nov. 30 food

Breakfast:  blueberry, apple, pineapple, cinnamon, ground flaxseed "compote" over shredded greens (lettuce, salad mix, spinach).  I peeled and cut up the apple, added some cinnamon (1/4 tsp I think), microwaved it for a minute, added the frozen blueberry (half bag), pineapple (fresh), flaxseed, and microwaved another minute.  stirred it all around.  maybe microwaved it again.  poured it over the greens.  The only problem was that I was late for something and ate it faster than I wanted to.  Dr. Fuhrman says to chew your salads carefully so you absorb more nutrients.

Lunch:  veggies and eggplant-chickpea hummus.  The veggies included carrots, beets, broccoli and cauliflower.   I steamed them for 10 minutes to soften them up a bit.  It makes the carrots and beets taste sweeter.   It was yummy.   I also ate some grapes. 

Snack:  I made some Applenut Flax Bars from the Fuhrman members site.  These have ground nuts, chopped apples, oats, raisins and dates.  It's very good.  So far this is the best healthy baked thing I've tried.  I'm not a huge fan of baked goods.  I made these for my trip later this week.  I froze them.  But of course I taste-tested several pieces, and ate nuts while grinding them.  I ate too many nuts again today.  

Dinner:  more desserts.  I'm trying out various Fuhrman desserts.  and I think I'm getting tired of them, not surprising.  Let's see, I made some mango-coconut sorbet which I didn't enjoy too much--I think I didn't like the dried mango and it had too much coconut.  So I froze most of it for later.  Then I had the leftover cashew cream sauce from last night's baked apples, so I microwaved a cut-up apple with cinnamon and added the cream sauce.  It was good.  I had a few more grapes.  This doesn't sound like too much but I was full from the nuts and bars.

Polyunsaturated Fat Intake: Effects on the Heart and Brain

I'm revisiting the topic of the omega-6/omega-3 balance and total polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) intake because of some interesting studies I've gotten a hold of lately (thanks Robert). Two of the studies are in pigs, which I feel are a decent model organism for studying the effect of diet on health as it relates to humans. Pigs are omnivorous (although more slanted toward plant foods), have a similar digestive system to humans (although sturdier), are of similar size and fat composition to humans, and have been eating grains for about the same amount of time as humans.

In the last post on the omega-6/omega-3 balance, I came to the conclusion that a roughly balanced but relatively low intake of omega-6 and omega-3 fats is consistent with the diets of healthy non-industrial cultures. There were a few cultures that had a fairly high long-chain omega-3 intake from seafood (10% of calories), but none ate much omega-6.

The first study explores the effect of omega-6 and omega-3 fats on heart function. Dr. Sheila Innis and her group fed young male pigs three different diets:

1. An unbalanced, low PUFA diet. Pig chow with 1.2% linoleic acid (LA; the main omega-6 plant fat) and 0.06% alpha linolenic acid (ALA; the main omega-3 plant fat).
   
2. A balanced, low PUFA diet. Pig chow with 1.4% LA and 1.2% ALA.
3. An unbalanced, but better-than-average, "modern diet". Pig chow with 11.6% LA and 1.2% ALA.

After 30 days, they took a look at the pigs' hearts. Pigs from the first and third (unbalanced) groups contained more "pro-inflammatory" fats (arachidonic acid; AA) and less "anti-inflammatory" fats (EPA and DHA) than the second group. The first and third groups also experienced an excessive activation of "pro-inflammatory" proteins, such as COX-2, the enzyme inhibited by aspirin, ibuprofen and other NSAIDs.

The most striking finding of all was the difference in lipid peroxidation between groups. Lipid peroxidation is a measure of oxidative damage to cellular fats. In the balanced diet hearts, peroxidation was half the level found in the first group, and one-third the level found in the third group! This shows that omega-3 fats exert a powerful anti-oxidant effect that can be more than counteracted by excessive omega-6. Nitrosative stress, another type of damage, tracked with n-6 intake regardless of n-3, with the third group almost tripling the first two. I think this result is highly relevant to the long-term development of cardiac problems, and perhaps cardiovascular disease in general.

In another study with the same lead author Sanjoy Ghosh, rats fed a diet enriched in omega-6 from sunflower oil showed an increase in nitrosative damage, damage to mitochondrial DNA, and a decrease in maximum cardiac work capacity (i.e., their hearts were weaker). This is consistent with the previous study and shows that the mammalian heart does not like too much omega-6! The amount of sunflower oil these rats were eating (20% food by weight) is not far off from the amount of industrial oil the average American eats.

A third paper by Dr. Sheila Innis' group studied the effect of the omega-6 : omega-3 balance on the brain fat composition of pigs, and the development of neurons in vitro (in a culture dish). There were four diets, the first three similar to those in the first study:

1. Deficient. 1.2% LA and 0.05% ALA.
2. Contemporary. 10.7% LA and 1.1% ALA.
   
3. Evolutionary. 1.2% LA and 1.1% ALA.
4. Supplemented. The contemporary diet plus 0.3% AA and 0.3% DHA.

The first thing they looked at was the ability of the animals to convert ALA to DHA and concentrate it in the brain. DHA is critical for brain and eye development and maintenance. The evolutionary diet was most effective at putting DHA in the brain, with the supplemented diet a close second and the other three lagging behind. The evolutionary diet was the only one capable of elevating EPA, another important fatty acid derived from ALA. If typical fish oil rather than isolated DHA and AA had been given as the supplement, that may not have been the case. Overall, the fatty acid composition of the brain was quite different in the evolutionary group than the other three groups, which will certainly translate into a variety of effects on brain function.

The researchers then cultured neurons and showed that they require DHA to develop properly in culture, and that long-chain omega-6 fats are a poor substitute. Overall, the paper shows that the modern diet causes a major fatty acid imbalance in the brain, which is expected to lead to developmental problems and probably others as well. This can be partially corrected by supplementing with fish oil.

Together, these studies are a small glimpse of the countless effects we are having on every organ system, by eating fats that are unfamiliar to our pre-industrial bodies. In the next post, I'll put this information into the context of the modern human diet.

nov. 29 food

Breakfast:  banana-blueberry walnut salad.  I didn't like this as much as before.  too banana-y.  now I wonder why that is.   maybe I had more salad greens than before so it was more like a salad than a banana-blueberry breakfast with some greens mixed in.

Lunch & Dinner:  I made several things for later in the week and snacked on them.  I made an eggplant-chickpea hummus dip for tomorrow's football game (only Fuhrman members can get to the recipe link, sorry).  It was good.  I made some of Dr. Fuhrman's Date Nut Pop'ems.  Oh my gosh, they are so good.  It's about half dates and half nuts/seeds.  I added some vanilla and carob powder.   I'd like to try coconut next time, wasn't brave enough to vary from the recipe this time.   This is way way better than those crappy cookies and muffins I ate yesterday.  Then for dessert I made baked apples with a cashew raisin topping.  The topping was too sweet and rich, even for me.  So I think I had more than my share of nuts today.  oh well.  I'll try to eat less nuts and more salad tomorrow.   

food nov. 26-28

Wed, nov. 26

breakfast:  banana + nut mix

lunch:  apple, orange, carrot, more nuts

dinner:  Indian restaurant.  this splurge wasn't really worth it.  I didn't think the food was good enough to offset the effects of the salt and fat and processed grains.    The salt is especially a problem for me now.  The food was a bit too spicy and way too salty.  I had bharta which is eggplant.  it was pretty good.  I overindulged in the nan (bread with oil) but it was enjoyable, I have to admit.   The appetizers were pretty good, probably not good for you though.

