tomato-walnut dressing

Ingredients:

1 large tomato or 2 medium
a handful walnuts (0.5-1 oz depending on how much you want to consume)
some green onion or chopped onion or leek or onion powder. small amount. I prefer the mild taste of green onions
herbs of your choice (optional but may include chives or cilantro or basil etc)

blend everything in the blender until smooth.

berry-sesame-sunflower dressing

Ingredients:

1 bag frozen blueberries or mixed berries, or raspberries, or strawberries, or cherries (or fresh if you have it)
1 Tbsp raw sunflower seeds or flaxseeds (or sesame seeds)
1 Tbsp raw sesame seeds, rinsed
1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice or pomegranate juice or water
1 Tbsp blueberry vinegar or other mild flavored vinegar or maybe some lemon juice

Blend the seeds and juice and vinegar in the blender until smooth. If you need more volume to blend, thaw some of the blueberries in the microwave for 30 seconds and throw them in and blend until the seeds are nicely ground up. Then add the rest of the blueberries and blend some more. Then pour over your salad. yummmmmmmm.

may 30 & 31

It was a busy but fun weekend.    Let's see if I can remember the food:

brekky:  yesterday, oatmeal & spinach.  I'm weird, I like it.  but now I'm already tired of oatmeal. 

lunch:   was gone all morning and early afternoon, snacked on apple, banana and carrots that I brought with me at 1 pm.

Then went grocery shopping, and made a salad for a picnic.  snacked on that while making it.  made pretty much this one--black bean and corn.  a double recipe, used 2 cans of beans.  let's see what I forgot (didn't look at the recipe):  forgot the lime, and the store didn't have kumquats.  but it did have a ripe mango.  It is really good in this salad.  added red bell pepper, garlic chives, some cumin powder.   I ate a bunch of this salad both while preparing and at the picnic.  In fact I ate so much I got overfull.  Those beans really expand in the tummy.  I also ate some fruit salad at the picnic and celery and strawberries and watermelon.    Food that I chose not to partake in included toasted marshmallows, spaghetti, s'mores, birthday cake, cookies, etc etc.  Some would say I deprived myself, but I really just didn't want it, plus I don't think any of it except the spaghetti was vegan.  I like veggies and fruit.

This morning I wasn't hungry, just sipped on housemate's smoothies while making them.  and had half a cantaloupe.  and some handfuls of spinach--local and really tasty.

Lunch was hurried, had some berries (strawberries and blueberries), a carrot, some fresh, local salad greens, yum!  and some walnuts and sunflowers to give me some calories.  like I said, in a hurry, no time to prepare much.

dinner was a salad.  I've been looking forward to this since I went grocery shopping yesterday.  the co-op is full of fresh local greens now.   so had a giant plate of lettuce with red bell pepper and blueberry dressing.   The dressing was really good so I ate all of it.  I figured I needed the calories anyway.  It was a great dinner.  Then I had to make more dressing for housemate so I made a tomato one.   It's similar to the russian fig but easier and less garlicy.  In fact it is super duper easy.   It was good--the flavor is dependent on how flavorful your tomato is, and we know how that can vary.  I had fresh local green onions and that made it delicious.  The tomato was local but not organic and not the most flavorful.  

My tastes seem to change with the seasons.  I'm now in the mood for fresh greens and berries and fresh fruit, and I'll definitely need the nuts and seeds and beans for calories.   I'm not really in the mood for the root veggies and soups anymore.  at least not at the moment.  It all seems too heavy.  funny how that works.

Main Line Health and Quality

I am very pleased to report that after one year on the Board of Governors of the Main Line Health hospital system in suburban Philadelphia, I have now been appointed the Chair of the Board Quality and Safety Committee and a member of the Board Executive Committee. MLH is a very successful system of five acute care hospitals and one rehab hospital. They are largely a private practice based physician culture with partially salaried chiefs of service across the hospitals. They have a consolidated medical staff and a robust quality and safety apparatus already in place. I hope to bring my ten year experience as a Board member of Catholic Healthcare Partners , in Cincinnati OH, to MLH. At Catholic Healthcare Partners we began the quality journey of the Board nearly seven years ago and now, CHP is a national leader in governance engagement in quality. MLH will one day share this distinction, I am sure. With health reform looming, with a less than stellar ten year effort post the IOM report "To Err is Human," MLH has a real governance challenge ahead. I am humbled and excited to be a part of this wonderful organization and I look forward to the work ahead. How is your system managing the governance challenges of qualitya and safety?? DAVID NASH

For Those not Scientifically Inclined

This is a simplified summary of the last two posts.

Polyunsaturated fats in the diet are mostly omega-6 or omega-3. These get converted into a diverse and influential class of signaling molecules in the body called eicosanoids. On their way to becoming eicosanoids, they get elongated. These elongated versions can be measured in tissue, and the higher the proportion of elongated omega-6 in the total pool, the higher the risk of a heart attack.

Eicosanoids are either omega-6 or omega-3-derived. Omega-6 eicosanoids, in general, are very potent and participate in inflammatory processes and blood clotting. Omega-3 eicosanoids are less potent, less inflammatory, less clot-forming, and participate in long-term repair processes. This is a simplification, as there are exceptions, but in a broad sense seems to be true.

In the modern U.S. and most other affluent nations, we eat so much omega-6 (mostly in the form of liquid industrial vegetable oils), and so little omega-3, that we create a very inflammatory and pro-clotting environment, probably contributing to a number of chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease.

There are two ways to stay in balance: reduce omega-6, and increase omega-3. In my opinion, the former is more important than the latter, but only if you can reduce omega-6 to below 4% of calories. If you're above 4%, the only way to reduce your risk is to outcompete the omega-6 with additional omega-3. Keeping omega-6 below 4% and ensuring a modest but regular intake of omega-3, such as from wild-caught fish, will probably substantially reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses.

Bottom line: ditch industrial vegetable oils such as corn, soybean, safflower and sunflower oil, and everything that contains them. This includes most processed foods, especially mayonnaise, grocery store salad dressings, and fried foods. We aren't meant to eat those foods and they derail our metabolism on a fundamental level. I also believe it's a good idea to have a regular source of omega-3, whether it comes from seafood, small doses of cod liver oil, or small doses of flax.

Death is not Dying

Here is a phenomenal speech from a 37 year old woman who has been fighting breast cancer for 4 years and is now terminal.  This is like the Last Lecture, but given by a Christian woman who expresses the foundation of her faith and the 4 values/pillars that she clings to for hope even in her dying.  Very Christ-centered.  If you want a theology of living AND dying, here's a good start.

Male Power

I have been dreaming of this day (kinda).  And now men have risen up to fight back against the pervasive discrimination against them.  GO MEN!

Dresden, Germany

I found this article interesting in that I don't know much about this particular campaign from WWII, and it appears there is much scandal connected with it.  Considering Obama is going to Dresden this week, this article attempts to set the historical record out clearly.  It is a valuable review for the informed and uninformed.
But for many critics, the Dresden raid has come to symbolize the wrongs of the entire Anglo-American air war against Nazi Germany. For these critics, who are as strong on the far left as on the far right, the attack on Dresden was only the most egregious example of the Anglo-American conduct of that campaign, which they allege constituted a war crime.

