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October 28, 2006
Bucking Conventional Wisdom
Today I spotted an interesting article by Tom Avril (Scripps-McClatchy News Service) titled in our local paper: Researcher counters meteor versus dinosaur theory of extinction.
The focus of the piece is a geoscientist, named Gerta Keller, who questions the universally-held belief that an enormous meteor that crashed into Mexico's Yucatan peninsula eons ago was what wiped out the dinosaurs.
No one, including Dr. Keller, disputes the fact that the meteor did indeed crash near the Mexican coast, scattering molten debris as far as New Jersey. Likewise, no one, including Dr. Keller, disputes that a mass extinction event occurred in which the dinosaurs precipitously lost their dominion over the earth. The question, at least in Dr. Keller's mind, is whether the two events are joined in causality.
She doubts, because she and her colleagues claim to have found evidence of the Mexican meteor's debris embedded in sedimentary layers in locations in Texas and Mexico deposited 300,000 years before the dinosaurs became extinct. In the great scheme of 65 million years, 300,000 years plus or minus is only a 0.5% error, but in absolute terms, it's a long long time.
She presented her evidence to her fellow wizards, who were mostly not amused:
Keller did not provoke angry shouts Tuesday, as she has in the past, but there was vigorous skepticism from some in the audience of several hundred scientists.
Obviously, she isn't the first (nor will she be the last) scientist to shake up and anger the establishment with a view outside the mainstream. Galileo springs to mind. His travails with the ruling establishment of his day (which happened to be the Catholic Church) are the stuff of legend. And we all know who turned out to be right. Innovation rarely comes from the mainstream. If you're interested in reading a fabulous book about his struggles, check out Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter
But I digress...back to dinosaurs and meteors and embattled scientists of today.
When asked why she felt her novel theory generates such rancor among her peers, Dr. Keller responded:
"So many people have invested so much time on one theory," she said of the Mexico-meteor concept. "It was a very sexy, very nice theory...Everybody can identify with it. Except the details don't fit."
And those last two lines really got me; I could identify with her plight. Advance a scientifically sound theory that runs counter to the mainstream view and get vilified for your trouble? Been there...got the T-shirt.
It hasn't happened to us often, but I still recall one early morning radio interview years ago in which I was repeatedly called "Dr. Death" by my interlocutor, because I recommend eating meat as the cornerstone of a healthy human diet. It was a set up piece, as it turned out, in which the station manager interviewing me was a card carrying PETA vegan.
No amount of scientific evidence that I offered to support our meat-eating origins--not our obligate dependence on vitamin B12, found only in food from animal sources; or the structure of the human GI tract, much more like a carnivore's being relatively short, with only one very acidic stomach and a gall bladder; or the carnivorous set of our eyes on the front of our skull; or the pointy canine teeth we still sport; or the many nutrient deficiencies of a vegan diet--could sway her beliefs.
She had her very nice, very sexy theory that she and her compatriots could identify with. And she didn't give one whit that the details don't fit. Her mind's made up; don't confuse her with the facts!
That's blind adherence to an ideology and it's dangerous. Unfortunately, it's not so unlike the rabid fervor that surrounds the lipid hypothesis of heart disease or the firm belief that serum cholesterol must be artifically pushed lower and lower with medications or that the low fat diet is the healthiest diet or that saturated fat is evil incarnate. Positions firmly entrenched, widely believed, and canonized as sacred by an overwhelming percentage of the populus who seem not to care a whit that the details don't fit. But woe be it to anyone who dares to suggest that maybe, just maybe the science isn't there to support them.
As Dr. Keller put it: So many people have invested so much time on one theory...
Fortunately for us all, Mr. Avril's article points out that there are at least a few open minds still left in the scientific community. One in the person of Dr. Kenneth Lacovara a paleontologist from Drexel university, who moderated the geoscientific session in which Dr. Keller presented her findings. As Mr. Avril reported:
Lacovara readily admits that science is not conducted by majority vote. The truth emerges when a researcher's results are repeated. He directed his Drexel graduate students to attend Keller's session so they could see science in action.
