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May 27, 2006
Ad-zooks!
I got a missive from a reader the other day wondering why on earth an ad for a militant vegetarian dot com appeared on my blog. Good question, since this site and our respective philosophies of eating aren't particularly aligned.
That's not to say that I have any quarrel with any adult's adopting vegetarianism as a reasoned ideological choice, because I don't. I will argue (and often have done)that it's not a healthier choice for the individual, rather, it's a matter of sacrificing one's own nutritional best interests--i.e., eating the meat-based diet that humans were designed to eat by eons of selection pressure--for the sake of a deeply-held belief system, whether religious or ideologic. Which, if it's sincere, is quite noble.
When the choice to abandon meat-eating is not religious, however, I strongly recommend reading the fascinating book, The Covenant of the Wild
During our many years in practice we have helped quite a few vegetarians adopt a lower-carb eating regimen in sync with their philosophy. It's tougher and quite a bit more restrictive, but then the vegetarian lifestyle is a tough, restrictive decision to start with. Low-carbing vegetarians, an admittedly small group, can even find welcoming support and link up with like-minded dieters on the Protein Power website's discussion board.
Still, it seems a bit odd that an ad for going vegetarian would appear on my site. One wouldn't suspect it as being very fertile ground for gathering clicks.
And that's the point of this discourse. When you agree to accept google ads to your site, which both Mike and I elected to do to help offset the cost of hosting the site, you have very limited input as to what pops up. We don't control it and, as in the go veg case, it's often beyond our ken. The ads are supposedly content driven. A nameless, faceless, bodyless webcrawling engine searches for key words in each new post and matches ads to it. Or sort of matches ads to it.
For instance, Mike wrote a piece a while back called "Carbohydrates or Weight Loss or Both" that generated a whole bank of ads for legal services which didn't relate in even the remotest of ways to the content; we still can't fathom what particular wording in the post tripped the webcrawler's trigger for that one.
I wrote one about arsenic that populated the sidebar with ads about colon cleansing--a process that I am mildly opposed to as a means of improving health. Although cleanliness is supposed to be next to godliness, I suspect 'cleaning oneself out' through the use of cathartics, irritants, or enemas would more likely damage the stable ecology of the gut than help it. (That bias probably stems from a childhood spent trying to avoid adults bearing spoonfuls of milk of magnesia and enema syringes.)
And this piece will probably generate ads for going veg, cleansing your colon, and heaven knows what else. It should prove interesting to see exactly what does appear.
Suffice it to say that the content of ads on this (or I suspect) any other site do not always reflect the opinions of the hosts. Caveat click-or!
Posted by mdeades at 11:13 AM | Comments (2)
May 24, 2006
Coffee, Tea, for Me?
I grew up drinking tea, not coffee. This will, no doubt, come as a shock to my kids or anyone who has known me only as an adult; unlike many of my peers, I didn't begin drinking gallons of black coffee to stay awake to study in high school or even in college. I drank plenty of Lipton tea, but no coffee.
From the time I was about 11 or 12 years old, my dear sweet mother awakened me every morning by gently opening my bedroom door and softly calling "Tea Time" at which point, I would stumble to the breakfast table and down a couple of cups, hot, sweetened with sugar, and softened with cream. Like the English, my mother felt that whatever ailed you, tea was the best medicine. Headache? Cup of tea. Queasy stomach? Cup of tea. Cold or flu? Cup of tea. Broken heart? Cup of tea.
(I've gotta admit it's by far more pleasant than my Great Aunt Nell's remedy for everything, which was a dose of Milk of Magnesia. )
No, it wasn't until I was a junior in med school--on my feet from early morning until late at night, no time to eat, up all night on call--that I learned to even tolerate coffee, much less like it. But I soon saw the lay of the land. Every ward desk/nurses' station in a hospital has a coffee pot going 24/7/365. For a small donation to the coffee kitty--then a buck a week--one could imbibe limitless coffee all day and night. Where I trained, at least, tea could only be had down in the cafeteria (in the hospital basement and a long schlep away) at a cost of nearly a buck a cup. Coffee was hot, cheap, and available. I acquiesced at work; at home, I stuck to tea.
