They’ve carefully crafted a guidebook to comfort food eating that harkens back, not to your old granny, but to your biochemical and physiologic roots: the paleo diet that we, as humans, were molded by the forces of several millennia of natural selection to thrive on, before the dawn of agriculture (by which I mean wheat and corn farming) when our human diet was primarily meat (meaning that which we could hunt or catch with a pointy stick and our wiles) supplemented by seasonal roots, shoots, nuts, and berries.

The book is a comprehensive tool for the paleo kitchen, offering recipes for appetizers, sauces and staples, soups and salads, side dishes, mains, and yes, desserts (afterall, as we’ve always said, even the paleo hunter stumbled into a honey tree from time to time.)

Mike and I love their Steak Roll (stuffed with onions, celery, mushrooms, leeks and spinach) but we put a sous vide twist on it so that we can have it reliably medium rare but still tender. And cooked sous vide, it’s something you can prep, roll, vacuum seal, and drop in the bath at 134F to cook all day while you’re at work or busy doing something fun. Then it’s just a quick sear in hot lard to put a golden crust on it and golly Bob howdy, that’s good eats!

Paleo Comfort Food is sure to become an indispensable go-to resource in any low-carber’s kitchen, whether devoutly paleo or not.

To quote the author,

Watermelon is the perfect fruit to enjoy on a hot summer day, as it consists of about 92% water by weight. It is an excellent source of vitamins A and C, and a good source of potassium.

I couldn’t agree more! And paired with salty goat cheese and the tang of red onion all wrapped up in creamy prosciutto, it’s got my vote for most appealing summer appetizer.

Here’s his delightful recipe.

Prosciutto-wrapped watermelon
Sam Edelman

6 ounces spreadable goat cheese

1 small (about 3-pound) watermelon, seedless preferred, cut into 2-inch-by-1/2-inch spears

1 small bunch fresh basil, leaves removed, washed and thinly sliced

1 small red onion, thinly sliced

4 ounces prosciutto, cut into approximately 3-inch-by-2-inch pieces

Spread about 1/2 tablespoon goat cheese on each watermelon spear. Add sprinkle of fresh basil followed by a couple slices of red onion. Wrap each watermelon spear in prosciutto and secure with toothpick. Refrigerate until ready to serve. You can substitute fresh cantaloupe, honeydew or any other melon if preferred, or use a mix.

Yield: about 25 servings

Thanks, Sam!

Canned Pumpkin Shortage is Over

…and just in time for the holidays!

Pumpkin is such a wonderfully low carb vegetable–fewer than 10 grams per cup of mashed, cooked flesh–that it really puts a crimp in your pie not to be able to find it. I love to make soup of it in the fall. It just sort of rings in the season. And like so many low-sugar, low-starch, high fiber foods, it’s also dense with nutrients, just chocked full of alpha- and beta-carotenoids, potassium, magnesium, vitamins C and E to name just the highlights.

I had the devil of a time finding some of the stuff back during the summer when I was working on recipes for the SousVide Holiday cookbook that will be coming out this fall. The recipes are not necessarily intended to be low carb, though I sneaked in one for Cauliflower Puree, but some are pretty easily adaptable.

Among the dessert recipes is one for Pumpkin Creme Brulee, made in the original with sugar, but completely delicious made with Splenda, Truvia, or stevia or whatever non-caloric sweetener floats your boat.

Here it is, pimped low carb and with instructions for traditional cooking in a bain Marie in the oven.

Low Carb Pumpkin Crème Brulee

Serves 6 to 8

1 – 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (for greasing ramekins)
8 whole eggs
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup granular sucralose (or amount of another sweetener equivalent to 1/2 cup sugar)
1 cup cooked mashed pumpkin
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons brown sugar (1/2 teaspoon each for finishing)

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Put a roasting pan on the rack and fill it with about 1 inch of water.
2. Liberally butter the insides of all the ramekins.
3. In a heavy saucepan, mix the cream and sweetener and heat until the cream begins to send up little tendrils of steam (thermometer should read 140F.)
4. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs until light yellow.∗
5. Slowly pour the warm cream into the eggs, a bit at a time, whisking all the while to temper them.
6. Add the mashed pumpkin, spice, and vanilla and whisk to mix well.
7. Pour the pumpkin custard mixture into each ramekin, almost to the top.
8. Carefully place each filled ramekin into the heated water bath in the oven.
9. Cook the custard for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until set.
10. Remove from the water bath, allow custard to cool to room temperature, then cover ramekins and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
11. Before serving, let sit at room temp for about 30 minutes, then sprinkle each serving with ½ teaspoon brown sugar and caramelize the topping with a kitchen torch or under a preheated broiler.