Because, as Dr. Locovara himself stated:
"This is really the scientific process. Gerta may be wrong. Most people say she's wrong. But you put it out there... I may not agree with her, but I think it's great what she's doing."
And so from this sane scientist, my quote of the year:
Science is not conducted by majoriy vote.Words to live by.
Posted by mdeades at 11:53 AM | Comments (2)
October 23, 2006
Low Carb CookwoRx Fans Rejoice!
For those of you who enjoy our PBS television cooking/nutrition show, Low Carb CookwoRx, we just got a piece of good news.
The show has been picked up to air for another year by network PBS HD and given a regular time slot beginning in January 2007. We'll be on air cooking, canoodling, and commenting Monday through Friday at 5:30 pm and 2:30 am Eastern time. What we haven't heard, yet, is whether the programming will go out as a single feed or dual feed (which makes a difference in time slot on the West Coast stations--i.e., will it feed across the country at once, showing at 4:30 pm and 1:30 am in Central time, 3:30 pm and 12:30 am in Mountain time, and be 2:30 pm and 11:30 pm in Pacific time or will it be refed to show on the west coast in the same time slots as Eastern time.) We're working to find that out now and will let you know by blog when we do, but rest assured that the show will be back on next year in a stable time slot.
Also, we've just learned that CookwoRx also got picked up by the new Create TV Network, a public tv for cable channel, which by federal mandate must be offered on basic cable packages by every cable provider in the country beginning in 2007. Our Create TV time slots are also regular: four times a day on Wednesdays and Sundays at 1:30 am, 7:30 am, 1:30 pm, and 7:30 pm beginning December 3, 2006.
The Create TV deal is great news for us, personally, since the show isn't currently carried by either of the cable providers where we live, so we, ourselves, haven't seen most of the completed shows on tv.
We hope that now most of you will be able to get the series and will enjoy and profit from it. And if you do, call, write, or hop online to tell your cable provider or PBS affiliate station!
If you don't like the show, just quietly change the channel! ;D
Posted by mdeades at 11:06 AM | Comments (3)
October 17, 2006
Disney Takes on Big Sugar
The front page article of the business section in today's newspaper warmed my heart and got me to thinking that maybe, just maybe the tide will begin to turn on this epidemic of childhood obesity. The piece, by Gary Gentile, picked up in our local paper from the AP was titled:
The Healthiest Place on Earth? Disney aims to improve diets of kids with new guidelines.
The gist of the piece is that the Disney Company, arguably among the most influential of corporate voices speaking to young, impressionable children, has declared its intention to promote healthier eating both in its theme parks and in the meals inside whatever kid's meal box it plasters its latest cartoon hero or heroine on.
What I thought especially heartening was the that guidelines for what it will serve at the parks and in the fast food kid's meals it uses to promote its animated movies don't just focus on fat.
That's not to say, of course that they don't still line up behind all the usual (misguided) directives on limiting fat in general and (even more misguided) saturated fat in particular, but at least they've also decreed not merely to limit but to outright ban trans fats in all meals at their US parks by the end of 2007 and in any promotional item by 2008.
No transfats allowed! Hats off to the forward-thinking folks at the place my husband (who worked at Disneyland long years ago in his misbegotten youth) still fondly calls "The Biggest People Trap Ever Built By A Mouse!"
What fair took my breath away, though, was that right there beside the expected directives that no entree or side dish can contain more than 30% of calories as fat and no snack more than 35% and no dish of any stripe more than 10% of calories as saturated fat proudly stood another much more important one that says they will:
Limit sugar to 10% of calories for main dishes and side dishes and 25% of calories for snacks.
It's not the whole enchilada starry eyed dreamers like me would hope for, but it's a major step toward better health for kids in this country. All I can say is Yipppeee!
For once, somebody with some clout is taking a swipe at Big Sugar.
Who'd a thought the first blow would be landed by Mickey Mouse?
Posted by mdeades at 4:56 PM | Comments (1)
October 14, 2006
Almond Milk: How Unsweet It Is!
