The best low-carb book in print
I’m going to tell you about the best low-carb book I’ve ever read. In fact, it’s exactly the book I wish I had written myself. And I’ll tell you why I didn’t in a bit, but first I want to clear up a few misconceptions I may have spread in my last post.
I get feedback on the posts I write from three sources. First, MD looks at them and tones them down if I’ve gone off on some sort of political tangent or if I’ve scattered in a bit of too colorful language. After she gives me the go, I put the posts up and wait to see what the commenters have to say. The third source for feedback is my friends, some MDs and/or PhDs and some not, who pick up the phone and call me.
MD okayed what I wrote. The readers who commented seemed to realize what I was trying to say. But the phone calls were a different story.
One friend called to say she had been low-carbing since Jan 1, and when she read my post she became so depressed she almost quit. “How can you tell people it’s hard,” she said. “It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I can eat till I’m full. I’m losing weight; I’m losing the water I’ve been retaining; I feel great. What a downer that post was.”
I heard different versions of that rant from three other people. They all wanted to know why I would be idiotic enough to put up such a post right at the time everyone was trying to commit or recommit to losing weight. Depressing was a word everyone used.
I guess I got off easy with the written comments on the blog.
I didn’t really mean for the post to be a downer. Really. I wanted to tell people who might be struggling to lose that MD and I fall prey to all the same problems. We gained weight over the holidays. We are back on the straight and narrow. I was trying to say that we were right in there with everyone else working away to reestablish our own thinner selves. (In fact, we’ve made great progress in the week or so we’ve been on the plan.) I just wanted people to be aware that long-term weight loss requires effort and constant vigilance. And to view the process as a life change and not a quick one-time fix. My goal was to get people to recommit seriously, not to depress them.
Obesity is a medical problem caused by a damaged metabolism, which is why one person, without the damage, can eat the same foods without gaining weight that pack the pounds on someone else. Once you realize you have the underlying problem that leads to obesity, you simply have to recognize that you have to deal with it for the long term.
Let’s look at it in terms of another medical problem: high blood pressure. For argument’s sake, let’s ignore the fact that about 80 percent of cases of high blood pressure can be reversed with a low-carb diet, and let’s just assume that the case we’re talking about is responsive only to high blood pressure medication. If you were the patient with the high blood pressure, and I gave you a pill that brought your blood pressure down to normal, you would consider the medication effective. Would you then say, Hey, my blood pressure is normal, yippee! now I can quit taking the medicine? I doubt it. You would say, Great, the medicine is working. Furthermore, if you quit taking the medicine and your blood pressure went back up to what it was before you started taking the medicine, would you say the medicine didn’t work?
Of course not. Your high blood pressure was kept in check with the medicine, and your BP, not surprisingly, went back up when you quit taking the medicine. The medicine itself was effective.
Same thing with dieting. If you have an obesity problem that responds to a low-carb diet and you lose to your target weight, then go back to your old way of eating and gain your weight back, it isn’t the low-carb diet’s fault. You have a problem that responds to a low-carb diet, and you pretty much have to stick with a low-carb diet (although not in nearly as extreme a structure as when you are trying to lose) for the long haul.
Having said all that, I can tell you that in my experience there is nothing that helps people lose weight more quickly and with less deprivation than a good quality, whole food low-carbohydrate diet. You don’t have to be hungry. You can eat rich, delicious foods, you’ll get rid of heartburn, drop your blood pressure, ditch excess fluid, and feel remarkably better. You’ve just got to hang in there until you lose what you need to lose (which process you can speed along if desired with a little Metabosol), then you can loosen up and start adding some of the foods you’ve been foregoing. And continue to eat them in moderation on maintenance.
Virtually all the studies in the medical literature show that at worst the low-carbohydrate diet equals the low-fat diet in all parameters and at best completely leaves it in the dust. As far as I’m concerned, there is no faster, safer, more delicious way to lose weight. Hell, a study was just presented recently showing that women who did low-carb just two days a week lost almost twice as much weight as women following a calorically-restricted Mediterranean diet daily. So, to be clear: Is weight loss tough? Sure. Is it easier when you cut the carbs? Absolutely! Low carb rocks!