But then, something subtle and mysterious occurred. I found I actually liked coffee, that I actually looked forward to getting to the ward to get a cup of it. Bit by bit coffee drinking supplanted my tea habit and a true coffee junkie was born. Nowadays, I'm rarely seen without a cup of coffee in my hand.
The switch brought with it an unexpected benefit. From a habit developed in childhood, I heavily sweetened my tea. Back in the good ole days, the only artificial sweetener commercially available in cute little packets was saccharine, which I've never been able to get used to, so it was nothing but the full-strength white crystal for me. Since I prefer only cream in my coffee, switching saved me a ton of calories. Although, I made the change more as a matter of economics and convenience than taste, the swap from tea to coffee helped me tame the evil sugar fairy.
But then, history notes that I'm not the only one who adopted coffee out of economic necessity. The American colonies, which were founded by a bunch of tea drinking Englishmen, made the switch as a political statement against the excessive cost of tea. To counter the unfair taxes imposed on tea by King George, the Continental Congress declared coffee the national drink of the colonies and drinking it became a patriotic duty. Their political statement forever changed the way America wakes up--well that and a famous little shipboard tea party in the Boston Harbor, but that's another tale.
At the time, coffee was fairly new to our shores, although there's disagreement on exactly when and how it came. Some accounts claim Sir John Smith (of Pocahontas fame) introduced it upon his arrival circa 1600; other stories recount that in 1723 a Frenchman stole and transplanted one lone coffee plant into the fertile soil of Martinique, from which stock allegedly sprang an estimated 90% of the new world's coffee trees. (Interested readers can find more interesting coffee factoids, as I did, by clickinghere and here.)
However it occurred, suffice it to say, that by some means, it got here and within a century or so, took the place by storm, which seems fast until you compare it to the rise of Starbucks and with it a love affair with coffee that has some folks worried. A large contingent of people (I am not among them) believes--or at least wants us to believe--that coffee is responsible for every imaginable human ill.
Such vilification is nothing new in the history of coffee drinking. In the 1600s, the Catholic pious sought to have coffee banned as being a 'devil's brew', requiring papal intervention to save it; in 18th century Germany, women were forbidden to drink coffee because it was thought to render them sterile, in modern times it's been fingered as a possible cause of everything from breast cysts to colon cancer. But times change, and when coffee has been examined under the bright light of reasoned scientific inquiry (not indicted from the shadowy realm of epidemiologic guilt by association) it has usually come away clean. The most recent research even points to pronounced health benefits from coffee drinking, namely reduction of risk for diabetes, colon, breast, and other cancers, and Alzheimer's disease.
A recent news article by Michael Granberry, entitled "Is there a health problem when your coffee cup runneth overtime?" beautifully lays out the pros and cons of our national fascination with Starbucks and the debate that rages over whether coffee drinking is a good thing or a bad thing. To read it in its entirety, clickhere.
Since my conversion, I have loved the stuff through thick and think, through bad press and (now) good. Perhaps, they had it right in the 15th Century, when Ottoman Turkish law decreed that a woman could legally divorce her husband for not providing a proper daily quota of coffee.
So fire up the machine, honey, and make mine a double, will ya'? I haven't quite had my quota today.
Posted by mdeades at 7:59 AM | Comments (5)
May 22, 2006
Salami, Salumi, Ah...Baloney!
Julia Moskin had a great article in last Wednesday's New York Times Dining In section. It's title Kissed by Air, Never by Fire, got the attention of the salami lover in me. I am a huge fan of traditional dry-cured sausages of all types and have enjoyed them all over Europe. I could happily make a meal of good dry salami, some hard nutty cheese, and a bottle of good wine almost any time.
One of the best meals I ever enjoyed in Italy was just such a spread. We were travelling in Campania a few years back with a group of 10 or so friends and had a late morning appointment to visit and tour the Di Meo vineyard and winery. As they all do--and if you've ever toured a winery, you'll know just what I mean--the tour began at the point where the grapes come in and get crushed, then sit on the skins (if it's to be a red wine) and yada yada yada on to the vats where the juice undergoes a malolactic fermentation and then into aged or not, French or not, oak barrels to mature and develop, then into bottles. Every tour ends up at the cellar that invariably leads up into the gift shop, where you can buy their wares. This one was no different to that point, but instead of stopping in the shop, we proceeded to a cozy family living and dining area and a surprise feast fit for a king (or in my case, queen).
