apr 30 food

I'm thinking I need a few more calories so I'm experimenting with a bigger smoothie and more high calorie foods like beans and oatmeal and soymilk.  I lost about 5 lbs over the last few months and I definitely don't want to lose anymore, and maybe I want to gain a few back.  I'm 5'9" and weigh 120 lbs.  I've always been on the thin side with little muscle, until my late 30s when I gained weight like everyone else who eats the Standard American Diet.  I don't have time to log my calories every day so I'm just going to aim for 2-3 oz of nuts and seeds a day, and three meals a day.   

Brekky:  smoothie (bigger than before, and more seeds).

Lunch:  beans (baby lima and adzuki, onion, Dr. Fuhrman's Matozest, some herbes de provence and Fines herbs.  Next time I will add some goji berries and dried cherries).  steamed veggies with rutabaga-sesame sauce.  The veggies I had were carrots, cauliflower, and frozen peas and corn.  I love this dish.  It feels decadent because the sauce is creamy.   

Dinner:   some celery, a kiwi while preparing a salad (lettuce & arugula, an apple, 1/2 chopped orange bell pepper, 1 Tbsp ground sunflower seeds, 1 Tbsp orange vinegar).  then 2/3 cup peas.  a small orange.

vicarious goal fulfillment

Here's an article that was posted on the Fuhrman forums from Duke Daily news.  It's about how people will be more likely to eat junk food if they see healthy food on the menu.  Talk about weird human psychology:

See Salad, Eat Fries: When Healthy Menus Backfire

Just seeing a salad on the menu seems to push some consumers to make a less healthy meal choice, according a Duke University researcher.

It’s an effect called “vicarious goal fulfillment,” in which a person can feel a goal has been met if they have taken some small action, like considering the salad without ordering it, said Gavan Fitzsimons, professor of marketing and psychology at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, who led the research.

In a lab experiment, participants possessing high levels of self-control related to food choices (as assessed by a pre-test) avoided french fries, the least healthy item on a menu, when presented with only unhealthy choices. But when a side salad was added to this menu, they became much more likely to take the fries.

The team’s findings are available in the online version of the Journal of Consumer Research, and will appear in its October 2009 print edition.

Although fast-food restaurants and vending machine operators have increased their healthy offerings in recent years, “analysts have pointed out that sales growth in the fast-food industry is not coming from healthy menu items, but from increased sales of burgers and fries,” Fitzsimons said. “There is clearly public demand for healthy options, so we wanted to know why people aren’t following through and purchasing those items.”

Working with co-authors Keith Wilcox and Lauren Block of Baruch College, and Beth Vallen of Loyola College in Maryland, Fitzsimons asked research participants to select a food item from one of two pictorial menus. Half of the participants saw a menu of unhealthy items, including only french fries, chicken nuggets and a baked potato with butter and sour cream. The rest of the participants were given the same three options, plus the choice of a side salad.

When the side salad was added, a few consumers did actually choose it. However, the vast majority of consumers did not, and went toward unhealthier options. Ironically, this effect was strongest among those consumers who normally had high levels of self-control.

“In this case, the presence of a salad on the menu has a liberating effect on people who value healthy choices,” Fitzsimons said. “We find that simply seeing, and perhaps briefly considering, the healthy option fulfills their need to make healthy choices, freeing the person to give in to temptation and make an unhealthy choice. In fact, when this happens people become so detached from their health-related goals, they go to extremes and choose the least healthy item on the menu.”

Two other test menus showed the same effect. “We also had participants choose from menus contrasting a bacon cheeseburger, chicken sandwich and fish sandwich with a veggie burger,” Block said. “And we tried chocolate covered Oreos, original Oreos and golden Oreos against a 100-calorie pack of Oreos and obtained the same result.”

“Adding the healthier option caused people with high self-control to choose the least healthy option possible. Even though it was not their first choice before the healthy option was included,” Block said.

The team’s findings suggest that encouraging people to make better choices may require significant effort on the part of both food service providers and customers. “What this shows is that adding one or two healthy items to a menu is essentially the worst thing you can do,” Fitzsimons said. “Because, while a few consumers will choose the healthy option, it causes most consumers to make drastically worse choices.”

Schools and other establishments concerned with promoting healthy behaviors may need to take an extreme approach and eliminate all unhealthy food, Fitzsimons said. “It sounds quite drastic, but because the effect of mixing healthy and unhealthy choices is so powerful, we would suggest that the safest way to get children to eat well is to take the pizza, fries and other junk foods completely out of schools, and replace them with healthy foods.”

The team also suggests that consumers might empower themselves through awareness. “This is one of those human quirks that we may be able to overcome if we are conscious of it and make a concerted effort to stick to the healthy choices we know we should be making,” Block said.

apr 29 food

Okay I'm back on the wagon.  whew.  It's always a relief for me to get back to normal.  So then I wonder why I go off in the first place.  I don't know!   Eating psychology is a mystery for me--I'll give another example of that in my next post.  So here's what I ate today.

I was out most of the morning and wasn't hungry before I left, so brekky just turned into lunch.  I had in mind a healthy treat:   peanut butter and banana.  I got a small amount of peanut butter (4 Tbsps, okay, not so small) at the co-op---freshly ground, yum!  and some ripe bananas and brought that home.  The peanut butter was still warm from the grinding.  I ate them together.  I really like this.  I decided next time I want a splurge I'm hoping this kind of treat can satisfy my urge.  I also had a smoothie and a pear.  

Dinner was a large salad:  lettuce, arugula, sorrel all chopped, 1/2 cup edamame, 1/2 orange bell pepper, a small ripe mango cut up, and some blueberry vinegar.  The mango was really good.    That only had about 300 calories so I was hungry later on and had an apple and half a small banana.

Total calories:  1548, protein 50 g (12%), carbs 246 g (59%), fat 51 g (29%).   

apr. 28

um, I continued my splurge today but I didn't overeat.  I just felt, since I jumped off the wagon, I may as well play in the dirt for another day.  

I wasn't hungry at brekky, so lunch was my usual smoothie.  I also had a few bites of lunch-mate's vegan burrito at Chipotle's.  Now I usually never do this as I am pretty extreme with my eating habits.  But I was curious.  It was salty and the tortilla tasted kind of like cardboard.  But the guacamole was good and I can see how quickly you can get addicted to this stuff with the salt.  Oh, I felt the effects of the processed flour in the tortilla immediately.  Dr. Fuhrman is right that white flour is just like sugar.  It goes into the blood stream quickly.  

Then I decided to have a "nothing muffin" at the co-op.  This is a relatively healthy muffin, with whole wheat and flaxseed but it's got canola oil and maple syrup so still qualifies as junk food in Fuhrman's book.  It tasted pretty good because of the maple syrup--and raisins.  

For dinner I had a few more treats, a small serving of some peanut-tofu dish from the deli at the co-op.  It was good because it had sweetener and salt and peanuts and some other good flavorings in it.  Oh and some broccoli to make it a little healthy.  And I also had some veggie sushi rolls.  These are just raw veggies and a little avocado rolled in that very thin rice paper.  I think these would qualify as healthy in Fuhrman's book.  They didn't taste salty.  Then I had some fruit--apple, orange, and a carrot and celery.  

Oh, tonight I felt like I had a little hot flash.  yikes, I'd better get back on that wagon.  I've had zero menopause symptoms the last several months even though I stopped having my period 4 months ago, and I like that just fine!    Oh, and last night I slept okay for about 6 hours, but it was somewhat unpleasant with a bad dream and racing heartbeat from the caffeine in the chocolate.  My fingers are swollen from the salt, and I was thirsty today which is unusual for me, so I'll look forward to my return to healthy eating, hopefully tomorrow.   It really is weird how sensitive you become to caffeine and salt when you remove it 100% from your diet.

