Noonan on the AZ Immigration "Scandal"

Peggy Noonan has a great piece at WSJ about why the situation has gotten to where it is.  This is the money quote, however:
"Why does the federal government do this? Because so many within it are stupid and unimaginative and don't trust the American people. Which of course the American people have noticed."

Grains as Food: an Update

Improperly Prepared Grain Fiber can be Harmful

Last year, I published a post on the Diet and Reinfarction trial (DART), a controlled trial that increased grain fiber intake using whole wheat bread and wheat bran supplements, and reported long-term health outcomes in people who had previously suffered a heart attack (1). The initial paper found a trend toward increased heart attacks and deaths in the grain fiber-supplemented group at two years, which was not statistically significant.

What I didn't know at the time is that a follow-up study has been published. After mathematically "adjusting" for preexisting conditions and medication use, the result reached statistical significance: people who increased their grain fiber intake had more heart attacks than people who didn't during the two years of the controlled trial. Overall mortality was higher as well, but that didn't reach statistical significance. You have to get past the abstract of the paper to realize this, but fortunately it's free access (2).

Here's a description of what not to eat if you're a Westerner with established heart disease:
Those randomised to fibre advice were encouraged to eat at least six slices of wholemeal bread per day, or an equivalent amount of cereal fibre from a mixture of wholemeal bread, high-fibre breakfast cereals and wheat bran.
Characteristics of Grain Fiber

The term 'fiber' can refer to many different things. Dietary fiber is simply defined as an edible substance that doesn't get digested by the human body. It doesn't even necessarily come from plants. If you eat a shrimp with the shell on, and the shell comes out the other end (which it will), it was fiber.

Grain fiber is a particular class of dietary fiber that has specific characteristics. It's mostly cellulose (like wood; although some grains are rich in soluble fiber as well), and it contains a number of defensive substances and storage molecules that make it more difficult to eat. These may include phytic acid, protease inhibitors, amylase inhibitors, lectins, tannins, saponins, and goitrogens (3). Grain fiber is also a rich source of vitamins and minerals, although the minerals are mostly inaccessible due to grains' high phytic acid content (4, 5, 6).

Every plant food (and some animal foods) has its chemical defense strategy, and grains are no different*. It's just that grains are particularly good at it, and also happen to be one of our staple foods in the modern world. If you don't think grains are naturally inedible for humans, try eating a heaping bowl full of dry, raw whole wheat berries.

Human Ingenuity to the Rescue

Humans are clever creatures, and we've found ways to use grains as a food source, despite not being naturally adapted to eating them**. The most important is our ability to cook. Cooking deactivates many of the harmful substances found in grains and other plant foods. However, some are not deactivated by cooking. These require other strategies to remove or deactivate.

Healthy grain-based cultures don't prepare their grains haphazardly. Throughout the world, using a number of different grains, many have arrived at similar strategies for making grains edible and nutritious. The most common approach involves most or all of these steps:
  • Soaking
  • Grinding
  • Removing 50-75% of the bran
  • Sour fermentation
  • Cooking
But wait, didn't all healthy traditional cultures eat whole grains? The idea might make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it doesn't quite hit the mark. A recent conversation with Ramiel Nagel, author of the book Cure Tooth Decay, disabused me of that notion. He pointed out that in my favorite resource on grain preparation in traditional societies, the Food and Agriculture Organization publication Fermented Cereals: a Global Perspective, many of the recipes call for removing a portion of the bran (7). Some of these recipes probably haven't changed in thousands of years. It's my impression that some traditional cultures eat whole grains, while others eat them partially de-branned.

In the next post, I'll explain why these processing steps greatly improve the nutritional value of grains, and I'll describe recipes from around the world to illustrate the point.


* Including tubers. For example, sweet potatoes contain goitrogens, oxalic acid, and protease inhibitors. Potatoes contain toxic glycoalkaloids. Taro contains oxalic acid and protease inhibitors. Cassava contains highly toxic cyanogens. Some of these substances are deactivated by cooking, others are not. Each food has an associated preparation method that minimizes its toxic qualities. Potatoes are peeled, removing the majority of the glycoalkaloids. Cassava is grated and dried or fermented to inactivate cyanogens. Some cultures ferment taro.

** As opposed to mice, for example, which can survive on raw whole grains.

The Truth About Health Care

Here are three stories that have come out today that underscore what really happened in the "Historic" vote for health care reform.

Democrats Hid Damning HC Report From Public - HHS had a report generated before the vote to determine it's own estimates of the HC reform bill's costs.  Their report shows:
"...medical costs will skyrocket rising $389 billion 10 years. 14 million will lose their employer-based coverage. Millions of Americans will be left without insurance. And, millions more may be dumped into the already overwhelmed Medicaid system. 4 million American families will be hit with tax penalties under this new law."
ObamaCare Will Impose Rationing - Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag explains in an interview how a new panel called the IPAB will actually have the authority to set cost-cutting measures with the priorities of quality, not quantity of care.

Democrats Admit Corporations' to be Negatively Impacted by Bill
"When major companies declared that a provision of the new health care law would hurt earnings, Democrats were skeptical. But after investigating, House Democrats have concluded that the companies were right to tell investors and the government about the expected adverse effects of the law on their financial results. …"

today's food and last week

Today's brekky was my "dessert" salad. It had spinach, romaine lettuce, a bag of frozen cherries, sliced banana, 1/2 cup edamame, 2 Tbsp spicy pecan vinegar. The cherries and bananas are so sweet, that's why it's like dessert. yummy yummy:



















Lunch was banana walnut ice cream for a treat! and some carrots and celery.

Dinner was a "micro-processor" salad, Carrots' invention from the Fuhrman forums. It's a salad where you chop everything in the food processor. This had a bunch of greens I harvested from the garden (came up from last year):
kale, mustard greens, spinach, chives, cilantro
+ some local greens from the co-op:
ramps, arugula, sorrel
+ apple, orange, (pureed in the food processor) and juice of 2 limes
+ 1/2 cup frozen peas (as is)
+ 1/2 Tbsp chia seeds:



















I thought for sure this was going to taste horrible. The greens were strong and bitter, especially the mustard greens, and I thought, I really should cook these, but I didn't feel like it. Fortunately the lime, orange and apple made it taste great. Amazing! The lime is key for offsetting the bitter taste of the raw greens.