At 5 to 6 grams of effective carb per serving, Pumpkin Creme Brulee is a real low-carb autumn treat. If you prefer, you can omit the caramelized sugar to save those 2.5 grams of pure sugar carb and simply top the custard with a dollop of artificially sweetened whipped cream instead. It won’t be creme brulee, of course, but it will still be finger lickin’ good!

For those of you who may own one or more of our cookbooks, there is a good version of mayonnaise in the Low Carb Comfort Food Cookbook and another, slightly easier version that shows up in both our 30-Day Low Carb Diet Solution book and in our Low Carb CookwoRx Cookbook.

Mayonnaise is nothing more than an emulsion of oil and water, and as such, is a delicious and healthy low-carb food, if made with good oil. Therein lies the problem for most commercial mayonnaise: they’re usually made with nasty soybean oil or canola oil, basically a trans fat slurry. Now and again, I can find a good olive oil mayonnaise in Whole Foods or Lazy Acres or some similar natural food grocery, but for the most part the stuff that’s sold on the standard grocery shelf is made with simply wretched oils. And if you’ve read our books, you know that one of the most important aspects of good nutrition is the quality (not the quantity) of the fat you put into your mouth.

Making mayonnaise may seem daunting, but it’s really simplicity itself. I’ll share my blender version, but a word of caution. Don’t use your good quality extra virgin olive oil for making mayonnaise. It will become bitter in the blender. I haven’t a clue why, but it happens quite regularly, so don’t waste your money or the good oil. Most of the time, I use a ‘Light’ Olive oil–I think it’s Bertoli, maybe–that I can pick up at the regular grocery store for making mayonnaise. Occasionally, I will make it with avocado oil or if I want a particular flavor, with a nut oil, such as walnut oil, but not for everyday mayo.

Here’s all you do:

Basic Blender Mayo
(Makes 16 Tablespoons)

1 raw egg yolk (pasteurized in the shell egg if available)
2 teaspoons champagne vinegar or white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 lemon, juice only (about 1 tablespoon)
1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
dash cayenne pepper
1 packet Splenda (optional, but gives it a slight sweetness like Miracle Whip)
3/4 to 1 cup light olive oil

1. Crack egg and put yolk only into the blender
2. Add the vinegar and salt and blend on low speed.
3. With the motor running, add all the remaining ingredients, except the oil.
4. With the motor still running, add the oil in a slow, steady stream until it makes mayonnaise of the consistency you desire. Be careful not to add the oil too fast or add too much oil or you may break the emulsion and the mayonnaise will separate and clump.*
5. Store in the refrigerator in a clean jar (good use for store-bought mayonnaise) or a container with a tight-fitting lid for up to a week.

*Don’t despair if your mayonnaise breaks and don’t throw out the result. While, once broken, it will not likely ever thicken into a spreadable form, you can save it in a jar in the refrigerator and whisk herbs and garlic and a bit more salt into it to make a nice mayonnaise-based dressing, which demands a looser emulsion anyway.

My all-time favorite recipe for classic Bittersweet Chocolate Truffles comes from Alice Medrich’s wonderful book A Year in Chocolate: Four Seasons of Unforgettable Desserts(Warner Books 2001).

Click on the image of her book at left to find out more.

I sometimes make batches of these delicacies to take as a hostess gift to dinner parties instead of wine, since just about everybody loves a luscious chocolate truffle.

And besides, good cocoa is a health food (see here) filled with active flavinoid compounds, such as epicatechin, which according to some researchers may be protective against the development of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes.

But what about the sugar content?

I confess that I’ve always felt a little twinge of guilt, in light of my own dietary dictums, being the bearer of temptation by bringing truffles, assuming them to be too carby for anybody’s good. So one day last fall, I got out the recipe and ran it through my food processor nutritional calculator to see exactly what kind of damage I might actually be doing to my friends.