The city of Dresden, thus, is the focal point of an effort to establish a degree of moral equivalence between the Western Allies and Nazi Germany and, more broadly, to discredit and criminalize U.S. and British foreign policy when--as in 2003 in the Iraq War--it moves in a direction the critics dislike.



The Wisdom of Edmund Burke

Sowell has a brilliant (as usual) article on the wisdom of Edmund Burke for President Obama, or more for us in light of the President.  I am actually bored with the constant negativism related to Obama's presidency (not because I don't believe most of it is justified, but because it has become so overwhelming I feel it is such a train wreck there is nothing I can do and just hope it all goes away).  But this is an insightful connection and lesson for those in politics, so I am posting it for that value.
Edmund Burke understood that, no matter what form of government you have, in the end the character of those who wield the powers of government is crucial. He said: “Constitute government how you please, infinitely the greater part of it must depend upon the exercise of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightness of ministers of state.”

He also said, “of all things, we ought to be the most concerned who and what sort of men they are that hold the trust of everything that is dear to us.” He feared particularly the kind of man “whose whole importance has begun with his office, and is sure to end with it” — the kind of man “who before he comes into power has no friends, or who coming into power is obliged to desert his friends.” Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and others come to mind.

Clear Thinking and Preaching

BTW brought my attention to this quote from J.H. Jowett:
I have a conviction that no sermon is ready for preaching, not ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as a crystal. I find the getting of that sentence is the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labour in my study. To compel oneself to fashion that sentence, to dismiss every word that is vague, ragged, ambiguous, to think oneself through to a form of words which defines the theme with scrupulous exactness—this is surely one of the most vital and essential factors in the making of a sermon: and I do not think any sermon ought to be preached or even written, until that sentence has emerged, clear and lucid as a cloudless moon.”
I have been taught this and believe it to be true.  Well said.


Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem

This looks like an interesting book.  It's written by a theologian and seems to discuss the issues quite thoroughly.  Here is the table of contents (thanks to BTW):
  1. Can't We Build a Just Society? Myth no. 1: The Nirvana Myth (contrasting capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its live alternatives)
  2. What Would Jesus Do? Myth no. 2: The Piety Myth (focusing on our good intentions rather than the unintended consequences of our actions)
  3. Doesn't Capitalism Foster Unfair Competition? Myth no. 3: The Zero-sum Game Myth (believing that trade requires a winner and a loser)
  4. If I Become Rich, Won't Someone Else Become Poor? Myth no. 3: The Materialist Myth (believing that intellect cannot create new wealth)
  5. Isn't Capitalism Based on Greed? Myth no. 4: The Greed Myth (believing that the essence of capitalism is greed)
  6. Hasn't Christianity Always Opposed Capitalism? Myth no. 5: The Usury Myth (believing that charging interest on money is always exploitive)
  7. Doesn't Capitalism Always Lead to an Ugly Consumerist Culture? Myth no. 7: The Artsy Myth (confusing aesthetic judgments with economic arguments)
  8. Are We Going to Use Up All the Resources? Myth no. 8: The Freeze Frame Myth
    (believing that things always stay the same—for example, assuming
    population trends will continue indefinitely or treating “rich” and
    “poor” as static categories)
  9. Conclusion: Working All Things Together for Good
  10. Appendix: Is the "Spontaneous Order" of the Market Evidence of a Universe without Purpose?

busy days at work

I'm back.   Was busy with work.  now I'm worn out because the adrenaline has gone away.  It was interesting to do this big push without caffeine.   On Tuesday night I had to get a draft of my 15-page proposal to my administrator by Wed.  So I expected to stay up all night.  I got to bed at 4:45 am.  I was pretty tired without caffeine to prop me up.  I ate an orange and banana at 2 am and that perked me up.  Here's the funny thing though:  Then the adrenaline kicked in.  I woke up at 6:45 am and couldn't get back to sleep.  So I got to work, still had a bunch of other work to do on the proposal.   I worked all day--from 6:30 am until 10 pm.  ugh.  I took a short nap but couldn't sleep much, maybe 15 minutes.  then I  only slept 6 hours that night.   I had a break in the action Thursday morning (yesterday), waiting for input from team members, so went to my morning exercise class and got some needed groceries.   got the proposal in last night.  then I still only got 6 hours of sleep!  because of the adrenaline I guess.  So I went to my morning exercise class this morning.  It was hard but enjoyable.  I ate breakfast and then hit the wall.  I was so tired.  I went to run a long errand with housemate and I just wanted to collapse.  I took an hour nap when I got home.  I hope I can get a good night's sleep tonight. 

So how did I do eating-wise?  This is also the first time I didn't use food to get me through a deadline---sweets and chocolate.  oh, except for the banana-walnut ice cream!  that was good!  I had that wed. and thurs night.  I didn't cook much, just ate stuff from the fridge.  Did you know a red bell pepper tastes great all by itself, just eating it like an apple?   I don't recall much what I ate on Wed.  Yesterday I ate a bag of fresh cherries (really good), raw carrots, frozen peas from the bag (really good).   Ate lots of spinach from the bag--fresh and local, really good ate an entire 8 oz bag.  had spinach and oatmeal for brekky.  oranges and apples.  

Today was more normal:  I had spinach and oatmeal again for breakfast.  I like that because I really like spinach.  At lunch I used the pressure cooker to make eggplant, kale, (cooked that first for 2 minutes, then added), cauliflower, mushrooms, tomatoes (cooked for another 2 minutes), then added herbs from the garden--cilantro and chives.  It was good, and I totally overate (and by the way, it was a bit overcooked, still learning to use the pressure cooker).   Then I ate a bag of frozen peas for dinner.  I wasn't going to but I just got going on them.  I was going to have a salad.  oh well.  I wasn't that hungry because lunch was big and late.  and I ate two oranges.

Oh, I did find that in my tiredness and stress, I did want to pig out more on sweets like fruit.  When I'm tired I want to use food to perk me up.  Today I did that at lunch, and I overate and it made me more tired.  I didn't overeat on calories, just ate too much at one sitting.  

Well, anyway, I'm just happy I didn't go off and buy cookies and muffins and cupcakes.  I didn't have any desire to.   Now I just hope I can get a good night's sleep and enjoy high energy levels tomorrow.  so much to look forward to in getting back to my enjoyable activities.

Resource for SCOTUS Status Reports

Here is the National Review's site for all things related to the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) and the process of filling the upcoming vacancy.  I will put a link in the margin for regular checking.

Pure Fiction

I am speechless!  And the cry of advocacy for the poor is so feigned in light of the fact that any "adjustments" that have been suggested to combat global warming (regardless of the fact that the planet has measurably COOLED over the last 7 years) would directly hurt the poorest countries more than the richest.  How can these people be taken seriously?