Which brings me to the book that started this post. In my opinion, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living is simply the best how-to book on low-carb dieting ever written. As I wrote above, it is the book I wish MD and I had written.
The reason we didn’t write it is because a) some of this information wasn’t available when we last wrote a book (much of it is now available thanks to the work of Drs. Volek and Phinney), and b) no mainstream publisher would pay an author for this book. If a mainstream publisher would buy it, the editor would force the authors to change it. What do I mean by that?
All books fall into different genres, as they’re called in publishing. One genre is diet/nutrition books. So if you come to a publisher offering a diet/nutrition book, it gets pigeonholed into that genre and has to conform structurally to that genre’s standardized format. Editors of mainstream publishing houses believe that the great mass of readers of nutritional books are not very bright and so have to be served real scientific information in small, small bites and not very many of them at that. So the genre formula for a diet book is to have the actual diet regimen way up front because these editors don’t believe the readers of these books are smart enough or patient enough to wade through the explanations of why a particular diet works in order to get to the plan. They want the plan up front within the first couple of chapters so people can get started without really having to read the book. They also want a ton of recipes and meal plans to fill up the last half of the book. Squeezed in between the plan and the recipe section is where they want to meat of book cubbyholed, and, in their view, with as little science as possible.
MD and I fought this structure tooth and toenail with Protein Power and ended up beating our editor down by agreeing to write a summary of each chapter called The Bottom Line that explained what each chapter said in non-scientific terms. (Fortunately, we’ve been able to use this strategy in most of our books.) We worked well with our first editor, but we ended up in the hands of another editor when the paperback came out. Editor Number Two hated all the stuff on the Paleolithic diet and the data from the ancient Egyptians. This info was the first time in the popular press that the pre- verses post-agricultural diet was used as an argument for low-carb dieting. And she wanted to ditch it from the book. We went postal on her, so she ended up agreeing to leave it but only if we buried it in the very back of the book as an Epilogue. That was one of the chapters of the book I wrote, and I thought it was pretty exciting information. So, apparently did many others. But not this editor. Sadly, she is not unusual. Most want to conform to the genre.
Drs. Volek and Phinney self-published their book, and, as a consequence, could write it however the flip they wanted. It is extremely well written and suffers none of the usual flaws of a self published book. And it lays out the rationale for a low-carb diet as the treatment of obesity and other related disorders in a linear fashion instead of adhering to the typical diet book format.
As I finished writing the above paragraph, I clicked over and checked for comments on my latest post and found one with the following line:
This low-carb world can be a lonely place if one needs a navigator…
I can think of no better navigators than the authors of this book. Both of them have done a large part of the hardcore research on low-carb dieting that is in the medical literature today. Go to PubMed and enter Volek JS or Phinney SD in the search window, hit ‘Search,’ and you will be rewarded with more peer-reviewed scientific papers on low-carb dieting than you will have time to read. Many of the experiments described in these papers are explained in easy to understand language in their book.
Disclosure: Both Dr. Volek and Dr. Phinney are friends and colleagues of mine. But they did not send me a copy of their book for review. I purchased it from Amazon and paid the full price of $29.95 (it is now $19.95). I bought it months ago and carried it with me all over Europe and on a half dozen other trips since but didn’t have time to even crack it until I was on the last leg back from our holiday trek. It sounds cliché, but I couldn’t put it down. I read and annotated the entire book over the course of two long flights. Virtually anything anyone could want to know about the science behind low-carbohydrate dieting can be found in this book.
I’ll give you just one example. It is common knowledge among many nutritionist, doctors and journalists that saturated fats are bad for us. Most believe eating saturated fats leads to higher levels of saturated fats in the blood, which they inevitably describe as ‘artery-clogging saturated fat’. Drs. Volek and Phinney, who certainly don’t believe this nonsense, understand adaptation to a low-carbohydrate diet changes the way the human body metabolizes different fats. Eating more fat on a low-carbohydrate diet speeds up the burning of fat in general and saturated fat in particular.