100 Million in Perspective

Here's a good video to help illustrate how serious Obama is about saving money:

apr. 26-27

Let's see, yesterday I was still at the conference in the morning, so had lentil soup, orange and kiwi for brekky.  Got home in time for lunch and had a smoothie.  Then I had a banana, and some more fruit and some brazil nuts, about an oz, and some peas.  I probably had more because I was overfull.  Dinner was a baked sweet potato and steamed broccoli and cauliflower.  I probably had some fruit too.  Then I had about 3-4 oz of brazil nuts while watching a movie.  I definitely overate at both lunch and dinner, well past the state of fullness.  

Today I had a smoothie for brekky.  Lunch was steamed kale and sweet potato sauce.  But again, I ate well past full.  I kept on eating peas and corn, and an apple and I made a baked beet and frozen blueberry pudding.  It wasn't that great so I'm not going to write it out as a recipe.  I also had some prunes.  Then I still felt like splurging so at dinner time I bought some vegan chocolate chip cookies from my co-op.  They are the relatively healthy kind with whole wheat flour and coconut and canola oil, but still, I had about 10 of them.  Blech.   So that was my dinner!   Well, I guess that satisfied my splurge urge.  

I hope I can get to sleep tonight after eating that chocolate and I hope I don't feel too crappy tomorrow.  oh boy...

Ten Lessons from Great Christian Minds

Between Two Worlds has a great summary with corresponding links. But to look back over the centuries and see what many great minds have taught in a nutshell is very insightful, and a brief "faith check" to see if I'm on the right track:

1. Augustine (5th century): Remember that you are a citizen of another kingdom.
   
2. Martin Luther (16th century): Expect politicians to be corrupt.
3. Thomas Aquinas (13th century): God has made himself known in nature.
4. John Calvin (16th century): God is sovereign over all, including our suffering.
5. Jonathan Edwards (18th century): God is beautiful, and all beauty is divine.
6. Thomas a’Kempis (15th century): Practice self-denial with a passion.
7. John Wesley (18th century): Be disciplined and make the best use of your time.
8. Fyodor Dostoevsky (19th century): God’s grace can reach anyone.
9. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (20th century): Beware of cheap grace.
10. Alvin Plantinga (21st century): Moral virtue is crucial for intellectual health

Imagination as a Virtue

I was talking with my sister the other day about my nephew who seems to have such an imagination when telling stories (even when she's wanting just a straight answer), and her frustration with the whole thing. I encouraged her to see his "creative streak" as a blessing and just try to focus it instead of stomp it out. You can teach kids math (most days if you try hard enough), but you can't teach imagination. It really is a blessing.

And now Between Two Worlds posts how it can also be a virtue. A brief post, but worth a glance.

Year Zero

It has seemed strange to me how this tone has developed/been revealed in the Obama Administration.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but Rich Lowry did it for me here:

"The calendar says Pres. Barack Obama took office in 2009, although that’s only a technicality. In his own mind, Obama ascended in Year Zero, a time of ritualistic cleansing in preparation for the relaunching of an America free from its past sins.

Has an American president ever appeared less vested in his nation’s history than Barack Obama?...

It’s as if we elected not so much a president as a University of Chicago law professor who — holding his country at a critical distance — analyzes its strengths and weaknesses in a boffo traveling lecture series. In Obama’s serial apologies — for America’s arrogance, for its mistreatment of the Indians, for Hiroshima, and so on — can be detected muted versions of the multiculturalist orthodoxies of academe and of the themes of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
...

Obama hopes that throwing America’s past under the bus will win him diplomatic chits abroad, as we “break free” from “stale debates and old ideologies.” What he doesn’t realize is that for enemies like Iran and Venezuela, the debates aren’t stale and the ideologies aren’t old. For these players, Obama’s rhetorical concessions are not ways to move beyond the debates but to make advances within them.

Obama seems to take active pleasure in saying that there are no senior or junior partners on the international stage. The danger is that foreign governments will actually believe him. Obama may think he’s being magnanimous and admirably humble about his own country, but adversaries could be forgiven for detecting weakness.

Heaven

My grandmother's funeral was today and I shared this quote from Jonathan Edwards' sermon Heaven, A World of Love:

"...Love in heaven is always mutual. It is always [reciprocated in ways] that are proportion[ate].... No inhabitants of that blessed world will ever be grieved with the thought that they are slighted by those that they love, or that their love is not fully and fondly returned.... [Those in heaven] will not doubt the love of each other. They shall have no fear that the declarations and professions of love are hypocritical; but shall be perfectly satisfied of the sincerity and strength of each other’s affection, as much as if there were a window in every [heart], so that everything ... could be seen. There shall be no such thing as flattery or [deceit] in heaven, but there perfect sincerity shall reign through all and in all. Every one will be just what he seems to be, and will really have all the love that he seems to have. It will not be as in this world, where comparatively few things are what they seem to be, and where professions are often made lightly and without meaning; but there every expression of love shall come from the bottom of the heart, and all that is professed shall be really and truly felt.

The saints ... shall have no suspicion that the love which others have felt toward them is [diminished], or in any degree withdrawn from them for the sake of some rival, or by reason of anything in themselves which they suspect is disagreeable to others, or through any [faithlessness] in their own hearts or the hearts of others.... There shall be no such thing as [fickleness] and unfaithfulness in heaven, to [assault] and disturb the friendship of that blessed society. The saints shall have no fear that the love of God will ever [diminish] towards them, or that Christ will not continue always to love them with unabated tenderness and affection....

As the saints will love God with an inconceivable [passion], and to the utmost of their capacity, so they will know that he has loved them from all eternity, and still loves them, and will continue to love them forever.... And with the same [zeal] and fervency will the saints love the Lord Jesus Christ; and their love will be accepted; and they shall know that he has loved them with a faithful, [yes], even with a dying love. They shall then be more [aware] than now they are, what great love it manifested in Christ that he should lay down his life for them; and then will Christ [show them] the great fountain of love in his heart for them, beyond all that they ever saw before....

And they shall know that they themselves shall ever live to love God, and love the saints, and to enjoy their love in all its fullness and sweetness forever. They shall ... [not] fear ... any end to this happiness, or of any [fading] from its fullness and blessedness, or that they shall ever be weary of its exercises and expressions, ...or that [their loved ones] shall ever grow old or disagreeable, so that their love shall at last die away.... [All] shall enjoy each other ... without any sickness, or grief, or persecution, or sorrow, or any enemy to [abuse] them, or any busybody to create jealousy or misunderstanding, or mar the perfect, and holy, and blessed peace that reigns in heaven!

And all this in the garden of God — in the paradise of love, where everything is filled with love, and everything conspires to promote and kindle it, and keep up its flame, and nothing ever interrupts it, but everything has been fitted by an all-wise God for its full enjoyment under the greatest advantages forever! And all, too, where the beauty of the [loved ones] shall never fade, and love shall never grow weary nor decay, but the soul shall more and more rejoice in love forever!

Oh! what tranquility will there be in such a world as this! And who can express the fullness and blessedness of this peace! What a calm is this! How sweet, and holy, and joyous! What a haven of rest to enter, after having passed through the storms and tempests of this world, in which pride, and selfishness, and envy, and malice, and scorn, and contempt, and contention, and vice, are as waves of a restless ocean, always rolling, and often dashed about in violence and fury! What a Canaan of rest to come to, after going through this waste and howling wilderness, full of snares, and pitfalls, and poisonous serpents, where no rest could be found!"

apr 24-25

I'm at a weekend conference and eating fabulous food--because I brought it, ha.  

Yesterday's brekky was the rest of the spinach-mango smoothie that I made on thursday (froze half of it).    