Many thanks to blog reader, Amy, for alerting me to yet another reason the demand for almonds has gone up: the arrival of an unsweetened almond milk product line on store shelves that has apparantly been the new buzz on the Protein Power Discussion Forum of late.
Not sure how I zoned out and missed this, since I'm constantly combing the shelves for just this kind of product, but there it is; I missed it.
The Almond Breeze of yore, like most of the non-dairy 'beverages' on the market, contained a ton of added sugar per serving, about 20 grams or so; while we might like the fat and carb profile of the almonds themselves, we sure didn't like that slug of cane juice. The new product line for Almond Breeze (a division of Blue Diamond Almonds) fixes that problem and, quite smartly, avoids another potential mistep by choosing not to sweeten the product artifically themselves, leaving the choice of doing that or not and of picking what to do it with to the consumer.
Unsweetened Almond Breeze comes in three flavors--original, vanilla, and chocolate--and has a great nutritional profile and ingredient list devoid of added bad fats, unwanted preservatives or sweeteners of any sort. Thus, if you want to sweeten it and sucralose melts your butter you can add it in. If you're a stevia devotee, instead, no problem; add it in. If it's xylitol or ertythritol or tagatose for you, you can knock yourself out!
Imagine: a single gram of carb in 8 fluid ounces of the original or vanilla flavor and a whopping 2 grams in the chocolate! How great is that? And what a boon to the low carb community, too. I can see recipes for pudding, ice cream, frappuccino, and how about a blanc manger or biancomangiare, in Italian? Yeowwie! Gotta get to work on that a.s.a.p.
I recall one spectacular biancomangiare Mike and I enjoyed on a trip to Sicily. We were staying at the fabulous wine estate, Regaliali, in the countryside as part of a foodie tour with a group of friends, led by our friend, American expat, best selling travel
Our stay at Regaliali included a series of cooking classes and one of the dishes we prepared was biancomangiare, which we enjoyed for dessert that night after a spectacular Sicilian dinner, gathered around the enormous square wooden farmtable in the Regaliali kitchen with our friends and lots of good wines from their cellars. That one may rank as the best I've ever eaten; of course, the setting didn't hurt.
Almond trees flourish in Sicily and we'd been treated to the sight of grove after grove of almond trees in flower. I remember one ancient grove on the slopes of some ruins at, I believe, Agrigento; quite a beautiful juxtaposition of the delicate pale pink flowering trees against the backdrop of tumbling ancient stone walls.
Yes, I'm going to give the new Unsweetened Almond Breeze a try in making biancomangiare soon and when I do, I'll share the recipe with you.
But first, with the demand for almonds on the rise, I think I'll go plant a few almond trees in the back yard. In just three short years, I'll have a crop...it they don't get rustled.
Posted by mdeades at 9:57 AM | Comments (5)
October 12, 2006
Beware the Almond Rustlers
A number of years ago, we purchased a small Haas avocado ranch on the central coast of California on which we had planned to build a home from which we could watch the sunset on the Pacific and eat a lot of guacamole. First one thing and then another interfered with our plans (mostly the obstructive, hostile posture of the local county planning board) and after several frustrating and expensive years of wrangling with them, we finally sold the property. It was our first foray into the world of agriculture and an eye-opening foray it was.
You'll notice that I didn't say avocado farm or even avocado orchard, although the latter term is acceptable apparantly; for some peculiar reason, stands of avocado trees are referred to as 'ranches' and thus, we were, briefly, avocado ranchers. A host of problems can bedevil the novice avocado rancher: blights of one kind and another; thrips, a destructive insect pest that deforms the fruit and mars its skin, making it fetch less in the marketplace; and rustling. You sort of expect to have to fight disease and pestilence in the agri biz, but rustling?
Oh, yes. Believe it or not, your avocado crop can get rustled, just like a herd of cattle, and ranchers have to institute measures to protect their fruit from such predation. Being on the road a lot and mainly absentee land owners without a full-time manager, we lost half a crop one season.
