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June 28, 2006
A Chocolate Tan
Another one of those little news tidbits that Mike finds throughout the day and posts on the home page had the most intriguing title: Chocolate as sunscreen.
Now you're talking.
The thrust of the piece is that research has suggested that when we eat dark cocoa, the catechins (flavanoid antioxidant compounds) in it make their way into the upper skin layers and aggregate there, knocking off free radicals, thickening the dermal layer (read that combating wrinkles), and plumping and moisturizing the skin.
Cocoa. Who knew?
So were all those buckets of cocoa butter I slathered on in my salad days before I went out to brown myself to a turn...I mean tan...actually protecting my skin? Maybe so. Certainly cocoa butter has had a folk lore reputation for being good for the skin for eons and is known to contain abundant antioxidants to protect its delicate oils from going rancid.
However, in this particular study the skin benefits came from actually consuming the dark cocoa, not rubbing it on, although the authors did speculate that it might also be beneficial to add these concentrated flavanoids to skin products as well, basically another angle that deserved a research look. To my knowledge, to date that look hasn't been taken--or at least hasn't been published.
I can't think of tanning in my youth without remembering some of the bizarre concoctions we came up with to promote that golden glow--all learned fifth hand from that prolific purveyor of useful information:
Somebody
As in somebody said you could get a darker tan if you add iodine to your baby oil.
As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up. We actually did it. Or tried to.
Iodine is, of course, water-based. Baby oil is precisely what its name says it is and never the two shall mix. Did it work? Who knows. Maybe it prevented our developing goiters.
But whatever it did or didn't do in the way of promoting a glorious tan, we did get our exercise trying to shake it into a relative suspension. If only I'd known then what I know now about food chemistry, I could have popped an egg yolk or a teaspoon or two of prepared mustard into it and made a nice emulsion--actually sort of a toxic vinaigrette. Now that I think of it, perhaps it's fortunate that I didn't know or I would surely have tried it.
The things we did for beauty in our misbegotten youth. Help me!
I recall, at about age 16 or 17, standing in the check out line at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store with my economy sized bottle of Johnson's Baby Oil and a big bottle of iodine, when I overheard the lady ahead of me say that somebody (there's that source again) heard from somebody who had been there (and that's not just any old somebody) that in St. Tropez they used olive oil and iodine to get that famous St. Tropez tan. I couldn't trade my bottle of powdery-fresh-scented baby oil for one of Pompeian olive oil fast enough.
Let me assure you that smearing that concoction all over your skin gives a whole new meaning to the term 'salad days' .
But enough of nostalgia; back to chocolate.
The study suggested that the protective and rejuvenating benefits cocoa imparts to the skin come from consuming pretty hefty doses of the flavanols; you'd need to eat about 3 ounces a day of dark chocolate. That might be good for the skin, but not for what the skin covers, since the bitterness of the cocoa has to be tempered with something and that something is usually a lot of sugar, not to mention containing hundreds of calories.
Amazingly, however, the Mars candy company has come up with a way of processing cocoa that preserves the flavanoid compounds which are depleted significantly by most processing methods. Higher flavanoid content means that much less cocoa can get the job done. So far, there's only one product that contains this "super cocoa" and that's the Cocoa Via bars they mention in the article.
We tried them when they were first released in limited fashion a year or two ago. They're quite good, though not really low carb (nor intended to be.) But because they're small (a good thing) each one only has about 15 grams of carb. Too much for an intervention level snack, but doable on maintenance. Mike and I occasionally split one as a little cocoa treat with an afternoon cup of coffee.
Who knew that by doing it we were plumping our skin, protecting it from free radicals, and helping to prevent sunburn. How times have changed since my salad days.
Posted by mdeades at 9:05 PM | Comments (5)
June 26, 2006
Victory Garden Update
Well, the kamikaze bunny ate my first tomato--actually I don't know for sure that he ate it, but it's gone and he's highly suspect. Others tiny tomatoes are set, many blooms are yet to set, but the numero uno tomato of the season fell victim to Bunnicula. Mike, the world's foremost tomato junkie, will not be pleased.
My own fault, really, since I hadn't gotten the marigolds set out yet to repel his advances on the tastier flora. I remedied that shortfall today--each tomato plant is now carefully caged and a nice stand of pretty, but stinky (pungent, I should say) marigolds rings the lot of them.
If he...