Eicosanoids and Ischemic Heart Disease, Part II

Here's where it gets more complicated and more interesting. The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 matters, but so does the total amount of each. This is a graph from a 1992 paper by Dr. Lands:

Allow me to explain. These lines are based on values predicted by a formula developed by Dr. Lands that determines the proportion of omega-6 in tissue HUFA (highly unsaturated fatty acids; includes 20- to 22-carbon omega-6 and omega-3 fats), based on dietary intake of omega-6 and omega-3 fats. This formula seems to be quite accurate, and has been validated both in rodents and humans. As a tissue's arachidonic acid content increases, its EPA and DHA content decreases proportionally.

On the Y-axis (vertical), we have the proportion of omega-6 HUFA in tissue. On the X-axis (horizontal), we have the proportion of omega-6 in the diet as a percentage of energy. Each line represents the relationship between dietary omega-6 and tissue HUFA at a given level of dietary omega-3.


Let's start at the top. The first line is the predicted proportion of omega-6 HUFA in the tissue of a person eating virtually no omega-3. You can see that it maxes out around 4% of calories from omega-6, but it can actually be fairly low if omega-6 is kept very low. The next line down is what happens when your omega-3 intake is 0.1% of calories. You can see that the proportion of omega-6 HUFA is lower than the curve above it at all omega-6 intakes, but it still maxes out around 4% omega-6. As omega-3 intake increases, the proportion of omega-6 HUFA decreases at all levels of dietary omega-6 because it has to compete with omega-3 HUFA for space in the membrane.


In the U.S., we get a small proportion of our calories from omega-3. The horizontal line marks our average tissue HUFA composition, which is about 75% omega-6. We get more than 7% of our calories from omega-6. This means our tissue contains nearly the maximum proportion of omega-6 HUFA, creating a potently inflammatory and thrombotic environment!
This is a very significant fact, because it explains three major observations:
  1. The U.S has a very high rate of heart attack mortality.
  2. Recent diet trials in which saturated fat was replaced with omega-6-rich vegetable oils didn't cause an increase in mortality, although some of the very first trials in the 1960s did.
  3. Diet trials that increased omega-3 decreased mortality.
Observation number two is used by proponents of PUFA-rich vegetable oils, and it's a fair point. If omega-6 causes heart attacks, why hasn't that shown up in controlled trials? Here's the rebuttal. First of all, it did show up in two of the first controlled trials in the 1960s: Rose et al., and the unfortunately-named Anti-Coronary Club trial. In the first, replacing animal fat with corn oil caused a 4-fold increase in heart attack deaths and total mortality. In the second, replacing animal fat with polyunsaturated vegetable oil increased heart attack death rate, and total mortality more than doubled.

But the trend didn't continue into later trials. This makes perfect sense in light of the rising omega-6 intake over the course of the 20th century in the U.S. and other affluent nations. Once our omega-6 intake crossed the 4% threshold, more omega-6 had very little effect on the proportion of omega-6 HUFA in tissue. This may be why some of the very first PUFA diet trials caused increased mortality: there was a proportion of the population that was still getting less than 4% omega-6 in its regular diet at that time. By the 1980s, virtually everyone in the U.S. (and many other affluent nations) was eating more than 4% omega-6, and thus adding more did not significantly affect tissue HUFA or heart attack mortality.


If omega-3 intake is low, whether omega-6 intake is 5% or 10% doesn't matter much for heart disease. At that point, the only way to reduce tissue HUFA without cutting back on omega-6 consumption is to outcompete it with additional omega-3. That's what the Japanese do, and it's also what happened in several clinical trials including the DART trial.


This neatly explains why the French, Japanese and
Kitavans have low rates of ischemic heart disease, despite the prevalence of smoking cigarettes in all three cultures. The French diet traditionally focuses on animal fats, eschews industrial vegetable oils, and includes seafood. They eat less omega-6 and more omega-3 than Americans. They have the lowest heart attack mortality rate of any affluent Western nation. The Japanese are known for their high intake of seafood. They also eat less omega-6 than Americans. They have the lowest heart attack death rate of any affluent nation. The traditional Kitavan diet contains very little omega-6 (probably less than 1% of calories), and a significant amount of omega-3 from seafood (about one teaspoon of fish fat per day). They have an undetectable incidence of heart attack and stroke.

In sum, this suggests that an effective way to avoid a heart attack is to reduce omega-6 consumption and ensure an adequate source of omega-3. The lower the omega-6, the less the omega-3 matters. This is a nice theory, but where's the direct evidence? In the next post, I'll discuss the controlled trial that proved this concept once and for all: the Lyon diet-heart trial.

Obama Man!

IPCC's Rules of the Game

Here is an enlightening article that explains how "consensus" is gained by the UN's Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  It's well worth reading in total, but here are some eye-raising snippets:
To better understand the “consensus” presented in the policymakers’ summaries, it is helpful to be aware of the structure of the IPCC. Those who compose the summaries are given considerable latitude to modify the scientific reports....  Here is a specific example: One policymakers’ summary omitted several important unequivocal conclusions contained in the scientists’ report, including, “No study to date has positively attributed all or part [of observed climate change] to anthropogenic [i.e., man-made] causes,” and “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.” These significant revisions were made, according to IPCC officials quoted in Nature magazine, “to ensure that it [the report] conformed to a policymakers’ summary.”

The sponsors of the IPCC, the United Nations, and liberal American politicians all share the goal of reducing Americans’ wealth by capping our consumption of energy with a binding international climate change treaty. They are willing to resort to scientific fraud to further their goal. In the words of Al Gore’s ally, former Under-Secretary of State Tim Wirth, “Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing” by reducing Americans’ consumption of fossil fuels. Keep that in mind whenever the IPCC is cited in support of a climate treaty.



may 26

brekky:  smoothie

lunch:  collard greens, tomatoes, mushrooms cooked in pressure cooker.  cooked collard greens first for 4 minutes, then added the others and cooked for another minute.  ate a red bell pepper and some peas while prepared.  I love raw red and orange bell peppers.

dinner:  finished off the cabbage salad.  banana.  orange.  some edamame and corn.

ugh, I think I have to pull an all-nighter tonight for work.  oh well.  I am well-fed and well-rested, and just took a shower to perk me up.  s'okay.  

Funny "Comments"

I am starting a new tag category to highlight comments or quotes that people submit to other articles, and which I find funny. There are always articles that I read and don't feel their substantial, relevant, or unique enough to post, but have comments that make me laugh out loud. I thought I would just include the quotes in a post and link to the article. Now you've been forewarned that the link may not necessarily be worth checking out, but at least you'll have the context to what made me laugh.

Today's contribution is a comment in a post from Ace of Spades, responding to an article that seems to strongly substantiate a claim that Bill Ayers helped Obama write one of his books. Here's the quote and link:

It sure would be nice if anyone in the media would ask Obama from whence he'd derived his ease of speaking in maritime metaphors. And when he lost his interest in dancing apes and figs.