Thurs., nov. 27, Thanksgiving day, flew home.  Had my final apple, orange, carrot, banana and nut mix for the trip home.  Then at home, I'm trying to remember what I had.  There wasn't much food in the house.  I think I had a blueberry, banana walnut compote of some kind.   I know I had half bag of blueberries and I think I recall slicing a frozen banana.  I think I had a couple of oranges.    probably too many nuts.  

Friday, I wanted to have my own Thanksgiving and end of the month splurge, so I went to the Co-op and had a "nothing muffin", a cup of decaff coffee with soy cream, and bought a bag of cowgirl cookies!  I ate about half of them!  That's probably about 8 smallish cookies.   I have to say, this stuff does not taste as good as the Fuhrman desserts.  It is a psychological thing for me to have these "forbidden" foods.  It also makes me feel heavy and bla.  well, that's probably because I ate too much of it.  But even a day later I feel bla from it.  I don't know, I think I should stop eating these things altogether.    I also felt the effects of the caffeine in the coffee and chocolate chips in the cookies.  I still feel the salt from the cookies and muffins.  geez, I'm so sensitive now.  Well, anyway, besides that I ate some leftover borscht (from the freezer) over lettuce, and then for dinner a baked sweet potato which I blended with some orange juice and mixed with pineapple for another treat.  It was pretty good.   

So, overall, I suppose I didn't set a very good example for eating healthy over the Thanksgiving holiday.   Actually, I think the main thing I would change if I were to do it over again would be to delete yesterday's cookies and muffin---though I did learn from that and it will probably help me to refrain from them in the future.  While traveling, I did well with the fruit during the day and only splurging in the evenings.  I overate at the Indian restaurant.  I overate at Gobos but can't say I regret that.  :)   

Be Thankful for the Pilgrims on Thanksgiving

Here's an excellent article explaining what we owe the Pilgrims and why Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to remember. In part:

"Still, we can remember that the best book ever written on America and the best book ever written on democracy — Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America — almost begins by showing us how much our democracy owes our pilgrim Puritans. They, Tocqueville tells us, established colonies without lords — without, in fact, even economic classes. Those founders differed from those of Virginia by not being solitary, mercenary adventurers. They weren't out to get rich or even improve their economic condition. Their lives were structured by morality; they came to our continent as family men — bringing their wives and children. They were also extremely educated men — on the cutting edge, in many ways, of European enlightenment. They were, Tocqueville observes, animated by a "purely intellectual need." Their goal was "to make an idea triumph" in this world."

Dumb Elected Officials

Here's a post on Reformed Chicks that gives the details. It truly is sad that the elected officials who took this CIVICS test got an average of 44%! The average score of unelected participants was 49%. So maybe it is true that our best and brightest don't seek careers in public service.

Christmas Lights

Here's a video of my step-dad's Christmas decorations for Christmas (JK - maybe one day). Enjoy.




Here is a link to this family's website with tons of info. VERY FASCINATING!

Health is Multi-Factorial

Thanks to commenter Brock for pointing me to this very interesting paper, "Effects of fish oil on hypertension, plasma lipids, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha in rats with sucrose-induced metabolic syndrome". As we know, sugar gives rats metabolic syndrome when it's added to regular rat chow, probably the same thing it does to humans when added to a processed food diet.

One thing has always puzzled me about sugar. It doesn't appear to cause major metabolic problems when added to an otherwise healthy diet, yet it wreaks havoc in other contexts. One example of the former situation is the Kuna, who are part hunter-gatherer, part agricultural. They eat a lot of refined sugar, but in the context of chocolate, coconut, fish, plantains, root vegetables and limited grains and beans, they are relatively healthy. Perhaps not quite on the same level as hunter-gatherer groups, but healthier than the average modernized person from the point of view of the diseases of civilization.

This paper really sheds light on the matter. The researchers gave a large group of rats access to drinking water containing 30% sucrose, in addition to their normal rat chow, for 21 weeks. The rats drank 4/5 of their calories in the form of sugar water. There's no doubt that this is an extreme treatment. They subsequently developed metabolic syndrome, including abdominal obesity, elevated blood pressure, elevated fasting insulin, elevated triglycerides, elevated total cholesterol and LDL, lowered HDL, greatly increased serum uric acid, greatly elevated liver enzymes suggestive of liver damage, and increased tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha). TNF-alpha is a hormone secreted by visceral (abdominal) fat tissue that may play a role in promoting insulin resistance.

After this initial 12-week treatment, they divided the metabolic syndrome rats into two groups:

• One that continued the sugar treatment, along with a diet enriched in corn and canola oil (increased omega-6).
• A second that continued the sugar treatment, along with a diet enriched in fish oil (increased omega-3).

The two diets contained the same total amount of polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), but had very different omega-6 : omega-3 ratios. The first had a ratio of 9.3 (still better than the average American), while the second had a ratio of 0.02, with most of the omega-3 in the second group coming from EPA and DHA (long-chain, animal omega-3s). The second diet also contained four times as much saturated fat as the first, mostly in the form of palmitic acid.

Compared to the vegetable oil group, the fish oil group had lower fasting insulin, lower blood pressure, lower triglycerides, lower cholesterol, and lower LDL. As a matter of fact, the fish oil group looked as good or better on all these parameters than a non-sugar fed control group receiving the extra vegetable oil alone (although the control group isn't perfect because it inevitably ate more vegetable oil-containing chow to make up for the calories it wasn't consuming in sugar). The only things reducing vegetable oil and increasing fish oil didn't fix were the weight and the elevated TNF-alpha, although they didn't report the level of liver enzymes in these groups. The TNF-alpha finding is not surprising, since it's secreted by visceral fat, which did not decrease in the fish oil group.

I think this is a powerful result. It may have been done in rats, but the evidence is there for a similar mechanism in humans. The Kuna have a very favorable omega-6 : omega-3 ratio, with most of their fat coming from highly saturated coconut and cocoa. This may protect them from their high sugar intake. The Kitavans also have a very favorable omega-6 : omega-3 ratio, with most of their fat coming from coconuts and fish. They don't eat refined sugar, but they do eat a tremendous amount of starch and a generous amount of fruit.

The paper also suggests that the metabolic syndrome is largely reversible.

I believe that both excessive sugar and excessive omega-6 from modern vegetable oils are a problem individually. But if you want to have a much bigger problem, try combining them!

No Silver Bullet Letter

I wanted to give our readers an opportunity to review the open letter I recently submitted to President-elect Barack Obama. Hopefully the President-elect finds this helpful in navigating the healthcare crisis he is about to inherit. As always, I am interested in your views, as well.

Click here to view the letter

nov 25 food

I'm in NYC with my best friend and her family, staying in a hotel.

Breakfast:   banana, 2 oz nuts

Lunch:  Large orange, apple, banana, lots of grapes while walking all over the city.  got over-full with the grapes.    I brought the oranges, apples, bananas and nuts, and we bought the grapes at a fruit stand.  They weren't nearly as good as the ones I get from my co-op.  People complain that organic costs more but it really does taste better.  Same goes for the bananas.  I brought the organic ones from my co-op and had one for breakfast, then had one from the hotel at lunch and it wasn't nearly as good.