Now, why, I wonder, would I automatically assume this creature is a 'he' when in reality I haven't a clue? Could just as well be a she. Probably because of his kamikaze raiding tactics. That and because my entire adult life I've spent surrounded by mischevious boys...Mike, three sons, two grandsons, and in the day, even two male dogs. In our house, if some creature made a mess or was doing what he'd been told not to do, odds were it was a male.
A dear friend gave me a book once, called Up To No Good (The Rascally Things That Boys Do) which is an hilarious read, especially for anyone raising sons or grandsons. It helps to know it's not just your kids who do these things.
It wasn't until the arrival of our two daughters-in-law that the gender balance began to shift a little, but then came the two little grandprinces and the proponderance of maleness was restored. The more recent arrival of grandangel #3, the grandprincess, evened the odds a little, but Eadesville is still a male, male, male, male world.
And that brings me back to Bunnicula...if he keeps this up I'm going to have to buy tomatoes with which to make the tasty rabbit stew in which he'll play the lead!
The grandprincess said it right: Stew You, Bunny!
Posted by mdeades at 7:37 AM | Comments (2)
June 23, 2006
A Big, Fat, Mar-ga-ri-TA!
When something calls for a casual warm weather celebration at our house, that usually means whipping up a pitcher of icy cold margaritas. Once the notion of having them comes up someone--usually one of the real margarita junkies, i.e., me, our son Ted, or one of our daughters-in-law, Jamye or Katharine--starts what's become an Eades family tradition, the margarita chant. To a conga line rhythm, complete with conga choreography and maraca percussion on the 'TA' if available, it goes something like this:
Big-fat-mar-ga-ri-TA! Big-fat-mar-ga-ri-TA! Big-fat-ma-ga-ri-TA!
Everybody joins in as we form the conga line, heading for the limes in the fridge and the tequila in the pantry. It's quite possible that every household doesn't always have limes in the fridge and tequila in the pantry, but that would not generally be the case at our house. When we all get together, it's pretty much a given we're going to have a Big Fat Margarita or three. As Hank Williams, Jr. said: it's a family tradition.
A reader, who noted the passing mention of my sugar-free margaritas in a previous blog, wrote to request the recipe, which I'm happy to provide. We did the sugar-free version on one of the Low Carb CookwoRx episodes and it's, therefore, on the show's website and included in the companion cookbook to the PBS tv show. What follows is a bit quicker and easier to do, although slightly higher in carb. Advanced warning: this recipe contains Splenda. Those of you who eschew Splenda, feel free to use whatever non-caloric sweetener you prefer, aiming to replace the sweetness of about 2/3 cup (or 36 teaspoons) of sugar and adjust the carb counts according to the sweetener you use.
Big Fat Margarita!
Makes about 8 servings (or 2 apiece for 4!)
Effective carb 15 grams per serving (about half of what a commercial bar margarita has)
16 ounces fresh lime juice (or 8 ounces each lemon and lime)
16 ounces silver tequila (Sauza Blanco is a good inexpensive choice)
8 ounces orange scented liqueur (Cointreau, Gran Marnier, Citronge, Triple sec)*
24 ounces cold fresh spring water
18 packets Splenda (or your choice)
Mix all ingredients, pour into a large pitcher, chill thoroughly until icy cold.
Moisten the rim of each glass with lime juice and dip into margarita (or kosher) salt, fill glass with ice, and pour on the juice.
*If you want a fully sugar-free version, more like we did on the show, that drops the carb count even further to about 6 grams per serving--a sensible idea if you plan to have more than one--omit the liqueur, up the tequila by about 4 ounces, and make your own artifically sweetened orange syrup as follows: Bring 8 ounces of water, the zest of an orange, 6 to 8 packets of Splenda (or your choice) and a teaspoon or two of ThickenThin not/Sugar to a boil in a saucepan; turn off the heat; allow the syrup to cool completely before making the margaritas.
In the Eades' household, we drink ours on the rocks, and most of us prefer salt. If you like yours frozen, then only add say 8 ounces of water and 2 cups of ice (you're looking for a combined total of 24 ounces ice and water, which depending on how thick you want it might even be all ice) and blend until smooth.
To my way of thinking, they're the perfect summer celebration beverage. Vive la Margarita!