There are only three things the body can do with saturated fat from the diet (or saturated fat made from dietary carbohydrate — and, yes, the body can and does make saturated fat from dietary carbohydrate). It can burn them, store them, or convert them to a mono-unsaturated fat. When people go on low-carbohydrate diets, they reduce their insulin levels, which in turn allows fat to escape from the fat cells to become the body’s primary fuel.
But what happens when a person increases saturated fat intake as part of a low-carbohydrate diet? Drs. V & P knew that saturated fat burning would increase, but would enough burn to offset the extra amount of saturated fat coming in as part of a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet?
To find out, they put 20 subjects on a low-carbohydrate diet for 12 weeks and another 20 subjects on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate weight loss diet for the same length of time. The subjects in the low-carb group consumed three times the saturated fat per day (36 g vs 12 g) as did those in the low-fat group. The blood from the subjects in both groups was then tested to determine total triglyceride level and specific fatty acid composition.
What did the good docs find?
In the serum samples done at baseline and again after 12 weeks, serum triglycerides in the low fat group went from 187 to 151 mg per 100 ml, a tidy 19% reduction. But in the low carb group, the before and after values were 211 and 104, a whopping 51% fall. Both visually (just looking at the numbers) and statistically, the low carbohydrate group had a much greater (better) reduction in serum triglycerides.
The above should come as no surprise, because everyone knows that a low-carb diet reduces triglyceride levels. But what about the amount of saturated fat in the blood?
As a proportion of the total, the low carb group had 33% saturates [saturated fatty acids] at baseline and 29% after 12 weeks, whereas the low fat group started at 30 and ended at 29%. So after 12 weeks of dieting, the proportion of saturated fats in the blood triglycerides was the same for both groups despite the fact that the low carb group was eating three times as many grams per day of saturated fat in their diet.
But there’s more. Because the low carb group ended up with blood triglycerides of 104 mg per 100 ml compared to the low fat group’s 151, they actually had about 30% less total triglycerides circulating in their serum. So although the two groups had similar relative proportions of saturates, this means that the absolute serum content of saturates in the low-carb group was 30% lower than the low fat diet group. So what we found, in a nutshell, is that despite a higher intake of saturated fat, the proportionate blood level of saturated fats did not increase, and their absolute levels fell dramatically with the low carbohydrate diet.
The bottom line on this point is that when our metabolism adapts to a low carbohydrate diet, saturated fats become a preferred fuel for the body, and their levels in blood and tissue triglyceride pools actually drops.
To summarize, a three times higher intake of saturated fats leads to a 30% drop in saturated fats in the blood of those following a low-carb diet as compared to those following a low-fat, high-carb diet.
Which means, of course, that if you want to decrease the artery-clogging saturated fats (should that be what you want to call them) in your blood, a low-fat, high-carb diet, the very diet almost every health care professional recommends for the job, isn’t the way to do it. All you have to do is simply follow a low-carb diet.
The description of what happens to saturated fats in the blood during a low carb diet took two pages out of a 300 page book, so you can imagine how much content the entire book contains.
There is so much invaluable information in this book that I’m having to fight back the impulse to quote the whole thing. You’ll learn
why you need more sodium on a low-carb diet and why the sodium prevents lean tissue loss,
why you need to increase fat intake during maintenance,
why a low-carb diet decreases inflammation,
why the low-carb, high-fat diet improves gall bladder function,
why excess carbohydrate converts to saturated fat and how,
what all the lipid parameters mean and how they’re affected by a low-carb diet,
and what the Paleolithic evidence tells us about diet.
And this list is just scratching the surface. As I read this book, I kept marking parts that I needed to use for this blog. In going back through, I would have to practically reprint the whole thing to give you just the important parts because the entire book is a gem.
