, so Art set it up. Maclean’s was an out of the blue email from a reporter doing a piece on paleo. It should run late next week, she says.

I’ve also got to thank Rusty Moore at Fitness Black Book for this generous and excellent writeup yesterday. Be sure to include Rusty in your fitness links.

Well, I’m just about 20 hours into a fast right now, so I think I’m gonna go hit the gym.

Let’s get this right out of the way: Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a menace to society. He’s also an ignoramus who listens only to conventional "wisdom" ("Modern Ignorance") from "health authorities" on the take, being propped up by drug companies and synthetic-industrial "food" manufacturers.

Then there’s the lazies who man the New York City Department of Education, like Chancellor Joel L. Klein.

So what have these various miscreants been up to?

"NYC Schools Cut 4.6 Billion Calories Switching Milk"

By Tom Randall

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) — New York City public schools cut 4.6 billion calories and 422 million grams of fat a year from students’ diets by eliminating whole milk, a switch that districts are adopting in the U.S. fight against obesity.

Whole milk was cut out in 2006, and fat-free chocolate milk replaced low-fat chocolate milk, according to a study that’s the first to measure how banning whole milk affects school nutrition. Students didn’t drink less of the healthier options, and average milk consumption increased 1.3 percent from 2004 to 2009, researchers said in the report published today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Now I suppose you’re wondering, as would be perfectly natural for anyone with even half a brain to do: how did it work out for the kids? After all, while we know that childhood obesity has been on the rise in general, perhaps NYC has stumbled onto something and can demonstrate that obesity in their district went down and health went up.

But don’t hold your breath. See, it’s not really about the kids and their wellbeing at all. Did you see it in the quote, above? "…according to a study that’s the first to measure how banning whole milk affects school nutrition." Not obesity, not health markers in flesh & blood children. No; school nutrition. "…For the health of the State." It’s really laughable, and so I guess this is where I ought to just go right ahead and call Bloomberg and Klein the impotent BIG liars they are, who take you for fools. They’re frauds, through and through. Here, take a look at this one, from the CDC no less:

"Effects of Switching from Whole to Low-Fat/Fat-Free Milk in Public Schools — New York City, 2004–2009"

So what are "the effects?" Did kids lean out, get sick less, do better in school? Anything? What are the results?

In 2005, the New York City (NYC) Department of Education (DOE) began reviewing its public school food policies to determine whether changes could help address the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity in NYC (1). DOE determined that reducing consumption of whole milk and increasing consumption of fat-free or low-fat milk could help decrease students’ fat and calorie intake while maintaining calcium consumption. However, milk industry advocates and others expressed concern that phasing out whole milk might decrease overall student demand for milk. Nevertheless, during 2005–2006, DOE removed whole milk from cafeterias in all public schools serving the city’s approximately 1.1 million schoolchildren. To assess the effects of the switch on milk consumption, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) analyzed system-wide school milk purchasing data. This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicated that DOE school milk purchases per student per year increased 1.3% in fiscal year 2009 compared with 2004 purchases. By removing whole milk and switching from low-fat to fat-free chocolate milk, NYC public school milk-drinking students were served an estimated 5,960 fewer calories and 619 fewer grams of fat in 2009 than they were in 2004. Other school systems can use these results to guide changes to their own school food policies.

See that? So here’s the scam carried out by the aforementioned frauds. For the same money to the "milk industry," the kids got less nutrients, less calories, but more sugar. In you take a cup of milk and take half the fat, 3/4ths, or all of it out (2%, 1%, skim) but still have a cup of volume, then you’ve removed nutritionally dense food that carries 9 calories per gram (fat) and replaced it with skim milk that carries 4 calories per gram, and, more sugar. But it’s even way worse than that. Milkfat has significantly less water than does the milk, so in terms of volume it’s a lot of healthful nutrition that’s going away. Essentially, they’re taking very high value, nutritious food and giving your kids mostly colored water in return. It’s criminal.

So the results they got — their chief concern — were that the milk industry can breath a sigh of relief, and actually jump for joy because the fat they take out of the milk is sold for quite a lot more by volume and is replaced by something far cheaper, skim milk — mostly water. Compare the cost per volume of skim milk and heavy cream at your local market.

So, the milk industry wins and profits even more, the aforementioned pipsqueak & clown get to do press releases and brag about their out-of-context "accomplishment" — because they’re liars and frauds — and the kids get the shaft: they get less quality for their money and they’re fatter and more diabetic than ever.