A Picture Doesn't Say it All

Many of you may have seen this video around Mother's Day:



I found it hilarious at many levels. But it actually reminded me of an experience at Disney World a couple of years ago. I was waiting for my sister to finish some shopping at the Epcot Center when I saw a father try to get a picture of his two sons. Sounds normal. But what actually attracted me to the photo op was the father yelling at the boys. "Now stand next to your brother and smile!" yelled the father to one of the boys, probably around age 9, who obviously wasn't into standing next to his brother, let alone having it frozen in time by a picture. After several attempts and "coaching statements" by the father to the boys, a picture was snapped and both boys grunted off in opposite directions. I thought it was hilarious, especially because I could imagine them showing their pictures to grandma, saying, "...and here's the boys having a great time at Epcot...."

It's amazing what a picture doesn't show. And to give one clear illustration, I had some friends email out their annual Christmas letter with family photo last year. However, just for the fun of it, the wife sent two versions. And that made the "official photo" and the whole event, much more enjoyable. See:



Obama, The First Woman President

People are celebrating the fact that Obama is the first Black president, although some still call him a white president, since he is actually at least half white. However, this article by Kathleen Parker seems to imply he is now operating as a woman might. From the "Venus vs. Mars" analogy made famous by John Gray, Parker explains that Obama seems to be taking the Venus/female approach to our national security. This is consistent with a previous post where I discussed the feminization of the Left, ironically referencing another Parker article. The article concludes:
"Whether Obama's worldview is the right one -- and Cheney's wrong -- may become clearer with time. We can all pray that Obama doesn't have to experience the revelations that occur in the White House bunker. But if he does, we might also pray that the man from Venus indulges his inner Martian just a little."
The article is not a great contribution to the current debate about national security, as much as it is an interesting commentary on how some see Obama (and the Left). It's just another example to me of the contrast between the Right and Left in American politics today.

may 25

brekky:  smoothie and apple

lunch:  lots of cabbage salad.  oops I forgot to add the vinegar.  tasted good anyway.

dinner:  banana, lots of cabbage salad, some frozen peas.

it doesn't sound like much but I put a lot of walnuts in the cabbage salad and ate a lot of it so I think I had plenty of calories.  I'm busy with work so not much time for anything except my 2 hour escape to exercise class.  Work involves sitting in front of a computer all day so it's quite sedentary.   

my menus might be boring this week...work deadline on friday.

Eicosanoids and Ischemic Heart Disease

Dr. William Lands, one of the pioneers of the eicosanoid field, compiled this graph. It may be the single most important clue we have about the relationship between diet and ischemic heart disease (heart attacks).

To explain it fully, we have to take a few steps back. Dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) are primarily omega-6 and omega-3. This is a chemical designation that refers to the position of a double bond along the fatty acid's carbon chain. Omega-6 fats are found abundantly in industrial vegetable oils (corn, soybean, sunflower, cottonseed, etc.) and certain nuts, and in lesser amounts in meats, dairy and grains. Omega-3 fats are found abundantly in seafood and a few seeds such as flax and walnuts, and in smaller amounts in meats, green vegetables and dairy.

The body uses a multi-step process to convert omega-3 and omega-6 fats into eicosanoids, which are a diverse and potent class of signaling molecules. The first step is to convert PUFA into highly unsaturated fatty acids, or HUFA. These include arachidonic acid (AA), an omega-6 HUFA, eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), an omega-3 HUFA, and several others in the 20- to 22-carbon length range.

HUFA are stored in cell membranes and they are the direct precursors of eicosanoids. When the cell needs eicosanoids, it liberates HUFA from the membrane and converts it. The proportion of omega-6 to omega-3 HUFA in the membrane is proportional to the long-term proportion of omega-6 and omega-3 in the diet. Enzymes do not discriminate between omega-6 and omega-3 HUFA when they create eicosanoids. Therefore, the proportion of omega-6- to omega-3-derived eicosanoids is proportional to dietary intake.

Omega-6 eicosanoids are potently inflammatory and thrombotic (promote blood clotting, such as thromboxane A2), while omega-3 eicosanoids are less inflammatory, less thrombotic and participate in long-term repair processes.

Many of the studies that have looked at the relationship between HUFA and heart attacks used blood plasma (serum lipids). Dr. Lands has pointed out that plasma HUFA do not accurately reflect dietary omega-6/3 balance, and they don't correlate well with heart attack risk. What does correlate strikingly well with both dietary intake and heart attack risk is the proportion of omega-6 HUFA in tissue, which reflects the amount contained in cell membranes. That's what we're looking at in the graph above: the proportion of omega-6 HUFA in the total tissue HUFA pool, vs. coronary heart disease death rate.

You can see that the correlation is striking, both between populations and within them. Greenland Inuit have the lowest proportion of omega-6 HUFA, due to a low intake of omega-6 and an exceptionally high intake of seafood. They also have an extraordinarily low risk of heart attack death. The red dots are from the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT), which I'll be covering in a bit more detail in a later post. They're important because they confirm that the trend holds true within a population, and not just between populations.

In the next post, I'll be delving into this concept in more detail, and explaining why it's not just the ratio that matters, but also the total intake of omega-6. I'll also be providing more evidence to support the theory.

may 23 & 24

I've been having fun making quick and easy meals this weekend.   had smoothies for brekky, that's easy.  

Lunch yesterday was kale and sweet potato sauce.  Made it in the pressure cooker so it went fast.  there wasn't enough kale so I added arugula.  it was locally grown and had long stems.  they were chewy.  housemate did not like them!  I did.  I also threw in a beet because it was getting a bit old.  We also had a delicious berry salad.  Sometimes the berries at the co-op are really good, sometimes not so good.  Yesterday they were really good--strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and a ripe mango.  had that for dessert after lunch and dinner and then some more today.

Dinner last night was corn and bean salad over lettuce.  I'm not sure I like the texture or feel of bean salad over lettuce.  I think I'd rather have the bean salad in a separate bowl and the lettuce  in a separate salad.  Also my bean salad was a bit bland until today when I added 1/2  chopped ripe cantaloupe.  Then it was really good.  The other half cantaloupe I had at brekky with my smoothie.

Lunch today was more bean salad over lettuce, a whopping plate.  and some carrots while preparing.

Dinner today was pea and avocado guacamole with lots of steamed veggies--broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots.  They took 1 minute to cook in the pressure cooker!  orange for dessert.   very satisfying meal.

another bean and corn salad

1 cup dried black or other beans, soaked, then cooked.  or a can.
2 cup frozen corn
cilantro, to taste, chopped
other herbs if you want, I like chives as they grow plentiful in my garden.
chopped tomato
some lime juice to taste
some chopped kumquat peels (optional)
1 ripe mango or 1/2 ripe cantaloupe chopped, or grapes cut in half (1 cup?)

cook the beans for a few hours on the stove or 5 minutes in the pressure cooker (if they are small, 10 minutes if they are bigger).  Drain the beans, add the frozen corn.  That will thaw the corn and cool the beans.  If you use a can of beans, then don't worry about it, the corn will thaw eventually, but you can always heat it up in the microwave if you want.    Add everything else.  

sweet pea and avocado guacamole



















I love peas and I love avocado, so I had high hopes for this and wasn't disappointed. This is a variation of guacamole that doesn't use tomatoes, onion and garlic like the traditional.