This last week I was working 16 hours days, and didn't have the time or inclination for cooking, besides the beets, mushrooms and beans I added to my "micro-processor" salads. I mainly just ate salads for brekky (like this), and micro-processor salads for lunch and dinner. Tomorrow for lunch I'll make black bean hummus and lightly steamed veggies for dipping. I'll probably cook more at lunch this week as my collaborator will be joining us I think. And I'll have salad for brekky and dinner probably. That's my guess but I never know when my mood will change.

World's greatest breakfast




















Some people spend $5 a day on gourmet coffee drinks. I spent $5 a day on strawberries. I've posted variations of this salad before but I just love it. It is the perfect food.

This has a whole bunch of romaine lettuce, some arugula and sorrel (locally grown), 1 lb strawberries, 6 oz blackberries, a banana, 1 Tbsp hemp seeds, and 2 Tbsp D'Angou pear vinegar.

yummmmmmmm

Guest Commentary: UnitedHealth Group Partners with YMCA to Reduce Type 2 Diabetes

Patrick Monaghan
Director of Communications
Jefferson School of Population Health


With apologies to Stephen Colbert, a Tip of the Hat to UnitedHealth Group and the YMCA, who on Wednesday announced a partnership, along with retail pharmacies, to reduce the burden of Type 2 diabetes in the United States.

Under the proposal, UnitedHealth, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, will cover 16-week programs at the YMCA that discuss changes in eating, exercise and other lifestyle habits. As part of the program, which is being introduced in seven U.S. cities, the insurer will also pay incentives to Walgreens’ pharmacists to teach people how to better manage the disease.

UnitedHealth hopes the result will be lower costs and lower premiums for everyone.

Which makes sense to me.

UnitedHealth said studies funded by the government show that pre-diabetes patients can prevent or delay the disease by 58% simply by meeting in group coaching sessions, changing eating and exercise habits, and losing about 5% of their body weight.

It’s estimated that 25 million people in this country have Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of a disease that generally develops in adults as a result of obesity and poor diet. According to the American Diabetes Association, the total estimated diabetes cost in the United States in 2007 was $174 billion.

That’s billion, with a “b” – and that’s a conservative estimate. It’s no secret that our country’s health care is by far the most expensive in the world. The aim of the recently enacted federal health care law is not just to extend medical coverage to everybody but also to bring costs under control. Now that the law is on the books, it’s time to start reining in some of these costs.

The UnitedHealth/YMCA collaboration appears to be a move in the right direction. Some policy experts believe the program is an example of the steps that health insurance companies must take to demonstrate their relevance under the new health care law and as employers pay more attention to holding down medical costs.

What’s your take? Some believe this is a model for the future of health insurance. Do you feel the program has a chance of working on a national level? Let us know your thoughts.

Word of the Day - Avant-Garde

Avant-Garde - to advance the boundaries, push the envelope, innovative.  As in...
"The near certainty that yesterday's killer was driven by Islamist
impulses is deeply troubling for the Dutch, who created one of the
world's most avant-garde models of multiculturalism over the last 30
years, to the point of paying imams' salaries."

This truly shows the folly in much of what Western Europe is doing, and in what America is seemingly seeking to become.  They "pushed the envelope", but someone forget to inform them that sometimes the envelope pushes back!  These social experiments have consequences and just pretending completely opposing world views can live peacefully alongside each other is just wishful thinking at best, and lethal at its worst.

There's No God Like Jehovah!

This version of this song really makes me want to stand up on my feet and shout!

Sea Levels NOT Rising

I already posted on the retraction of this claim, but came across this interview of a Dr. Nils-Axel Morner, who used to serve on the IPCC and is one of the (if not THE) leading sea-level expert in the world today.  The interview is about 1 hour, but very insightful as to how the IPCC came up with it's numbers, who's on the panel, what is really happening in the island countries that feel threatened by this claim, and how people even measure sea levels.  Here's a transcription of a similar interview if you don't have time to listen to the broadcast.

Dinner with Taubes, Eades and Hujoel

Gary Taubes gave a lecture at UW last Thursday. Thanks to all the Whole Health Source readers who showed up. Gary's talk was titled "Why We Get Fat: Adiposity 101 and the Alternative Hypothesis of Obesity". He was hosted by Dr. Philippe Hujoel, the UW epidemiologist and dentist who authored the paper "Dietary Carbohydrates and Dental-Systemic Diseases" (1).

Gary's first target was the commonly held idea that obesity is simply caused by eating too much and exercising too little, and thus the cure is to eat less and exercise more. He used numerous examples from both humans and animals to show that fat mass is biologically regulated, rather than being the passive result of voluntary behaviors such as eating and exercise. He presented evidence of cultures remaining lean despite a huge and continuous surplus of food, as long as they stayed on their traditional diet. He also described how they subsequently became obese and diabetic on industrial foods (the Pima, for example).

He then moved into what he feels is the biological cause of obesity: excessive insulin keeping fat from exiting fat cells. It's true that insulin is a storage hormone, at the cellular level. However, fat mass regulation involves a dynamic interplay between many different interlacing systems that determine both overall energy intake and expenditure, as well as local availability of nutrients at the tissue level (i.e., how much fat gets into your fat tissue vs. your muscle tissue). I think the cause of obesity is likely to be more complex than insulin signaling.

He also offered the "carbohydrate hypothesis", which is the idea that carbohydrate, or at least refined carbohydrate, is behind the obesity epidemic and perhaps other metabolic problems. This is due to its ability to elevate insulin. I agree that refined carbohydrate, particularly white flour and sugar, is probably a central part of the problem. I'm also open to the possibility that some people in industrial nations are genuinely sensitive to carbohydrate regardless of what form it's in, although that remains to be rigorously tested. I don't think carbohydrate is sufficient to cause obesity
per se, due to the many lean and healthy cultures that eat high carbohydrate diets*. Gary acknowledges this, and thinks there's probably another factor that's involved in allowing carbohydrate sensitivity to develop, for example excessive sugar.

I had the opportunity to speak with Gary at length on Thursday, as well as on Friday at dinner. Gary is a very nice guy-- a straightforward New York personality who's not averse to a friendly disagreement. In case any of you are wondering, he looks good. Good body composition, nice skin, hair and teeth (apologies to Gary for the analysis). Philippe and his wife took us out to a very nice restaurant, where we had a leisurely four-hour meal, and Dr. Mike Eades was in town so he joined us as well. Mike has a strong Southern accent and is also a pleasant guy. Philippe and his wife are generous and engaging people. It was a great evening. The restaurant was nice enough that I wasn't going to be picky about the food-- I ate everything that was put in front of me and enjoyed it.