Posted by mdeades at 2:41 PM | Comments (3)
June 21, 2006
Steak Tartare...It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore
For my birthday last year, Mike took me to New York City to see a pair of performances at the Met and, on the day itself, to eat at the downtown location of Les Halles, the fabulous French brasserie founded by celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. I've wanted to go there since my thoughtful husband gifted me with a copy of Mr. Bourdain's hilarious (and well-written) cookbook, The Les Halles Cookbook. I laughed until the tears rolled down my cheeks as Mike read aloud the descriptive text of how to properly prepare Cote de Boeuf.
I can say, without reservation, that it proved to be one of the more memorable meals I've ever enjoyed, and, as Mike will attest, I've stored up quite a databank of meal memories. From the decor to the genially boistrous atmosphere to the mouthwatering steak frites, Les Halles screams Paris brasserie, but with a hint of that new world arrogant swagger that you'd expect out of Anthony Bourdain.
We feasted on big, juicy perfectly-grilled steaks and roasted veggies and lots of robust red wine--not to mention kir royales to start--and were pleasantly stuffed when the waiter coasted up with a cart at the table-for-two next to ours, which at Les Halles means about 3 inches away, and began to prepare Steak Tartare.
Now, as I said, we'd just finished a great meal and were awaiting the arrival of our dessert--it was, after all my birthday. But as we watched the skilled waiter deftly mix the onion, egg, capers, pickles, seasonings, and luscious raw steak, we were sorely tempted to cancel our dessert orders and tell him to just swing that cart on over to our table. I don't remember when I've ever been so tempted by a nearly pure protein dish, when I was already plenty full. Full stomach temptation, after all, is usually the purview of the carb/fat combo that is most dessert offerings. But this was no mere mortal steak tartare. This looked like tartare nirvana!
After some agonizing moments, we kept to our original plan and had dessert (while drooling over the nearby stranger's tartare) and vowed that on our next trip back to the Big Apple, we'd beat feet straightaway to Les Halles and treat ourselves to a heapin' helpin' of the tartare we missed--I wouldn't care if the only reservation we could get was for breakfast! Although, with the passage of some time, I worry that the memory of it has developed into sort of the culinary equivalent of unrequited love and there's always the danger that it might prove less perfect once realized.
Nah! I'll risk it.
In the meantime, I'll have to content myself with the recipe out of my Les Halles Cookbook--which, I fear, will be like trying to duplicate any dish your mother did well; it's never quite as good when you do it yourself.
If you enjoy reading a well-written cookbook, as Mike and I do, put the Les Halles Cookbook on your wishlist. If you're a fan of steak tartare, click here, for the very recipe that I almost traded a Creme Brulee for on my birthday.
Posted by mdeades at 12:34 PM | Comments (3)
June 19, 2006
Potassium Good for the Heart; Vindication Good for the Soul
Mike posted this article today among the "In The News" bits: Potassium Salt Substitute Is Good for the Heart. Once again, the day's headlines trumpet ground-breaking nutritional news, hot off the press, so new, so revolutionary, and so cutting-edge...at least it was when we wrote about it in the LifePlan 6 years ago and, before that, in Protein Power 10 years ago. Actually, even farther back, Mike advocated switching to potassium based salt substitutes in Thin So Fast, 16 years ago.
If vindication is good for the soul, our ethereal selves must be in fine shape by now.
Still, the message is a good one--we would all be better off increasing our consumption of potassium and reducing the consumption of sodium. We can do that by choosing to eat higher potassium foods, such as tomatoes, artichokes, yellow peppers, daikon, winter squash, nori (seaweed), edamame, black soybeans, spinach, turnip (and other dark leafy) greens . Or we can augment it by substituting a little "No Salt" for table salt in cooking to spiff up the potassium content. Or we can take a good potassium/magnesium supplement. The unifying theory here is to get more potassium for better health.
Based on the premise of this "new and groundbreaking research" about potassium enrichment and heart disease, just one look at the list of potassium-rich foods above might help to explain (at least to some degree) the lower rates of heart disease in countries like Japan. (And yet another reason why a diet, such as Protein Power, is also good for the heart.)
As we wrote so long ago now, by design, we're best suited to a diet high in potassium. Our ancient ancestors subsisted on the very roots, shoots, nuts, and berries and naturally mineralized waters that provided them with a diet far richer in potassium and magnesium than we get today and with far less sodium. We've known it for eons. Now, apparently, medical science confirms it. So, go ye forth and eat a diet higher in potassium... just like we've always told you to do.
Like I said, vindication is good for the soul.