Unlike most traditional diet books, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living doesn’t contain a lengthy section on how to execute a low carb diet. There are plenty of books out there – some written by MD and me – that do that. The book does have about 10 pages of the authors’ favorite recipes for low-carb foods and a seven day meal plan incorporating many of these recipes. (Another disclosure: The authors recommend Protein Power as a good book on low-carb dieting, but I would have written this review the same had they never mentioned our book.)
The strength of this book isn’t in its meal plans and recipes, although those are delicious, it is in the wealth of information about all aspects of low-carb dieting. If you have a question, almost any question, about any facet of low-carbohdyrate dieting, this book will have the answer. And the answer will grounded in science, and in many cases from work done by these two scientists on the front lines of low-carbohydrate research.
As far as I am concerned, if you are planning on going on a low-carb diet and can afford only one book, make The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living that one book. If you are a long time low-carber, this is the one essential reference book you should have on your shelf.
If you are getting going on a low-carb diet the first part of this year, grab this book before you do another thing. Once you see the world of benefits that will accrue to you from following such a diet, you will probably be able to overcome any depression that may have been inflicted on you from my last post. So don’t hold off, grab a copy of this book today. You will be very glad you did.
Sooz, see
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20444922.
Free full text is available. Apparently fat stimulates glucagon, and glucagon increases blood glucose, especially in type . Nondiabetics would just produce more insulin to cover the higher glucose levels. In type 2s, the fat might slow digestion enough so that it reduced, instead of increasing, blood glucose.
However, many people with type 1 don’t produce a lot of glucagon, so different people may see different responses.
Good to see you back posting! Notwithstanding how much I value your books, I too, felt this book to be the absolute best book written on low carb eating. I felt they did a bang up job of presenting the science in a way that appealed to the lay reader, and also made it easy enough for doctors to grasp
, while laying out in no uncertain terms the scientific cred of low carbohydrate eating. I am a big fan of Jeff Volek and felt this book corrected all the problems I had with the lack of scientific discussion in his previous books, The TNT Diet, and in the New Atkins. I’m especially pleased to see a decent discussion in this book on ketosis, which I was kind of aggravated was completely missing from New Atkins. Except for your excellent blog post on the metabolism of ketosis, I’m not sure anybody’s really done it justice in books written for the low-carb eater or their doctor. In my experience, most professionals don’t understand metabolic ketosis, and as with all the topics they covered in this book, the manner of their discussion will benefit the professional reader as well as the eating public.
I was, however, disappointed with the way they blew off exercise as a “wellness” tool, especially given that Volek and Phinney are exercise physiologists. I suppose this was to disabuse the notion of caloric deficit, and studies do show that exercise alone doesn’t amount to much in terms of weight loss, BUT, this book is really about methods to correct metabolic derangement. Training effect on metabolic hormones and enzymes is well described, and I wished they would have had at it with the same respect they had for the intelligence of their reader on this topic as they did for other hormonal topics.
While they do discuss that low-carb can mean different things to different people, and different things to the same person over time, their emphasis is really on a ketogenic diet, and becoming keto adapted. Volek has previously written about restricted carbohydrate eating with more flexible carb intake, but they keep it pretty low here. And this is a position that I think may confuse some readers looking to possibly limit their carbohydrate intake but not necessarily become keto adapted. But I’m sure a book titled The Art And Science of Ketosis…..well, you know.
Most loved about this book is their attention to detail in how to get comfortable and feel well while getting keto-adapted, and what needs to be known in terms of protein, fat and caloric intake over time. Not having a command of these tools was the real pitfall of trying to supervise ketosis back in the day twenty years ago, when it was all hospital/physician supervised Medifast. We didn’t have these understandings then
Dr. Mike, have you read George Bray’s latest? In JAMA, Jan 4, 2012, 307(1), 47-55. Effect of Dietary Protein Content on Weight Gain, Energy Expenditure, and Body Composition During Overeating. It’s a metabolic ward, over-feeding RCT. He takes a stab at some metabolic advantage issues. Would love your thoughts.