Oh, and a final note about Bloomberg & Klein: they don’t give a shit about your kids, not in the slightest.

"Children Who Often Drink Full-Fat Milk Weigh Less, Swedish Research Finds"

ScienceDaily (Nov. 4, 2009) — Eight-year-old children who drink full-fat milk every day have a lower BMI than those who seldom drink milk. This is not the case for children who often drink medium-fat or low-fat milk. This is one conclusion of a thesis presented at the Sahlgrenska Academy.

The study showed that children who drink full-fat milk every day weigh on average just over 4 kg less.

"This is an interesting observation, but we don’t know why it is so. It may be the case that children who drink full-fat milk tend also to eat other things that affect their weight. Another possible explanation is that children who do not drink full-fat milk drink more soft drinks instead," says dietician Susanne Eriksson, author of the thesis.

The scientists also discovered a difference between overweight children who drink full-fat milk every day and those who do not. Children who often drink milk with a fat content of 3% are less overweight. The thesis shows also that the children eat more saturated fat than recommended, but those children who have a high intake of fat have a lower BMI than the children with a lower intake of fat.

Effing DUH!! It’s just such a mystery?! You want to see how bad it really is with assholes like Bloomberg and Klein running loose? Take a look.

Yep, let’s get ’em all on the statin drugs. Assholes. I just wonder how long people are going to stand around watching these ruthless, lying, profiteering frauds ruin the health of kids in almost genocidal fashion, before the shooting starts…

Well here, in closing — and just only because she’s a random idiot Google hit — I’ll pick on this last moron of the day: Stephanie’s Toddlers Blog and Stephanie Brown. Stephanie: listen, dipshit: if all you’re going to do is parrot what the ignoramuses of the American Academy of Pediatrics have to say without using your own head and injecting some credibility, critical thinking and common sense into the deal, then you should really just stop writing a "blog."

"Whole Milk for Weaned Babies is Out says American Academy of Pediatrics"

Jesus Christ, already.

First off, for those of you who don’t have a Sous Vide and aren’t getting one soon, here’s a previous post with rack of lamb made in a traditional way. Rack of lamb done properly is perhaps my favorite food. And making it in the Sous Vide Supreme was just to die for. Easily my favorite thing so far — though pork chops run a close second.

So for the preparation, it was sea salt & ground black pepper, a clove of crushed garlic, a sprig of fresh rosemary (I now have a plant out on the terrace) and a sprinkle of dried thyme. As always, click the images for the larger, higher quality versions.

Rack of Lamb Prep

Then it was into the SVS at 131F for 1.5 hours. In the meantime, I went to work on the sauce. I began with a good pat of butter, a clove of crushed garlic, a sprig of rosemary crushed up, and a handful of frozen berry medley. I got that all crushed up before introducing about a cup of my homemade stock.

The Sauce

I boiled it for a short time in order to extract all the flavors from the herbs & fruit. Then I strained it and reduced very, very slowly down to a nice sauce with no thickening agent. It came out very nicely. Oh, I also had a dash of red wine in there.

Once the rack came out of the SVS, I used the kitchen torch on it, sliced it up and plated.

Rack of Lamb

Alongside was a surprisingly good quick fry I did of celery, red onion, sea salt & ground pepper in hot Nutiva coconut oil. It was one of those "what have I got" deals that came out real nice. Now here’s a closeup on the other plate of lamb (that’s my wife’s above).

Rack of Lamb, Part Deux

It was melt in your mouth delicious, perfectly pink through and through, easy to gnaw off the bone, and the fat was just succulent. To me, there’s nothing like the taste of the fat of the lamb.

 At "Livestrong."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cite high LDL cholesterol as one of the risk factors for heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States. Even with these startling facts, Americans still can’t seem to shake high-cholesterol foods from their diet. Instead of trying to cut out all foods that are high in cholesterol, focus on the top five worst foods for raising cholesterol. Once you’ve stopped consuming them, you may be motivated to make healthier choices overall.

Another "nutrition expert," Jae Ireland, gets it right in the teeth when you read the comments, and I always love seeing that.

So there you go.

So in order to really get this book project off the ground, I’m using a cool application called Scrivener. Now while the book is not at all going to be just the blogs I’ve written, a lot of them are useful — posts and comments — and so I’m pulling them into the app one by one. Plus, that will for the first time provide me with an all-in-one document with every post in chronological order.

Tedious.

It turns out that in the first year of blogging about my fitness path, I posted 75 entries, and this was combined with at least 200+ of unrelated posts. So, I’m up through May, 2008. Only a year and nine months to go. But it’s going to get far more tedious, especially beginning in September of 2008 where I went full time at this.