Then I made a big batch of lentil soup and a big batch of cabbage salad for this weekend.  I had some lentil soup for lunch.  

Then I made salad for dinner with yesterday's apple-sweet potato dressing.  It also had peas, bell pepper, and mango.  yum! 

I called ahead to the hotel and requested a fridge and microwave in the room.  They were very accomodating and put their one set in my room immediately (I love midwest hospitality--this is Milwaukee, WI).    I packed my cabbage salad and lentil soup into 4 separate (large) bowls, and my salad into a 5th, and packed them into my electric cooler along with some fruit.  Last night at dinner I told the waitress I can't eat their food but I'll leave a tip and can I have a plate?  and she said, that's easy, so she was happy.  I ate my salad, and it was great!  

This morning I had cabbage salad and banana for breakfast.  Lunch was lentil soup and apple.  Dinner was cabbage salad and orange and kiwi.  They didn't order enough plates at the banquet so it was a great excuse for me to offer my plate to someone else and pull out my own food.   Brekky tomorrow will be lentil soup.  okay maybe sounds a little repetitive but it's really easy and good.  Just grab the bowl, microwave, and go.  I can still socialize with everyone and they don't seem to care what I'm doing.  My bowls are too big though, in that my portion sizes are too big and I'm getting too full.  so next time I'll bring smaller bowls.

lentils and carrot juice and everything else

I left town for a few days so made a soup out of what was in my fridge. It turned out great!

Ingredients:

1-3 cups of red lentils (I had about 2.5 and used them all)

1/2-1 cup rice (I have this wild/brown rice mixture, yum, I used 1 cup)

2-3 onions or leeks (I used 3)

5 lbs of carrots, juiced (wow, that's a lot!)

whatever else you think you can juice: I had about 5 stalks of celery and a large beet that I also juiced.

a bunch of kale or other green vegetable if you have one.

and/or zucchini, broccoli cauliflower

Prep and juice the carrots and other juicing veggies. This is a key ingredient because it makes the soup flavorful and sweet, and even better than soups that use spices, oil, and salt. Housemate commented that it seems wasteful since you don't use the carrot pulp and I have to agree. I compost it but it still seems wasteful. Add the juice to a large pot with the lentils and rice and start cooking. I find this needs to cook for over an hour for the rice to get tender, say 1.5 hours. Chop the onions and add. I had a bunch of kale so I chopped that and added it next. I also had some cauliflower. I steamed this, blended it in a blender and added it (froze the steaming water for broth in a future soup). It made the soup even creamier. Yum! You can also do with with zucchini. Or if you have broccoli, I would just steam it and add it to the soup without blending. That's pretty much it. Cook until the rice and lentils and onions are tender.

Nutrition and Infectious Disease

Dr. Edward Mellanby's book Nutrition and Disease contains a chapter titled "Nutrition and Infection". It begins:

There is general agreement among medical men that the susceptibility of mankind to many types of infection is closely related to the state of nutrition. The difficulty arises, when closer examination is given to this general proposition, as to what constitutes good and bad nutrition, and the problem is not rendered easier by recent advances in nutritional science.

Dr. Mellanby was primarily concerned with the effect of fat-soluble vitamins on infectious disease, particularly vitamins A and D. One of his earliest observations was that butter protected against pneumonia in his laboratory dogs. He eventually identified vitamin A as the primary protective factor. He found that by placing rats on a diet deficient in vitamin A, they developed numerous infectious lesions, most often in the urogenital tract, the eyes, the intestine, the middle ear and the lungs. This was prevented by adding vitamin A or cabbage (a source of beta-carotene, which the rats converted to vitamin A) to the diet. Mellanby and his colleagues subsequently dubbed vitamin A the "anti-infective vitamin".

Dr. Mellanby was unsure whether the animal results would apply to humans, due to "the difficulty in believing that diets even of poor people were as deficient in vitamin A and carotene as the experimental diets." However, their colleagues had previously noted marked differences in the infection rate of largely vegetarian African tribes versus their carnivorous counterparts. The following quote from Nutrition and Disease refers to two tribes which, by coincidence, Dr. Weston Price also described in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:

The high incidence of bronchitis, pneumonia, tropical ulcers and phthisis among the Kikuyu tribe who live on a diet mainly of cereals as compared with the low incidence of these diseases among their neighbours the Masai who live on meat, milk and raw blood (Orr and Gilks), probably has a similar or related nutritional explanation. The differences in distribution of infective disease found by these workers in the two tribes are most impressive. Thus in the cereal-eating tribe, bronchitis and pneumonia accounted for 31 per cent of all cases of sickness, tropical ulcers for 33 per cent, and phthisis for 6 per cent. The corresponding figures for the meat, milk and raw blood tribe were 4 per cent, 3 per cent and 1 per cent.

So they set out to test the theory under controlled conditions. Their first target: puerperal sepsis. This is an infection of the uterus that occurs after childbirth. They divided 550 women into two groups: one received vitamins A and D during the last month of pregnancy, and the other received nothing. Neither group was given instructions to change diet, and neither group was given vitamins during their hospital stay. The result, quoted from Nutrition and Disease:

The morbidity rate in the puerperium using the [British Medical Association] standard was 1.1 per cent in the vitamin group and 4.7 in the control group, a difference of 3.6 per cent which is twice the standard error (1.4), and therefore statistically significant.

This experiment didn't differentiate between the effects of vitamin A and D, but it did establish that fat-soluble vitamins are important for resistance to bacterial infection. The next experiment Dr. Mellanby undertook was a more difficult one. This time, he targeted puerperal septicemia. This is a more advanced stage of puerperal sepsis, in which the infection spreads into the bloodstream. In this experiment, he treated women who had already contracted the infection. This trial was not as tightly controlled as the previous one. Here's a description of the intervention, from Nutrition and Disease:

...all patients received when possible a diet rich not only in vitamin A but also of high biological quality. This diet included much milk, eggs, green vegetables, etc., as well as the vitamin A supplement. For controls we had to use the cases treated in previous years by the same obstetricians and gynecologists as the test cases.

In the two years prior to this investigation, the mortality rate for puerperal septicemia in 18 patients was 92%. In 1929, Dr. Mellanby fed 18 patients in the same hospital his special diet, and the mortality rate was 22%. This is a remarkable treatment for an infection that was almost invariably fatal at the time.

Dr. Mellanby was a man with a lot of perspective. He was not a reductionist; he knew that a good diet is more than the sum of its parts. Here's another quote from Nutrition and Disease:

It is probable that, as in the case of vitamin D and rickets, the question is not simple and that it will ultimately be found that vitamin A works in harmony with some dietetic factors, such as milk proteins and other proteins of high biological value, to promote resistance of mucous membranes and epithelial cells to invasion by micro-organisms, while other factors such as cereals, antagonise its influence. The effect of increasing the green vegetable and reducing the cereal intake on the resistance of herbivorous animals to infection is undoubted (Glenny and Allen, Boock and Trevan) and may well indicate a reaction in which the increased carotene of the vegetable plays only a part, but an important part.

And finally, let's not forget the effect of vitamin D on infection resistance. Low vitamin D is consistently associated with a higher frequency of respiratory infections, and a controlled trial showed that vitamin D supplements significantly reduce the occurrence of flu symptoms in wintertime. Vitamins A and D are best taken together. Did someone say high-vitamin cod liver oil??

P.S.- I have to apologize, I forgot to copy down the primary literature references for this post before returning the book to the library. So for the skeptics out there, you'll either have to take my word for it, or find a copy of the book yourself.

apr. 23

today I didn't plan very well and it led to erratic eating that almost got out of control.  I had those silly fears about getting too hungry.  and I was indecisive about what I wanted.  I think that contributed to over-eating because if I know I want something really good for my next meal, I'll limit my current meal intake to a normal amount knowing that I'll have a great meal a few hours later.