The weather was chilly (it was October) and our thoughtful hosts (the DiMeo family) had laid a fire in the hearth and greeted us at the door with glasses of their dark, robust red wine. On the big farmhouse table they'd put out heaven on a plate: several kinds of hard, dry-cured Italian salame, hard cheeses, olives, and an entire plate of shaved black truffles. The perfect low-carb feast. Okay, there were loaves of dense, crusty, warm bread, too, and I admit to sampling a bit of it. Who could blame me? After all, when in Rome (or reasonably nearby)...
Sadly, according to Ms. Moskin's piece, it's getting ever harder to do as the Romans do if you're trying to make artisanal salami in the good ole US of A. And the subhead of her article tells why:
"Dry-cured sausage feels the heat only from the inspectors"
Traditional dry-curing involves a many step process using fresh meat that is never cooked or frozen; artisanal salamis ferment, acidify, mold, and slowly dry out; it's done just like the Romans did it and the Lucanians before them. It's not about stainless steel vats and computers, it's about a hands-on, almost personal relationship between the artisan and each of his works of art. When properly carried out, this time-honored method turns out salami that is not only safe to eat, but deliciously complex in flavor and aroma.
Unfortunately, the process lacks heat, freezing cold, or gamma rays and thus is deemed a health hazard by the powers that be--ie the USDA meat inspectors. And this difference of opinions about what is safe--this salami culture war that has arisen between artisanal sausage making and the modern Deptartment of Agriculture standards--is the thrust of Ms. Moskin's piece.
Real salami--such as one would find hanging from the ceiling in an Italian salumeria or near the artisanal cheese case at a specialty grocer here--comes as a shrivelled imperfectly shaped sausage, completely coated in a fine white mold. It bears little resemblance in look or flavor to the greasy, waxy, tasteless, stuff you find vacuum-sealed in plastic bags, hanging on hooks next to the "sliced, processed cheese product" in the deli case of the supermarket.
Despite the salami artisans' efforts to convince the USDA that killing unwanted bacteria happens by natural means in the traditional process, the USDA apparently remains unswayed and, according the Ms. Moskin, busy at work trying to shut down the manufacture and sale of artisanal salami in the US on health grounds.
I have just one word for them: Ba-loney!!
I fervently hope they will not succeed, but better to be safe than sorry. My advice is to run out or hop on line and get an artisanal salami while you can. I've got one awaiting in my kitchen, ready to be sliced up and enjoyed with a glass of lovely, rich Barnwood Cabernet this evening.
Posted by mdeades at 5:18 PM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2006
More Help In the Mission to Save Dinner
Many thanks to reader, Julie P., for sending me some info about an interesting web business geared solely toward helping busy moms (or dads or couples or singles) get back to the dinner table again. Be advised, it is a business, not a free service.
I visited and perused the site, called Saving Dinner, which is run by certifited nutritionist and syndicated columnist Leanne Ely. Like me, Ms. Ely is on a mission to get families back to that all-important piece of furniture, the dinner table. Toward that end, her Saving Dinner site is filled with ways to do just that offering online delivery of everything from meal plans and recipes to the exact shopping list you'll need to take to the store. What a great time and money saver that is!
There appears to be something there for all, no matter what the dietary regimen, including vegetarian, frugal, crock cooker, heart healthy and low carb (the latter two of which in my world would be one and the same, but then it's not my site and that's another blog.)
I have absolutely no affiliation whatsoever with her or this site, have not used it myself, and can therefore make no cogent comment about the quality of the service she provides. I just think it's a great idea and I pass it along solely because it's one more tool that may assist in getting us all back to the table.
Hats off to her!
Posted by mdeades at 7:27 AM | Comments (0)
May 17, 2006
Ring the Dinner Bell
A recent edition of our local paper picked up an article from the Associated Press by Libby Quaid on a topic we've preached about for years--decades, actually: the importance of eating dinner at home. In our paper, at least, it carried the headline "Grocers want families back at dinner table" with the subheading "Research shows teens less likely to acquire bad habits".