* I'm talking about prevention rather than cure here. I acknowledge that many people have had great success losing fat using low-carbohydrate diets, including two gentlemen I met on Thursday.

Tracking my food intake

I've been monitoring my food intake off and on for the last few months. On average, my caloric intake is 1500, protein about 13%, fat 20%, carbs 67%; this maintains my weight. My vitamin and mineral intake is off the scale, except for selenium. I get plenty of all the amino acids (needed to make protein). I'm a 5'9", 50 year old female who exercises 1-3 hours a day. on average I guess it's 1 hour intense, 1 hour light exercise per day. Otherwise I'm pretty sedentary with a desk job. On the days when I go on a long bike ride or exercise more heavily, I need more calories, maybe 1600-1700, I'm not sure yet.

Monitoring my food has helped me understand Dr. Fuhrman's recommendations better. At first I was surprised that I only need 1500 calories per day. But I can tell it's right because if I eat less, or exercise heavily, I wake up at 5 am (too early!) hungry. If I eat more, I wake up full. Dr. Fuhrman says when you eat nutrient-dense food, you don't need as many calories. My Nutritional Sciences book has a formula for calculating estimated energy requirements (p. 40-41). According to that, I should burn about 1900 calories. I ate 1600 calories yesterday and didn't exercise much, and that was more than I needed (wasn't hungry for breakfast today until later than usual). I heard from others on the Fuhrman forums who are experiencing the same thing--less calorie intake than is typically recommended. Two other women who are in their 50s, physically active but quite a bit shorter than I say they only need about 1200-1300 per day.

Another thing that got reinforced to me is that you really need those beans and nuts & seeds to increase your calories. Starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes also are good for adding calories. I eat a lot of raw veggies which by far make up the bulk of the volume of my food intake. But the beans and seeds and starchy veggies contribute at least 1/3 of my calories even though they are low volume in comparison. Fruit also contributes a substantial amount of my calories, which is my yummy reward. I hardly eat grains anymore because I like the taste of fruit, veggies and beans and seeds better, and they are more nutritious so why bother. The main advantage to grains are that they are a cheap way to get calories. Right now I can afford the other stuff.

I also understand better why Dr. Fuhrman's supplements have the amount of vitamins they do. Unless you eat brazil nuts on this diet, you will likely be deficient in selenium. Since we don't eat salt, we don't have a good source of iodine (added to most table salt). We also have no source of vitamins B12 and D (most people are deficient in Vitamin D). Our other vitamins and minerals are pretty much off the scale. Typically Vitamin A is 4000%; folate 300%; B vitamins 100-200% except B12 which is 0; vitamin C 1500%; Vitamin D 0; Vitamin E 150%; Vitamin K 2000%. Minerals are all higher than 100% except selenium. All amino acids are present.

simply beans

Here's the simplest pot of beans you can make.

Ingredients:
16 oz beans (Rancho Gordo heirloom beans are the best I know of)

Soak the beans in water overnight. Or quick-soak by boiling in water for a minute and letting sit for an hour on the stove.

Cook in enough water to cover + an inch or so for a few hours until tender. Add more water as needed. If you want less water at the end, just let it boil down to the top of the beans but you have to monitor it so the beans don't burn. Smaller beans may only need 1-2 hours, larger beans 2-4. Older beans will take longer.

You can also cook in the pressure cooker. Here you need to add a lot more water. I think it's a 6-1 ratio. See your pressure cooker instruction book. Bean typically need about 10-12 minutes in the pressure cooker after soaking. Again, see your instruction book. They often say to add oil but mine works fine without it.

today's food

Today I just grabbed stuff from the freezer for brekky and lunch as I was out all day.

I had a blended salad for brekky, along with a pear and some sips of housemate's smoothie as I prepared them.

Lunch was a spinach mango smoothie, some carrots, a grapefruit, and a cup of beans. Yesterday, I made plain old beans with nothing added. The rancho gordo heirloom beans are good just plain (and I didn't have time to make a more flavorful concoction).

Dinner was a delicious salad of lettuce, spinach, ramps (!), strawberries, bananas, hemp seeds, and d'angou pear vinegar, similar to the one posted here. Ramps are wild leeks. They look sort of like green onions with leaves. The leafy part is peppery. They only appear for a couple of weeks around here. They are wonderful.

Now that spring has hit, I'm probably not going to be doing weekend cooking marathons like I was last month. So I'll make the smoothies and food as I need them on a daily basis.

allergies

Here's a good post from leangreenmama about allergies. My allergies have gone away since changing my diet. yea! I have a post about all my health improvements here.

How to Avoid Assuming the Gospel

Here is a great post from BTW.  There are times when we "assume" things.  It's a "given", isn't it?  Well, this is the place where we are at risk of forgetting it.  Check out the post and read the questions to diagnose if your church has started the slide away from the Gospel.

Health Reform Passes--NOW WHAT??

The US House of Representatives, and then the US Senate, passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act just a few short weeks ago. While much has been written about the bill, I would like to drill into some of the lesser known components of this landmark legislation. For example, I was happy to learn that starting in 2013, the bill calls for a national, voluntary 5 year pilot on bundling payments to providers around 10 inpatient conditions. In 2013, it imposes financial penalties on hospitals for excess readmissions and in 2015, it exacts a 1% penalty on hospitals in the top quartile of Hospital Acquired Conditions such as infection.Other policy issues include allowing hospitals and physicians to provide leadership in voluntary Accountable Care Organizations which will enable the parties to share savings from improved care management. It creates the CMI or the Center for Medicare Innovation to test out some of these new models. Finally, it calls upon the Sec DHHS to establish a National Strategy to improve quality and interagency working groups to carry out the work.There is even a call for a federally funded Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute!!! Well, this all sounds like a full employment act for the faculty, staff and graduates of the Jefferson School of Population Health. More news to follow on this front....what do you think--- after Health Reform, Now What?? DAVID NASH

today's food


sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been super busy. Today's food is typical of what I've been eating lately so I'll post that. It's only 6:30 am but I've been up for 2 hours preparing since I'll be gone all day! I didn't have to do this, because I've got some food in the freezer but I woke up early and was in the mood for salads so I got up. Hopefully I'll take a quick nap after I finish my brekky.

brekky: yummy yummy spinach berry salad. mmmmmmmmm, I'm eating it now. spinach and lettuce, chia and ground flax seeds, spicy pecan vinegar. I mixed those up first. That tastes quite good as it is. Then I added sliced bananas, frozen cherries and blueberries. It's like having dessert for breakfast. YUM.




