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado
1 cup sweet peas
juice of 1/2 lime (about 10 g)
juice of 1/2 small orange (about 20 g)
some cilantro (optional)
bit of red bell pepper (optional)
other herbs if you want--e.g., chives, parsley (optional)

Blend it all up in in a food processor.

Note to self: don't add goji berries to this. too sweet.

The Games Congress Plays

I came across the following video at hotair.  I honestly am shocked to watch what they're doing.  These are grown-ups and responsible for making laws and following them in our highest legislative body in the land.  This isn't a joke, or at least it is not presented as one (although it becomes one).  In short, they have hired a speed reader so they can follow the requirement that states an amendment or motion that is to be voted on must be read into the record.  But since the document at hand is so long, they thought it would qualify to have a speed reader do it, although no one is really serious about it, as you can tell from the congressman who warns he will cut it off after a few minutes (which he doesn't even get passed 30 seconds).  The entire event is all giggles and chuckles and then they move on.  WHO ARE THEY TRYING TO IMPRESS OR FOOL?  Seriously!

salsa

I made this up when I didn't have any onions or bell pepper.  This is my favorite salsa recipe so far.  The exact measurement of ingredients is really to taste.  you have to decide for yourself how much flavoring you want.

Ingredients:
1 can tomatoes (16 oz in my case)
kumquat peels (cut them in half, squeeze out the insides)--this was from about 5 kumquats.
cilantro (to taste--a handful for me)
goji berries (to taste--1/4 cup?)  (optional)
1/2 red or orange bell pepper would be good too (I didn't have any)

blend in a food processor.   no need to chop, so this takes only about 5 minutes to prepare.  

may 22

Today I was running out of food so I became creative and it turned out quite good. Brekky was the usual smoothie.

I froze some bananas in equal portions and had some leftover. I didn't feel like eating it right after brekky, so made a salad dressing out of banana, fresh mango, 1/2 oz walnuts, and 1 Tbsp blueberry vinegar, all blended up. I prefer beets instead of banana but this was still good.

Lunch was a salad, made from lettuce, orange bell pepper, 1/2 cup edamame, cilantro, and chopped kumquat peels (like orange zest), and the dressing I made. Cilantro and kumquat peels are good on just about anything, for future reference. This was really good! I ate some carrots while preparing.

I made a salsa for housemate's dinner (chips and salsa). I didn't have any of the usual ingredients, except canned tomatoes and cilantro, so I made it with tomatoes, kumquat peels, cilantro, and goji berries. It was really good, better than the standard recipes. I had some with celery sticks.

For dinner I used the pressure cooker (PC) to make vegetables with rutabaga-sesame sauce. This was easy and good. It is one of my favorite recipes because it feels like comfort food, and is somehow reminiscent of meals you get in restaurants (because of he sauce I guess) except this is healthy. First I cooked up the rutabaga and a beet in the PC for 2 minutes (peeled and cut them first). put the rutabaga in the blender. then added broccoli and mushrooms (the only veggies I have left in the fridge) to the PC and cooked for a minute. The extra minute finished cooking the beets and the other veggies. Then took the leftover liquid, added it to the blender with the sesame seeds and lemon juice. I forgot to rinse the sesame seeds and that does seem to make a difference--it did seem more bitter. I added some lime juice from my last 1/4 lime in the fridge. Blend this up into a nice sauce and pour it over the veggies and beets. yum. I didn't notice the bitter taste of the sauce when mixed with the veggies. Here's what it looked like before I devoured it. The sauce had a purplish color because of cooking the rutabaga with the beets. It was actually kind of pretty.

Eicosanoids, Fatty Liver and Insulin Resistance

I have to take a brief intermission from the heart disease series to write about a very important paper I just read in the journal Obesity, "COX-2-mediated Inflammation in Fat is Crucial for Obesity-linked Insulin Resistance and Fatty Liver". It's actually related to cardiovascular disease, although indirectly.

First, some background. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) come mostly from omega-6 and omega-3 sources. Omega-6 and omega-3 are precursors to eicosanoids, a large and poorly understood class of signaling molecules that play a role in basically everything. Eicosanoids are either omega-6-derived or omega-3-derived. Omega-6 and omega-3 compete for the enzymes that convert PUFA into eicosanoids. Therefore, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in tissues (related to the ratio in the diet) determines the ratio of omega-6-derived eicosanoids to omega-3-derived eicosanoids.

Omega-6 eicosanoids are very potent and play a central role in inflammation. They aren't "bad", in fact they're essential, but an excess of them is probably not good. Omega-3 eicosanoids are generally less potent, less inflammatory, and tend to participate in long-term repair processes. So in sum, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in the diet will determine the potency and quality of eicosanoid signaling, which will determine an animal's susceptibility to inflammation-mediated disorders.

One of the key enzymes in the pathway from PUFA to eicosanoids (specifically, a subset of them called prostanoids) is cyclooxygenase (COX). COX-1 is expressed all the time and serves a "housekeeping" function, while COX-2 is induced by cellular stressors and contributes to the the formation of inflammatory eicosanoids. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin and ibuprofen inhibit COX enzymes, which is why they are effective against inflammatory problems like pain and fever. They are also used as a preventive measure against cardiovascular disease. Basically, they reduce the excessive inflammatory signaling promoted by a diet with a poor omega-6:3 balance. You wouldn't need to inhibit COX if it were producing the proper balance of eicosanoids to begin with.

Dr. Kuang-Chung Shih's group at the Department of Internal Medicine in Taipei placed rats on five different diets:
  1. A control diet, eating normal low-fat rat chow.

  2. A "high-fat diet", in which 45% of calories came from a combination of industrial lard and soybean oil, and 17% of calories came from sucrose*.

  3. A "high-fat diet" (same as above), plus the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib (Celebrex).

  4. A "high-fat diet" (same as above), plus the COX-2 inhibitor mesulid.

  5. An energy-restricted "high-fat diet".

The "high-fat diets", besides being high in sucrose (table sugar), also presumably had a poor omega-6:3 ratio, in the neighborhood of 10:1 or possibly higher. Weight and fat mass in rats and humans increases with increasing omega-6 in the diet, and also increases with a high 6:3 ratio. I wrote about that here. Rats eating the high-fat diets (groups 2- 4) gained weight as expected**.

Rats in group 2 not only gained weight, they also experienced increased fasting glucose, leptin, insulin, triglycerides, blood pressure and a massive decline in insulin sensitivity (seven-fold relative to group 1). Rats in groups 3 and 4 gained weight, but saw much less of a deterioration in insulin and leptin sensitivity, and blood pressure. Group 2 also developed fatty liver, which was attenuated in groups 3 and 4. If you're interested, group 5 (energy restricted high-fat) was similar to groups 3 and 4 on pretty much everything, including insulin sensitivity.