When I was a kid, we gathered as a family around the dinner table every night for a hot, homecooked meal. There we all were, my brother, my sister, my mother, my dad, and me, just like Wally and the Beave at the Cleaver's or David and Ricky at the Nelson's or Paul and Mary, those two kids on the Donna Reed show. There was no buzzing through a drive-through on the way from soccer practice to ballet. That was in large measure, of course, because in the good old days there weren't drive through burger joints on every corner.
Fast food establishments then--at least where I grew up--were limited to a little dairy bar that also sold hamburgers and fries, an A&W Root Beer stand, and a couple of barbeque joints (Hick'ry Pit, which was my personal favorite, and McClard's Bar-B-Q, which was made mildly famous by former President Clinton, who reportedly had their 'cue shipped to the White House.) A Burger Chef, a Dairy Queen, and a Pizza Hut entered the scene by the time I was in junior high school, but that was late in the game. Our family dining patterns were set. Last time I was back to my home town, fast food chains lined all the thoroughfares, thick as fleas and about as welcome to my way of thinking.
And it wasn't just that we didn't have choices back when, but more that eating away from home was a big event. We just didn't casually dine out for dinner. Going out to a "real" restaurant was something reserved for Mother's Day, the occasional Easter brunch, and once in a blue moon for some other reason.
No, at our house, we ate our evening meal together over what was sometimes a wide-ranging conversation in which all of us were expected to participate, even the youngest...me. The term 'wide-ranging' did have limits, though, as I learned when I was in about the third grade. One night my older sister (then in high school) was sent from the table for turning the conversation toward her biology dissection project by piping up with, "Did you know worms have lips?" Although not one normally to squelch any sort of educational experience (her motto was that no learning is ever a waste) our mother would brook no talk of worms at the dinner table.
And thus, a strong belief in the value of gathering together each day over a meal carried forward to my own dinner table. Ours was a two physician household, which meant long hours and unexpected calls and that sometimes dinner was late. Likewise, the hectic pace of getting us to the clinic and three boys to school often meant breakfast, for the sake of speedy nourishment, was a protein milkshake, quickly downed before the boys dashed out the door with their sack lunches in hand. About the only time we could linger over breakfast was on the weekend, and our family Sunday brunches were de rigeuer.
But despite the pressures of jobs, school, and extracurricular activites (which the boys had aplenty) we still managed to all sit down at the table together most nights for conversation over a hot, homecooked meal. It was the only time of the day when we could converse, could share what happened while we were apart, could discover each others likes and dislikes, fears and dreams, could laugh and sing and talk as a family.
I know what you're thinking: I don't have time to cook every night. Not with my kids' schedules, no way!
Trust me, you can and for the sake of your kids, you should.
Nowadays, putting a homecooked meal on the table doesn't have to mean slaving in the kitchen. I read an article just last week about a nationally emerging business trend of commercial "assembly kitchens" that offer busy moms or dads a place to quickly put together multiple high-quality whole food meals to take home to cook during the week. These places have done all the shopping, the prep work, all the washing, slicing and dicing, some precooking, and, most importantly, the recipe testing for you. They've assembled all the ingredients and tools and containers you'll need, so that in an hour or two you can put together a week or more of dinners. You just select the dishes you want to prepare from their pre-tesed files, follow their easy instructions, assemble your meals and take them home to your freezer. Then each night just pop one in the oven, throw a salad together while it's reheating, and voila a hot, homecooked feast.
And any more, homecooking doesn't even have to mean cooking yourself. If you can point, click, and boil water, you can have a fabulous high-end-restaurant-quality meal on the table in 10 to 12 minutes. Online food delivery retailer Home Bistro offers a full line of delicious meals (even really good low carb ones) that are flash frozen, shipped to your door, and only require gentle reheating in hot water. We've actually toured their factory, met their chef, and seen first hand the quality of ingredients and the meticulous care with which they make this food. It's not as cheap as Mickey D's dollar menu, but it's great value for what it is and darn well worth the splurge.