I was astonished when I discovered that these classic truffles, made exactly according to Ms. Medich’s recipe without any carb pimping on my part, had a mere 3 grams of carbohydrate each. Not nothing, but not much for something so decadent and satisfying. So I set about last December to make boxes of a couple of dozen Handmade Classic Truffles as Christmas gifts for many of our friends and family.

I intend to make another batch for Valentine’s Day, for there can be no greater calling than plying your love with good chocolate. If you’d like to join me, here’s my favorite recipe from Ms. Medrich’s most wonderful book. If you’re a chocolate lover, as I confess that I most definitely am, it’s one you may want to add to your cookbook library.

Bittersweet Chocolate Truffles
from Alice Medich, A Year in Chocolate
[with photos and commentary by me]
Makes about 30 bite-sized truffles

Ingredients
8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped fine
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsaltd butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk, at room temperature
1/4 cup boiling water
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder

Equipment: Instant-read thermometer

To make the truffles, place the chocolate and butter in a 4- to 6-cup heatproof bowl set in a wide skillet of barely simmering water over low heat. Stir frequently until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth.

Remove the bowl and set aside. Leave the skillet on low heat.

Place the egg yolk in a small bowl. Gradually whisk in the boiling water . Place the bowl in the skillet and stir constantly until the yolk mixture thickens slightly to the consistency of light cream and registers between 160 and 165 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer. [I have discovered that on a chilly day, it helps speed this process along to put a square of aluminum foil over the bowl while stirring.]

Remove from the skillet and scrape the yolk mixture immediately over the melted chocolate.

Stir gently, without whisking or beating, just until the egg is completely incorporated and the mixture is smooth. Pour through a fine strainer into a clean bowl. [I confess I skip this step for the sake of ease.] Cover and chill until firm, 2 hours or more.

To form the truffles, remove the truffle mixture from the refrigerator and allow it to soften about 30 minutes if the mixture is very hard. Pour cocoa into a pie plate.

Dip a melon baller or small spoon into a glass of hot water, wipe off the excess water, and scrape across the surface of the chilled truffle mixture to form a rough 1-inch ball. Pinch the truffle into shape with your fingers if necessary; it should not be perfectly round. [They're supposed to look something like the gnarly savory 'real' truffles that pigs root up under French oak trees.] Deposit the truffles into the cocoa [a few at a time.] Repeat with the remaining truffle mixture. Gently shake the pie plate to coat truffles with cocoa. [I usually roll them around a little bit with my fingertips to get them well covered and then pinch them gently into a rounder shape. Sometimes after they sit a bit, I give them an extra roll in the cocoa just for good measure.]

Store truffles, tightly covered and refrigerated, up to 2 weeks, or freeze up to 3 months.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!

Authentic Gazpacho Andaluz
Serves 6

For the Soup Base
3 pounds of ripe, red Roma or plum tomatoes, stemmed and quartered
(or 3 (14-ounce) cans of diced fire roasted tomatoes, drained)
1/2 large red bell pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
1/4 large green bell pepper, seeded and coarsely chopped
1/2 large English (seedless) cucumber, cut into large chunks
1 clove finely chopped or pressed garlic
1 ounce lemon juice
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (preferably Spanish)
1/3 cup sherry vinegar (not cooking sherry, sherry wine vinegar)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt, or to taste
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

1. Place all ingredients into a blender or food processor and pulse to chop, then process until pretty smooth. You may have to do this in two batches depending on the size of your machine.
2. Refrigerate for at least 5 hours. Overnight is fine, too.
3. Remove from refrigerator and press the soup through a medium mesh sieve into a large bowl, using the back of a wooden spoon to extract every luscious drop from the pulp. Discard the pulp.
4. Taste and adjust seasonings, adding a bit more salt, pepper, or vinegar as desired.
5. Return the soup base to the refrigerator until ready to serve.

For the garnish
1 large red tomato, peeled, seeded, and diced small
1/2 large red bell pepper, seeded and diced small
1/2 large English (seedless) cucumber, peeled and diced small
1/2 red onion, peeled and diced small

1. Prepare the garnish vegetables, keeping each type separate, and refrigerate until serving.
2. Place a pile of each of the garnish vegetable onto a serving plate or tray to pass.

At serving time
1. Ladle about a cup of the gazpacho base into each bowl.
2. Pass the garnish tray to let each guest load up their soup as they’d like.