So there you have it folks: direct evidence that insulin resistance, leptin resistance, high blood pressure and fatty liver are mediated by excessive inflammatory eicosanoid signaling. I wrote about something similar before when I reviewed a paper showing that fish oil reverses many of the consequences of a high-vegetable oil, high-sugar diet in rats. I also reviewed two papers showing that in pigs and rats, a high omega-6:3 ratio promotes inflammation (mediated by COX-2) and lipid peroxidation in the heart. Are you going to quench the fire by taking drugs, or by reducing your intake of omega-6 and ensuring an adequate intake of omega-3?

*Of course, they didn't mention the sucrose in the methods section. I had to go digging around for the diet's composition. This is typical of papers on "high-fat diets". They load them up with sugar, and blame everything on the fat.

**Rats gain fat mass when fed a high-fat diet (even if it's not loaded with sugar). But humans don't necessarily gain weight on a high-fat diet (i.e. low-carb weight loss diet). What's the difference? Low-carbohydrate diet trials indicate that humans spontaneously reduce their caloric intake when eating low carbohydrate, high-fat food.

may 21

Today I had the same smoothie as 2 days ago (second half, frozen then thawed overnight) for brekky.  and a small peach.

Lunch and dinner were leftover eggplant dish from yesterday.  At lunch I also had carrots and celery, and a small peach.   I was tired of the eggplant dish by dinner time.  I would have preferred a salad--will have to do that for lunch tomorrow.   I added edamame to the dish at dinner and that was good.  Dessert was an orange and small peach.  had an apple and carrots before dinner.  

I made housemate some guacamole for dinner and snacked on it a bit at lunch.  It was good.  Oh, while making the guac., I discovered that soaking the carrots and celery in lime cilantro juice makes them taste good.   I'm making housemate a lot of salsa and guac. this week to try to use up the cilantro from the garden.  She eats it with tortilla chips at dinner.  She's not fully onboard with Dr. Fuhrman's program so this is a treat for her to have chips at dinner.

may 20

Today I made another fun dish in the pressure cooker. That makes cooking so easy! I peeled and cut an eggplant, ripped up a bunch of kale (that's how I "chop" it), cut up a bunch of mushrooms and an onion, combined that with 2 cans of tomatoes and cooked for 2 minutes! Then threw in a bag of arugula to get more greens (shared some of the kale with housemate). and a half chopped red pepper. and some cilantro (I will be eating cilantro every day now because it's growing crazy in the garden). I let that cook a little in the hot pan (no additional stove heat). It was great. Really, all you have to do is throw in whatever vegetables you want, it and it will taste great. nothing hard about it. I'm into eggplants right now. I had that for lunch and dinner. wasn't hungry at breakfast. had some carrots and an apple too.

may 19

I guess I can't resist posting even though I need to focus on work.

yesterday I had a smoothie at brekky but didn't have spinach so used arugula and mixed baby salad greens.  This is much more bitter so I added some lemon juice.  I actually liked this but most people might think it's too bitter for a smoothie.

for lunch I snacked on the dish I was making for the meeting I was attending in the evening.  This is the greek salad recipe I made on Sunday too (described in this post).  It's pretty good.  I substituted for many of the ingredients and added extra.  I was at a thesis defense in the afternoon and there were lots of treats including watermelon.  No one else ate the watermelon so I kept eating it--and pineapple.  I wasn't hungry but it was there...

Dinner was at my meeting where I had the greek salad.  Someone brought some "bumblebee bars" from the co-op.  These are peanut butter, sesame seeds, honey and salt mostly.  I thought, that's not so bad, so I had one--they are big so it was probably loaded with calories, and the three keys to overindulgence:  fat, sugar and salt.  Boy, you can really taste the salt when you aren't used to it.  Indeed, my fingers are swollen the morning after.   And the honey went straight to my head.  I forgot that honey is refined sugar (now how could I forget that?).  Interesting how that affects me more than fruit sugars--difference between sucrose and fructose, I guess?  Anyway, I do have to stay away from those refined sugars.  I don't like how they affect me.  The conversation was really interesting and I had to focus myself.  I was feeling ADHD for a while.   That combined with the chickpeas in the salad made me too full.

Today (may 20) I am not even hungry.   I''ve been eating too much fruit and nuts lately.   I think I'll eat more greens and veggies today.

The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic: Possible Culprits Part II

In the last post, I reviewed some of the factors that I believe could have contributed to the epidemic of heart attacks that began in the 1920s and 1930s in the U.S. and U.K., and continues today. I ended on smoking, which appears to be a major player. But even smoking is clearly trumped by another factor or combination of factors, judging by the unusually low incidence of heart attacks in France, Japan and on Kitava.

One of the major changes in diet that I didn't mention in the last post was the rise of industrial liquid vegetable oils over the course of the 20th century. In the U.S. in 1900, the primary cooking fats were lard, beef tallow and butter. The following data only include cooking fats and spreads, because the USDA does not track the fats that naturally occur in milk and meat (source):

Animal fat is off the hook. This is the type of information that makes mainstream nutrition advice ring hollow. Let's see what happened to industrial vegetable oils in the early 1900s:

I do believe we're getting warmer. Now let's consider the composition of traditional American animal fats and industrial vegetable oils:
It's not hard to see that the two classes of fats (animal and industrial vegetable) are quite different. Animal fats are more saturated (blue). However, the biggest difference is that industrial vegetable oils contain a massive amount of omega-6 (yellow), far more than animal fats. If you accept that humans evolved eating primarily animal fats, which is well supported by the archaeological and anthropological literature, then you can begin to see the nature of the problem.

Omega-6 and omega-3 fats are polyunsaturated fatty acids that are precursors to a very important class of signaling molecules called eicosanoids, which have a hand in virtually every bodily process. Omega-6 and omega-3 fats compete with one another for the enzymes (desaturases and elongases) that convert them into eicosanoid precursors. Omega-6-derived eicosanoids and omega-3-derived eicosanoids have different functions. Therefore, the balance of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in the diet influences the function of the body on virtually every level. Omega-6 eicosanoids tend to be more inflammatory, although the eicosanoid system is extraordinarily complex and poorly understood.

What's better understood is the fact that our current omega-6 consumption is well outside of our ecological niche. In other words, we evolved in an environment that did not provide large amounts of omega-6 all year round. Industrial vegetable oils are a product of food processing techniques that have been widespread for about 100 years, not enough time for even the slightest genetic adaptation. Our current level of omega-6 intake, and our current balance between omega-6 and omega-3, are therefore unnatural.
The ideal ratio is probably very roughly 2:1 omega-6:omega-3. Leaf lard is 6.8, beef tallow is 2.4, good quality butter is 1.4, corn oil is 45, cottonseed oil is 260. It's clear that a large qualitative change in our fat consumption occurred over the course of the 20th century.

I believe this was a major factor in the rise of heart attacks from an obscure condition to the primary cause of death. I'll be reviewing the data that convinced me in the next few posts.