At 6:30 am I worried I'd be too hungry during exercise class, so I ate 0.5 oz brazil nuts even though I wasn't hungry.  I'm not sure that is the best thing to eat before exercise class.  An easier to digest fruit would probably be better, like kiwi.   Anyway, then afterwards when I got home at 9:30, brekky was my usual morning smoothie.  

Then I needed to prepare a lunch quickly for the road.  I thought about salad but thought it would take too long to make dressing.  So I made a mango-spinach smoothie.  I thought, that's not going to be enough so I just started nibbling on things, berries, carrots and celery.   Then I forgot to bring my lunch with me!   which made me glad I nibbled.   

I got home at 4 pm and was hungry and ate my smoothie and then just kind of continued and I guess it became a long dinner.  I made a salad with an apple-sweet potato dressing, peas, red bell pepper.  I ate more peas, and then 2 bananas.  I finished off the berries from yesterday (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries--yummy).  Ate 0.5 oz brazil nuts (thankfully that did not lead to more).  And then I made some cherry ice cream---a bag of frozen cherries, a banana, and some juice blended up.  I ate the whole thing (it was good).  By now it was about 6:30 pm and I stopped.  I was overly full but not uncomfortably so, fortunately.

I'm sure I ate more calories than I needed but at least I stopped at some point.  And I ate more fruit than is normal.  I was discussing overeating with someone on the fuhrman forums and he asked me, "what are you thinking when you do that?" and I thought that was a really good question.  I'm not sure what the answer is.  I'm not sure I'm thinking at all.  I just want to eat and I tend to shut down my thinking.  

I've been thinking of trying to have 1 serving of grains a day.  I think I'd like another calorie source that isn't fruit and nuts.  Starchy veggies (sweet potatoes, potatoes, beets) are good for that too. 

spaghetti sauce #3

This is my favorite so far, similar to the previous one but adds prunes and green peas to sweeten the sauce.  Without salt and oil, I find I need something to offset the metallic taste of the tomatoes.  Also, this makes a smaller batch, which is good for 2 meals for two people.  This looks more complicated than it is.  After soaking the mushrooms, it only takes about 30 minutes.  And you don't have to follow this exactly, you can subsitute for a lot of the veggies whatever is in your fridge.

Ingredients:

1 16-oz can tomatoes (from the garden, if you are so fortunate)

1/2 onion or leek

about 3 Tbsp pesto (made from basil, garlic, and walnuts) 

OR

some chopped fresh basil (or dried italian seasoning) and chopped garlic cloves (2-4, to taste) and 1 oz walnuts.

1 medium carrot

some dried porchini mushrooms (~1/8 cup)

some fresh mushrooms if you have them (4 oz)  (I didn't today)

some bell pepper (any color), if you have it.  (I had 1/2 red pepper today)

3  prunes, chopped (or was it 4?)

2/3 cup frozen peas

Boil some water (1/2 cup) in a small pot, turn off the stove, soak the porchini mushrooms for about 30 minutes. 

Cook the sauce in two different pans because one will be blended in the blender. So for the blended pan, cook the carrot and most of the onion in some water (or broth--I freeze liquid from when I steam veggies).  You can cut up these vegetables in big pieces because they will be blended. In the other pan, chop up the rest of the onion and start cooking it with the tomatoes and juice. If you don't have the pesto, chop the garlic and add it. Cut up and add the mushrooms and pepper.  Add the pesto or basil and let that cook up.

While this is cooking, you can cook up your spaghetti or substitute. I made whole wheat spaghetti for housemate (boil in water until tender) and made lightly steamed spiralized baked sweet potato for me.  Another time I had it over steamed brussels sprouts. It's also good on broccoli and cauliflower.  It's even good over spiralized potato.  

Once the carrots and onion are done, blend them up in the blender.  If you aren't using pesto sauce, add 1 oz walnuts to the mixture and blend that.   Add that to the other pan.  Add in the frozen peas and that will cool off the sauce nicely.  

apr. 22

Snack before yoga (7:30 am):  0.5 oz brazil nuts, sips of housemate's smoothie

brekky after yoga (10:50 am):  smoothie

Lunch:  Well it's good when you start running out of food because you get more creative.  My fridge was pretty empty so I made up a new "spaghetti" sauce on spiralized sweet potato.  This was really good!   I think I perfected the recipe (well, good enough for me anyway).

I made whole wheat spaghetti for housemate and tried a few forkfulls.  Without salt and oil, it seems pretty yucky to me now--not much taste, and what taste it has is kind of bitter.  In contrast, the sweet potato was flavorful and sweet.  I used a spirooli to spiralize the sweet potato, then steamed it for just a few minutes.

Dinner:  leftover spaghetti.  and fruit salad.  yummy.  and I ate an orange.   and some more berries.  Those blackberries were good.  I didn't used to like them but now I really like them.  I ate the whole container of blackberries (6 oz?).

I didn't count my calories because I didn't have desire to figure out the spaghetti sauce, which used pesto that I made last summer.  I ate a pretty normal amount, maybe more fat than usual since I forgot the pesto had walnuts in it when I added it to the spaghetti sauce.

Fructose vs. Glucose Showdown

As you've probably noticed, I believe sugar is one of the primary players in the diseases of civilization. It's one of the "big three" that I focus on: sugar, industrial vegetable oil and white flour. It's becoming increasingly clear that fructose, which constitutes half of table sugar and typically 55% of high-fructose corn syrup, is the problem. A reader pointed me to a brand new study (free full text!), published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, comparing the effect of ingesting glucose vs. fructose.

The investigators divided 32 overweight men and women into two groups, and instructed each group to drink a sweetened beverage three times per day. They were told not to eat any other sugar. The drinks were designed to provide 25% of the participants' caloric intake. That might sound like a lot, but the average American actually gets about 25% of her calories from sugar! That's the average, so there are people who get a third or more of their calories from sugar. In one group, the drinks were sweetened with glucose, while in the other group they were sweetened with fructose.

After ten weeks, both groups had gained about three pounds. But they didn't gain it in the same place. The fructose group gained a disproportionate amount of visceral fat, which increased by 14%! Visceral fat is the most dangerous type; it's associated with and contributes to chronic disease, particularly metabolic syndrome, the quintessential modern metabolic disorder (see the end of the post for more information and references). You can bet their livers were fattening up too.

The good news doesn't end there. The fructose group saw a worsening of blood glucose control and insulin sensitivity. They also saw an increase in small, dense LDL particles and oxidized LDL, both factors that associate strongly with the risk of heart attack and may in fact contribute to it. Liver synthesis of fat after meals increased by 75%. If you look at table 4, it's clear that the fructose group experienced a major metabolic shift, and the glucose group didn't. Practically every parameter they measured in the fructose group changed significantly over the course of the 9 weeks. It's incredible.

25% of calories from fructose is a lot. The average American gets about 13%. But plenty of people exceed that, perhaps going up to 20% or more. Furthermore, the intervention was only 10 weeks. What would a lower intake of fructose, say 10% of calories, do to a person over a lifetime? Nothing good, in my opinion. Avoiding refined sugar is one of the best things you can do for your health.

U.S. Fructose Consumption Trends
Peripheral vs. Ectopic Fat
Visceral Fat
Visceral Fat and Dementia
How to Give a Rat Metabolic Syndrome
How to Fatten Your Liver

change of seasons

I am starting to feel the urge to move on to spring foods.   Soon the winter crop of carrots will be gone.  But coincidentally I am ready to move on.  I'm ready for a change in my daily meals.   I feel like I'm just clearing out the pantry to prepare for the transition.  Make room for the spring greens!  I'm sure how I will prepare them...

oatmeal #3

I was low on food, and this is what I came up with.  I would have had a salad but didn't have enough fixings.  