That’s the way we do it at Casa Eades, though there are many other also traditional garnishing options that we noted on our Spanish travels through Andalusia, such as tiny croutons, chopped up hard-boiled egg, fresh kernels of corn. Personally I don’t need anything but the fresh, cool, crunchy veggies we always use. On occasion, when I haven’t had enough cans of tomatoes, or the fresh ones didn’t have enough flavor and acidity, I have spiked it with organic V8 juice to perk up the tomato-y essence of it.

No matter how you make it, gazpacho Andaluz is the perfect low carb soup: piquant, refreshing, flavorful, and filled with lycopenes, antioxidants, and other phytochemicals.

Enjoy.

But just in time for the holidays and all those New Year’s Resolutions that follow them, there’s a good one to recommend that both encompasses modestly lower carb healthy eating habits for kids and an effective regimen of strength building:

Fred’s book is spot on about how to make kids stronger and fitter and though it’s not really a diet book, per se, it offers good information about how to feed kids right and offers a number of tasty, kid-friendly recipes. We highly recommend it. You can check it out here.

A caveat: We know from experience that weight loss in kids is tough. The job is made tougher still, because oftentimes, it’s not the kid who’s doing the eating who is concerned about weight, it’s the parent(s) who bring the child in demanding that he or she be ‘cured’. And I can tell you, without hesitation, that unless the child wants to make the change, it’s not going to happen. No matter the degree of sturm and drang the parents might bring to bear, a mandated ‘weight loss intervention’ will be an exercise in futility.

For that very reason, in our practice, we were always very careful in determining whether to accept teen, pre-teen, or adolescent patients for weight loss. We interviewed parent and child extensively and unless we could satisfy ourselves that it was actually the kid who wanted to make the change, we knew we would be wasting our time, their time, and somebody’s money to put an unwilling, uncommitted child on a dietary program. (The same is actually also true for adults.)

And kids have to be handled somewhat differently, to boot.

Just as rats aren’t merely furry little humans, kids aren’t merely cute little adults and nutritionally they can’t be treated as such. For instance, because they’re actively growing–building bones, muscles, hearts, and brains– kids need more grams of good quality protein per pound of lean body weight than adults do. Because they’re building brains, the need more essential fatty acids. Their fluid requirements may differ; they are more sensitive to intake of toxic contaminants in food. And while they obviously shouldn’t stuff themselves with empty calories, they should likewise not be put into a severe calorie, fat, or protein deficit. Ultra low fat diets, vegan regimens, or crash dieting, while not especially beneficial for adults can be particularly damaging to growing children.

For these reasons and a host of others, in our years in clinical practice we counseled the concerned parents of the overweight kids (who were honestly among both our most challenging and most rewarding patients) to make the issue more about what the child eats not how much. And to do it with a light and loving hand. We asked them to bear in mind that even if a child is overweight for a given height, that height is an increasing variable in childhood and our goal might be to simply keep their child from gaining any more weight and let the expected natural increase in height catch up.

For those of you who may be concerned about your child’s weight or fitness (and I know there are many of you judging by the letters) let me share with you the Cliff Notes version of the basic principles we taught the parents who brought their overweight kids to us. Following them can increase the likelihood of successfully helping an overweight child become leaner and fitter without making weight loss or diet the hot button issue it can sometimes become in the home.

Dr. Eades’ 7 Cardinal Rules for Parents for Feeding Kids Right

1. Clear out all the junk food. Make the chip or the sweet a treat, something rare and special, a dietary privilege not a daily right. If it’s not a whole ‘real’ food, not meat, fish, chicken, dairy, fruit or vegetable, then it’s probably junk. If it’s prepackaged, it’s probably junk. If its first ingredient is sugar, corn syrup, or white flour, it’s most assuredly junk. (Remember: Sweetened fruit juices and sweetened whole grain cereal products are no different from sodas…they’re junk, too.)

2. Stock the right kinds of foods in your home and make them what your whole family eats. Keep available meat, poultry, fish, eggs, protein powders for shakes; organic yogurt, milk and cheese; fresh whole fruits and low-starch vegetables; deli meats and nuts for snacking. The linear thinking of kids will demand that if good food is nutritious, then everybody in the household ought to be eating it. And if everybody isn’t, why should they? You can’t expect your overweight teen or child to eat differently than you or other family members do. Actions speak louder that words! Support them by example.