Dinner:  splurge at Gobo restaurant.  It was very good and I think worth going off plan for.  Had tastes of appetizers--edamame (with salt), vietnamese spring rolls, and the scallion pancakes were the best (probably fried).  Oh they brought out bread and pumpkin spread which I ate and it was enjoyable.  They had great juice and smoothie drinks.  I had a carrot, apple, ginger drink that was great.  My neighbor had a carrot, apple, spinach, parsley drink (I think) that we agreed was even better and we were surprised.  The juice drinks were way better than alcohol!  very energizing!  For my main course I had white bean, root vegetable and pumpkin soup; and spinach salad with mango and crisp onions.  If I were to go there again I think I'd try a couple of small plates--eggplant with string beans in basil sauce, and there were several others that looked really good.   Then we shared 7 desserts between the 8 of us.  That was definitely off-plan (off the Fuhrman healthful eating plan which I'm a total believer in now), but it was enjoyable trying out all the desserts.   I had the mango, coconut and tapioco pudding mostly and then bites of the others.   Next time I might try the apple pear crisp--I didn't get a bite of that one.  I enjoyed the bites of the chocolate cake and pear with the chocolate ganach inside, but wouldn't want to eat the whole thing.  I had sips of a neighbor's decaff coffee with soy cream and sugar.  It was really good too.  I think desserts are definitely better in spoonfuls rather than large servings.  

My physical reaction to the meal was to the salt and chocolate.  I have been thirsty ever since (it's 7 am the next morning) and my fingers are still swollen.  And I was a bit affected by the caffeine in the chocolate.  I slept a good 6 hours though.    I am not sure when I will be hungry again!  Tonight (next day), we're probably going to Indian.  Let's hope I behave somewhat...

Real Food X: Roasted Marrow Bones

Bone marrow is a food that has been prized throughout history-- from hunter-gatherer tribes to haute cuisine chefs. It's not hard to understand why, once you've tasted it. It's delicate, meaty and fatty. It's also rich in fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamins K1 and K2, although this will depend on what the animal has eaten.

Roasted marrow bones make a simple appetizer. Beef bones are the best because of their size. Select wide bones that are cut about three inches long. They should be from the femur or the humerus, called the "shank bones". These are sometimes available in the frozen meats section of a grocery store, otherwise a butcher can procure them. If you have access to a farmer's market that sells meats, vendors will typically have bones cut for you if you request it.

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 450 F (230 C).
2. Place bones, cut side up, in a baking dish or oven-proof skillet.
3. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the marrow begins to separate from the bone, but not much longer because it will turn to mush.
4. Scoop out and eat the marrow by itself, on sourdough rye toast or however you please.
5. Make soup stock from the leftover bones.

nov. 24 food

repeat of yesterday:

Breakfast:  banana-walnut-blueberry lettuce salad  with sunflower seeds too.  1.5 oz nuts & seeds total.  This is my new favorite breakfast!

Lunch:  leftover borscht over lots of lettuce and spinach (wadded up and then sliced finely).  carrot

Dinner: salad with apples & cranberries.  carrot.  

I had no problem finishing off all the salad and spinach in the fridge.  Cleaned out the fridge nicely.  I'm at the airport and will head of to NY for a few days.  I have fruit and nuts with me.  Hopefully I can find salads at the restaurants.  

nov. 23 food

Breakfast:  banana-walnut-blueberry-lettuce salad.   yummy!  

Lunch:  leftover borscht over salad, 2 oranges

Dinner: huge salad with apples & cranberries (also added some fresh pineapple to the mixture), an orange.  

I'm into salads today.  maybe because I'm going out of town tomorrow evening and will have much less access to good food for 3 days.  and I have to get rid of what's in the fridge.  I still have a whole bag of spinach and a half head of lettuce to eat tomorrow, or I may have to make a smoothie and freeze it for the future.  we'll find out tomorrow.

Banana-blueberry walnut lettuce salad

The title pretty much explains what to do

Ingredients:

1 banana

1/2 bag frozen blueberries (about 4 oz)

1 oz walnuts (about a handful)

a bunch of lettuce and/or spinach

slice the banana, chop the walnuts, microwave the banana, walnuts and blueberries until they are warm (1-2 minutes). wad up the greens into a ball and slice them into smaller pieces so you can fit more on your plate. Pour the fruit mixture on top and eat. really good!

Vitamin K2 in Marrow

I'm always on the lookout for foods rich in vitamin K2 MK-4, because it's so important and so rare in the modern food system. I heard some internet rumors that marrow might be rich in fat-soluble vitamins. Google let me down, so I decided to look through the rat studies on K2 MK-4 in which they looked at its tissue distribution.

I found one that looked at the K2 MK-4 content in different tissues of rats fed vitamin K1. Marrow was rich in K2, along with testes. It contains 10-20 times more MK-4 than liver by weight, and more than any of the other organs they tested (serum, liver, spleen, kidney, heart, testes, marrow, brain) except testes. They didn't include values for salivary gland and pancreas, the two richest sources.

If we assume beef marrow has the same amount of MK-4 as rat marrow per weight (I have no idea if this is really the case, but it's probably in the ballpark), two ounces of beef marrow would contain about 10 micrograms MK-4. Not a huge source, but significant nevertheless.

Bone marrow was a prized food in many hunter-gatherer societies. Let's see what Dr. Weston Price has to say about it (from Nutrition and Physical Degeneration):

For the Indians living inside the Rocky Mountain Range in the far North of Canada, the successful nutrition for nine months of the year was largely limited to wild game, chiefly moose and caribou. During the summer months the Indians were able to use growing plants. During the winter some use was made of bark and buds of trees. I found the Indians putting great emphasis upon the eating of the organs of the animals, including the wall of parts of the digestive tract. Much of the muscle meat of the animals was fed to the dogs. It is important that skeletons are rarely found where large game animals have been slaughtered by the Indians of the North. The skeletal remains are found as piles of finely broken bone chips or splinters that have been cracked up to obtain as much as possible of the marrow and nutritive qualities of the bones. These Indians obtain their fat-soluble vitamins and also most of their minerals from the organs of the animals. An important part of the nutrition of the children consisted in various preparations of bone marrow, both as a substitute for milk and as a special dietary ration.

Here's a bit more about these same groups, also from Nutrition and Physical Degeneration:

The condition of the teeth, and the shape of the dental arches and the facial form, were superb. Indeed, in several groups examined not a single tooth was found that had ever been attacked by tooth decay. In an examination of eighty-seven individuals having 2,464 teeth only four teeth were found that had ever been attacked by dental caries. This is equivalent to 0.16 per cent. As we came back to civilization and studied, successively, different groups with increasing amounts of contact with modern civilization, we found dental caries increased progressively, reaching 25.5 per cent of all of the teeth examined at Telegraph Creek, the point of contact with the white man's foods. As we came down the Stikine River to the Alaskan frontier towns, the dental caries problem increased to 40 per cent of all of the teeth.

Evidently, the traditionally-living groups were doing something right.

Victory in Iraq Day!

Check out the official site for more details. Thank you to our men and women in uniform for your courageous service and commendable accomplishments! Congratulations to the Iraqi men and women who have also fought to overcome terrorists in their midsts and struggle to stand up as a baby democracy.

President Bush - you are an amazing man and History will give you your props!

Creamy Borscht Soup

This is based on this recipe.  But I think mine is different enough to allow a new post.  