The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic
The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic: Possible Culprits Part I
The Omega Ratio
A Practical Approach to Omega Fats
Polyunsaturated Fat Intake: Effects on the Heart and Brain
Polyunsaturated Fat Intake: What About Humans?
Vegetable Oil and Homicide

may 17

The next few weeks are going to be really busy for me at work.  I think I'm just going to have time for work and exercise.  I don't want to miss exercise.  It gets me out in the sunshine on my bike, and away from sitting at my desk.  So blogging will probably be more sporadic.  Here's my eating plan:   smoothie for brekky.   veggies made in pressure cooker for lunch--various things like eggplant, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, herbs from the garden.  I have lots of cilantro right now so I'll be using that a lot.  I don't want to eat too much at lunch because I exercise 3-4 hours afterwards.  Dinner will be salad and beans.  I'll probably use the cilantro there too (maybe make black bean & corn salad, or black beans with cilantro and orange juice--nice combo).  Then chives are going strong to so I'll start using that too once I can use up some cilantro.  For snacks I'll have the usual carrots and celery, apples and oranges.   I still have a half cabbage left so might make cabbage salad again.  I'll get my healthy fats in with the sunflower seeds and flaxseeds in the smoothies at brekky, and then nuts in my sauces and dressings (sometimes lunch, sometimes dinner).

Today I had smoothie for brekky, greek salad at the potluck (see yesterday's post), grapes, carrots & celery, apple, banana.  Dinner was some brazil nuts, orange, salad with arugula, cucumber, orange bell pepper, blueberry vinegar; more carrots.  

I'm going to make the greek salad again on Tuesday for a little potluck.

Okay, here's hoping I get a lot of work done tomorrow...

What Health Reform Plan??

The Obama administration is working in overdrive to create a health reform package that could possibly be passed this summer. That is the headline we are all reading. The challenge, among many, is "what exactly is the proposed plan?"Like you, I am very concerned that the real work is being done in the basement of the White House by a very small number of non elected leaders. Sure, the press has been pretty good to date with a "down payment" on reform via the ARRA and lots of talk about the benefits of the infusion for information technology. However, the actual proposed legislation is leaking out in bits and pieces as the various interest groups inside the Beltway try hard to get their hands on real information. I hope we keep our eye on the four pillars of reform---create value, insure everyone, change the payment system and promote coordination. The pillars represent real reform, everything else is tinkering around the edges. At the Jefferson School of Population Health we are tracking these developments carefully but we need your help too. We must continue to press for transparency here and we must make sure that the four pillars are embodied in any legislative proposal. I am interested in your views too. DAVID NASH

may 16

brekky:  not too hungry, not in the mood for a smoothie (probably the "ice cream" and nuts from previous night).  had a late breakfast of spinach and carrots and celery.  I was in the mood for veggies today.

lunch:  more fun with the pressure cooker!  This is a life-changing device!   I just made a giant plate of veggies for housemate and me.  cooked up potato, beets, asparagus, and carrots for 1 minute.  Then added broccoli, cauliflower, grape tomatoes and mushrooms for another minute.  Some of these veggies are for me only, some for housemate only, but the pot is big enough to just have them pushed to one side.  I had the beets and asparagus, housemate had the potato, more of the broccoli and carrots, and the rest was shared.   Super easy and good.  a giant plate of veggies--whatever is in the fridge.  what a concept.   I could have this every day.

late snack after yoga while waiting for the peregrine falcon to arrive at it's nest, which it did!:  apple and banana

late dinner:  made a "greek salad" recipe from Dr. Fuhrman's Eat for Health book.  I can't repeat the recipe here but it was good.  it has chickpeas, cucumber, tomatoes, potato (I substituted part sweet potato), green apple, onion, brazil nuts, flavored vinegar, cilantro and salad greens.  I also added peas and corn because I took them out earlier in the day and didn't use them.  I also added chopped kumquat peels since I still had some kumquats that were going to go bad.  These are like, what do you call that when you scrape off citrus peels, oh citrus zest.  Anyway, they add a great flavor!   I got that idea from strix.   

I made a double recipe so I could take half to a potluck.  I was hungry when I started cooking at 8 pm so I just kept eating as I added ingredients, and then I ate a helping when it was done at 9 pm.  I got overfull.  oops.  but it was good.

The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic: Possible Culprits Part I

In the last post, I reviewed two studies that suggested heart attacks were rare in the U.K. until the 1920s -1930s. In this post, I'll be discussing some of the diet and lifestyle factors that preceded and associated with the coronary heart disease epidemic in the U.K and U.S. I've cherry picked factors that I believe could have played a causal role. Many things changed during that time period, and I don't want to give the impression that I have "the answer". I'm simply presenting ideas for thought and discussion.

First on the list: sugar. Here's a graph of refined sugar consumption in the U.K. from 1815 to 1955, from the book The Saccharine Disease, by Dr. T. L. Cleave. Sugar consumption increased dramatically in the U.K. over this time period, reaching near-modern levels by the turn of the century, and continuing to increase after that except during the wars: Here's a graph of total sweetener consumption in the U.S. from 1909 to 2005 (source: USDA food supply database). Between 1909 and 1922, sweetener consumption increased by 40%:

If we assume a 10 to 20 year lag period, sugar is well placed to play a role in the CHD epidemic. Sugar is easy to pick on. An excess causes a number of detrimental changes in animal models and human subjects, including fatty liver, the metabolic syndrome, and small, oxidized low-density lipoprotein particles (LDL). Small and oxidized LDL associate strongly with cardiovascular disease risk and may be involved in causing it. These effects seem to be mostly attributable to the fructose portion of sugar, which is 50% of table sugar (sucrose), about 50% of most naturally sweet foods, and 55% of the most common form of high-fructose corn syrup. That explains why starches, which break down into glucose (another type of sugar), don't have the same negative effects as table sugar and HFCS.

Hydrogenated fat is the next suspect. I don't have any graphs to present, because no one has systematically tracked hydrogenated fat consumption in the U.S. or U.K. to my knowledge. However, it was first marketed in the U.S. by Procter & Gamble under the brand name Crisco in 1911. Crisco stands for "crystallized cottonseed oil", and involves taking an industrial waste oil (from cotton seeds) and chemically treating it using high temperature, a nickel catalyst and hydrogen gas (see this post for more information). Hydrogenated fats for human consumption hit markets in the U.K. around 1920. Here's what Dr. Robert Finlayson had to say about margarine in his paper "Ischaemic Heart Disease, Aortic Aneurysms, and Atherosclerosis in the City of London, 1868-1982":
...between 1909-13 and 1924-28, margarine consumption showed the highest percentage increase, whilst that of eggs only increased slightly and that of butter remained unchanged. Between 1928 and 1934, margarine consumption fell by one-third, while butter consumption increased by 57 percent: and increase that coincided with a fall of 48 percent in its price. Subsequently, margarine sales have burgeoned, and if one is correct in stating that the coronary heart disease epidemic started in the second decade of this century, then the concept of hydrogenated margarines as an important aetiological factor, so strongly advocated by Martin, may merit more consideration than hitherto.
Partially hydrogenated oils contain
trans fat, which is truly new to the human diet, with the exception of small amounts found in ruminant fats including butter. But for the most part, natural trans fats are not the same as industrial trans fats, and in fact some of them, such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), may be beneficial. To my knowledge, no one has discovered health benefits of industrial trans fats. To the contrary, compared to butter, they shrink LDL size. They also inhibit enzymes that the body uses to make a diverse class of signaling compounds known as eicosanoids. Trans fat consumption associates very strongly with the risk of heart attack in observational studies. Which is ironic, because hydrogenated fats were originally marketed as a healthier alternative to animal fats. The Center for Science in the Public Interest shamed McDonald's into switching the beef tallow in their deep friers for hydrogenated vegetable fats in the 1990s. In 2009, even the staunchest opponents of animal fats have to admit that they're healthier than hydrogenated fat.