Lunch and dinner: Carrots' micro-processor salad. Carrots is a member of the Fuhrman forums and she invented this. It's basically raw veggies and fruit chopped up in a food processor. Yesterday I started adding cooked veggies too after I listened to Dr. Fuhrman's latest telecon and was remind how good cooked mushrooms are for you. So today I cooked up some shiitake mushroms and beets in the pressure cooker and then cooled them and added them to the salad. I also discovered another advantage of using frozen kale. First is that it's good to have when you run out of lettuce. Second is that it tastes better after freezing--gets sweeter. Third is that right when you take it out of the freezer, it will shatter into little pieces when you squeeze it with your hand, so you don't have to chop it. Cool! So today's salad has kale, asparagus, brussels sprouts, little bit of leek, few beet greens, a pear, apple, and orange, red bell pepper, juiced lime, cooked beets & shiitake mushrooms, and cooked pinquito beans (from Rancho gordo), and 1 Tbsp each of hemp seeds and sunflower seeds. and 1 Tbsp spicy pecan vinegar. Here's a picture in a large mixing bowl before adding the beans (they are still cooling):


Copper in Food

Sources of Copper

It isn't hard to get enough copper-- unless you live in an industrial nation. I've compiled a chart showing the copper content of various refined and unrefined foods to illustrate the point. The left side shows industrial staple foods, while the right side shows whole foods. I've incorporated a few that would have been typical of Polynesian and Melanesian cultures apparently free of cardiovascular disease. The serving sizes are what one might reasonably eat at a meal: roughly 200 calories for grains, tubers and whole coconut; 1/4 pound for animal products; 1/2 teaspoon for salt; 1 cup for raw kale; 1 oz for sugar.

Note that beef liver is off the chart at 488 percent of the USDA recommended daily allowance. I don't know if you'd want to sit down and eat a quarter pound of beef liver, but you get the picture. Beef liver is nature's multivitamin: hands down the Most Nutritious Food in the World. That's because it acts as a storage depot for a number of important micronutrients, as well as being a biochemical factory that requires a large amount of B vitamins to function. You can see that muscle tissue isn't a great source of copper compared to other organs, and this holds true for other micronutrients as well.

Beef liver is so full of micronutrients, it shouldn't be eaten every day. Think of it in terms of the composition of a cow's body. The edible carcass is mostly muscle, but a significant portion is liver. I think it makes sense to eat some form of liver about once per week.

Modern Agriculture Produces Micronutrient-poor Foods

The numbers in the graph above come from NutritionData, my main source of food nutrient composition. The problem with relying on this kind of information is it ignores the variability in micronutrient content due to plant strain, soil quality, et cetera.

The unfortunate fact is that micronutrient levels have declined substantially over the course of the 20th century, even in whole foods. Dr. Donald R. Davis has documented the substantial decline in copper and other micronutrients in American foods over the second half of the last century (1). An even more marked decrease has occurred in the UK (2), with similar trends worldwide. On average, the copper content of vegetables in the UK has declined 76 percent since 1940. Most of the decrease has taken place since 1978. Fruits are down 20 percent and meats are down 24 percent.

I find this extremely disturbing, as it will affect even people eating whole food diets. This is yet another reason to buy from artisanal producers, who are likely to use more traditional plant varieties and grow in richer soil. Grass-fed beef should be just as nutritious as it has always been. Some people may also wish to grow, hunt or fish their own food.

Sign the Contract

Here's the link to the Contract From America.  It is an impressive list of principles that clearly articulates what the Tea Party is for.  I even heard today that "people know what the Tea Party is against, but they don't know what it stands for."  Well now they know!

The Power of the Word

Wish this were true today:
"It was the simple reading of the word without preaching; yet such was the power upon the minds of the people that 'it was a common thing, as soon as the Bible was opened, after the preliminary services, and just as the reader began, for great meltings to come upon the hearers. The deepest attention was paid to every word as the sacred verses were slowly and solemnly enunciated. Then the silent tear might be seen stealing down the rugged but expressive countenances turned upon the reader. '. . . The word of the Lord was precious in those days." ~ Charles J. Brown, in The Revival of Religion: Addresses by Scottish Evangelical Leaders delivered in Glasgow in 1840, pages 316-317.

Interview with John Barban

I recently did a podcast interview with John Barban from the Adonis Lifestyle blog. We talked mostly about fat mass and the body fat "setpoint". As it turns out, what I said must have been at odds with John's philosophy, because he posted another podcast the next week that appears to be about why he disagrees with me!

Anyway, enjoy the interview.

I did another one recently with Jimmy Moore that's coming soon.

today's breakfast


















It's taken me a while but I finally got tired of my orange blended salad for breakfast. Maybe it's because we had our first batch of local spinach at the co-op yesterday, and strawberries from California were still on special. And I generally prefer to chew my food and taste the flavor of the fruit separate from the greens. However, it did take longer to prepare and eat, and cut into my work day as a result! Here's what went into it:

5.5 oz fresh spinach, chopped
16 oz box strawberries, sliced
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup edamame (frozen, thawed in microwave for 45 sec)
1 Tbsp flaxseed, ground (I use a coffee grinder)

Total calories was 446; protein 18 g (13%); carbs 81 g (66%); fat 10 g (20%); a hearty breakfast for me!

Gary Taubes Speaks this Thursday at UW

Gary Taubes will be giving a lecture this Thursday, April 15th, at the University of Washington in Seattle, titled "Why we get fat: adiposity 101 and an alternative hypothesis of obesity". It's free and open to the public. The talk is from noon to 1:00, followed by a question and answer session from 1:00 to 2:00.

The talk will take place in Hogness auditorium, which is room A420 of the Health Sciences building (1959 NE Pacific St). The whole area is difficult to navigate, so allow yourself time to park and find the auditorium. Here are directions to Hogness, including parking.

I'll be sitting near the front if anyone wants to say hi afterward.