And most grocery stores (in trying to bring back their customer base) now sport kiosks of hot rotisserie chickens, meat loaf, or roast, a salad bar, and a hot counter of prepared veggies just waiting to be picked up and carted home. And as far as the social value goes, there's a world of difference between a burger eaten out of a styrofoam shell in the car between shuttle stops and a juicy roasted chicken, some green beans, and a salad on plates around a family table, alive with spirited conversation. Heck, even the fast food burgers would be better eaten on plates around the table amid the communion of family or friends.
Our boys are all grown men, now, with homes (and, in two of the three, with kids) of their own. But the tradition lives on in the next generation. Dinner is eaten at home most of the time. And when we're all together, whether at their house or ours, it's still our family's habit to enjoy hours of conversation and laughter over a hot, homecooked meal.
To my way of thinking, it's possibly the most important hour or two in the entire day in terms of forging strong family bonds. And according to Ms. Quaid's article, I'm right; to wit:
There is a cost to spending meals apart: Research shows that teenagers who don't eat with their parents face a greater risk of drug and alcohol problems. The more often kids have dinner with their parents, the less likely they are to smoke, drink, and use drugs.
However you do it, if you've got kids, ring the dinner bell again. Make the grocers happy; meet your family around the table for dinner.
Posted by mdeades at 8:22 AM | Comments (2)
May 15, 2006
Sara, You're Not Egg-zactly Correct
I was watching Sara Moulton (Sara's Secrets) on the Foodnework the other day on a show devoted to simple brunches Dads and kids could do for Mom for her day. All three brunches, naturally enough, involved some sort of egg-based entree. While beating up a cluster of eggs, Ms. Moulton made the following remark (paraphrased from my memory):
I realize that we're using a lot of eggs here, and although we used to worry about the cholesterol in eggs, we now understand that it's not dietary cholesterol we need to be worried about...
I sat on the edge of my seat. Was this utterly mainstream culinary maven, executive chef of Gourmet magazine, going to say the unthinkable--i.e., that we understand now that it's not the dietary cholesterol that causes elevated blood cholesterol, but rather that it's the carbs that drive up insulin that, in turn, drives the liver to make more cholesterol that is the real problem? My fleeting hopes were dashed when she completed her inane thought with:
it's the saturated fat in our diet that elevates cholesterol.
Oh posh, piffle, and balderdash!!
Her statement grated on two fronts: first, because it's patently false. In the absence of excess carbs and elevated insulin, neither cholesterol nor saturated fats causes a worsening of the lipid profile in humans. In fact, stearic acid, one of those "dangerous saturated fats" found richly in beef, has been clinically shown to lower cholesterol levels.
On the second front, what possible basis has an executive chef got for dispensing nutritional/metabolic information? Granted, she knows food and without doubt she's had more training than I on how to make a souffle rise properly or how to make a bernaise turn out light and fluffy, but she hasn't (to my knowledge) got the teensiest tidbit of training in how human biochemistry works. Of course, that doesn't stop her from spouting misinformation by polly-parroting the received wisdom that saturated fat is bad for health. I shuddered to think of all the millions of people watching, absorbing this off-the-cuff nutritional nonsense as fact.
Honestly, she should limit her 'secrets' to food and cooking tips.
Then to pile insult onto injury, in the wrap up, Ms. Moulton suggested paring her egg dishes with some fruit salad and a side dish of country fried potatoes, which would, of course, be delicious, but would be the very thing that would insure that which she fears most: driving cholesterol up. Instead, we'd suggest substituting celery root for potatoes in the home fries or ditching the potato concept altogether and substituting sauteed spinach. Interested readers can check out our recipe for Hash Browned Fauxtatoes on our Low Carb CookwoRx website or in the companion cookbook to our PBS tv show, the Low Carb CookwoRx Cookbook
Afterall, as Ms. Moulton says: it's not the cholesterol in the eggs that drives up cholesterol in your blood. At least she was right about something.
Posted by mdeades at 10:02 AM | Comments (2)
May 13, 2006
Mom, He Got Chocolate in My Peanut Butter!