Ingredients:

1 medium cabbage, thinly sliced

1.5-2 lbs beets, peeled and chopped

3-6 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 onions, chopped

1 large or 2 medium carrots

1/2 cup dried adzuki beans (optional but I really liked it, added to the creaminess)

a bunch of water or vegetable stock (I never use stock because I don't want to buy it and I'm too lazy to make it) or water + powdered veggie (I used Dr. Fuhrman's veggie zest)

freshly ground pepper

1 cup raw cashews

juice of a small lemon

some dill, um, 1/2 tsp if dried, more if fresh.  add more if you'd like

Soak the adzuki beans overnight, or do a quick soak bringing them to a boil and then letting sit for an hour or two.    start cooking the adzuki beans in water and broth (or powdered stuff).  chop the onions and add them. chop the carrots and add them.  chop the garlic and add it.  chop the beats and add them.  chop the cabbage and add it.  add the pepper and dill if dry.  Let it cook for, maybe an hour?  I left the house for 5 hours and forgot to leave instructions for turning it off.  That is way too long.  Fortunately the soup survived.   The adzuki beans probably need at least an hour after soaking.   Once the soup is done, turn it off and add the lemon juice.  Then put the cashews in the blender and add a few cups of the soup.  Blend until very creamy.  Add more soup if it gets too thick.  Then pour that in and add more soup to the blender.   Make it as creamy or chunky as you want depending on how much you blend.    

I thought this was very good.  I followed Dr. Fuhrman's advice and ate it over greens (he recommends eating salad all the time!).  So I scrunched up spinach and sliced it, and put it in a big bowl and topped it with the soup.  I liked it.

nov. 22 food

Breakfast:  salad with apples and cranberries.  I used an idea from Dr. Fuhrman's latest telecon where he said you can get more lettuce on a plate if you smash a bunch in your hand and then slice it, so it's more shredded.  It really works.  so now my salad is even bigger.  

1 oz nuts.  some pineapple and grapes.

Late lunch, early dinner:  Creamy Borscht soup.  surprisingly good considering I overcooked it while I was out for several hours.  I forgot to tell housemate to turn it off while I was gone.    I ate way too much.  First I ate a bowl, then I remembered to try another idea from Fuhrman's telecon which is to eat your soup over salad (he wants you to eat a lot of salad).  So I scrunched up some spinach and slice it and then had my second bowl of soup over that.  I was going to stop there but then I was pouring the soup into plastic containers and they were a bit too full so I ate from them until they weren't too full (I was freezing one).  It was probably another bowl's worth!  that was too much.  then I still ate two oranges and a fair amount of grapes, so I definitely pigged out excessively.  It's silly to do this because then you feel too full.  Plus I have two more days to eat this stuff--I don't have to eat it all today!   okay, I'll be better tomorrow.   Oh, I noticed something else about my body.  My weight doesn't seem to vary much even when I overeat (I just poop more), but I notice my farts are stinky when I overeat.  So that's a good reason to not overeat, in addition to the waste, gluttony and discomfort of it all.  haha.

nov 21 2008 food

Breakfast:  salad with apples & cranberries

1.5 oz mixed nuts.  ate these right after exercising to give me energy for the cold bike ride home.

then had my salad.  that worked well (even if it was probably mostly psychological!)

Lunch:  was out with a friend, knew we were going to Chipotles' which does have a good vegan burrito but I brought my own lunch.  Now, I feel I have to explain myself to the public why I didn't want to partake in a vegan burrito at Chipotles' (too much salt and refined grains) because I worry they will think I've got an eating disorder (there is one assigned to people who are obsessed with eating healthy, I forget what it's called).  To the people on the Fuhrman forums I don't have to explain and that's giving me more confidence in my choices.  So it will be interesting to see how I handle next week in New York with my SAD (Standard American Diet) friends.  Anyway I brought my lunch to Chipotles.  It was steamed beets and brussels sprouts and a mashed (baked) sweet potato with raisins and pumpkin pie spice, which was kind of like dessert.   It was great.  I was slightly tempted in having a bite of the burrito which wouldn't have been a problem, but I didn't bother in the end.

Dinner:  Had some friends over in the evening and made cookies for them (banana oat cookies from the Fuhrman member site).  So I just had some fresh pineapple, grapes, and then lots of cookies as my dinner.  They are healthy cookies (more like oat clusters) made from bananas, oats, raisins, walnuts, cinnamon and vanilla.  So it was kind of like eating oatmeal and bananas with more many raisins and walnuts than you should normally have in a day.  So not a big splurge.  But was it worth it?   oh, the cookies also were topped with raspberry jam so had sugar in them too.  They were good.  But to be honest, I think I'd enjoy a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and bananas or blueberries more.  and I'd enjoy other kinds of fruit more.  So I'm not sure in the splurge department that these cut it for me.  But the guests seemed to like them.  I was surprised because they are SAD eaters and are used to eating things with a lot more sugar and salt and fat, so I was expecting them to think they are yucky, but they all had at least 2 of them and said they were good.   It shows that SAD eaters would be perfectly happy eating this healthy Fuhrman food if they knew how to prepare it.

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young

I just finished reading this book at the urging of my mother, and I am a bit speechless. First, it reminded me of another book I've read called Room of Marvels. Both books take the reader on an emotional, spiritual, and intellectual journey to understand the ways of God in the face of tragic life experiences.

Although it is fiction, the theological arguments made throughout by way of clever conversations and personal descriptions are very solid and refreshing. Young cuts through the presumptions of cultural/traditional/American Christianity to expose a view of God and faith, and especially suffering, in a way that is true and attractive. Ultimately, I found this book to be a heart-warming, intellect-disarming, spiritually-powerful story. My emotional reaction to The Shack is an intensified desire to develop my relationship with God and live life more biblically. I highly recommend it.

For more information check out the website here.

McCain Didn't Get It -- Our Loss

Sandy Rios nails it between the eyes! Her article dissecting John McCain's Presidential Campaign is worth the history books. Read it and weep - seriously. Just to tease you:

"[People] were inspired instead when the “warrior princess” began to fight the real battles the tired, old soldier was unwilling to engage."

Hitler and the Housing Bubble

I can laugh at this because I actually was looking to buy a condo in Chicago a couple of years ago and heard promises just like this. This is brilliant! ...and painfully sad.

To End All Wars

Tonight I saw what must now be my favorite War movie. From Wikipedia:

To End All Wars, (formerly entitled Miracle on the River Kwai)[1] is the autobiography of Ernest Gordon and recounts the experiences of faith and hope of the men held in a Japanese prisoner of war labour camp, building the Burma Railway during the last three and a half years of World War II.

It is an amazing narration of true events from the perspective of an Irish soldier--an Argyle, and his band of brothers, and all torments of mind, body, and soul that occur in their POW camp. It merges the powerful themes of Justice and Mercy, Vengeance and Forgiveness, War and Peace, Friend and Enemy. They draw on the teachings/writings of Plato, Jesus, and Shakespeare. It really is powerful. I highly recommend it. Maybe even as a small group discussion resource.

nov. 20 food

Breakfast:  salad with apples & cranberries.    This was sooo good.  I wonder how long it will take me to get tired of this.

Lunch:  steamed veggies:   beets, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots.  added some frozen herbs from the garden and no-salt seasoning.   amazing that something so simple can taste so good.  orange for dessert.

Dinner:  carrot, celery, 1/2 cup edamame (from a frozen bag, microwaved for a minute), rest of yesterday's spinach-cherry-blueberry smoothie (froze it over night, thawed it during the day), 0.5 oz brazil nuts (plus 0.5 oz sunflowers that were in the smoothie).  orange for dessert (wasn't really hungry at that point but I was making OJ for housemate and couldn't resist).

Luckiest Day of His Life

What a day! Happy 19th Birthday. Even Drew Carey is happy! It's 9 minutes, but it's a dose of happy if you need one.


A Very Lucky Day - Watch more Free Videos

Republicans and Conservatives

Here's an interesting video/survey from Gallup. In short, it shows that the Republicans have a 60% disapproval rating. Interestingly, almost that same amount (59%) of Republicans surveyed think the Republican Party should become MORE conservative. Even more interesting, 60% of Democrats say the Republicans should become LESS conservative. With these basic facts, it seems almost unanimous that Republicans should move to the right. Will anyone listen? Probably not.

nov. 19 food

Breakfast:  fabulous salad topped with apples&cranberry and cashew-orange dressing; 

1 oz sunflower seeds

Lunch:  Last of the lentil soup over steamed brussels sprouts and beets.  orange for dessert.