Posted by mdeades at 11:41 AM | Comments (3)
June 15, 2006
The Victory Garden Revisited
Back at the time of WWII, families on the homefront were encouraged to plant a victory garden to provide for their own tables to leave more nutrition resources available for the men and women fighting the war. Everyone with even the tiniest square of backyard could plant greens and vegetables to help out.
An article that Mike added recently to the "in the News" feature on the home page gives us yet another reason to plant a victory garden--but this time, the point would be to achieve victory over diseases. Growing your own veggies (or buying organic produce from your local farmer's market) will reduce your exposure to pesticides (not to mention fruit and vegetable waxes and shellacs and other toxins) and promote better health. Growing a pot of herbs, a tomato plant or two, a pepper, or a salad pot doesn't take up much room and, if it's sunny, can even be done in containers on the balcony or in the window of a small studio apartment.
And veggie gardens can even be good entertainment, as we recently found out.
I always maintain a pretty healthy culinary herb garden and we have several citrus and stone fruit trees, too. Each spring we set out some heirloom tomatoes and usually some peppers and baby greens.
At our house in Boulder, we had to install a deer fence to keep the indigenous livestock from eating everything we planted. At Santa Fe, we had a high, thick adobe wall that prevented much in the way of pesky animal traffic. Here, at our part-time place in Santa Barbara, there is a fence, but no wall. As a result, this year, the garden attracted the attention of a very cute, very small, brown bunny.
When we first spotted him, our granddaughter (who is 2 1/2 ) was visiting; naturally she wanted to pet him. I dutifully kept her at bay, telling her we must watch him from afar, because we didn't want to scare him. We were having a high old time watching him hop about, when all at once he darted out of the daylilies and began to munch on the lower leaves of one of the tomato plants. I went flying across the yard, shouting "Get away from that tomato plant or I'll make a stew out of you!" which confused our granddaughter completely, since this action didn't seem to fit with the earlier proscription against scaring the bunny. She, of course, was hot on my heels, giggling and yelling "Nanny why did you call the bunny stupid?" which she's been told is not nice. A sight nicer, however, than what I actually had said about his furry little self, but which necessitated an explanation that it's not especially nice to threaten to make stew out of somebody either. Oh, the pitfalls of rearing intelligent children and grandchildren in a time of politically-correct-speak.
I suddenly find myself in the position of playing Mr. McGregor to his Peter Rabbit in a kinder, gentler world. I'm off to the garden store now to get a couple of tomato cages to protect what's left. As our granddaughter said this morning, "We'll put the tomato in a cage and say Stew You bunny!"
Posted by mdeades at 12:36 PM | Comments (2)
June 13, 2006
Bartender! A Shot of Hooch and a Cup of Joe
I knew it! This article appeared today that gives me yet another reason to enjoy my daily cups of java: Coffee may cut alcohol liver damage.
The focus of the piece is the newly released report of a retrospective study of information gathered on 125,000 patients at Kaiser Permenente that showed that the rates of alcoholic cirrhosis dropped by a whopping 22% for each cup of coffee consumed! At 5 cups a day, you'd been in negative territory at 110% risk reduction.
Yowza! My liver (and Mike's) must be made of titanium by now.
The research team isn't sure at this juncture exactly what substance(s) in coffee do the good deed--and since there are so many active antioxidant compounds in there it may take them a while to sort it out. It could even be the caffeine, since in the Kaiser study, tea drinking (which beverage also contains a ton of antioxidant compounds, but a different methylxanthine, theobromine instead of caffeine) didn't seem to confer the benefit. Interestingly, however, one simple test for liver function is its ability to handle caffeine--the phenomenon that probably accounts for one's need to shun caffeine late in the day as time marches on and liver function declines with age...and abuse. To my mind that would seem to at least suggest that something else is responsible. But who knows?
Based on this report should we chase every shot of booze with a cup of joe? Doubtful, but time will tell. In the meantime, I'll continue to enjoy my nightly glass or two of wine, the occasional margarita or three (my nearly sugar-free version, of course), and my coffee each day.
As usualy, the best course remains, as the Greeks knew 2 millennia ago: all things in moderation, nothing to excess.
Posted by mreades at 8:01 AM | Comments (2)
June 10, 2006
Antioxidants on the Run
Yesterday, at my neighborhood grocery store in our sleepy little town up in the Sierra Nevadas, I saw a great new product: Lipton Green Tea to Go. We'd seen a product similar to it at the natural foods expo a year or two ago and I fell in love with idea. I've been disappointed, however, because despite their obvious appeal, they hadn't turned up on the retailers' shelves anywhere I've looked.