Massive Aid Does Not Mean Improvement

Here is a recent study, posted at Hot Air, that affirms other studies related to international aid to poor countries, specifically in Africa.  From the study (and common sense):
"Murray’s paper also found debt relief had no effect on health spending. Activists like Bob Geldof and Bono have long argued canceling African debts would allow countries to spend more on their health problems, but there was no evidence of that.

“When an aid official thinks he is helping a low-income African patient avoid charges at a health clinic, in reality, he is paying for a shopping trip to Paris for a government minister and his wife,” said Philip Stevens, of the London-based think tank International Policy Network. He was not linked to the study."
The bottom line - corruption is the root of poverty in Africa.  The conclusion from HA:
"If we really want to solve the problem of poverty and illness in Africa, we need to demand political reform.  Everything else is a band-aid, and  not the kind of Band Aid that means aging rockers taking to the stage on G-20 conferences."

Full-fat Dairy for Cardiovascular Health

I just saw a paper in the AJCN titled "Dairy consumption and patterns of mortality of
Australian adults
". It's a prospective study with a 15-year follow-up period. Here's a quote from the abstract:
There was no consistent and significant association between total dairy intake and total or cause-specific mortality. However, compared with those with the lowest intake of full-fat dairy, participants with the highest intake (median intake 339 g/day) had reduced death due to CVD (HR: 0.31; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.12–0.79; P for trend = 0.04) after adjustment for calcium intake and other confounders. Intakes of low-fat dairy, specific dairy foods, calcium and vitamin D showed no consistent associations.
People who ate the most full-fat dairy had a 69% lower risk of cardiovascular death than those who ate the least. Otherwise stated, people who mostly avoided dairy or consumed low-fat dairy had more than three times the risk of dying of coronary heart disease or stroke than people who ate the most full-fat diary.

Contrary to popular belief, full-fat dairy, including milk, butter and cheese, has never been convincingly linked to cardiovascular disease. In fact, it has rather consistently been linked to a lower risk, particularly for stroke. What has been linked to cardiovascular disease is milk fat's replacement, margarine. In the Rotterdam study, high vitamin K2 intake was linked to a lower risk of fatal heart attack, aortic calcification and all-cause mortality. Most of the K2 came from full-fat cheese. In my opinion, artisanal cheese and butter made from pasture-fed milk are the ultimate dairy foods.

From a 2005 literature review on milk and cardiovascular disease in the EJCN:
In total, 10 studies were identified. Their results show a high degree of consistency in the reported risk for heart disease and stroke, all but one study suggesting a relative risk of less than one in subjects with the highest intakes of milk.

...the studies, taken together, suggest that milk drinking may be associated with a small but worthwhile reduction in heart disease and stroke risk.

...All the cohort studies in the present review had, however, been set up at times when reduced-fat milks were unavailable, or scarce.
The fat is where the vitamins A, K2, E and D are. The fat is where the medium-chain triglycerides, butyric acid and omega-3 fatty acids are. The fat is where the conjugated linoleic acid is. So the next time someone admonishes you to reduce your dairy fat intake, what are you going to tell them??

Even So, Come Lord Jesus!

I have been having a discussion on another forum with a friend regarding "the signs of the times"; in particular what signs tells us Christians that the end is near. As Christians we look forward to the day when Christ will return: "Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day–and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing" (2 Tim 4:8).

And we are not the only ones longing for this redemption. According to Rom 8:19,22,23, "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.... For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies."

So the question is, "How will we know when this will happen?" Jesus himself was asked this at various points in His ministry. He explained in Matt 24, "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains." But notice he says, these are just the beginning... the end is not yet. And since this description could be applied to just about every generation, these are things that should "not alarm" us.

Luke 21:11 adds, And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven." Well there are many unique weather phenomena that are witnessed all over the earth, including the aurora borealis and both solar and lunar eclipses. But I'm not sure this is what the verse is referring to. Regardless, none of these should alarm us as it relates to the end of the world.

Ultimately, Jesus told his disciples, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority" (Acts 1:7). Elsewhere he explains, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or 'There!' for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you" (Luke 17:20,21). Jesus said he will come like a thief in the night, or when we least expect it (12:39,40). So we are called to be ready, not necessarily look for signs.

But in our longing, we look for the slightest hint or the clearest indication of His return. For me, what Jesus said in Matt 24:37 has particular relevance: "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." This refers most basically to the idea that no one was prepared for what was about to happen. No one anticipated that God was "paying attention" to how they were living, nor were they ready for His reaction to the sins of men on earth.

But, I believe it also gives us a hint to consider what that generation was like as we compare our own generation. Gen 6:5 says that in the days of Noah, "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time". And more specifically, in 6:13, God explains, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them." And Gen 8:21 reveals Gods reaction to Noah's sacrifice after the flood had dissipated, considering how the entire human race (save Noah and his family) had just been destroyed, saying "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood."

So, at one level, the Son of Man will return when every inclination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil all the time even childhood, to the point of filling the earth with violence. This understanding has been the forefront of my mind as I have considered several stories in the news of late:

4/6/10 - Group of "Mean Girls" bully 15 year old girl to death

4/4/10 - 15 year old sells 7 year old step sister for gang rape

3/25/10 - Flash mobs of teenagers brawl, vandalize, and assault pedestrians

2/22/09 - 11 year old murdered father's pregnant girlfriend

4/14/08 - 6 Teen Girls gang beat 16 year old for youtube video

These examples, and many others that flash across our eyes on the nightly news, stun me as I consider the ages of the assailants. It makes me consider that whatever natural restraints there used to be in society, these seem to be eroding for our youngest members. And although world violence in general is in decline, there are an estimated 300,000 child soldiers around the world , and millions more held captive in the sex slave trade or human trafficking industry globally. Violence seems to fill the earth; ...every thought being only evil all the time.

And this makes me think of the days of Noah and considering how God watched this for generations until He finally declared ENOUGH! These stories remind me of what Gary Haugen describes, saying:
[W]hat must it be like for God to be present, this year, at the rape of all the world’s child prostitutes, at the beatings of all the world’s prisoners of conscience, at the moment the last breath of hope expires from the breast of each of the millions of small children languishing in bonded servitude. As I would approach my God in prayer, I could hear his gentle voice saying to me, ‘Son, do you have any idea where your Father has been lately? …[If] we really want to know God, we should know something about where he has been—and what it has been like for him to suffer with all those who are hurting and abused.”