Ingredients:  

1/4 cup steel-cut oats or 1/2 cup rolled oats

2 prunes, chopped

1 Tbsp goji berries

a few cups chopped spinach or arugula

part of a leek or onion

Start cooking the oats in 1 cup water.  I like to cook it for about an hour if I'm using steel cut oats.  Or bring them to a boil and then turn off the stove for an hour and then come back and cook for 20 minutes.   Add the onion early on, then the prunes and goji berries, then the spinach.   This was interesting, not bad, different from what I'm used to.  I think I'd have to try it again.  I used arugula since I didn't have spinach.  I think I'd prefer spinach.  

apr 21

Brekky in the car (physically healthy but probably not so much mentally):  smoothie, perfectly ripe (and delicious) pear

Lunch:  baked sweet potato, entire bunch of asparagus.  (yum).  and house-mate's potato skin.  carrots and celery while preparing.

Dinner:  another oatmeal recipe, inspired by lack of food in the fridge.  1/3 cup peas while preparing.  half a banana while prepping a ripe bunch for smoothies (peeling, weighing, breaking into smaller pieces, and freezing in small ziplock bags).   dessert was 1 oz brazil nuts, a pear, a kiwi.   I was pretty hungry by dinner time, maybe because I had a hard workout today.  

Total calories:  1571, protein 39 g (8%), carbs 308 g (74%), fat 32 g (18%).

Follow on Biologics

Earlier today, I moderated an all day meeting at the National Press Club in Washington DC on a key topic---the policy questions surrounding follow on biologics or FOBs. Biologic drugs, the so called big molecules, include some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of the last decade. These drugs are giving hope to thousands of patients. They are expensive to create and they do cost more than small molecules or non biologic products. There is an industry out there interested in trying to create a type of "generic product", a FOB. The challenge here is that a FOB is not biologically equivalent to an original innovative product. In addition, the FDA does not have a pathway that makes sense to approve these FOBs. Our program today, with experts from around the nation, demonstrated the need for an urgent policy solution to these issues. We will create a special edition of our journal, Biotechnology Healthcare, that will highlight these findings. For now, pay attention to what happens on Capitol Hill as we struggle with the FOB question. Much more news to follow. Does your institution support the FOBs?? DAVID NASH

Cordain on Saturated Fat

I recently signed up for Dr. Loren Cordain's Paleo Diet newsletter, and I just received my first update. For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Dr. Cordain is a researcher at Colorado State University who studies the effects of hunter-gatherer and modern diets on health. He's made a number of important contributions to our understanding of nutrition and health. He's in my "Nutrition Hall of Fame" on the right sidebar.

His update was about saturated fat. In the past, I've disagreed with Dr. Cordain on this issue, because I thought he felt that saturated fat contributes to the risk of heart attack (although he never described it as a dominant factor). He has recommended trimming the fat off meats and using canola oil rather than just eating the fat. I don't know if I had misunderstood his stance, or if he's had a change of heart, but his current position seems quite reasonable to me. Here are a few brief quotes:

By examining the amounts of saturated fats in pre-agricultural hominin diets, an evolutionary baseline can be established for the normal range and limits of saturated fats that would have conditioned the human genome. While these diets varied due to geography, climate, etc., there is evidence that all hominin species were omnivorous. Thus, dietary saturated fats would have always been present in hominin diets.

There is also evidence that the hominin species that eventually led to Homo began to include more animal food in their diet approximately 2.6 million years ago. Clear evidence shows tool usage to butcher and disarticulate carcasses...

This data suggests that the normal dietary intake of saturated fatty acids that conditioned our species genome likely fell between 10 to 15% of total energy, and that values lower than 10% or higher than 15% would have been the exception.

And the conclusion:

Consequently, population-wide recommendations to lower dietary saturated fats below 10% to reduce the risk of CAD have little or no evolutionary foundation in pre-agricultural Homo sapiens... So we do not need to restrict ourselves to only tuna and turkey breast, avoiding every last gram of saturated fat.

AMEN, brother. I'd like to point out that the average American eats about 11% of his calories as saturated fat (down from 13% in the 1970s), on the low side of what Cordain considers normal for Homo sapiens. This is from the NHANES nutrition surveys.

The effect of a food on an animal's health has everything to do with what that animal is adapted to eating. Feeding a rabbit cholesterol gives it high blood cholesterol and atherosclerosis, but you can't give a dog high cholesterol or atherosclerosis by feeding it cholesterol, unless you kill its thyroid first. Feeding studies in Masai men showed that replacing their fatty, cholesterol-rich milk and blood diet with a cholesterol-free refined diet low in saturated fat caused their total cholesterol and body weight to increase rapidly. Adding purified cholesterol to the cholesterol-free diet did not affect their blood cholesterol concentration. Feeding cholesterol-rich eggs also has a negligible effect on blood cholesterol in most people.

I do still have a slight difference of opinion with Cordain on the saturated fat issue. While I think his numbers for pre-agricultural saturated fat intake are reasonable, his range is probably too narrow. Non-agricultural diets are so variable, I would expect the range to be more like 5 to 30% saturated fat. 5% would represent diets low in fat such as certain Australian Aboriginal diets, and 30% would represent the intake of Northern hunter-gatherers relying heavily on ruminants in fall and winter. During this time, ruminants store most of their fat subcutaneously, and their subcutaneous fat is roughly half saturated. Given that such a wide range of saturated fat intakes are part of our species' ecological niche, it follows that saturated fat is unlikely to be an important determinant of health in the context of an otherwise healthy lifestyle.

apr 20

I was out for both breakfast and lunch.  I brought a smoothie for breakfast.  For lunch I had leftover beans and rice, and apple/cabbage dish.  I had that in a restaurant.  You don't have to be as extreme as me.  I just don't want to eat their food anymore.  Lunch-mate had a beef enchilada smothered in a sour cream sauce and a beef taco and rice and beans, all with cheese.   It doesn't appeal to me--so it's not that I'm disciplined or have strong willpower.  Over time, I've just changed my desires and habits.   I told the waitress I have food allergies and I'll leave a tip.  I know it's a copout but it's a quick way to convey the message to a busy person.  Maybe instead I should say,  "I can't eat restaurant food but I'll leave a tip."  

Dinner was a salad with beet dressing.  I'm finally tiring of the big easy salad with olives and ready to play with dressings again.  This salad had lettuce, arugula, half a red bell pepper, 1/3 cup peas and 1/3 cup corn.  I'm not sure it needed the corn and peas.  I tend to pick a favorite salad and stick with it for a while so I may go on a beet dressing rampage for a while.  It is really really good.  I wasn't hungry for dessert but was making smoothies for the next few days (freeze for later), so ate 1/2 banana, and a ripe pear that was calling to me.  It was good.  Oh, I snacked on a kiwi and a carrot and celery stalk while preparing.

Total calories:  1515.  Protein 40 g (9%), carbs 306 g (74%), fat 29 g (17%).

apr. 19

Brekky:  smoothie

snack at church:  a few pieces of raw broccoli, small carrot

late lunch:  leftover beans & rice, broccoli and cauliflower.  was hungry so had a carrot and apple while preparing, and 0.5 oz brazil nuts.  had some frozen peas afterwards (0.5 cup).  love these.

dinner:  big easy salad.  while preparing, snacked on an orange, some frozen peas, bites of an apple (most went into tomorrow's lunch), celery, carrot.  kiwi for dessert.  and 0.5 oz brazil nuts.

Total calories:  1415, protein 53 g (12%), carbs 247 g (66%), fat 35 g (22%).