With Mother's Day just around the corner, my thoughts turn to chocolate. Since I truly love the stuff, it probably has nothing whatsoever to do with Mother's Day. Truth be told, my thoughts on any random day also turn to chocolate.
It's odd that I should have this fixation, since although my own mother liked chocolate well enough, it wasn't something she lusted for and gooey chocolate desserts were not something she ever much fixed. She could make a mean Boston Cream Pie or Chocolate Cream Pie, but those were usually special request items, not staples, and the special requester was usually me. Her mother, who wasn't nearly as good a cook, not only didn't love chocolate, she downright loathed it. Notwithstanding, she is the same grandmother, who made the world's best fudge (about which I have previously blogged) which just goes to show that you don't have to love chocolate to make it delicious.
My passion for chocolate is shared by 100% of my beautiful daughters-in-law and all three grandchildren. None of our sons, to their credit, are particularly drawn to desserts--except for fudge. Two favor peanut butter fudge; the other favors chocolate. (These preferences have led to endless bickering over the Christmas fudge. ) Fortunately, all of them have a soft spot for good cheesecake. And although Mike's tastes run toward berry flavors, not chocolate, he's always a sport and will pretty much eat anything.
So, for this Mother's Day, I concocted a recipe that's sure to please us all: sweet and creamy cheesecake with swirls of chocolate and peanut butter running all through it. Yum!
Reminds me of that old Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial where the chocolate lover and the peanut butter lover, engrossed in eating the object of their affection, brainlessly bump into each other and simultaneously shout: "Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter!/Hey, you got peanut butter in my chocolate! They then cautiously sample the mixture and their faces instantly take on expressions that suggest they've just glimpsed nirvana.
If you (or your mom) is a fan of this taste combo, you'll be transported to nirvana, too. Make one for your mom, for your family, or just for yourself. It will keep in the refrigerator for several days and even freezes well, so you don't have to 'force' yourself to eat it all on Mother's Day. Here's the recipe.
Marbled Peanut Butter-Chocolate Cheesecake
Serves 12
For Crust:
1 cup pecan pieces
1 cup walnut pieces
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
ΒΌ cup granular Splenda
pinch fine salt
For Filling:
8 ounces softened cream cheese
8 ounces Ricotta cheese
4 eggs, separated
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
30 packets Splenda
2 ounces unsweetened bar chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup no sugar added peanut butter
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Place all crust ingredients into the blender or food processor.
3. Pulse the mixture to a coarse meal.
4. Turn the mixture into a medium (about 8-9") springform pan and press firmly to cover bottom and a half inch or so up the side.
5. Bake the crust for 5 to 6 minutes to set.
6. Remove crust and cool before filling.
7. Place the chocolate and peanut butter into a double boiler (or a heatproof mixing bowl set over a pan of simmering water) over medium low heat and allow to fuly melt, stirring occasionally with a spatula. Remove from heat.
8. Stir in 10 packets of Splenda.
9. In a separate bowl, beat cream cheese, ricotta, and one yolk until smooth. Add remaining yolks one at a time, beating between each addition.
10. Beat in remaining Splenda.
11. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to soft peaks and gently fold into the cheese mixture.
12. Pour half the cheese mixture into the prepared crust.
13. Top with the peanut butter/chocolate mixture.
14. Pour remaining cheese mixture on top of this layer.
15. Draw a knife blade through the mixture in a free-form pattern to "marble" the cheesecake.
16. Bake for about 45 to 50 minutes, until light golden.
17. Turn oven off, but do not disturb the cake. Leave the oven door ajar and allow the cake to slowly cool for about one hour.
18.Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.
Protein per serving: 9.9 grams
Effective Carb per serving: 6.5 grams
Posted by mdeades at 2:59 PM | Comments (2)
May 6, 2006
Sweet Charity
Finally, there's a truly positive step in addressing the obesity epidemic in kids. The William J. Clinton Foundation announced last Wednesday that it has struck a deal with major soda manufacturers to end sales of liquid crack at schools. If you missed it, you can read an article about it here. Bravo, Bill!