Anyway, very busy, but thought I’d just check in.

So on the OEvolve list (note: As I’m a human-animal anarchist, I’m only a lurker there, per the membership guidelines) one person had posted an experience with halibut sous vide; Diana, list owner, tried and liked, and so I embarked this afternoon to collect suitable halibut. Click to see the big’n.

Halibut Steak Sous Vide

130 degees, for an hour. I had no big salt to do a brine in advance, so I sea salted heavy, for 30 minutes, rinsed, salted lightly, then sliced a lemon thin, with two slices on each steak, and sprinked with a bit of rosemary & thyme.

In the meantime, the veggie medly you see is lots of Kaerygold Irish butter (unsalted). On low. At the end, fire ‘er up, and add a three-finger dash of almond meal; stir fry it. There you go. Done.

For the sauce, it was a super large pat of the same butter, a 1/4 tsp of tarragon, and a big tsp of full fat FAGE yogurt. Bring to a boil, immediately turn off. Done. There was a bit of juice in one of the vaccum sealed bags that I added and refired for a second or two.

We’re gonna watch 24 in a few. I’m gonna do nut soup for that, with  a spot of pineapple this time. What is it? I’ll tell you one of these days.

Admin note:

Well, according to Sitemeter and Google Analytics, I broke 100,000 visits for the month of January and 200,000 page views, a huge all-time record buster. That was sometime in the wee hours of last night.

Onward & Upward, I suppose. I’m now working on my book in earnest and have committed myself to four hours of — hopefully uninterrupted — work per day.

Any suggestions for a title that captures the essence of the "Animal Model" I espouse?

Doesn’t matter if you’re low-carb, paleo, or somewhere in between.

You’re weird! You’re a geek! Don’t you understand that unlike all other animals, humans dropped out of the sky a few thousand years ago and operate on principles totally foreign to wild animals; such as unlike the folks who work in the feeding units of your local zoos — where they somehow understand fully that they have to derive feeding regimes that model the animals in nature that are under their care ?

We’re above that fray, right? …And doing even so much better than your average zoo animal. Look around you. Observe how well it’s working…

…I was a geek. In high school, my passion was chess. I even won tournaments and placed third in a state-level competition. I had a library of more than 20 chess books as a 10th grader. Geek! Be cast out! To this day, I can pretty much take anybody in short order who hasn’t played really seriously (but a pro could take me easily as well). It’s really about relative experience. Or, relative "geekiness."

Do you see the disconnect? For the first part — about our paleo life ways — something’s "wrong." We’re subject to a Matrix of conformity or, at very best, a mythology of "proper behavior" that nearly everyone is just drawn to. For the second part, some of us are naturally repelled by at least aspects of the world as it is, and in ignorance or partial fear, seek other ways to rebel. I always wanted to be somewhat distinctive, different, and I was always willing to bear the consequences of my choices. There was more than chess. I won a California state championship in table tennis in an association of private schools numbering in the dozens. Table tennis. It’s even a funny name, and for what it’s worth, I always called it ping pong. What a weirdo I was, but I never faltered in confidence. (I’d have an eff bomb here, if I hadn’t sworn them off in posts.) I’ve always done fine and well, so my essential message is that you really want to be pleased with yourself, as I always was and am — without ever much of a moment’s doubt or reservation beyond minimal demands. How effing easy is it to be like everyone else? And trying to be just like everyone else wastes your life, and not caring about it to the extent you don’t strive to be unique…just treads water. In fact, you may have to search for ways to be different, unique…weird.

Who knows? Maybe I was lucky. But I’d advise anyone to just toss it to the wall and see what sticks. In hindsight, I wish I had been even more weird, more geek, more in-face, and less caring about what anyone thought about it. But I also wish I had taken a few more minutes, here and there, to commune with the few genuine friends I did have.

I was  always weird. From the very first day I began to really understand what world was set before me by powers who came before me, I hated it. I loathed them who did that, for whatever reasons they had, and if I could go back in time — like way back — I’d be pleased to slit throats and eat livers. Oh…to just live in a rational and just world…

The essential message is this: don’t conform; and the simpleton morons who would cast you out: they’re inferior on all levels except one: lying and deception. Your focus might always be on undercutting that. I’m lazy, so brutal honesty has been working for me going on two decades. Parasites generally run like cockroaches in its light. You’ll often look like an ass, but only those with undue and inexplicable fear care, and they don’t matter.