Hi Gretchen, thanks for the link. Yes, I’ve read much of that and similar. The problem is that any kind of insulin resistance means more insulin, whether it’s produced naturally or injected. That defeats the purpose of losing weight. Believe me, I have a ton of experiments over several weeks in the past few years, and I suspect the only way to go if one has insulin dependent diabetes is not to go so high fat. What the cut-off is, I haven’t yet discovered. I’ve just done 3 solid weeks on VLC and managed to lose a whole 2lbs. Abysmal! On top of that, pesky morning slightly higher than normal blood glucose that refused to budge unless I doubled the insulin dose. It kind of defeated the purpose, which was to lower my insulin requirements, l which for my age and weight, is around 30-35u per day, with no functioning pancreas. Not bad from what I hear. I also think I wasn’t eating often enough, considering what some experts are saying. I ate under 1000 calories per day so weight loss is definitely NOT about calories, but I’ve known that for years. Oh well, back to the drawing board! I’ve got to find a happy medium where I’m eating and losing weight. It’s not happening at the moment.
Sooz, This was the first paper I’d seen that said fat increases glucagon. The “traditional” view is that fat doesn’t increase either insulin or glucagon.
If you’ve read a lot of similar articles, I’d appreciate the references.
Whether or not a high-fat diet increases insulin resistance is controversial. And for type 1, the problem with a LC diet that increases protein instead of fat is that protein will also increase BG levels because it also increases glucagon.
I’d use whatever it takes to lose the weight without worrying about IR and then when you’ve reached your goal, modify the diet so you need less insulin.
Have you ever tried metformin? It helps some type 1s cut back on insulin.
Gretchen, yes I’m aware that about 10% of fat and about 50% of protein (as carb equivalent) raises blood glucose, and I do need to compensate with insulin. Metformin and I go back 30 years – we really do hate each other. Can’t take it at all although I want to very much. It’s protective in so many ways and one of the best drugs, in my opinion. What I’ve been told (by people with letters after their names) is that (in their words) fat increases insulin resistance in the liver. I’ve also seen it reported. Papers? Wow, I’ll see if I can find some again. I’m not sure it’s all that controversial – I’ve heard it often enough now from people who have treated T1Ds for many years. I’ve also seen it for myself.
The issue here is that I have no idea why my body wants to hold into the weight, no matter what I try. I do know that self reporting of diet is fraught with problems, but I know what I’ve tried. I’m not sure what I should be trying next – that’s the issue. My endo tells me not to worry about weight because I have a good A1c (he doesn’t buy my clothing). I’m at the top end of the overweight category and I’m so done with being here!
Dr Mike,
I am aware of the several comments over tons of posts you have made, about testimonies in the low carb community. They have been inspiring. I guess I will just have to admit that at first I was very skeptical of this. I have kept a close eye on everything you have posted I would say in the past 8 months. I suffer from GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) and the thought of eating more fat and ditching my conventional wisdom habits just made me fear a heart attack. About a year ago I was turned onto Gary Taubes through a friend while on tour in canada. (never anything but high carb foods in canada I.E. Poutine everywhere), I bought GCBC and why we get fat. As stated GCBC is a hard read, and in fact was for me. Not fully finished yet with it. To get to my point, I finally gave all of this a shot.
I am 5’11 and was 275 lbs. I have always been a thick guy with a good amount of muscle mass up top and thick muscular legs. But a friend of mine turned me onto your twitter and I started following and reading the links you would post.I don’t know how I didn’t find you sooner hence the Taubes research I conducted. Since then I have lost about 35 to 40 lbs. I believe eating Higher fat and protein is now the perfect fit for me for life. I don’t know my blood work levels or results aka cholesterol levels, tryglicerides, etc. I have no health issues otherwise. At some point I will get this stuff looked at, but for now….35lbs lost and feeling great can’t be an indication of serious health problems. Ill take it.