Dinner:  Spinach cherry blueberry smoothie, 1 oz nuts, carrot, celery

Salad with apples & cranberries

This is the best salad I've ever eaten, at home or at any restaurant.   Am I exaggerating?  Well, maybe all salads taste like the best salad I've ever eaten.  Salads are good.  This was also very easy to fix.

Ingredients:

lettuce and/or mixed greens (I make a large plate's worth)

an apple (or two or three if they are small)

some cranberries (1-2 handfuls).

1/4 tsp cinnamon

some chopped fresh red bell pepper (optional, I just happened to have one and it's good)

lots of cashew-orange dressing

Peel and slice the apples.  Put in a bowl with  the cinnamon and cranberries, and microwave for a minute or two.  I have a low-power microwave, so I do it for 2 minutes, stir and let sit for a few minutes, then microwave for another 2 minutes, let sit for a few minutes.  Then the cranberries are nice and soft and mixed with the apple juice and cinnamon.

Top the lettuce with the cranberry-apple mixture, red bell pepper, and lots of cashew-orange dressing.    A great late-fall recipe!   This would be a good Thanksgiving treat.

Obama's Faith

The most extensive interview with Obama about his faith was in 2004 by Cathleen Falsani. You can read the transcript here. You can read commentary by other faith leaders here. It is very insightful. In short,

• He believes his good deeds will earn him eternal rewards
• He believes there are "many paths" to God
• He believes sin is "being out of alignment with his values"
• He believes Jesus was a good teacher (never confesses he is the divine Son of God)
  
• His grandparents were members of a Universalist Church

In response to a follow-up question about not believing in Hell, he responds quite revealingly:

"I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.

I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.

That's just not part of my religious makeup.

Part of the reason I think it's always difficult for public figures to talk about this is that the nature of politics is that you want to have everybody like you and project the best possible traits onto you. Oftentimes that's by being as vague as possible, or appealing to the lowest commong denominators. The more specific and detailed you are on issues as personal and fundamental as your faith, the more potentially dangerous it is." (emphasis by ahavafriend)

Romney Says No to Big 3

Here is a phenomenal article written by Mitt Romney regarding the proposed bailout for the auto industry. In part, Romney explains:

"Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

I love cars, American cars. I was born in Detroit, the son of an auto chief executive. In 1954, my dad, George Romney, was tapped to run American Motors when its president suddenly died. The company itself was on life support — banks were threatening to deal it a death blow. The stock collapsed. I watched Dad work to turn the company around — and years later at business school, they were still talking about it. From the lessons of that turnaround, and from my own experiences, I have several prescriptions for Detroit’s automakers."

Red Hot Lies

I just finished listening to Dennis Prager's 11/18/08 show- hour one interview of Howard Kurtz discussing Christopher Horner's new book "Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed". I've not read the book, but the interview was very shocking. From the back flap of the book:

"Liars--Al Gore, the United Nations, the New York Times. The global warming lobby, relentless in its push for bigger government, more spending, and more regulation, will use any means necessary to scare you out of your wits--as well as your tax dollars and your liberties--with threats of rising oceans, deadly droughts, and unspeakable future consequences of "climate change." In pursuing their anti-energy, anti-capitalist, and pro-government agenda, the global warming alarmists--and unscrupulous scientists who see this scare as their gravy train to federal grants and foundation money--resort to dirty tricks, smear campaigns, and outright lies, abandoning scientific standards, journalistic integrity, and the old-fashioned notions of free speech and open debate. In Red Hot Lies, bestselling author Christopher Horner--himself the target of Greenpeace dirty tricks and alarmist smears--exposes the dark underbelly of the environmental movement. Power-hungry politicians blacklist scientists who reject global warming alarmism. U.S. senators threaten companies that fund climate change dissenters. Mainstream media outlets openly reject the notion of "balance." The occasional unguarded scientist candidly admits the need to twist the facts to paint an uglier picture in order to keep the faucet of government money flowing. In the name of "saving the planet," anything goes. But why the nasty tactics? Why the cover ups, lies, and intimidation? Because Al Gore and his ilk want to use big government at the local, state, federal, and global level to run your life, and they can brook no opposition. But the actual facts, as Red Hot Lies makes clear, aren't nearly as scary as their fiction. "

How the UN Spent $23 MILLION

Here is the wonderful story and photo gallery of the new CEILING at the UN Building in Switzerland. How can anyone argue this is a serious institution?

The Fructose Index is the New Glycemic Index

I stumbled upon an interesting editorial recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition from Dr. Richard Johnson's group, entitled "How Safe is Fructose for Persons With or Without Diabetes?" It was a response to a meta-analysis in the same journal pronouncing fructose safe up to 90 grams per day. That's the amount in eight apples or four cans of soda. Not quite what our hunter-gatherer ancestors were eating! The editorial outlined the case against excessive fructose, which I feel is quite strong. That led me to another, more comprehensive paper from Dr. Johnson's group, which argues that the amount of fructose found in a food, which they call the "fructose index", is more relevant to health than the food's glycemic index.

The glycemic index is a measure of the blood sugar response to a fixed amount of carbohydrate from a particular food. For example, white bread has a high glycemic index because it raises blood sugar more than another food containing the same amount of carbohydrate, say, lentils. Since chronically elevated blood sugar and its natural partner, insulin resistance, are part of the metabolic syndrome, it made sense that the glycemic index would be a good predictor of the metabolic effect of a food. I believed this myself for a long time.

My faith in the concept began to erode when I learned more about the diets of healthy traditional cultures. For example, the Kitavans get 69% of their calories from high-glycemic index carbohydrates (mostly starchy root vegetables), with little added fat-- that's a lot of fast-digesting carbohydrate! Overweight, elevated insulin and other symptoms of the metabolic syndrome are essentially nonexistent. Throughout Africa, healthy cultures make dishes from grains or starchy tubers that are soaked, pounded, fermented and then cooked. The result is a pile of mush that is very easily absorbed by the digestive tract, which is exactly the point of going through all the trouble.

The more I thought about the glycemic index and its relationship to insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome, the more I realized there is a disconnect in the logic: elevated post-meal glucose and insulin do not necessarily lead to chronically elevated glucose and insulin. Here's what Dr. Mark Segal from Dr. Johnson's group had to say:

We suggest that the [glycemic index] is better aimed at identifying foods that stimulate insulin secretion rather than foods that stimulate insulin resistance. The underlying concept is based on the principle that it is the ingestion of foods that induce insulin resistance that carries the increased risk for obesity and cardiovascular disease and not eating foods that stimulate insulin secretion.

Well said! I decided to take a look through the literature to see if there had been any trials on the relationship between a diet's glycemic index and its ability to cause satiety (fullness) and affect weight. I found a meta-analysis from 2007. Two things are clear from the paper: 1) in the short term, given an equal amount of carbohydrate, a diet with a low glycemic index is more satiating (filling) than one with a high glycemic index, leading to a lower intake of calories. 2) this effect disappears in the long-term, and the three trials (1, 2, 3) lasting 10 weeks or longer found no consistent effect on caloric intake or weight*. As a matter of fact, the only statistically significant (p less than 0.001) weight difference was a greater weight loss in one of the high-glycemic index groups!

As I've said many times, the body has mechanisms for maintaining weight and caloric intake where they should be in the long term. As long as those mechanisms are working properly, weight and caloric intake will be appropriate. The big question is, how does the modern lifestyle derail those mechanisms?