Ouch!
Thus, I read with interest a recent piece by Jesse McKinley of the New York Times that was picked up in our local paper:
Almonds the prize for new crop thieves.
It would appear that avocados aren't the only rustle-worthy product.
The piece described the travail of one Scott Phippen, a third-generation almond man who had recently had about 88,000 pounds of almonds with a street value of $260,000 nut-napped from his shipping yard in Fresno.
According to the article, he's not alone:
Driving the crime wave is the surging popularity of almonds, which are high in vitamin E and antioxidants and have been linked to lower cholesterol levels and a reduced risk of heart disease.
While that's all true, it occurred to me that there might be something else at work. Perhaps the surging popularity of almonds (and avocados for that matter) might also be a consequence of the broad-based popularity of the low carb diet into which both foods figure prominently. Certainly, thanks at least in part to our PBS tv show, our cookbooks, and those of other low-carb authors, the use of almond meal as a flour substitute has skyrocketed, both for home baking and for commercial purposes, such as my favorite cracker, the Blue Diamond Nut Thin.
And as the demand for almonds has risen, so has their value to the almond-rustling underworld, who have nut-napped $1.5 million in nuts from the industry.
What does one do with 88,000 pounds of almonds? Make one whale of a coffee cake.
For the rest of us, who have slightly fewer almonds to deal with, click here for the recipe for Pecan Cinnamon Coffee Cake we made on the Coffee Klatch episode of our PBS tv show Low Carb CookwoRx. (You'll need to type the recipe title into the recipe search browser bar on the CookwoRx site.)
The recipe only calls for 1 cup of almond flour (or meal) so if you've got leftovers, be sure to lock 'em up, lest they be rustled!
Posted by mdeades at 12:10 PM | Comments (2)
October 6, 2006
Waiting for the Great Pumpkin (Soup, that is)
I dont' know about you, but when the leaves begin to turn, the days shorten, and the evenings get a chill, my tastebuds long for something warm and savory. And nothing satisfies that longing quite like a steaming bowl of creamy soup.
One of the best bases for low carb savory soups happens to be everywhere this time of year, in fields, grocer's bins, roadside stands, and for the next month or so, carved and lit on neighborhood front porch steps. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the pumpkin.
A pumpkin is, of course, a member of the squash family and as such weighs in pretty low in sugar and starch, pretty rich in fiber, and as a heavyweight in nutrient density. A half-cup of cooked pumpkin contains only a bit over 6 grams of effective carbohydrate in addition to about 3 grams of fiber. But the real payload in that same half cup comes from the 15,000 plus micrograms of betacarotene and 250 mg of potassium it contains! As a potassium source, bananas can only stand openmouthed in awe. Granted, cup per cup, bananas (at 445 mg per half cup) have more potassium than an equivalent amount of pumpkin, but per gram of useable carb, pumpkin has twice as much. In other words, to get the same 252 mg of potassium provided by a half cup of pumpkin (for 6.3 grams ECC) you'd have to eat 13.4 grams of banana carb.
In addition to its obvious role as a filling for holiday pies, pumpkin, roasted and pureed, makes a great addition to muffiins, cookies, and other quick breads, makes a hearty thickener for the broth of soups or stews, and, as in this case, makes a great soup unto itself.
Since we'll all be awash in pumpkins from here to New Years Day, I thought now might be a good time to start breaking out the "what to do with" pumpkin ideas from the vault.
Here's a recipe for one of our favorites, called Velvety Pumpkin Soup. Enjoy it now, as the weather chills, but keep it at the front of the recipe box, because it makes a great first course for Thanksgiving dinner, too.
Velvety Pumpkin Soup
Serves 6
Ingredients
½ stick unsalted butter
1 small onion, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and minced fine
2 packets Splenda (or Stevia)
2 cups chicken broth
½ cup water
½ teaspoon coarse salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 (15-ounce) can solid pack pumpkin or about 2 cups cooked pumpkin, mashed
2 cups half and half
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 teaspoons crème fraiche or heavy cream (optional garnish)
6 fresh sage leaves (optional garnish)
1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and when it foams and just begins to turn golden, add the onion and garlic. Cook for a minute or two until soft.