These gems are little single serving packets of sugar-free powdered green tea augmented with a variety of natural flavors that you can mix with hot or cold water for a delicious pick-me-up beverage anywhere. There are several flavors; I love the tangy sweet-tartness of the Natural Mandarin & Mango and Mike, of course, likes the Natural Cherry Blossom. (I don't think he's ever met a cherry flavored anything that he didn't like.) Be advised, these are artificially sweetened with the sucralose/aceK combo, which I don't have a problem with, but which some of you may object to.
You can stick a couple of these little packets into your pocket or purse or keep a box in your desk at work and anyplace you can grab a bottle of water (or a cup or hot water) you can enjoy a delicious dose of appetite curbing, weight reducing, healthy green tea catechins.
And, best of all, in keeping with yesterday's post, these antioxidants on the run make a tasty substitute for a couple of cups of coffee, which, for me at least, will translate into saving that tablespoon and a half of cream I would have used in them.
Who'd have thought better health and longer life would come in a little foil pouch?
Posted by mreades at 1:37 PM | Comments (2)
June 9, 2006
Calorie Restriction or Carb Restriction?
One of the In The News items that Mike put on our homepage got my attention enough to merit a click. The article focused on a newly reported study showing that eating fewer calories will make a rat (and possibly by extension, a human) live longer. On its face, this is a real dog bites man story, since it's been known for eons that caloric restriction in rats, monkeys, and even in humans will extend lifespan. The news, however, is that instead of the extreme 40% reduction of calories many of the early trials adopted--a Spartan regimen that makes even rats and monkeys depressed--the reduction of this study was modest. Reducing the rats' intake by only 8% of total calories increased their longevity.
What's not mentioned in this paper, or for that matter in most reports of caloric restriction and longevity, is that because of the basic structure of lab animals' diets, the lion's share of the calorie cutting comes from cutting their carbs. Protein in their chow has to stay about the same, fat is already pretty low, and so the big chunk of any reduced calorie lab protocol comes from restricting carbs.
That's what makes this study so important to you and me. If indeed, cutting a mere 8% of calories per day can improve health and extend life, we're in luck; most of us are already there. Like the rats, we've carved our reduction out of the carb category. The trick is not to replace all of it with something else.
In the standard 2000 calorie diet, an 8% reduction would amount to cutting out a mere 160 calories a day. Done as carb, this would amount to only 40 grams a day. If Americans would adopt even a modest lower carb diet--say 60 or so effective grams a day or even a maintenance level of 80 to 100 grams--it would cut a couple of hundred grams of carb out of their diets as quick as a lab rat can flick its tail. A couple hundred grams of carb at 4 calories per gram would result in a calorie savings of 800 calories. They could replace some of them with protein, some with good fats, and as long as they don't replace all of them--keeping that magic reduction of 160 to 200 calories a day-- they'll not only sensibly lose weight, but they'll live longer to enjoy it.
Sounds like a win-win to me.
For the rest of us low-carb veterans, who already restrict our carbs to keep our insulin, blood sugar, lipids, and inflammatory markers in line, but may have let our calorie intake float up to a maintenance number, all it will take is a very modest reduction in good fat intake--at 9 calories a gram, we can get there by giving up a tablespoon and a half of oil, butter, or cream a day.
If the study's hypothesis proves valid in humans--and I grant that at this stage, that's a pretty big if--it seems to me that such a modest reduction in intake is not much of a sacrifice to make toward furthering our healthy existence by enough years to see the grandkids grow up to have kids of their own.
I'm on it!
Posted by mreades at 12:16 PM | Comments (1)
June 6, 2006
Oh, the Gall of It All
Today while I was cooling my heels waiting to get my hair cut and highlighted at the salon, I picked up a copy of Oprah's magazine. Sometimes, I come prepared with a stack of medical papers or a good book and invariably my stylist is running ahead of schedule and gets me right in. Today, I took nothing and had the usual choice of salon mags: recent issues of People, US, Oprah, Vogue and an ancient and dog-earred Travel and Leisure (which issue I've now read thrice). Although I do not subscribe to any of these periodicals, except T&L, I must confess that I do on occasion riffle through them at the salon...just to keep up on the latest breaking news, of course. Granted, the news in them is all about Brangelina or what my beloved Johnny Depp wore on the red carpet, but it's something to pass the time while sniffing the hair spray.