And so for me, as I see the world seem to grow more and more violent, to the point that even from childhood every thought is only evil all the time, it causes me to long all the more for his return. Because there will come a time when again God will declare ENOUGH! And then rend the skies and make all things new! Even so, COME LORD JESUS!

Dialogue on Christian Responses to Poverty and Affluence

BTW brought my attention to this important conversation between Marvin Olasky (whom I've referenced previously) and Jim Wallis, a modern proponent of the Christian Social Justice movement.  The ideas of Compassion have been of great interest to me, especially as I've been involved with ministry to the under-priveleged and in full-time ministry.  The best ways to "do compassion" are worth all Christians wrestling with.  This exchange is a good start (about 1.5 hours).  Here's a summary of Olasky's response to the conversation:
[In the debate, Wallis] kept trying to position himself as a centrist rather than a big government proponent. . . .   [M]odern usage [of the term "social justice"] by liberal preachers and journalists is thoroughly unbiblical: Many equate social justice with fighting a free enterprise system that purportedly keeps people poor but in reality is their best economic hope.  How to respond? I’d suggest four possible ways. . . 
Challenge those who speak of “social justice” in a conventionally leftist way. If your local church is committed to what won’t help the poor but will empower would-be dictators, pray and work for gospel-centered teaching. If necessary, find another church.
A second: Try to recapture the term by giving it a 19th- (and 21st?) century small-government twist. The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute are trying to do this. I wish them success.
A third way: Accept the left’s focus on systemic problems but not its faulty analysis. Learn about the biggest institutional hindrance to economic advance for the poor: the government’s monopoly control of taxpayer funds committed to education and welfare. Work for school vouchers and tax credits that will help many poor children to grow both their talents and their knowledge of God.
Fourth and best: Tutor a child. Visit a prisoner. Help the sick. Follow Christ.

I Will Always Love You by Asian Boy

Taiwan's version of Britain's Got Talent just found their next "Susan Boyle" when this stocky boy sang a pitch perfect rendition of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You".  Who says singing Karaoke won't get you anywhere.  Maybe he could fill in for Houston herself.

Copper and Cardiovascular Disease

In 1942, Dr. H. W. Bennetts dissected 21 cattle known to have died of "falling disease". This was the name given to the sudden, inexplicable death that struck herds of cattle in certain regions of Australia. Dr. Bennett believed the disease was linked to copper deficiency. He found that 19 of the 21 cattle had abnormal hearts, showing atrophy and abnormal connective tissue infiltration (fibrosis) of the heart muscle (1).

In 1963, Dr. W. F. Coulson and colleagues found that 22 of 33 experimental copper-deficient pigs died of cardiovascular disease. 11 of 33 died of coronary heart disease, the quintessential modern human cardiovascular disease. Pigs on a severely copper-deficient diet showed weakened and ruptured arteries (aneurysms), while moderately deficient pigs "survived with scarred vessels but demonstrated a tendency toward premature atherosclerosis" including foam cell accumulation (2). Also in 1963, Dr. C. R. Ball and colleagues published a paper describing blood clots in the heart and coronary arteries, heart muscle degeneration, ventricular calcification and early death in mice fed a lard-rich diet (3).

This is where Dr. Leslie M. Klevay enters the story. Dr. Klevay suspected that Ball's mice had suffered from copper deficiency, and decided to test the hypothesis. He replicated Ball's experiment to the letter, using the same strain of mice and the same diet. Like Ball, he observed abnormal clotting in the heart, degeneration and enlargement of the heart muscle, and early death. He also showed by electrocardiogram that the hearts of the copper-deficient mice were often contracting abnormally (arrhythmia).

But then the coup de grace: he prevented these symptoms by supplementing the drinking water of a second group of mice with copper (4). In the words of Dr. Klevay: "copper was an antidote to fat intoxication" (5). I believe this was his tongue-in-cheek way of saying that the symptoms had been misdiagnosed by Ball as due to dietary fat, when in fact they were due to a lack of copper.

Since this time, a number of papers have been published on the relationship between copper intake and cardiovascular disease in animals, including several showing that copper supplementation prevents atherosclerosis in one of the most commonly used animal models of cardiovascular disease (6, 7, 8). Copper supplementation also corrects abnormal heart enlargement-- called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy-- and heart failure due to high blood pressure in mice (9).

For more than three decades, Dr. Klevay has been a champion of the copper deficiency theory of cardiovascular disease. According to him, copper deficiency is the only single intervention that has caused the full spectrum of human cardiovascular disease in animals, including:
  • Heart attacks (myocardial infarction)
  • Blood clots in the coronary arteries and heart
  • Fibrous atherosclerosis including smooth muscle proliferation
  • Unstable blood vessel plaque
  • Foam cell accumulation and fatty streaks
  • Calcification of heart tissues
  • Aneurysms (ruptured vessels)
  • Abnormal electrocardiograms
  • High cholesterol
  • High blood pressure
If this theory is so important, why have most people never heard of it? I believe there are at least three reasons. The first is that the emergence of the copper deficiency theory coincided with the rise of the diet-heart hypothesis, whereby saturated fat causes heart attacks by raising blood cholesterol. Bolstered by some encouraging findings and zealous personalities, this theory took the Western medical world by storm, for decades dominating all other theories in the medical literature and public health efforts. My opinions on the diet-heart hypothesis aside, the two theories are not mutually exclusive.

The second reason you may not have heard of the theory is due to a lab assay called copper-mediated LDL oxidation. Researchers take LDL particles (from blood, the same ones the doctor measures as part of a cholesterol test) and expose them to a high concentration of copper in a test tube. Free copper ions are oxidants, and the researchers then measure the amount of time it takes the LDL to oxidize. I find this assay tiresome, because studies have shown that the amount of time it takes copper to oxidize LDL in a test tube doesn't predict how much oxidized LDL you'll actually find in the bloodstream of the person you took the LDL from (10, 11).

In other words, it's an assay that has little bearing on real life. But researchers like it because for some odd reason, feeding a person saturated fat causes their LDL to be oxidized more rapidly by copper in a test tube, even though that's not the case in the actual bloodstream (12). Guess which result got emphasized?

The fact that copper is such an efficient oxidant has led some researchers to propose that copper oxidizes LDL in human blood, and therefore dietary copper may contribute to heart disease (oxidized LDL is a central player in heart disease-- read more here). The problem with this theory is that there are virtually zero free copper ions in human serum. Then there's the fact that supplementing humans with copper actually reduces the susceptibility of red blood cells to oxidation (by copper in a test tube, unfortunately), which is difficult to reconcile with the idea that dietary copper increases oxidative stress in the blood (13).