Tip: If you can’t get your child to eat low-starch vegetables, add baby food vegetables (green beans, squash, green peas, carrots, tomato puree) to hamburger meat for burgers, meat loaf, or chili. They’ll never notice. For other ideas, check out the kid friendly recipes in the Kid Stuff chapter in our Low Carb CookwoRx Cookook.)

3. Remember: a potato is NOT a vegetable. It’s a starchy tuber. Pasta, rice, and corn aren’t vegetables either! No matter what the school lunch program says. That’s not to say that a growing child, even an overweight one, can never have potato, bread, pasta, or grain products (although they’d get along just fine physiologically without them if they ate plenty of meat, fish, poultry, game, eggs, dairy, nuts, seeds, and fresh fruits and vegetables.) It just means that you ought to treat starches like sugars and let kids eat them sparingly.

4. Let your child eat all of the right kinds of foods he or she wants. Kids are growing; kids are hungry. If you feed the hunger with good, nutritious food, it’s not going to make them fat or fatter! One of the most important things you can do for your child is to create a healthy respect for and relationship with food. Humans ought to eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re full.

5. Don’t make the family table a battleground. Serve quality, wholesome food, let your child eat it, eat it yourself, don’t criticize. Show how to eat by example and your child will follow that example. Granted not all the time. They will be exposed to every kind of awful, sugary, health-robbing kind of food stuff. They will sometimes eat it (just as you do) and so be it. But if you live by example at home, don’t preach, but rather quietly demonstrate by your choices, they’ll get the message.

6. Let your child indulge with vigor occasionally. Life without unbridled joy is not worth living. Show your child how to celebrate, how to feast, how to live. And let them understand that feasting isn’t day to day living; it’s infrequent; it’s a celebration. Remember pleasure is a nutrient, too.

7. Make clean, fresh water the go-to beverage in your household. While it’s fine in our opinion (though others may disagree) for kids to drink organic milk and the occasional glass or box of juice, water is a better choice to wash down the burger. It’s a sad truth in this country that soft drinks, filled with high fructose corn syrup, are the beverage of choice in adolescents, pre-teens, and teenagers and in amounts that are making them among the fattest kids on the planet.

Feed them right and help to make them strong. Show them the value of their strength and fitness. A strong healthy kid is likely to grow into a strong healthy adult. There’s simply no better way to do build strength than through a kid friendly Slow Burn work out. (Fortunately, it’s great for parents, too.)

However, the author of the piece, Scott Steepleton, made a monumental error in fact checking. We’ve already written a letter to the editor pointing up the mistake; we’ll let you know if they print it.

Per Mr. Steepleton:

A small amount of trans fat is found naturally, primarily in some animal-based foods, according to the Food and Drug Administration. [No quibble so far.] But legislation such as Mr. Mensoza’s AB 97 [the bill banning the use of trans fats] is aimed at the manufactured variety, produced when hydrogen is added to, say, vegetable oil. That includes lard.”

Say what??

Since when did lard become a ‘manufactured’ fat, hydrogenated in a factory by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil? What utter nonsense.

Real lard is a naturally-hydrogenated, solid fat that requires no tampering in the factory to add anything to it. Lard is rendered pork fat. Most of its carbon bonding sites are happily filled with a full complement of hydrogens in their natural and normal cis position just as it comes from the hog.

Mr. Steepleton must be confusing lard with shortening or perhaps confusing real natural lard with the lard found in tubs on grocery shelves (as opposed to the refrigerator case, where it should be) that has had some manufacturer’s tinkering to make it even more shelf stable.

Unlike the natural solid fat, lard, vegetable shortening is a liquid oil until manufacturers tamper with its structure by heating it up under pressure and bubbling hydrogen gas into it (with a catalyst to make it all work faster) and force-feeding the carbon double bonds some hydrogen atoms that often latch on in a crossways or trans configuration.

A little bit of hydrogen added in the trans configuration increases shelf life of the oil and allows liquid vegetable oils and corn oil not to go rancid in large, clear containers exposed to light and heat on the store shelves. (This would also be the case, though to a much lesser degree, for the small amount of hydrogenation possible for shelf-stable lard.)