By liquid crack, for those not familiar with my pet name for them, I refer to high-fructose-corn-syrup sweetened flavored water--ie, non-diet sodas. Childhood obesity, to my view, can be laid to no small degree at the doorstep of the explosion of fructose consumption, fueled mainly by a bottomless tank of HFCS sweetened beverages, a topic we wrote about extensively in The Protein Power LifePlan
With this bold move, the purveyors of empty-calorie, carbonated beverages will no longer be selling them in the school yards. It's a real start.
Three cheers for Cadbury Schweppes, Coco-Cola, PepsiCo and the American Beverage Association for taking this important step on behalf of the health of American kids. Cynics will say that since they're being kicked out of a lot of school vending machines by concerned parents and administrators anyway, the big players of the beverage industry have seen the way the parade is already going and are getting right out in front of it to at least take advantage of some good PR. Whatever their motivation, the upshot is that it's an act of charity and responsible citizenship and it will be good for the kids.
So from my corner, I say: Hip Hip Hurrah!
Maybe my fondest wish--that the giants of the food industry would begin to act responsibly to stem the looming health crisis that will surely befall us when a nation of obese kids and teens becomes a nation of obese, diabetic, hypertensive, insulin-resistant sick adults--isn't such a wild dream after all. Maybe next they'll begin the gradual reduction of sweetness in these beverages, as I detailed in a recent blog.
Now if we could get the other big boys--those of the fast food world, exemplified by McD's, Wendy's, KFC, and Taco Bell--to further curtail the soda spigot by eliminating supersizing and putting their HFCS soda machines back behind the counter where they belong, leaving only water, soda water, and ice out and accessible for endless refills, we'd really be on to something.
The Clinton Foundation's initiative is a small step on a long journey, but we'll never get there any way but by taking one step forward...and then another...and then another.
Posted by mdeades at 11:52 AM | Comments (2)
May 3, 2006
Chai Me to the Moon
Wandering through my local natural foods grocery the other day, I happened upon the new Sugar-Free Original Oregon Chai. This was, for me, a cool experience, since I know a gentleman who used to be the President of Oregon Chai and I had lobbied him incessantly to put a bug into the ear of his erstwhile company to make their delicious product in a sugar free version. And one NOT made with aspartame, thank you. And, lo and behold, here it was, right on the shelf in front of my eyes. Whether my input influenced the development of this product or not I have not a clue. No matter. It exists!
I bought it, took it home, and promptly whipped myself up a sugar-free chai breve faux latte.
By faux, I mean that instead of using equal parts of chai and half and half as you would in a true breve latte, I used equal parts of the chai mix and water, with just a couple of tablespoons of half and half added to give it a creamy taste without a ton of unnecessary extra calories. Then I heated and frothed it with the steam wand of my handy-dandy Starbucks Athena Barista home espresso machine and voila' just like a trip to Starbucks without ever leaving the farm, so to speak. Even better, since I've yet to find a Starbucks franchise that carries chai in this new sugar-free version. Hello, Starbucks...are you listening?
Even once they begin to carry it--and surely they soon will, apparently I have but to request it--I would still have to train the barista to make mine sort of like a sugar-free chai Americano and add my own bit of half and half after the fact. Wouldn't be the first time; I've trained more than one barista (in Starbucks and elsewhere) on the finer points of making a great Americano. For those I haven't gotten to yet, listen up: put the hot water in the cup first, leave an inch or so of room, then float the double shot of espresson on top to preserve the crema. But enough of espresso; back to chai. There's one very important reason to adopt the faux latte method:
these are really tasty.
Made the traditional way, with 4 ounces of half and half per serving, even though they'd still be low in carbs, they would pack a pretty hefty calorie wallop. And that would just be for a "Tall" which means "Small" at Starbucks. In a "Grande" or, Heaven help us all, a "Venti" you can do the math on how much half and half (or milk) you'd be getting. I don't know about you, but restraint is not (nor has it ever been) my middle name. I can see how easy it would be to put away a pint of half and half or more a day drinking these things. Better to know thyself, plan ahead, and subvert temptation.
Anyway, my faux version was yummy. Hot, spicy, and just creamy enough to suit a slightly overcast and chilly day in our little town...or yours.