I just wanted to thank you in the midst of all these comments even though you see 500 comments on the regular. Just wanted you to know your research has helped a professional touring musician ( I tour the US, Canada, the UK, Mainland Europe ) gain some energy back and has changed the way I look at food now. I am still trying to constantly learn different types of meal ideas eating low carb. I indefinitely just ordered this book BTW so I imagine its going to help. So again thank you. And all of you who support this community.
Thanks for posting your story. I’m glad to hear the low-carb diet is working for you. Keep after it, and you should experience some significant positive changes over the next few months.
Sooz, My question concerned references showing that fat increases glucagon, not references concerning fat and IR.
Having letters after your name doesn’t always mean you understand it better than other people. Remember, it was MDs and PhDs and CDEs who said low-carb diets were harmful.
Having letters after your name only means that you were taught the conventional way, and still espouse what all the world-wide diabetes organisation still say – reduce fat. How that significantly reduces blood glucose (and I mean significantly), I’ll never know. We all know that’s nonsense. In the face of current research, they are beginning to sound more and more ridiculous!
Most of these “lettered” people find it hard to change thinking. What they were taught was gospel, so don’t blame them.
Glucagon is certainly produced by people with T1D, but the problem is that it is produced as as well as for non-T1Ds when blood glucose is low. Hence Glucagon injections (which makes the liver release stored glycogen) for lows which result in coma, or the person refuses to eat/drink to raise glucose.
MY question was about fat and IR.
March 3, 2012 will be my one year anniversary on Atkins. I have lost 36 lbs and 60 inches (at 51 years old and suffering from hypothyroidism I think that is not bad at all!). I find this food plan to be very doable. It does take planning but as I always made food for all my meals (I find my food taste better and is certainly cheaper than cafeterias and the like), it’s the same amount of time just different ingredients.
What I find hard and this is tied to the fact that the rest of the world is following LF,HC is that it is impossible to find a low carb (no sugar) dessert when eating out except for fruit (maybe). Now, you know, and I know, that if LC,HF was the prevailing wisdom, the choices would be endless – no sugar cheesecake with a nut crust, no sugar egg custards, full fat but no sugar ice cream – well you get my point. In protest I now bring my dessert with me to the restaurant – this past Valentine’s Day I brought juicy strawberries dipped in sugar free 80% cocoa chocolate. These were enjoyed by my husband and the friends that joined us. So, I had a great LC meal of filet mignon, sea scallops, sautéed spinach and sautéed asparagus and then ended the meal with a lovely coffee with light cream and choc. covered strawberries -I would not trade that meal for all the pasta dinners in the world! I refuse to feel uncomfortable about bringing food into a restaurant – maybe if more of us did that then they would get the message.
Sooz have you read Dr. Bernstein’s book – Diabetes Solution?
http://www.diabetes-book.com/
I think you will find this very helpful.
@Margaret… Of course… read it years ago! It gave me a much longer honeymoon to insulin than is usual for adult onset T1D.
Sooz, please go spend some reading time on the website Stop the Thyroid Madness. You can be doing EVERY (single doggoned) thing exactly correctly — and if your thyroid is messed up you won’t lose an OUNCE! (Very frustrating!! Been there, can yah tell?!) And almost without fail, your “regular” doctor knows less about thyroid than s/he does about proper eating!
The docs give the wrong test and then treat (or more usually refuse to treat!) on the basis of those labs (the heck with how you feel/what you weigh!); and even if they do *deign* to “treat” you — they’ll put you on Synthcrap! (which they call Synthroid), which helps some, but not most folks!
Just as with learning about your diet? You have to learn about your thyroid (and adrenals). I used to blame my age, weight, and sedentary life for my aching back, stiff neck, sensitivity to light and noise, waking up feeling like someone had taken a bat to my kidneys, sore achilles tendon, and on and on… Then, I treated my adrenals? And it ALL went away!! (But, treated them with a doc who accepted the treatment protocols of Stop the Thyroid Madness. *I* had to tell him what I wanted, and bless him, he went along!)