The Non Stop Conversation

I feel as though we are in a non stop conversation about reforming our broken health care system and frankly, I think we might be generating more heat than light in the process!! Right now, the process has me perplexed. What is the best way to reach out to the broadest possible audience in order to reach our key stakeholders?? As we plan for and launch the Jefferson School of Population Health, I want our message to come through the cacaphony loud and clear. As a result, of course, I have my BLOG, but this is certainly not enough. You can now view my brand new video on YOU TUBE, you can send me a tweet on twitter (nashpophealth) and you can face book me too. A google search on "School of Population Health" will bring us up immediately and if you put in David B. Nash MD, Google does a good job tracking my publications. In short, we are doing everything we can to get out the message---the message that our system needs a new kind of leader and we are determined to create the educational programs to deliver on that promise. I look forward to hearing from you, DAVID NASH

easy beans & rice

Ingredients:

2 cups dried beans or 2 cans. small beans don't require soaking (adzuki, lentils, split peas). Larger beans (black, black-eyed, kidney, pinto)--soak overnight

0.5-1 cup rice or other grain (e.g., barley, kamut, quinoa)

2 cups carrot juice

2 cups celery juice

2 cups water

1 onion

a bunch of greens (optional)

Throw it all in a pot and cook for about 2 hours. When I steam veggies, I've been freezing the water used for boiling since it might capture some of the vitamins from the veggies. So I used that for my water. Today I realized I didn't have any rice so I used 1/4 cup barley, 1/4 cup kamut, and 1/4 cup quinoa. It was good! The kamut is chewy. I like it. The veggie juice adds a nice sweet flavor so makes up for the lack of oil and salt and spices. Oh, and I used adzuki beans today. I'm into small beans right now. And I used 3 small bunches of baby bok choy as my greens--these were really good.

Divided into 6 (large) servings, total calories per are 350, protein 36 g (18%), carbs 140 g (79%), fat 2 g (4%)

apr 18

I ate a lot today as per usual for a Saturday.  On weekends I tend to ignore Fuhrman's advice to not snack and I eat past fullness.   According to my calorie counting program I only ate 1770 calories, which is more than usual but my tummy feels like I ate more than that.   It's something that I think will improve over time, as everything else has.  It's just some leftover habits.

Brekky:  banana after jogging and before grocery shopping.  smoothie and 0.5 oz brazil nuts after grocery shopping.  While grocery shopping I was tempted by some vegan brownies.  But for some reason I didn't want them.  I think I don't like how I feel after eating them more than I like how I feel while eating them.  

Snack while fixing beans and rice:  nibbled on the carrots and celery while juicing them.

Snack at my church work day:  strawberries and orange pieces.  lots of them.  everyone else went for the chips and dip and left this giant bowl of strawberries so I'm sure I ate two cups.  And they left tons of orange pieces too so Jamie and I helped take care of those.

late lunch:   beans and rice, cooked while I was out.  (easy to prepare).  I had two pretty big bowls.  Dessert--was NOT hungry, was just pigging out:  blackberries.

dinner:  fruit salad (strawberries, raspberries, banana), 0.5 oz brazil nuts.

Total calories:  1798, protein 57 g (11%), carbs 352 (73%), fat 33 g (16%).

apr. 17 food

brekky:  I didn't have enough spinach to make a batch of smoothies, so made oatmeal instead.  This had oats, about 2.5-3 oz spinach, a pear, 1 cup frozen blueberries, and 0.5 oz walnuts.  yum!  a whopping 470 calories.  This will get me through the day!

lunch: big easy salad.

snack:  carrots and celery, banana

dinner:  apple-cabbage dish without the onions as I don't have any.   I had to run out so only ate about 1/3 of it, then at my meeting, I ate a spring roll (not fried--it seemed to be mostly cucumber, a little carrot and avocado and lettuce in that thin rice paper covering?).  We also had a vegan pizza (Amy's frozen) but I didn't feel like eating it, maybe because I was looking forward to finishing my apple-cabbage dish at home which I did.

Total calories without the spring roll is 1320.  Not sure what the spring roll was.  I'm plenty full that's for sure.  

I'm almost out of food.  I haven't had time to go to the store.  Plus it's kind of fun to let your food run out.   I think I've got one meal left I can conjure up--oatmeal with cabbage.  I have no idea what this would taste like.  Actually I have a sweet potato too.  sweet potato and cabbage?  I think I'd rather save the sweet potato and bake it...or I can run to the store in the morning and then make smoothies.   It depends on how late I sleep.

apr 16 food

Brekky: smoothie. carrots and celery.

Lunch: kale with sweet potato sauce. fruit salad made from pear and banana (1/2 each, split with house-mate)

Dinner: easy arugula salad, eaten in the car on the way to an appointment, late.  This is not a healthy way to eat!

snack:  I was hungry later on and had a banana and 0.5 oz walnuts.

I didn't have time to go grocery shopping and I'm running out of food.  

I don't log my calories every day (time...) but it was easy to do today since the recipes are already in my program, and I get curious every once in a while to see what the numbers are.  What's interesting is how often they are right at 1500.  That seems to be what my body wants.

Total calories:  1505, protein 37 g (8%), carbs 269 g (66%), fat 44 g (26%).    The fat came from sunflower seeds in the smoothie, walnuts in the sweet potato sauce, sunflower seeds in the salad, and walnuts later on.

I'm back, some rambling thoughts

I couldn't stay away.  I hope my 2 or 3 readers haven't left me yet!  I am flattered that there are a few people who find this useful.  It's useful for me too, and I can be more efficient with my time.  

I've had a few people comment over time that they are amazed at how little I eat.  I seem to eat about 1500-1600 calories per day.  I may have conveyed my misconception that that is low, but I recently read in Dr. Fuhrman's Eat for Health book that 1600 is the average amount for a woman.  So that confirms that I don't eat too little.  I'm not surprised that I would eat an average amount.  I'm taller than average which would make me burn more, but I'm older than average (49) and have definitely noticed the downturn of metabolism.  So I think those things average out.  I'm more active than average for a few hours a day but then most of the day I am probably less active than average since I work from home, so that probably averages out too.

Another thought I had:   Sometimes I wonder if I'm too extreme eating this way.  In a week I'm going to a weekend event with some friends and I'm going to bring my cooler with my food and they are going to think I'm weird.  That is going to make me wonder if I'm weird.  Do I have an eating disorder?  It can appear that way because when you go against the grain of society, you have to put more effort into it and it can appear obsessive.  And maybe it is.  But the other side of the coin is that I am at my ideal weight, and I look and feel great.  My skin has color and vibrancy while every one else around me is grey (we have long winters in Wisconsin).   Talk about an ego boost.  Today I put on my hiking clothes--we are taking the day off to go hiking--and it is so fun to look at myself in the mirror and say, yeah, looks good!    And to feel great.  We're in high allergy season now and I'm not affected.  I used to have seasonal allergies like every one else.  I have no symptoms!  I'm going to hike up the cliffs at Devil's Lake and will hardly be breathing hard.  At the gym, my muscles give out before my cardiovascular system (i.e., I don't get out of breath much).  I am in optimum health.  Is that obsessive?  When you are different from everyone else, it's almost by definition obsessive.  But is it unhealthy?  I don't think so.  So I encourage you to try to be as crazy and weird as me because the benefits are amazing.  And I admit a huge one is pure vanity and ego!

A Testament to the Flexibility of the Human Mind

I'm sure you've heard that humans have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. But we actually have far more senses than that. The canonical list doesn't include equilibrioception-- our sense of balance-- the result of fluid sloshing around in the inner ear. It also doesn't include proprioception, the ability to detect the position of our limbs using nerve endings in our tendons and muscles.