The next factor is vitamin D. When the industrial revolution became widespread in the late 19th century, people moved into crowded, polluted cities and vitamin D deficiency became rampant. Rickets was a scourge that affected more than half of children in some places. Dr. Edward Mellanby discovered that it's caused by severe vitamin D deficiency, milk was fortified with vitamin D2, and rickets was all but eliminated. However, it only takes a very small amount of vitamin D to avoid rickets, an amount that will not contribute significantly to optimum vitamin D status. Vitamin D modulates the body's inflammatory response, it's ability to resist calcium deposition in the arteries, and seems to be important for so many things I had to include it.

The rise of cigarettes was a major change that probably contributed massively to the CHD epidemic. They were introduced just after the turn of the century in the U.S. and U.K., and rapidly became fashionable (source):
If you look at the second to last graph from the previous post, you can see that there's a striking correspondence between cigarette consumption and CHD deaths in the U.K. In fact, if you moved the line representing cigarette consumption to the right by about 20 years, it would overlap almost perfectly with CHD deaths. The risk of heart attack is so strongly associated with smoking in observational studies that even I believe it probably represents a causal relationship. There's no doubt in my mind that smoking cigarettes contributes to the risk of heart attack and various other health problems.

Smoking is a powerful factor, but it doesn't explain everything. How is it that the Kitavans of Papua New Guinea, more than 3/4 of whom smoke cigarettes, have an undetectable incidence of heart attack and stroke? Why do the French and the Japanese, who smoke like chimneys (at least until recently), have the two lowest heart attack death rates of all the affluent nations? There's clearly another factor involved that trumps cigarette smoke. I have a guess, which I'll expand on in the next few posts.

nut/fig/coconut snack

1 oz brazil nuts
2 white turkish figs
2 Tbsp (or to taste) dried coconut shavings

cut the brazil nuts in half. chop up the figs, at the coconut. good snack after exercise. Or make a big batch for guests. Then use 1 cup nuts, and several figs (to taste), and coconut to taste.

may 15

brekky:  smoothie, carrots and celery

lunch:  cabbage salad, strawberries and blackberries.

dinner:  cabbage salad.  had guests over and made my nut/fig/coconut snack and banana cherry ice cream.  I ate more than enough of the nut snack.


The "Myth" of the Uninsured

Here is an informative (and corrective to the propoganda of the Left) article by David Limbaugh regarding health care. Here is the main point:

Hillary Clinton said, "It's really indefensible that we now have more than 45 million uninsured Americans, 9 million of whom are children, and the vast majority of whom are from working families."

But did you know that, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report, more than 10 million of these "uninsured" are not American citizens? That almost 18 million, with annual incomes exceeding $50,000, can afford health insurance but choose not to buy it? That more than half of those 18 million people make more than $75,000? That about 19 million of the uninsured are between 18 and 34 years old and may not consider coverage a pressing priority? That almost half the uninsured only remain without insurance for an average of four months? Without question, these figures overlap, but it's safe to say that the left's alleged number of truly uninsured is enormously overstated and distorted.

There is also a significant difference between being uninsured and having no access to health care. The law mandates emergency room care, even for those unable to afford it."

No, Mr President

John Piper hit the top 20 list - (the top 20 videos going viral on the internet right now. )

may 14

brekky:  smoothie.  carrots and celery.  These give me something to chew and make me feel more satisfied.  a good addition.

lunch:  steamed veggies (in the pressure cooker!  asparagus, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and peas, yum) and rutabaga-sesame sauce.   some leftover ratatouille

snack after exercise:  1 oz brazil nuts + 2 white turkish figs + some dried coconut chips.   This was a great snack!   Those figs are so good.  They remind me of fig newtons which I used to love, but these are way better.  

Dinner:  lettuce topped with black bean salad.  I added mango to it, which was good.  rest of the ratatouille.  Then later I went grocery shopping and ate some fresh strawberries, blackberries and grapes, and part of an orange while making house mates orange juice.  It was good.  

It's magic!

I tried out my new pressure cooker today and it was...like magic!  I cooked rutagaba in 2 minutes!  That takes about 30 minutes in a regular pan to get tender.  I cooked asparagus at the same time, so also in 2 minutes!  These were thick ones and you know how long those take to get tender in a regular pan (about 30 minutes!).   I cooked carrots and broccoli and cauliflower and peas in 1 minute.  Holy cow.  This was too fun.  and easy to use.  I am going to have so much fun with this!   Meals are going to take even less time to prepare!   Not only that, they preserve more nutrients than steaming in a regular pan.  Thanks to leangreenmama for an informative post about pressure cookers.  I bought the one she bought, without bothering to research.  Here's the amazon link.   

Before and after pictures

Here's what I looked like before I became a healthy vegan. I was 45 years old, and ate the Standard American Diet.























I looked okay, but I always felt like a dork, to be honest. More importantly was how I felt, which was not great.

Here's a picture of me and my dad about to embark on an exciting adventure, flying my airplane to Alaska. Whenever I looked at this picture, instead of thinking, "what a great trip!", I thought, "I wish I weren't so dorky. "






















Funnily enough, this one just cracked me up:






















The pants didn't flatter me.

I weighed about 150-155 in those pictures. I'm 5'9". I purchased my first pair of size 16 pants in Spring 2005, and thought that was just a natural part of aging. Then I became vegetarian for environmental reasons, and secretly because I didn't want to eat animals (I barely admitted that to myself). I learned more about animal suffering and became vegan in July 2005. I lost weight over the next year, and felt better, which caused me to investigate this surprising result, and I discovered the unbelievable health benefits of eating a mostly vegan whole foods diet through websites like Drs. McDougall, Fuhrman, and Barnard. Here's a post describing how my health improved. So, as I mentioned in some other posts, I discovered the route to health by accident!

Now I just turned 49 and I weigh 120 lbs. I do wonder if that's a little low for my height but it is stable, and I have never had much muscle mass even though I've always enjoyed physical activity.

Here's the tired and weakling vegan:






















Here's me at White Sands National Monument on our recent vacation. The wind was blowing really strong.






















Another vacation picture:






















In a furniture store last fall modeling our new bench.






















At Dr. Fuhrman's Healthy Getaway in Florida with Gail. She told me to post the bikini picture but that would really be embarrassing:



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