A lot of hydrogen added in the trans configuration solidifies the liquid oil, creating stick margarine or solid vegetable shortening, such as Crisco. These Franken Fats were created to replace the naturally solid fats, butter and lard, not for health reasons, but because the real McCoys were rationed in WWII.

I grew up in a household that saved every drop of bacon grease (or drippins, as we called it) and used it liberally in cooking to season greens, fry chicken or eggs, lighten pie crusts and more. To this day, there is always a coffee can containing bacon drippins in my refrigerator. Granted, it’s now an Illy espresso can, not a Maxwell House…Good to the last drop! can, proving only that though times change, they don’t change all that much.

In the years since WWII, which is all of my life so far, the Franken Fats have largely taken over the prepackaged commercial food market, since they have some attractive food manufacturing properties, the most important of which (I suspect) being that they are a whole lot cheaper.

Both lard and butter have been vilified (undeservedly) by the all-saturated-fats-are-evil crowd, but where butter has been labeled by them as dangerous for your health, lard has been cast as a mass-murdering serial killer. It’s utter, knee-jerk, nonsense. And nonsense, by the way, that led these bands of crusading think-they-know-it-all do-gooders (read: Committee for Science in the Public Interest and the PETA-backed Physicians for Responsible Medicine) to pressure the powers that be to remove beef tallow, lard, and butter from commercially prepared foods and replace them with ‘healthy’ partially hydrogenated vegetable fats in the first place. Yes, they all previously lobbied to switch to these self-same fats–these trans fats–that they’re now crusading to eliminate from commercial kitchens.

Time has proven that they were misguided then, but it has left them between the proverbial rock and the hard place. They can’t allow people to eat ‘dangerous artery clogging saturated fats’ and they can’t recommend their erstwhile darlings (now their demons) the partially-hydrogenated vegetable fats. About all that’s left to them is olive oil, onto which they’ve jumped with both feet as the savior of human hearts and health.

Let’s look for a moment beyond the inflammatory rhetoric and knee-jerk Kool-aid slurping surety that lard is bad and that all saturated fats, such as those found in lard, are bad and attempt to tease out the truth. What is lard?

Lard, contrary to its besmirched reputation, is a healthful fat with sterling culinary properties for high temperature cooking and baking and a darned good fatty acid profile.

(First a brief digression about nomenclature in fats. If you’re up on it, skip on down.)

Fats are made of fatty acids. Fatty acids are the carbon-hydrogen chains that latch on in groups of three to a glycerol backbone to make a triglyceride molecule, which are the basic molecules of which all fats are made. The length of the carbon chains and where, if any, double bonds (ie, missing hydrogen molecules) occur differentiate the fatty acids one from another. The more double bonds, the more unsaturated. One double bond gives you a monounsaturate, many double bonds gives you a polyunsaturate, no double bonds gives you a saturated fatty acid.

The main saturated fatty acids in edible oils are (from shortest to longest chains): capric, lauric, myristic, palmitic, and stearic acids. The main monounsaturate is oleic acid. The main polyunsaturates are linoleic and alpha-linolenic, with the difference between those two 18-carbon fatty acids simply where the first double bond occurs, which is at the number 6 carbon in linoleic (making it an omega-6 fat) and at the number 3 carbon in alpha-linolenic (making it an omega-3 fat). And of course there are the all-important highly unsaturated marine oils, EPA and DHA, which are 20 carbon chains in the omega-3 family as well.

Now let’s compare lard to that darling of the disciples of the Mediterranean diet: olive oil. Olive oil contains 71% oleic acid, that heart-healthy, monounsaturated fat that we’re supposed to get more of. Lard contains 44% oleic acid, which is more than sesame oil (41%) and double or nearly so the amount in corn oil (28%) walnut oil (28%), and flaxseed oil (21%), more than double the amount in cottonseed oil (19%) and sunflower oil (19%), and nearly triple that in grapeseed oil (15%) and safflower oil (13%). The oleic acid content of lard also exceeds that in beef tallow (43%), butterfat (29%), and human butterfat (ie the fat of breast milk at 35%).

Lard also contains a fair amount (14%) of the 18-carbon saturated fat, stearic acid, which has been shown in clinical testing to lower cholesterol. Important, of course, only if that’s actually a valid cardiovascular health parameter when it’s all said and done, which is looking more and more doubtful with each passing day. Certainly there are many who still think it so. Consumers spend an annual $14.8 billion on statins in an effort to lower cholesterol–a sad commentary, when stearic acid is a whole lot cheaper and safer.