Dr. Johnson believes fructose is a major contributor. Table sugar, fruit, high-fructose corn syrup and honey are all roughly 50% fructose by calories. Total fructose consumption has increased about 19% in the U.S. since 1970, currently accounting for almost one eighth of our total calorie intake (total sugars account for one quarter!). That's the average, so many people actually consume more.

Fructose, but not starch or its component sugar glucose, causes insulin resistance, elevated serum uric acid (think gout and kidney stones), poorer blood glucose control, increased triglycerides and LDL cholesterol in animal studies and controlled human trials. All of these effects relate to the liver, which clearly does not like excessive fructose (or omega-6 oils). Some of these trials were conducted using doses that are near the average U.S. intake. The effect seems to compound over time both in humans and animals. The overweight, the elderly and the physically unfit are particularly vulnerable. I find this pretty damning.

Drs. Johnson and Segal recommend limiting fructose to 15-40 grams per day, which is the equivalent of about two apples or one soda (choose the apples!). They also recommend temporarily eliminating fructose for two weeks, to allow the body to recover from the negative long-term metabolic adaptation that can persist even when intake is low. I think this makes good sense.

The glycemic index may still be a useful tool for people with poor glucose control, like type II diabetics, but I'm not sure how much it adds to simply restricting carbohydrate. Reducing fructose may be a more effective way to address insulin resistance than eating a low glycemic index diet.


*Here was the author's way of putting it in the abstract: "Because of the increasing number of confounding variables in the available long-term studies, it is not possible to conclude that low-glycaemic diets mediate a health benefit based on body weight regulation. The difficulty of demonstrating the long-term health benefit of a satietogenic food or diet may constitute an obstacle to the recognition of associated claims." In other words, the data not supporting our favorite hypothesis is an obstacle to its recognition. You don't say?

Why Obama Won Video

OK, so I just thought it would be good to bring some closure in my grieving process:



I'm sure if you interviewed Republicans about their votes they might not fair well either. But what this does show is that the "news" that people hear is very selective, to say the least. It really is just sad, no matter what way you look at it.

Tolerance or Despair?

Here is a great post from Reformed Chicks:

Pretty brilliant quote from Dorothy Sayers:

"In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die."

(via)

Mrs. Bunyard's Nutty Orange Coffee Cake

This has to be one of the best desserts I have ever tasted. And since a friend has asked for a copy of it, I thought I would just post it here for anyone else as the weather gets colder. It's great with a cup of coffee or hot tea [it's probably required since this is so rich]. Let me know if you try it. I had it originally at the Bunyard's in Meridian, MS. I don't know who invented it, but I'm giving the credit to Carolyn Bunyard, a wonderful cook and hostess. God bless you for this dessert, Mrs. Bunyard.

Mrs. Bunyard's Nutty Orange Coffee Cake

3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans
2 teaspoons grated orange rind
1/2 (8 oz) package reduced-fat cream cheese
2 (11 oz) cans refrigerated buttermilk buscuits
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
1 cup sifted powder sugar
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice

• Combine first 3 ingredients in a small bowl; set aside [I have learned that I like my pieces covered more fully, so I generally use heaping helpings on these three ingredients. Having extra is fine--you can always just pour the excess on top before cooking.]
• Place about 1 teaspoon cream cheese on half of each biscuit; fold biscuit over cheese, pressing edges to seal.
• Dip biscuits in melted butter and dredge in sugar mixture; place, curved side down, in a lightly greased 12-cup Bundt pan, spacing evenly. Drizzle any remaining butter over biscuits; sprinkle with any remaining mixture.
• Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until done. Immediately invert onto a serving plate.
• Combine powdered sugar and orange juice, stirring well; drizzle over warm coffee cake. Serve immediately.

nov 18 food

Breakfast:  lettuce, baby greens from a bag, some strawberries, a cut up apple topped with orange-cashew-sunflower dressing.   also 1 oz nuts (cashews, brazil, macadamia, sunflower).

probably 0.5 oz in dressing.

Lunch:  leftover lentil soup on a baked sweet potato.  orange for dessert

Dinner:  a carrot, a piece of celery, 1 oz nuts, rest of yesterday's berry-spinach smoothie (frozen overnight, thawed in fridge during day), tiny apple.

Victory in Iraq Achieved!

Victory in Iraq has been achieved effective November 22, 2008! Make plans to celebrate today. Spread the word. The war is over. Iraq has agreed to a US troop withdrawal time line and all statistics show peace in Iraq has been secured. Congratulations to our troops and our Commander-in-Chief for their resolve and this profound victory.

...Freezing Heat

The UK Telegraph has an article discussing a recent error in recording the global temperatures by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In short, the temperature figures in Russia for September were just carried over for October, which would naturally show a warmer "October" than normal. However, the error has highlighted an issue of credibility that the article discusses quite thoroughly. The article concludes:

"...If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought."

nov 17 food

Breakfast (was out so brought it with me):  small banana, small apple, 1.5 oz walnuts, sunflower seeds & brazil nuts (total), some grapes and strawberries (after grocery shopping).

Lunch:  steamed cauliflower and broccoli topped with this week's soup (creamy lentil).  This was really good.  The soup is so rich and thick I prefer it as a topping than a soup.  And this way I got my veggies in too.  For some reason this meal felt like more of a treat eating this way than eating the vegetables and soup separately.  It felt like a fabulous entree at a restaurant.  Psychology is funny but I just go with what works.  For dessert I had an orange.   I didn't overeat for once.    I realize I can have this every day this week so no need to eat it all at once.  And eating too much beans is regrettable even 15 minutes later as it starts expanding in my stomach.

Dinner:  a carrot, a piece of celery, 1 oz brazil and pistachio nuts.  a spinach-berry smoothie, similar to this one, only it had strawberries and just a half bag of blueberries and orange juice and no flaxseed.  I decided I don't like flaxseed in my smoothies.  it's fine when you eat it right away, but it gets slimy if you freeze the smoothie and thaw it out later.  

I also decided I'm in the mood for berry spinach smoothies this week because they taste really good and fruity.  They are too filling at breakfast so maybe for breakfast I'll have a salad!  I might try greens, fruit and nuts and see what happens.  if it's boring I can make a salad dressing.  more on that tomorrow.

Is Vitamin A Toxicity a Concern?

Several commenters have asked for my opinion on recent statements by prominent health researchers that many Americans are suffering from unrecognized vitamin A toxicity. Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council is perhaps the most familiar of them. Dr. Cannell's mission is to convey the benefits of vitamin D to the public. The Vitamin D Council's website is a great resource.

Vitamin A is a very important nutrient. Like vitamin D, it has its own nuclear receptors which alter the transcription of a number of genes in a wide variety of tissues. Thus, it is a very fundamental nutrient to health. It's necessary for proper development, vision, mineral metabolism, bone health, immune function, the integrity of skin and mucous membranes, and many other things. Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, and as such, it is possible to overdose. So far, everyone is in agreement.

The question of optimal intake is where opinions begin to diverge. Hunter-gatherers and healthy non-industrial cultures, who almost invariably had excellent dental and skeletal development and health, often had a very high intake of vitamin A (according to Dr. Weston Price and others). This is not surprising, considering their fondness for organ meats. A meager 2 ounces of beef liver contains about 9,500 IU, or almost 200% of your U.S. and Canadian recommended daily allowance (RDA). Kidney and eye are rich in vitamin A, as are many of the marine oils consumed by the Inuit and other arctic groups.