Today, I happened to notice a short piece in O: The Oprah Magazine entitled "Cream Puffs, Anyone?" about the recently and widely reported results of the Women's Health Initiative that showed that eating less fat doesn't reduce the risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, or heart disease. The gist of the piece was a caution that despite the lack of connection of eating fat to any of these problems, we should all still eat a diet low in fat, particularly in saturated fat, and high in healthy whole grains.
The usual drivel.
What was interesting here, however, was the comment of Elizabeth Nabel, MD, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and of the WHI study, who was reported as having said:
...the investigators have yet to report on many other things--like the effect of a low-fat diet on gallbladder disease. And eating fatty foods may saturate the bile (stored in the gallbladder) with cholesterol, which could increase the risk of stones.
Cling onto that feeble hope, Lizzie, but don't come whining to me when you get the results all analyzed and find that the people who ate the least fat had the most gallstones.
Mike and I saw exactly that result, albeit in a smaller group of patients, during the lead-in to a large weight maintenance drug trial we monitored in the late 1990s. During the trial, participants were asked to first lose weight on a low fat diet for 6 months, then were to be placed on one of three strenghths of the study drug or a placebo for a year to determine if the drug helped them maintain their meager low-fat weight loss. As a part of the study, before they began the weight loss phase, the participants underwent extensive testing, including having ultra-sound examinations of their gall bladders to look for stones. They then followed a low-fat, high-carb reduced calorie diet for 6 months with lots of nutritionist contact and regular visits and behavior mod.
At the end of the weight loss period those who had lost at least 4% of their starting weight in 6 months could go on to enter the drug trial. This cut off meant, of course, that a 200 pound woman would work for 6 months to lose 8 pounds and then be permitted to enter the maintenance trial to receive drug or placebo in a double-blinded set up, where neither the subjects nor the staff knew who got what. All this effort to see if taking a prescription drug, with not especially pleasant side effects, three times a day could help a 200 pound person maintain at 192 pounds, while continuing on a low-fat high carb maintenance number of calories.
Sheesh!
Before the subjects could enter the drug phase of the trial, however, each one had to again undergo the extensive battery of tests, including another gall bladder ultrasound. Although I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, I can attest that an unusually large number of these moderately overweight to modestly obese people had developed gallstones during the 6 months of monitored low-fat dieting. We know they hadn't had them before because we had pretty ultrasound pictures to prove it!
In all our many years (decades, actually) of helping patients lose weight on a low carb diet, which by its very nature is higher in fat, I cannot recall a single one (from among many thousands that we treated ourselves hands on) who developed symptomatic gall bladder disease.
This...there's no other word for it...ignorant notion that eating fat will cause gallbladder disease is laughable.
What makes the gall bladder empty? As any basic human physiology text will you, it's fat entering the first portion of the small intestine. When saturated, monounsaturated, or even polyunsaturated fat reaches this area, its entry triggers the release of cholecystokinin (CCK) which is the hormone that causes the gall bladder to squeeze and squirt bile into the intestine to emulsify the fat.
This is what the gall bladder is supposed to do, for crying out loud; it's its raison d'etre.
Translated loosely from its medical Latin roots, it's very name says it all: chole (gall) cysto (bladder) kinin (mover).
When little or no fat comes through, the bile in the gall bladder sits around turning to sludge. Absence of fat is the recipe for supersaturation of bile and gall stone formation, not eating fat!
You buy them their books and you send them to school and still they don't get it.
When (and if) they finally do release the further results of the WHI trial pertaining to the effect of the low fat diet on gall stone formation get ready for Round 2 of head scratching, back peddling, and scrambling from the low fat camp.
If ever there were a hypothesis doomed to failure the theory that a low fat diet prevents gallbladder disease is it.
Posted by mdeades at 7:53 PM | Comments (8)
June 3, 2006
What Did I Tell You?
Take note of the new set of side bar ads on my blog: Colon Cleansing and Vegetarian entries. What did I tell you? Took them a couple of days, though.
As I mentioned before, the ads do help support the site, so don't be afraid to give them a click if something intrigues you. Just remember it's caveat click-or! If they don't seem to you like something we'd support, you may well be right.
Posted by mreades at 1:12 PM | Comments (1)