Like olive oil, lard contains 10% of the omega-6 fatty acid linoleic acid, again, roughly the same as human butterfat (breast milk) at 9%.

Lard contains 2% myristic acid, a 14-carbon saturated fat that has been shown to have important immune enhancing properties. Human butterfat contains about 8% myristic acid, as a booster for the newly minted and incompetent infant immune system. Other animal milk fats also contain a fair amount. By comparison with the exception of cottonseed oil (1%) and the tropical oils, coconut oil (18%) and and palm kernal oil (16%) vegetable oils have zero.

The big bugaboo with lard, then, must come from the last component of its composition: palmitic acid a 16-carbon saturated fatty acid that is believed by some to be Beelzebub, Barlow, and the Bermuda Triangle all rolled into one. Lard contains 26% of the stuff and olive oil only 13%. Aha! There it is. The smoking gun! That must be what makes lard so bad and olive oil so good!

There’s one fly in that explanatory ointment, however: human butterfat contains 25% palmitic acid, just a silly 1% different from lard. Are we to believe that nature would have designed a food for human infants that contained too much?

So let’s now compare lard’s basic fatty acid composition to the real gold standard, the butterfat of human breast milk and see how it stacks up.

Saturated Monounsaturated Polyunsaturated
Breast Milk 48% 35% 10%
Lard 42% 44% 10%

Note: the numbers don’t add up to 100% because of rounding and other small constituents not listed in the fats and oils of common edible foods table. That said, however, even if all the unreported 7% of the composition of breast milk were monounsaturated fat and all unreported 4% of the lard were saturated fat, the composition of lard would still be less saturated and contain more monounsaturates than human breast milk.

Now tell me again why lard is bad for our health.

If you want to render your own lard, there’s a good piece about it on the Homesick Texan blog.

If you don’t want to go to the trouble to render your own, but love to use lard for panfrying and baking, I sussed out an organic source for lard online.

Springing for an organic source in lard (whether you buy naturally raised pork fat to render yourself or let someone else do the work for you) is important, since most pesticides, chemicals, fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics, and other environmental pollutants will be soluble (and therefore stored) in the fat of the animal. Where edible fat is concerned, organic is definitely worth the expense.

So fear not and don’t be swayed by the misguided and misinformed. Eat more (natural, organic) lard!

Study links obesity to protein in infant formula

Now to me, that title implies that there is a mysterious protein in infant formulas that might be a cause of obesity. In actuality, when you read the article, it’s nothing like that; it’s not a particular protein that’s the culprit, but the amount of protein. Despite its misleading title, the article claims findings in a study purport to show that the protein-content of infant formulas has been linked to obesity.

Would that have been your take from just the headline alone? I’ll wager that it would not.

The truth appears to be that getting the right amount of protein (and enough fat and not too much carb, although the article doesn’t mention the latter two) in your diet is as crucial for keeping infants at normal weight, normal fat, and healthy as it is for the rest of us. In fact, it’s probably more critical, since protein needs in the very young and the very old are purportedly higher pound for pound than in the middle of life! A good rule of thumb for what’s adequate would be the protein content of human breast milk, which is what the lower of the two contents in the formula turned out to be.
A more truthful and illuminating title would have been:

Study links excess protein content in infant formula with obesity later in life.

Of course, it would be nice to have the information about what the total content of the baby formula was–ie how much carb, what carb, what fats, etc. to determine whether or not the protein content high or low was even a factor. Maybe a better title would turn out to be (once we knew the total nutritonal breakdown) something like

High everything infant formula linked to obesity later in life.

Just serves to remind us all that headlines can deceive and that reading the full article may be the only way to learn the truth!

It seems that in her quest to be an astute and informed diner, who occasionally eats a bunless McDonald’s burger when pressed for time, Nancy discovered something disturbing on the McDonald’s official nutritional information website: the presence of 5 grams of carbohydrate per serving in what are billed as burger patties made of 100% beef, no additives, no fillers, no extenders.

Curious, eh?

She wrote to us to see if we could help her unravel their source.