Posted by mdeades at 10:14 AM | Comments (1)
May 2, 2006
Alternative Fuels...for the Brain
Today's front page carried a story by Lauran Neergaard of the AP entitled "Study to test theory linking Alzheimer's with diabetes." Ms. Neergaard's article focuses on the recent announcement of a study of the diabetes drug Avandia (rosiglitazone) as a means of slowing the progression of Alzheimer's disease.
I fully agree that the theory is provocative and, in my view, valid; however, it's not all that new. There's a pretty hefty body of evidence that's accumulated over the last years suggesting that elevated blood sugar and insulin levels aren't any better for the brain than they are for the body. What's 'new' or more appropriately 'news' is that a giant of a drug company (GlaxoSmithKline) is ready to pony up big bucks basically to see if their horse in the diabetes drug sweepstakes can run on another track--ie among the drugs approved to treat Alzheimer's.
Every drug maker that can get in has gotten into the diabetes sweepstakes, what with 16 million plus targets for their products--and more lining up every day to join their ranks. The link between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease is, as Ms. Neergaard puts it
...a scary scenario: Alzheimer's already is expected to skyrocket as the populations grays, rising from 4.5 million sufferers today to a staggering 14 million by 2050. If the new theory is right [and I strongly suspect it is--MDE] the nation's current obesity-fueled epidemic of Type 2 diabetes could worsen that toll.
What the drug giants see is an enormous emerging new market for an already developed drug. The bottom-line plus for them is that there's not much investment required (relatively speaking) to get the FDA nod for approved use for a second condition. At least, not nearly as much as to develop a whole new drug.
But I digress.
Unlike many diabetes drugs that try to spur the already-struggling pancreas to produce more insulin to overcome the body's resistance to it, Avandia (rosiglitazone) acts to make the insulin work more effectively, by increasing the sensitivity of the receptors to the insulin signal. Of the two choices, Avandia and other drugs like it that spare the rod to the pancreas are a world better for diabetics.
But what's that got to do with the brain?
The brain, under typical circumstances, uses glucose (blood sugar) as its primary fuel for energy production, because in most people there's quite a lot of it around. In the insulin-resistant brain, however, while there may be lots of it around, it can't be properly used for energy. The benefit derived from using a blood-sugar-lowering drug, whether Avandia or other drugs like it, to curb the memory deterioration of Alzheimer's disease rests in improving insulin sensitivity and thereby improving the brain's ability to use blood sugar as a fuel to produce energy.
But hold on a minute.
The brain doesn't have to exclusively use blood sugar as a fuel. It can operate on an alternative energy source--ketones. Just as switching to cars that can run on alternative fuels--hydrogen, ethanol or biodiesel--will help to free us from our oil addiction (and from the grip of Middle East oil pushers) so switching the body to the use of alternative fuels can free us from the rising epidemics of diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.
And while it may take years to get the nation switched over to alternative fuels, you can throw the metabolic switch almost immediately.
Within just days of adopting a sensible low carb diet, rich in good quality protein from meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy, with plenty of essential fats, low sugar fresh fruits and low starch veggies, devoid or limited in added sugar and starches, blood sugar falls, insulin levels fall, insulin receptors begin to regain their sensitivity, glucose use improves, ketone production rises, the brain's awash in fuels and all's right with the world. (Please see caution below!**)
And that's just in the short run. In the long run, maintaining blood sugar in a narrow, healthy range on a controlled-carb diet will reap benefits body wide--including the thinking machine inside your skull.
In our twenty something years of clinical practice, we've seen it over and over and over and over again.
Unfortunately, you won't see Ms. Neergaard and her fellow inky wretches writing about it and, even more unfortunately, you probably won't see any big companies (the government included) lining up to fund a big study to prove its effectiveness.
**Caution: Be forewarned that a low carb diet is a powerful tool to control blood sugar and blood pressure. People with diabetes, who take medication to control blood sugar should absolutely NOT begin a low carb diet without the guidance of a knowledgeable physician who can help to monitor blood sugar and/or blood pressure and reduce medications appropriately.
Posted by mdeades at 1:07 PM | Comments (0)