If we can extrapolate from historical hunter-gatherers, our ancestors didn't waste organs. In fact, in times of plenty, some groups discarded the muscle tissue and ate the organs and fat. Carnivorous animals often eat the organs first, because they know exactly where the nutrients are. Zookeepers know that if you feed a lion nothing but muscle, it does not thrive.

This is the background against which we must consider the question of vitamin A toxicity. Claims of toxicity must be reconciled with the fact that healthy cultures often consumed large amounts of vitamin A without any ill effects. Well, you might be surprised to hear me say that I do believe some Americans and Europeans suffer from what you might call vitamin A toxicity. There is a fairly consistent association between vitamin A intake and bone mineral density, osteoporosis and fracture risk. It holds true across cultures and sources of vitamin A. Chris Masterjohn reviewed the epidemiology here. I recommend reading his very thorough article if you want more detail. The optimum intake in some studies is 2-3,000 IU, corresponding to about 50% of the RDA. People who eat more or less than this amount tend to suffer from poorer bone health. This is where Dr. Cannell and others are coming from when they say vitamin A toxicity is common.

The only problem is, this position ignores the interactions between fat-soluble vitamins. Vitamin D strongly protects agains vitamin A toxicity and vice versa. As a matter of fact, "vitamin A toxicity" is almost certainly a relative deficiency of vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency is also tightly correlated with low bone mineral density, osteoporosis and fracture risk. A high vitamin A intake requires vitamin D to balance it. The epidemiological studies showing an association between high-normal vitamin A intake and reduced bone health all sported populations that were moderately to severely vitamin D deficient on average. At optimal vitamin D levels, 40-70 ng/mL 25(OH)D, it would take a whopping dose of vitamin A to induce toxicity. You might get there if you eat nothing but beef liver for a week or two.

The experiment hasn't been done under controlled conditions in humans, but if you believe the animal studies, the optimal intake for bone mineral density is a high intake of both vitamins A and D. And guess what? A high intake of vitamins A and D also increases the need for vitamin K2. That's because they work together. For example, vitamin D3 increases the secretion of matrix Gla protein and vitamin K2 activates it. Is it any surprise that the optimal proportions of A, D and K occur effortlessly in a lifestyle that includes outdoor activity and whole, natural animal foods? This is the blind spot of the researchers who have warned of vitamin A toxicity: uncontrolled reductionism. Vitamins do not act in a vacuum; they interact with one another. If your theory doesn't agree with empirical observations from healthy cultures, it's back to the drawing board.

High-vitamin cod liver oil is an excellent source of vitamins A and D because it contains a balanced amount of both. Unfortunately, many brands use processing methods that reduce the amount of one or more vitamins. See the Weston Price foundation's recommendations for the highest quality cod liver oils. They also happen to be the cheapest per dose. I order Green Pasture high-vitamin cod liver oil through Live Superfoods (it's cheaper than ordering directly).

So is vitamin A toxicity a concern? Not really; the concern is vitamin D deficiency.

nov. 16 food

Breakfast:  cherry-spinach smoothie

snack:  small apple, small banana, 0.5 oz walnuts

lunch:  carrots, 1 oz brazil and cashew nuts.  steamed beets and brussels sprouts.  small orange

Dinner:   ate some carrots and celery while cooking soup.   taste tested the soup.  then 1.5 bowls.  but given the taste-testing, I probably ate two bowls in total and was a bit too full.  I'm not concerned about my weight, just with healthy eating and I think I need to not get quite so full after eating.  The soup I made was another Fuhrman recipe, creamy lentil soup.  I'm having fun trying out a bunch of Fuhrman recipes.  People on the forums are sharing their favorite soups.  This one is very good.  very good.  It's got a ton of vegetables and carrot juice and some cashews (blended with some of the soup), and of course, lentils.  These soups are very rich so one bowl is definitely enough.  The idea is to eat a bowl of this every day and then eat a bunch of vegetables and greens and fruit and there's your healthy diet.  I froze half the soup.  I'm going to have to stop making soups and eat the frozen ones soon.

spinach cherry smoothie

A quick single-serving (large 16 oz) smoothie

Ingredients:

5 oz bag of baby spinach

frozen bag of cherries (I think it's 10 oz)

juice of 2 small oranges

2 Tbsp raw sunflower seeds

blend the seeds and OJ.  add in the spinach and blend. add in the cherries and blend.  You can taste the spinach but I like the flavor, feels a bit crisp or something like that.

Is 5 oz spinach too much to eat at one sitting?  I'll find out tomorrow!  I am freezing it, then thawing overnight in fridge for breakfast tomorrow--I have to get up and run out the door early.

Nov. 15 food

Breakfast:  made a warm breakfast out of an apple, banana, half a bag of frozen blueberries (4 oz), 2 Tbsp sunflower seeds.  heated in a microwave for a couple of minutes.  It was good.  also ate some lettuce greens and 1/2 oz brazil nuts.

late lunch:  leftover sweet potato dish, big bowl of lettuce greens and mushrooms, a carrot, 1 oz cashew and brazil nuts.

Dinner, a dish from the Fuhrman forums called cauliflower, spinach mashed "potatoes", which doesn't have any potatoes in it!   Each serving had 1/2 head of cauliflower, 1/4 cup ground cashew nuts (about 1 oz), 2.5 oz spinach, and a garlic clove!  After cooking, it was blended in a food processor.   Housemate loved it.  I'd just as soon eat the ingredients separately.  I love steamed cauliflower.   But it's a good way to get your loved ones to eat healthy.  It tastes better than mashed potatoes. 

Nov. 14 food

Breakfast:  apple, banana, 1 oz walnuts.  I've been away from home for breakfast pretty much every day this week, so this is an easy breakfast away from home.  When I got home, I also ate some mushrooms (fresh from the grocery store).

Lunch:  bowl of leftover soup from yesterday.   at least 2 bowls of a sweet potato dish.  1 oz brazil nuts.  The sweet potato dish was from the Fuhrman forums, called Sweet Potato Apple Bake.  It has sweet potatoes, apples, cranberries, raisins, and orange juice.  I thought the cranberries were going to be yucky but they were great.  I ate too much of it.  I overate.  

Dinner:   bowl of salad greens and mushrooms--too lazy to make dressing so just ate it with my hands like snackfood.  I kind of prefer this, much easier.   2 small oranges.  another bowl of sweet potato dish.    doesn't seem like much but I ate a lot of sweet potatoes today and was overly full.  I finished dinner before 6 pm and wasn't hungry until 10 am the next morning (today as I write this).  

NOTE:  edited a few days later:  I learned on the Fuhrman forums that Dr. Fuhrman doesn't recommend eating raw mushrooms because they might be carcinogenic; they contain a toxic substance called agaratine, whatever that is.   I think this is one of those, who knows, things but since I'm pretty much willing to do whatever Fuhrman suggests, I'll stop eating them.  I was eating probably a pound of them a week!  It's disappointing to take them off the list as they were a great snack.  He says they are okay cooked.

Poor Abandoned Children?...

From the WSJ:

Little Girls Get Bigger Every Day
Do you have a teenager you'd like to get rid of? If the answer is yes and you take the question literally, you'd better act fast. The Associated Press reports that the unicameral Nebraska Legislature is meeting even now to amend the state's "safe-haven law":

The safe-haven law was intended to save "Dumpster babies" by allowing desperate young mothers to abandon their newborns at a hospital without fear of prosecution. But lawmakers could not agree on an age limit, and the law as passed uses only the word "child."

All states have safe-haven laws, but in every state but Nebraska, the law applies to infants only.