The third reason you may never have heard of the theory is more problematic. Several studies have found that a higher level copper in the blood correlates with a higher risk of heart attack (14, 15). At this point, I could hang up my hat, and declare the animal experiments irrelevant to humans. But let's dig deeper.

Nutrient status is sometimes a slippery thing to measure. As it turns out, serum copper isn't a good marker of copper status. In a 4-month trial of copper depletion in humans, blood copper stayed stable, while the activity of copper-dependent enzymes in the blood declined (16). These include the important copper-dependent antioxidant, superoxide dismutase. As a side note, lysyl oxidase is another copper-dependent enzyme that cross-links the important structural proteins collagen and elastin in the artery wall, potentially explaining some of the vascular consequences of copper deficiency. Clotting factor VIII increased dramatically during copper depletion, perhaps predicting an increased tendency to clot. Even more troubling, three of the 12 women developed heart problems during the trial, which the authors felt was unusual:
We observed a significant increase over control values in the number of ventricular premature discharges (VPDs) in three women after 21, 63, and 91 d of consuming the low-copper diet; one was subsequently diagnosed as having a second-degree heart block.
In another human copper restriction trial, 11 weeks of modest copper restriction coincided with heart trouble in 4 out of 23 subjects, including one heart attack (17):
In the history of conducting numerous human studies at the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center involving participation by 337 subjects, there had previously been no instances of any health problem related to heart function. During the 11 wk of the present study in which the copper density of the diets fed the subjects was reduced from the pretest level of 0.57 mg/ 1000 kcal to 0.36 mg/1000 kcal, 4 out of 23 subjects were diagnosed as having heart-related abnormalities.
The other reason to be skeptical of the association between blood copper and heart attack risk is that inflammation increases copper in the blood (18, 19). Blood copper level correlates strongly with the marker of inflammation C-reactive protein (CRP) in humans, yet substantially increasing copper intake doesn't increase CRP (20, 21). This suggests that elevated blood copper is likely a symptom of inflammation, rather than its cause, and presents an explanation for the association between blood copper level and heart attack risk.

Only a few studies have looked at the relationship between more accurate markers of copper status and cardiovascular disease in humans. Leukocyte copper status, a marker of tissue status, is lower in people with cardiovascular disease (22, 23). People who die of heart attacks generally have less copper in their hearts than people who die of other causes, although this could be an effect rather than a cause of the heart attack (24). Overall, I find the human data lacking. I'd like to see more studies examining liver copper status in relation to cardiovascular disease, as the liver is the main storage organ for copper.

According to a 2001 study, the majority of Americans may have copper intakes below the USDA recommended daily allowance (25), many substantially so. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that copper levels in food have declined in industrial nations over the course of the 20th century, something I'll discuss in the next post.

Apr. 6 food

Today's meals were pretty much what I predicted on Sunday. I had a hard bike ride planned this afternoon with some young athletic types, so I wanted to make sure I ate enough. I'm amazed how much great food you can eat on this diet with the calories being low. I'm finding it's good to monitor my food intake because it helps me eat more.

Brekky was a blended salad, and a banana and walnuts.

Lunch was 1/2 raw sweet potato sticks (I really like these), lots of snacking on my veggie salad while preparing, and a bowl of the veggie salad with berry dressing. The veggie salad had spinach from the garden (it grew on its own from last years plants), garlic chives and cilantro from the garden, romaine lettuce, asparagus, broccoli and cauliflower. The veggies were finely chopped with my mandoline which I'm still learning how to use. The garden food was sooo good. Fresh picked beats the grocery store by a longshot! My berry salad dressing had a whole bag of cherries (10 oz), and a half bag of blueberries and raspberries, and 2 Tbsp hemp seed, about 2/3 cup soy milk, and 1 Tbsp orange vinegar. It was a huge portion. And I enjoyed every bit of it (most of it eaten on my dinner salad).

Dinner was beans before the bike ride, and a giant bowl of the veggie salad & berry dressing afterwards.

You'd think that would amount to a lot of calories but the total was only 1500, with 65 g protein (14%), 278 g carbs (67%) and 33 g fat (19%). Since I finished dinner late, I'm not hungry but I wonder if I'll be more hungry tomorrow. It seems like I should be after that bike ride.

Motivation to Watch TV

... or is it a motivation to exercise?  Whichever it is, this should go public.  Cycle to watch!

Compassion/Mercy/Nature of Animals

This is really interesting. Several examples of species caring for different species. I'm sure there's a lesson in it for us humans, just can't think of what it could be.

The Resurrection by Ron DiCianni

Here is a video previewing a painting by Ron DiCianni of the Resurrection of Jesus.

Topless Women March in Portland

Here's the story. Don't worry, the photo only shows the march as it passed (back view). I thought the caption under the photo was telling: "...They were promoting the freedom of women to be topless in public. The group attracted many amateur and professional photographers." Great time to become an "amateur photographer"! But the punch line came in a quote from the article:
"Ty McDowell, who organized the march, said she was "enraged" by the turnout of men attracted to the demonstration. The purpose, she said, was for society to have the same reaction to a woman walking around topless as it does to men without shirts on."
Enraged? To get society to have the same reaction to both topless men and women? Well, maybe if topless men and women looked exactly the same, there might be the same reaction, but since boys and girls ARE in fact different, there is naturally a different reaction. This simply illustrates the absurdity in some thinking today.

This week's food

Yesterday, I made the usual 7 smoothies for housemate, 7 blended salads for myself, and bean soup divided into 7 servings.

I've been following my food intake again with CRON-o-meter. I'm finding it actually helps me to eat more, which is fun. I eat so much high-volume low-calorie food that I have to make sure to eat enough beans, nuts & seeds, and fruit to fill out the calories. The fruit is the best part. Both yesterday and today I ate a 16 oz box of fresh organic strawberries from California. They were good. Today I had them blended with a banana and some walnuts into a milkshake. I think I would have preferred the strawberries fresh from the box actually. But the milkshake was still good.

I've had to adjust my eating meal plans to my new schedule. I exercise at 4 pm now and I don't want to be over-full from lunch. Last week I experimented with beans at brekky and even that was too close to exercise time. And I'm into veggie slaw salads. So here's what I'm thinking I'll do this week.