(I was later VERY disturbed when I sent someone else to him for thyroid treatment, because he had been quite willing to do what I asked. Apparently, instead of saying as I had: “I want to try this drug, in these rising doses, over this length of time — any objections?” she had just said: “I have a bad thyroid, treat me?” and he offered her Synthcrap! You have to know FOR YOURSELF what you want to try. Then the hard part if finding a doc who will go along!)
@Elenor. Yes, know the site. I am completely convinced that I have a thyroid and/or adrenal problem – certainly have all the symptoms of thyroid. Haha – yeah to your comment about doctors, thyroid and diet. But no test known to man shows up anything out of the ordinary. I did have anti-thyroid antibodies 20 years ago, but they never turned into anything and it was never treated because all thyroid function tests, scans and the like, including free T3&T4, were normal. I have my usual quarterly batch of blood tests to do in the next couple of days, which include thyroid, but I don’t expect they’ll find anything much. The hard part is finding a doc who will treat on symptoms without +ve labs and treat with the right meds. Alternative meds – tried but they are hellishly expensive here. Last year I took some good quality thyroid and adrenal support (naturopath prescribed), but apparently wasn’t taking them long enough to see a difference. Goodbye $80, plus the consult. A good friend who is an associate professor of endocrinology overseas, does not recommend synthroid at all.
I was watching an interview with Dr. Finney, I believe it was this one –
http://youtu.be/KkdFkPxxDG8
One very specific thing he said in the interview made think of something for the very first time, and I was wondering what you all thought insofar as whether I’m off my rocker or if this really is a nail in the coffin of the lipid hypothesis?
Hypothetically imagine someone that decides to go on a “mainstream” low-fat (say ~30%) / high-carbohydrate “heart healthy” calorie-restricted diet. He goes to some website to estimate his daily caloric expenditure, and finds out he needs about 3000 kcal/day, between base metabolism and physical activity.
Now suppose he decides to restrict to 1500 kcal/day under the regime described above. Assuming that the energy need of 3000 kcal/day is accurate, and there is no metabolism reduction due to caloric restriction, the contribution of fat to his total energy expenditure is suddenly 65%! (450kcal from food + 1500kcal from bodyfat stores)
My question is this:
If fat really gives you heart disease, why doesn’t weight loss of any kind also give you heart disease?
I am putting this book on my Amazon wish list. Thanks, Dr. Eades!
Hi Dr. Eades!!! Did you notice that your & MD’s creation, the Sous Vide Supreme, is mentioned in this weekend’s WSJ??? “Keeping Up With the Vikings”
With a pic of a gorgeous blonde in a swimsuit, which won’t hurt readership numbers.
QUOTE: “My two cooking besties—movie producer and trained chef Allison Sarofim, who sharpened her knife skills at New York’s Le Bernardin; and Patrick Singley, owner of Gautreau’s restaurant in New Orleans—both spoke lovingly of poaching meat sous vide. Do I really need one of these machines too? “Yes,” they insisted. Apparently, you have never tasted meat cooked to succulent perfection until you’ve been fed tenderloin that’s been vacuum-sealed and hot-water-bathed for five hours.” and it’s mentioned again at the end of the article: “Keep your eyes peeled for sous-vide poachers”
I’ve been committing the heresy (and you won’t talk me out of it!) of throwing a whole salmon in my Sous Vide Supreme — wild caught sustainable from Super Walmart (sorry but hey!) in the plastic it comes in (cancer? nah… that comes from a lifetime of sugar & flour), for 30 mins at 130 degrees. Numm!!! Cut some up in a bowl, put a little salt, olive oil, and some good balsamic vinegar, and I’m good to go! Mmmm, and talk about omega 3s!!!
Yep, we noticed. In there with pretty good company, I’d say. Who’d a thunk it when we put this thing together a few years ago?
We’ve never cooked a whole salmon, but we have cooked salmon fillets many, many times. We salt and pepper the salmon, add a little butter (or sometimes olive oil) in the bag along with a couple of thin slices of lemon and a sprig of dill. Drop in the bath at 116F for 20-40 minutes (depending on thickness) then take it out of the bag and eat without searing. It looks raw, but is actually cooked perfectly. And doesn’t damage the delicate fats. No comparison to the salmon typically served.