2. Add the chicken broth, water, salt, pepper, and sweetener and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook for another 10 to15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Stir in the pumpkin, half and half, and cinnamon and cook another 5 minutes to heat through.
4. Blend with an immersion blender
5. Reheat to serve.
6. Garnish each bowl of soup with a dollop of crème fraiche or a flourish of slightly thickened heavy cream and a single leaf of fresh sage in the center.
Enjoy! Oh, and in the meantime, Happy Haunting!
Posted by mdeades at 3:03 PM | Comments (0)
October 2, 2006
To Thine Own Self Be True...and Label Savvy
A few days ago, I saw an article by AP writer Candice Choi that was picked up in our local paper titled:
Serving size a pitfall for label-readers. Americans often miscalculate, eating too much.
The article focused on a study done at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, TN that looked into how well people can understand nutritional labels on products, a question for which, as it turns out, the answer is 'not very well.'
Having been in the weight loss/diet/nutrition clinical trenches for twenty years or so, I could have saved them the money and told them in advance what the study ultimately proved: in the great majority, people don't read labels on foods and even those who do read them often miss the part about serving number and serving size and even those who do recognize that a serving of beans as listed on the can is 1/2 cup will have the devil of a time correctly estimating the volume of 1/2 cup unless they measure.
Certainly all the blame can't be laid on the consumer--although much of it must rest there--but also on the food manufacturers, who, in their desperation to make their products conform to the needs of target groups--low fat, low sodium, no trans fats, or low carb, to name a few--contort the serving size to suit their marketing need of the moment. I mean, a bottle of soda pop is a serving in the eyes of most consumers, not the multiple plus a fraction number of servings that lets the manufacturer slip under some pre-determined limit, adhering to the letter of the labelling laws, but not the spirit.
It's all quite confusing to the av-er-age bear, as Yogi would say.
Veteran low carb dieters tend to be more conscious of the trickery employed by manufacturers than most consumers, I think, because experience has taught them to beware, but most of us have been hoodwinked at one time or another by a crafty labelers' subterfuge.
That's why, we always encouraged, urged, cajoled, and reminded our patients to:
1) read nutritional labels carefully for portion size, for carbs per portion, and for the presence of unhealthy additives, such as partially hydrogenated fats and oils, aspartame, MSG, nitrates, etc. in the ingredients listing.
2) measure portions carefully on carb rich foods, if they elected to eat them, so that the intended 1/8 cup of corn kernals doesn't become 3/4 cup and with it the 5 grams of carb become 30.
3) keep a diet diary of all food consumed, at least when trying to correct a health issue or lose weight.
Yes, keeping a diet record is a pain in the keester, but like all worthwhile habits, it comes with rewards. Studies have shown that people trying to make a life change, in this case a dietary one, will be 4 times more likely to succeed if they record their intake and output honestly. We distributed a crisp new single sheet food and exercise diary each week to every one of our patients and expected them to do their part by entering everything that passed their lips each day--every bite, sip, prescription pill, or supplement--as well as all extra physical output. We, for our part, collected them and personally looked over every single entry every week, made comments, and returned them the following week.
If you've never undertaken the exercise of keeping a dietary record, I highly recommend it; if you're like us and most of our patients over the years, it will prove to be an eye-opening experience if you do it with complete honesty.
These sorts of basic common knowledge tools or methods for success too often get shunted aside in the press to argue over the finer points of exercise or nutrition, but that doesn't make them any less valid. Mike and I thought them so important for long term success that we included a 365 Day food/exercise journal (tailored, obviously, for a low carb diet) in our book Staying Power
If when dieting, you hit a plateau in weight loss or in control of health measures, such as cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, or blood sugar, going back to these basics can often provide the kick that gets things going again.
As is so often the case, it is doing the little things well that matters the most.
Posted by mdeades at 11:45 AM | Comments (4)