We were as mystified as she and quite honestly couldn’t fathom where 5 grams of carbohydrate would be coming from, if Mickey Ds is on the up and up with the patties’ being made of 100% beef. We speculated a couple of possibilities:

1) the nutritoinal info posted by McDonalds is incorrect. Surely a possibility.

2) the 100% beef, no extenders, no fillers burger might have some sort of not-technically-additive, not-technically-filler, not-techincally-extender ‘flavor enhancing substance’ containing some carb of some sort, designed to make all the patties taste uniform throughout the world. Wouldn’t be the first time Mickey Ds adopted the Unified Flavor Theory of food preparation.

3) Maybe lot feeding cattle with corn, just as carb-loading humans with pasta, packs so much glycogen into the beef muscle that it raises the amount of ‘muscle starch’ to a level of 5 grams per quarter pound of meat.

Mike feels this possibility is a stretch, citing the fact that the liver, clearly the most intensive storer of glycogen in the body (true for ours and for a cow’s, I presume) contains only 400 grams of glycogen in the whole organ, so how could a mere quarter pound of muscle contain 5 grams? So, I put a pencil to it. If a typical human liver weighs 2 kg and it contains 400 g of glycogen if fully replete, that represents 20% of its weight as glycogen. Therefore, a quarter pound of liver (weighing about 113.4 grams) would contain 22.7 grams of glycogen. Doesn’t seem all that much of a stretch to me, that a quarter pound of carb-loaded muscle might contain a quarter of that amount, but maybe we could get a veternary biochemist to weigh in on the subject.

Here’s Nancy’s letter of January 4, 2007 to McDonald’s:

“For the past 3 years, I have adhered to a pretty strictly low-carb, high-protein diet, free of high fructose corn syrup, starches, and sugars of all kinds. Unlike many people, I do not fear saturated fat, and I don’t hold McDonalds accountable for American obesity and poor health. I think that one can eat healthily at McDonalds if one chooses carefully. When I eat at McDonalds (4-5 times per month), I choose burgers or breakfast sandwiches and remove the buns/breads.

My question: I just looked at the nutrition info on your website and was startled to see that the beef patty on a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese (my favorite selection) is listed as having five grams of carbohydrate. Why? The ingredient list for the beef patty claims 100% beef, no additives, fillers, or extenders. Whence, then, come the carbs? 100% beef should contain only protein and fat, with no carb, should it not?

Please inform me of the source of the carbohydrate in the beef patty. Thank you.”

Here’s the response from McDonald’s on January 5, 2007 along with my [parenthetical] comments:

“Hello Nancy:
Thank you for taking the time to contact McDonald’s. We are always glad to hear from our valued customers.
The website currently shows that the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese sandwich’s beef patties have 5 grams [my bold] of carbohydrates.
With the recent reanalysis, a different methodology was used to calculate the total fat content with a small decrease in total fat. [huh?] However, many foods also show a slight increase in the amount of carbohydrates.[Is this because they just subtract what's not protein and fat and call it carb or something?] This might seem confusing for consumers, [and, if Mike and I are any indication, for physicians and nutritional experts, too] but we can assure you that there are no fillers added to the beef patties. The carbohydrates in the beef patty are more likely from indigestible fiber-like components in the meat [Puleese! What exactly is an indigestible fiber-like component and how could there be any in a 100% beef patty. I mean 100% is 100%, it doesn't leave any room for any percentage of indigestible fiber-like components] that get counted in the carbohydrates’ category.
Again, thank you for contacting McDonald’s. We hope to have the opportunity of serving you again soon under the Golden Arches.
Tina
McDonald’s Customer Response Center”

Interestingly, I just went to the McDonald’s nutritional site to check the breakdown myself and found this page for the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. Oddly, the value for carbs in the 100% beef patties is now listed as 1, not 5.

Curiouser and curiouser.

As mysteriously as they appeared, so they seem to have disappeared. And we must assume they were there, since Tina of the McDonald’s Customer Response Center verified to Nancy that indeed the site showed 5 grams and then went on to provide the surreal explanation.

So the new question for all you mystery buffs and conspiracy theorists is: where did those mystery carbs come from and where did they go?

My advice, as imparted to Nancy, is to eat grassfed natural beef (which I realize isn’t always practical or possible) and then you don’t have to rely on Mickey’s math.