Glad you’re enjoying your SVS.
I’ve noticed lately, that even though I bought a great Iwatani torch, when I pull my sirloin out of the SVS (the Demi — the pretty blue one), that I don’t even bother with the torch. The sirloin comes out SO sweet, SO tender, just SOOOOO fantastic — that I just cut and eat. Nirvana! In the bag, I use a bit of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, and a pat of good butter. I sometimes put a wee chip of pureed green pepper in too.
(I buy green peppers when they’re on sale, puree the heck out of them, spread the mush on a cookie sheet and freeze solid; then break up into chips — great for quick seasoning without any work!)
You and Mary Dan put together the best kitchen appliance I could imagine!
Thanks for the testimonial. I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying your machine.
MMMmmmmm! Dr. Eades — your recipe sounds fantastic! I’m going to lower the heat and try prepare it as you describe. Elenor, love the idea of pre-prepared green pepper “mush”!
I too do not sear (exception is when preparing steak for my son — I brown it in some coconut oil).
By the way, the vacuum sealer is a great way to freeze-pack extra parsley (so annoying to have to buy a huge bunch when one needs just a bit) and other fresh herbs! They look so pretty, like pressed flowers, keeping their exact green and all flattened out! Reminds me of when the kids and I would gather the most beautiful of the colored leaves in the fall, iron them between pieces of waxed paper, and then pin our creations to the lampshades and turn on the lights! (Sorry, digression
One thing I do that I think saves power: I’ve started putting a thick folded bath towel just on the top of the Sous Vide (on top of the black rubber insulator) — I notice the temp stays within one degree as it should so it seems to have no adverse effect. Do you think this is a ‘no no’ for any reason regarding how the Sous Vide works internally?
I can’t think of a no no.
PLEASE DON’T POST THIS UNTIL YOU TRY AND SEE IF WHAT I’VE DONE WORKS – also it might be read as a critique of the Sous Vide which isn’t my intention so you might be best never posting it. or trying it and then posting it as your own suggestion (fine with me!)
here it is!!!!
Wow, I always suspected I was a genius.
The ONE issue I’ve had is that moisture gets sucked upwards from the food (esp. very moist food like fish), sometimes impeding the seal. So here’s my genius idea that looks like it will work GREAT!?!
I prepared my salmon fillets as you recommend above (first pressing them a bit in a Bounty paper towel to take out SOME moisture, then S&P, butter, dill). THEN I took 3/4ths a sheet of Bounty paper towel and folded it longwise over and over (about 1-1/2 inches wide) and placed that next to the prepared fish (the fish is in the bottom of the bag, next to it is this strip of multi-folded paper towel).
Vacuum sucked out the air in the vacuum sealer. IT DOES JUST WHAT I’D HOPED: Put it in place, turn on the sealer: The moisture from the fish travels up toward the hoped-for seal and gets absorbed by the paper towel. Of course the paper towel gets vacuum packed too, but I just couldn’t think of a downside to that.
Now I’m going to Sous Vide them and will tell you how it works!!!
Dr. Eades, I tried it. Best fish I ever ate. Seriously. Loved my salmon before, but this is transcendent. The paper towel had zilch bad effect. Just made sealing a cinch. Soooo much better cooked at 116 rather than 130. Thank you for the great recipe. And they look so pretty! Presentation, presentation… Next time it’ll be for company. Paula
Glad you liked it. We’ll try it with the paper towel next time just to see how it works. MD thinks there is a product available that does the same thing as the paper towel, but we haven’t tried it. You can do the same thing by simply overriding the autoseal on the vac sealer and pushing the ‘seal only’ button before the liquid sucks up far enough to interfere with the sealing process.
As you discovered, 116F is vastly better than 130F for salmon. Transcendent is a good word for it.
[...] what’s that? The best low-carb book in print Post your reps to [...]