Furthermore, the sense of touch is actually several different senses, each detected and transmitted by its own special type of neuron. The sense of touch includes vibration sense, pressure sense, heat sense, cold sense and pain sense. The sense of smell can be divided into roughly 400 senses in humans, each one tuned in to a different class of airborne molecules. Vision can be divided into cells maximally responsive to four different wavelengths of light. I could go on but the rest are less exciting.

This brings me to what I really want to write about, the development (or perhaps refinement) of a new human sense: echolocation. Echolocation is the ability to gather sensory information about your surroundings by bouncing sounds off of objects and listening to the echo that returns. It's what bats use to hunt in the dark, and dolphins use to navigate muddy water and find food under the sand. There are a number of blind people who have developed the ability to use clicking sounds to "see" their surroundings, and it's remarkably effective. This represents a new use of the human mind, or at least a refinement of a rudimentary sense. Here are a few links if you'd like to watch/read more about it:

Human echolocation- Wikipedia
Daniel Kish- You Tube
The boy who sees without eyes- You Tube

Taxes

I went to a Tea Party after work today. There was a good showing, but I only caught the last 15 or so minutes. Below are some pictures that I got, including some witty signs. But here is a video I came across that offers hope. Not sure how soon any of this can be done, but definitely keep your ears open and offer your input to your elected officials in due course.

Pictures from the Grand Rapids Tea Party:

The sign in the center of the 2nd picture reads: "A Penny Saved is a Congressional Oversight". That made me chuckle

Images of Tooth Decay Healing due to an Improved Diet

This one's for the skeptics out there. As I mentioned in my previous post, Drs. Edward and May Mellanby and Dr. Weston Price reported that under the right circumstances, tooth decay can be reversed by proper nutrition. Here are images taken from the book Nutrition and Disease, by Dr. Mellanby, showing the re-calcification of decayed human teeth due to the growth of tertiary dentin (formerly known as secondary dentin). These are sections (slices) of teeth that have been treated with a chemical that darkens decayed areas. They represent four different teeth at different stages of decay reversal. Click on the image for a larger view:


Here's the text that accompanies the figure:

The hardening of carious areas that takes place in the teeth of children fed on diets of high calcifying value indicates the arrest of the active process and may result in “healing” of the infected area. As might be surmised, this phenomenon is accompanied by a laying down of a thick barrier of well-formed secondary denture. Illustrations of this healing process can be seen in Figs. 21 (b), (c) and (d). Summing up these results it will be clear that the clinical deductions made on the basis of the animal experiments have been justified, and that it is now known how to diminish the spread of caries and even to stop the active carious process in many affected teeth.

The following reference contains a summary of Dr. May Mellanby's experiments on healing tooth decay in children using diet: Mellanby, M. et al. British Medical Journal. Issue 1, page 507. 1932. The diet they used was typically a combination of some source of vitamin D (cod liver oil or irradiated ergosterol), plus liberal full-fat dairy, meats, eggs, vegetables, potatoes and grains low in phytic acid such as white bread. The most effective version of his diet, however, did not include grains.

In the book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, Dr. Price provides X-rays showing the re-calcification of a mouth full of cavities using a similar diet.

Rwandan Genocide 15 Years Later

When the "global community" lacks (or more specifically, shuns) the will to use force (as further supported by the Europeans promising to send 5000 NON-COMBATANT troops to help the US in Afghanistan), genocide is the best you can do. It always has been, and always will be. That is why I feel the Left's world view on force (that includes military interventions, personal gun ownership, hostage negotiations, and preferring "diplomacy" over persuasion) is so naive. Rebels and guerrilla armies count on the "global community" doing nothing (or should I say, attempting to establish dialog with them). It is with this confidence that they can kill with impunity, up to 800,000 in about 100 days.

General Dallaire has it correct (from the 10 year anniversary):

"I still believe that if an organisation decided to wipe out the 320 mountain gorillas there would be still more of a reaction by the international community to curtail or to stop that than there would be still today in attempting to protect thousands of human beings being slaughtered in the same country."

War By Any Other Name

Here is a funny article that shows the silliness of just changing the names of things to make them sound nice.  For example:

A Taliban spokesman reached in Pakistan said that the new phrasing was being implemented as a way of eliminating the negative associations triggered by more graphic terminology. "The term 'beheading' has a quasi-medieval undertone that we're trying to get away from," he explained. "The term 'cephalic attrition' brings the Taliban into the 21st century. It's not that we disapprove of beheadings; it's just that the word no longer meshes with the zeitgeist of the era. This is the same reason we have replaced the term 'jihad' with 'booka-bonga-bippo,' which has a more zesty, urban, youthful, 'now' feel. When you're recruiting teenagers to your movement, you don't want them to feel that going on jihad won't leave any time for youthful hijinks."

blogging break

Life is going to be very busy (in a good way) for the next 6 weeks so I may take a break from the daily blogging.  Or shorten considerably my food logs.  My reason for doing this blog was to show examples of how you eat healthy because I think examples are the easiest way to put in practice what you learn from the books.   I also wanted to go through an entire year to show how you can enjoy different foods in different seasons.  But I'm not really sure how useful this all is, and if it's not so useful, I definitely have other things that are pressing right now.  

apr 13 - 15

yesterday and today, brekky was smoothie.  today I had some celery and carrots with that.

lunch was leftover eggplant/tofu/spinach/mushroom/tomato dish.  really good.  dessert today was fruit salad (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, mango, pear---yummy!).   yesterday I probably had something for dessert, fruit or something

yesterday dinner was big easy salad.  tonight will be fruit salad and cabbage salad.

last night I got hungry a few hours after the salad so had a pear, 0.5 oz walnuts, 2 prunes.  That worked out well.  The salad though filling at first, doesn't have enough calories, and this gave me energy for my exercise class this morning.

Tomorrow I think I'll have oatmeal for brekky, smoothie and cabbage salad for lunch, big easy salad and baked beet for dinner.  Fruit, carrots and celery, and nuts in the appropriate amounts will round it out.  

Obama vs. Pirates

Here is an interesting take on what happened.  Definitely not what you hear on the MSM.

"There is upside, downside, and spin-side to the series of events over the last week that culminated in yesterday’s dramatic rescue of an American hostage....

Despite the Obama administration’s (and its sycophants’) attempt to spin yesterday’s success as a result of bold, decisive leadership by the inexperienced president, the reality is nothing of the sort.

What should have been a standoff lasting only hours — as long as it took the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the location — became an embarrassing four-day-and-counting standoff between a rag-tag handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S. Navy warship....

However, instead of taking direct, decisive action against the rag-tag group of gunmen, the Obama administration dilly-dallied, dawdled, and eschewed any decisiveness whatsoever, even in the face of enemy fire, in hopes that the situation would somehow resolve itself without violence. Thus, the administration sent a clear message to all who would threaten U.S. interests abroad that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has no idea how to respond to such situations — and no real willingness to use military force to resolve them."

Read the whole piece to see how it all actually went down.

Susan Boyle and Heaven

I think Heaven is going to be a lot like this: (Watch and then I'll explain)

Here are the Lyrics (Make sure you read them):

[Fantine is left alone, unemployed and destitute]

[FANTINE]
There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

Here's a little background:

"Miss Boyle revealed she was battling deep personal anguish as she sang the track from the West End stage show Les Miserables. It was the first time she had sung in public since the death of her mother two years ago [Remember, she is currently unemployed and never married].

The church volunteer from West Lothian said she could not bring herself to sing after the death of her mother Bridget, 91, in 2007.

Her performance on ITV1 on Saturday night was 'extraordinary', according to Simon Cowell.

Fellow judge Piers Morgan added that it was 'without a doubt the biggest surprise I have had in three years of this show'."