Brekky: blended salad. banana (1/2 or whole) and walnuts (1/2 oz) if still hungry.

Lunch: prepare a large veggie slaw salad. Nibble on veggies while preparing--today it was raw sweet potato sticks and an orange bell pepper which was yummy. Split the salad into two bowls for lunch and dinner.

Dinner: 1 bowl veggie slaw salad, and bowl of bean soup.

today's pear-veggie mandoline salad

I got a mandoline food slicer for my birthday:











It's easy to use, reasonably fast, quiet, and easy to clean up. I can use it to make veggie slaw. The pieces are bigger than what the food processor makes, so I think I prefer this. I'm really into these veggie salads, suggested by Carrots on the Fuhrman forums. Today's salad had kale, cauliflower, carrots, asparagus, arugula, cabbage, 2 ripe pears, 1 Tbsp spicy pecan vinegar, and 1 Tbsp sunflower seeds. It was yummy! The pears, vinegar, and sunflower seeds were a wonderful combination to add to the veggies and make it taste very yummy. I had frozen my kale (which quickly thawed after chopping); it is sweeter, more tender, and therefore more palatable raw than unfrozen.















this week's beans

This week's beans are some pink/red bean from rancho gordo (Rosa de Castilla), carrot juice (about 4-5 lbs juiced carrots), juiced swiss chard, onion, shiitake mushrooms, rutabaga, and turnips. I cooked the rutabaga and turnips in a separate pan, blended them up, and added them to the soup. Note: it doesn't really matter what veggies you add if any, except the carrot juice which I really like. I thought this would have a bit of a bite with the turnips and rutabaga (not exactly sweet veggies!), but it was really good as usual. I'm not sure you can ruin this dish. The rancho gordo beans hold their shape and are really creamy. I divided the beans into 7 serving dishes and froze most of them for the rest of the week. Each serving has 307 calories, 19 g protein (21%), 59 g carbs (77%) and less than 1 g fat (2%).

Magnesium and Vitamin D Metabolism

Ted Hutchinson posted a link in the comments section of my last post, pointing to a page on the Vitamin D Council's website where Dr. John Cannell discusses cofactors required for proper vitamin D metabolism. It's actually the site's home page, highlighting how important he feels this matter is. In this case, 'cofactor' simply means another nutrient that's required for the efficient production and use of vitamin D. They include:
  • Magnesium
  • Zinc
  • Vitamin K2
  • Vitamin A
  • Boron
And probably others we aren't yet aware of. On another page, Dr. Cannell links to two papers that review the critical interaction between magnesium status and vitamin D metabolism (1, 2). Here's a quote from the abstract of the second paper:
Magnesium... is essential for the normal function of the parathyroid glands, metabolism of vitamin D and adequate sensitivity of target tissues to [parathyroid hormone] and active vitamin D metabolites. Magnesium deficit is usually associated with hypoparathyroidism, low production of active vitamin D metabolites, in particular 1,25(OH)2 vitamin D3 and resistance to PTH and vitamin D. On the contrary, magnesium excess, similar to calcium, inhibits PTH secretion. Bone metabolism is impaired under positive as well as under negative magnesium balance.
Magnesium status is critical for normal vitamin D metabolism, insulin sensitivity, and overall health. Supplemental magnesium blocks atherosclerosis in multiple animal models (3, 4). Most Americans don't get enough magnesium (5).

The bottom line is that no nutrient acts in a vacuum. The effect of every part of one's diet and lifestyle is dependent on every other part. I often talk about single nutrients on this blog, but my core philosophy is that a proper diet focuses on Real Food, not nutrients. Tinkering with nutritional status using supplements is potentially problematic. Despite what some people might tell you, our understanding of nutrition and human health is currently rather crude-- so it's best to respect the accumulated wisdom of cultures that don't get the diseases we're trying to avoid.

Low Vitamin D: Cause or Result of Disease?

Don Matesz at Primal Wisdom put up a post a few days ago that I think is worth reading. It follows an e-mail discussion between us concerning a paper on magnesium restriction in rats (executive summary: moderate Mg restriction reduces the hormone form of vitamin D by half and promotes osteoporosis). In his post, Don cites several papers showing that vitamin D metabolism is influenced by more than just vitamin D intake from the diet and synthesis in the skin.

Celiac disease patients have low 25(OH)D3, the circulating storage form of vitamin D, which spontaneously corrects on a gluten-free diet. There are numerous suggestions in the medical literature that overweight and sickness cause low vitamin D, potentially confounding the interpretation of studies that find lower levels of illness among people with low vitamin D levels.

Don't get me wrong, I still think vitamin D is important in preventing disease. But it does lead me to question the idea that we should force down huge doses of supplemental vitamin D to get our 25(OH)D3 up to 60, 70 or even 80 ng/mL. When the dosage of supplemental D goes beyond what a tan Caucasian could conceivably make on a day at the beach (4,000 IU?), that's when I start becoming skeptical. Check out Don's post for more.

The Gospel 101

Here is a 5 min video explaining the Gospel in three fundamental parts and the dangers of just focusing on any one. Well worth your viewing.

Gospel 101 from Sojourn Community Church on Vimeo.

Here is a video of John Piper explaining what the Gospel is in 6 components:

Here is a video that introduces a book about the Gospel by Greg Gilbert. May be a great resource for pastors and all believers.

Make Your Soul Happy in the Lord

Here is a great quote I found over at The Resurgence regarding prayer: "Müller excelled in prayer only after he meditated on Scripture, that "getting his soul happy” was accomplished through meditation, which enabled communion with God through prayer." Here is the story from an entry in George Müller's diary, dated May 7, 1841 that brought about this conclusion:
I saw more clearly than ever that the first great primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord . . . not how much I might serve the Lord, . . . but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers . . . and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit. Before this time my practice had been . . . to give myself to prayer after having dressed myself in the morning. Now, I saw that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God, and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, by means of the Word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.

A Sweet and Bitter Providence by John Piper

Came across this wonderful video, which actually is an ad for an upcoming book by John Piper. It is in and of itself a wonderful truth and encouragement. The book can only be a larger dose of this.

A Man With Principles

Actor Neal McDonough was fired for not being willing to do sex scenes in his new TV series Scoundrels.  Glad to hear of this rare conviction.  I wish there was a way to let him know people support his stand.

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