My Thoughts:
I can imagine heaven is going to be a billion moments of delight and awe in what will be a seemingly endless parade of unsuspecting lives streaming before the Throne of God to present what they have become, both through the trials of this life and the flames of refinement, and God shows off what he always knew was there and the rest of us just jump to our feet and praise GOD for His unfathomable ability to surprise us by his beauty and power in the least-expected places and ways!

I think, even as the end of the video shows, the biggest surprise will come from the one standing before the "judge" when they hear what comes out and how delighted God is in what they have become! The things impossible to see down here, will simply be humbling surprise that stun us to praise up there. I can't wait for the "show" to begin.

Smirks Not Smiles

I do not read George Will regularly.  There's no particular reason, but I suppose that should change.  This article is almost poetic in its eloquence, and shocking in its truth.  If there are such prominent people out there saying this stuff, is there just no one listening?  I honestly don't understand how an article like this can go unanswered, or have no effect.  It must be the fact that it is too clearly laid out and to cleverly communicated that those who disagree are left dumb (speechless).

"Rice really thinks there is a community out there. To believe that is to believe, as liberals do, that harmony is humanity's natural condition, so discord is a remediable defect in arrangements."

inspiring journey of transformation

This website by Emily Boller is really impressive to me.  She's an artist and she made her journey to health an art project.  It started in Aug. 08.  Here is the link to her "art project".  I really liked seeing an artist's perspective of this.  I think artists are really cool.  I'm a science geek who has never nurtured my artistic side, so I love hearing what artists have to say because they come from such a different place than me.  It's fun to get to know people who are different from yourself.

tomato sauce

We use garden tomatoes all year round, fresh in the summer, canned during the rest of the year.  They are so good, I prefer using them whenever a recipe calls for tomatoes.  I came up with a quick way to make tomato sauce using the blender.  I'm still working on the recipe and made a mistake today so I'll post what I think is a better version even though I haven't tried it yet.

Ingredients:

2 16-oz, canned tomatoes

some onion or leek (I used half a leek)

some garlic to taste (I used a large clove)

2 prunes, chopped (yep!)

1/2 oz almonds or walnuts (optional)

Drain the tomatoes, freeze the drained juice for later.   blend everything except the prunes in the blender.  Then cooked with the prunes for 20-30 minutes.  

Now today I added a carrot too--blended at the beginning.  I don't think that's necessary.  I also added some unsalted dried olives (blended too).  This seems like a good idea, right?  I thought it was an olive oil replacement.  Well, it made the sauce bitter.  I like the bitter taste of the olives, but not when it's blended.  The prunes add a nice sweet taste.  I think it goes well with tomatoes.  

apr 12 food

brekky: spinach-mango smoothie

lunch: I made a recipe from Picks over Peas' blog: Roasted Eggplant Tofu with spinach and mushrooms. This was the best eggplant, tomato, italian type recipe I've had since I stopped using salt and oil. The tofu ricotta was great. The eggplant was great. I didn't follow the recipe exactly (do I ever?)--this is why I'm a lousy baker. I made my own tomato sauce. I used fresh basil and some sorrel that I happened to have (it's a lemony, peppery leaf) in the tofu ricotta, which I blended all up in the blender. I used more lemon juice too. The nutritional yeast gave it a perfect cheesy flavor. I didn't make sandwiches from the eggplants--didn't slice them thin enough and I preferred it my way. I just had sauce, eggplant, tofu ricotta, spinach, mushrooms, and sauce, as the layers. It was great! I ate about half of it today (oops). Then portioned the leftovers into two large servings. Hopefully I will have the willpower to spread them over two days.

Dinner: I wasn't too hungry but know breakfast will be late after lots of exercising, so at 8:30 pm, I had an orange, apple, 2 prunes, and some arugula with blueberry vinegar. That might have been a bit too much.

I didn't have time to compute the nutritional info of the eggplant recipe. It's probably high calorie and high fat from the tofu. I'm sure I had a lot of calories today. That's okay with me. It was good!

The Benevolent Perfect Storm

David Ellwood, the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard has it right!! We are facing a potential benevolent perfect storm, which is steering students back to public service and to health care specifically. With billions of dollars in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the Stimulus Bill, headed to health care, smart students are headed in the same direction. I am hopeful that the Jefferson School of Population Health will benefit from this newly developing social trend and that this storm will deposit interested and motivated students at our doorstep. We are ready!! We are working hard to organize our faculty and our considerable resources to prepare for this storm and we will be there on Nine Nine Zero Nine----the first day of class. I hope you will join me soon as we begin the journey of preparing a new generation of leaders for the health care industry. Happy Easter and Happy Passover too. I am interested in your views about the Benevolent Perfect Storm, DAVID NASH

apr. 11

As predicted yesterday, I did eat more food today.  I ate a lot of fruit and berries and enjoyed them.  I didn't follow Dr. Fuhrman's advice about not snacking.  

Brekky:  smoothie around 8:30 am.  then I thought I was going to have a late lunch so had a banana and some carrots and celery, and an apple later on.

Lunch (about 2 pm):   large sweet potato, giant plate of steamed asparagus and broccoli (didn't intend that, just made too much).  I put lemon and no-salt seasoning on the veggies.  My favorite no-salt seasoning is penzey's "mural of flavors."   This is one of my favorite lunches.  The sweet potato was baked to perfection and I ate the skin (usually I overcook it and the skin is kind of burnt).  

Then, well, I bought some fresh berries at the co-op and they were all good (not always the case).  So I ate them all:  a box of strawberries, raspberries and blueberries!   I nibbled on them all afternoon.   They were just too good to leave alone.

Needless to say I wasn't too hungry at dinner so I had 2 kiwis, some peas and corn, and an orange.  Doesn't sound like much but I was still full from the berries!  oh, and a banana and 0.5 oz walnuts.  Now it sounds like more.  

Total calories:  1621,  protein 42 g (8%), carbs 349 g (79%), fat 24 g (13%).

How to Prepare a Sermon by John Stott

This blogpost is very thorough and I would agree with it completely. I think I've had some excellent preaching teachers along the way, and they have instilled these practices in me. They work. And to add a double dose of preaching inspiration to one post, here are the results of solid footwork/preparation:

"Paul knew he was clothed with power and authority. How does one know it? It gives clarity of thought, clarity of speech, ease of utterance, a great sense of authority and confidence as you are preaching, an awareness of a power not your own thrilling through the whole of your being, and an indescribable sense of joy. . . .

What about the people? They sense it at once; they can tell the difference immediately. They are gripped, they become serious, they are convicted, they are moved, they are humbled. Some are convicted of sin, others are lifted up to the heavens, anything may happen to any one of them. They know at once that something quite unusual and exceptional is happening. . . .

What then are we to do about this? There is only one obvious conclusion. Seek Him! Seek Him! What can we do without Him? Seek Him! Seek Him always. But go beyond seeking Him; expect Him. Do you expect anything to happen when you get up to preach in a pulpit? Or do you just say to yourself, 'Well, I have prepared my address, I am going to give them this address; some of them will appreciate it and some will not'? Are you expecting it to be the turning point in someone's life? Are you expecting anyone to have a climactic experience? That is what preaching is meant to do. That is what you find in the Bible and in the subsequent history of the church. Seek this power, expect this power, yearn for this power; and when the power comes, yield to Him. Do not resist. Forget all about your sermon if necessary. Let Him loose you, let Him manifest His power in you and through you."

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, pages 324-325.

HT: CIDS

Crucifixion

I loved this movie when I first saw it about a year ago. To End All Wars truly is powerful, and even more so knowing it is based on a true story. It is a war movie unlike any war movie. I stumbled on this clip from that movie at a wonderful blog, which I will link in the margin, Christ Is Deeper Still by Ray Ortland. This clip is very fitting this time of year.