Since the law passed earlier this year, five 17-year-olds, two 16-year-olds, six 15-year-olds, two 14-year-olds, three 13-year-olds and eight 11- or 12-year-olds have been dumped. And apparently there's no residency requirement: "Five of the children dropped off have been from out of state."

What's more, the definition of "child" apparently is capacious enough to include adults, as illustrated by the opening anecdote:

The mother was running out of more than patience when she abandoned her 18-year-old daughter at a hospital over the weekend under Nebraska's safe-haven law. She was also running out of time: She knew that state lawmakers would soon meet in a special session to amend the ill-fated law so that it would apply to newborns only.

"Where am I going to get help if they change the law?" said the mother, who lives in Lincoln and asked to not be identified by name to protect her adopted child.

Awfully sweet of her to go the extra mile to protect her child. Anyway, if things aren't working out between you and your teen son or daughter, a hasty family vacation to the Cornhusker State may be just the ticket.

Nov. 13 food

Out most of the morning so had breakfast on the go, like yesterday:

1 apple, 1 banana, 1 oz walnuts

Lunch:  no time to cook anything, so 1/2 oz sunflower seeds (1 Tbsp), OMG blueberry drink, 0.5 oz brazil nuts, ~2 oz salad mix (baby herb mix from a bag).  hmmm, that doesn't seem like so much but I was satisfied.   

Dinner:  made a batch of North African Chickpea and Kale soup since I happened to have the ingredients on hand.  It's not my favorite soup.  I might have added too much garlic.  It was better after I added a Tbsp of maple syrup to the pot.   hmmm, so would carrot juice have worked here?  or sweet potato?   anyway, I ate 3 bowls!  oops.  and 0.5 oz brazil nuts and 2 small oranges.  I should have had the nuts and oranges first and then wouldn't have eaten so much soup.  I'll try to remember that.   I feel a bit too full...

OMG blueberry drink

This was unbelievably good.  why would you want to eat SAD (Standard American Diet) food when you can eat this?

Ingredients:

1/2 bag frozen blueberries (about 4 oz or 1 cup)

handful or two of grapes (optional)

juice from 1-2 small oranges or 1 medium to large

blend in a blender.  soooooo gooooooood.  without the grapes, it isn't as sweet but it is still attractive, has a clean feel to it.

I made this because I thought, I should eat some berries since they are good for you.

Nov. 12 food

Was out most of the day except home for an early dinner:

Late breakfast:  apple, banana, 1 oz walnuts

Lunch:  spinach-mango smoothie

Early dinner:   1.5 oz nuts (brazil & pistachio, I like the brazil most right now), large carrot (was hungry early), grapes (more than I should have), ~2 oz salad greens (baby herb mix from a bag), steamed cauliflower, beets and sweet peas.  and this awesome blueberry drink I made up, OMG, I will call it OMG blueberry drink.    that seems like a big dinner.  I did get full.  But I didn't have to eat the rest of the night and lasted through my exercise class this morning.  I don't like to eat dinner too late because then I'm still full the next morning.  

Google Flu Trends

I just discovered a wonderful new tool from Google.org, Google Flu Trends. Google.org is the philanthropic branch of Google. Flu Trends gives you real-time data on flu incidence in your U.S. state, as well as for the country as a whole. Here's how it works:

We've found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional flu surveillance systems.

Each week, millions of users around the world search for online health information. As you might expect, there are more flu-related searches during flu season, more allergy-related searches during allergy season, and more sunburn-related searches during the summer.

Google's data match up well with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data on flu incidence, but are available 1-2 weeks before CDC data. Here's a comparison of Flu Trends and CDC data for previous years. Plus, Google makes the information easily accessible and user-friendly.

I think this a fantastic use of the massive amount of raw information on the internet. It's amazing what a person can do with a brain and an internet connection these days.

Can Vitamin K2 Reverse Arterial Calcification?

It certainly can in rats. In April 2007, Dr. Cees Vermeer and his group published a paper on the effect of vitamin K on arterial calcification (the accumulation of calcium in the arteries). As I mentioned two posts ago, arterial calcification is tightly associated with the risk of heart attack and death. Warfarin-treated rats are an established model of arterial calcification. Warfarin also causes calcification in humans. The drug is a "blood thinner" that inhibits vitamin K recycling, and inhibits the conversion of vitamin K1 (phylloquinone) to K2 MK-4 (menaquinone-4). This latter property turns out to be the critical one in the calcification process.

Rats are able to convert vitamin K1 to K2 MK-4, whereas humans don't seem to convert well. Conversion efficiency varies between species. Dr. Vermeer's group treated rats with warfarin for 6 weeks, during which they developed extensive arterial calcification. They also received vitamin K1 to keep their blood clotting properly. At 6 weeks, the warfarin-treated rats were broken up into several groups:

• One continued on the warfarin and K1 diet
• One was placed on a diet containing a normal amount of K1 (no warfarin)
  
• One was placed on a high K1 diet (no warfarin)
• The last was placed on a high K2 MK-4 diet (no warfarin)
  

After 6 more weeks, the first two groups developed even more calcification, while the third and fourth groups lost about 40% of their arterial calcium. The high vitamin K groups also saw a decrease in cell death in the artery wall, a decrease in uncarboxylated (inactive) MGP, and an increase in arterial elasticity. They also measured the vitamin K content of aortas from each group. The group that received the 12-week warfarin treatment had a huge amount of K1 accumulation in the aorta, but no K2 MK-4. This is expected because warfarin inhibits the conversion of K1 to K2 MK-4. It's notable that when conversion to K2 was blocked, K1 alone was totally ineffective at activating MGP and preventing calcification.

In the group fed high K1 but no warfarin, there was about three times more K2 MK-4 in the aortas than K1, suggesting that they had converted it effectively and that vascular tissue selectively accumulates K2 MK-4. A high K1 intake was required for this effect, however, since the normal K1 diet did not reverse calcification. The rats fed high K2 MK-4 had only K2 MK-4 in their aortas, as expected.

What does this mean for us? K2 MK-4 appears to be the form of vitamin K that arteries prefer (although not enough is known about the longer menaquinones, such as MK-7, to rule out a possible effect). Humans don't seem to be very good at making the conversion from K1 to K2 MK-4 (at normal intakes; there are suggestions that at artificially large doses we can do it). That means we need to ensure an adequate K2 MK-4 intake to prevent or reverse arterial calcification; eating K1-rich greens won't cut it. It's worth noting that the amounts of K1 and K2 used in the paper were very large, far beyond what is obtainable through food. But the regression took only 6 weeks, so it's possible that a smaller amount of K2 MK-4 over a longer period could have the same effect in humans.

K2 MK-4 (and perhaps other menaquinones like MK-7) may turn out to be an effective treatment for arterial calcification and cardiovascular disease in general. It's extremely effective at preventing osteoporosis-related fractures in humans. That's a highly significant fact. Osteoporosis and arterial calcification often come hand-in-hand. Thus, they are not a result of insufficient or excessive calcium, but of a failure to use the available calcium effectively. In the warfarin-treated rats described above, the serum (blood) calcium concentration was the same in all groups. Osteoporosis and arterial calcification are two sides of the same coin, and the fact that one can be addressed with K2 MK-4 means that the other may be as well.

Both osteoporosis and arterial calcification may turn out to be symptoms of vitamin K2 deficiency, resulting from the modern fear of animal fats and organs, and the deterioration of traditional animal husbandry practices. So eat your pastured dairy, organs, fish roe and shellfish! And if you have arterial calcification, as judged by a heart scan, you may want to consider supplementing with additional K2 MK-4 (also called menaquinone-4 and menatetrenone).

The osteoporosis studies were done with 45 milligrams per day, which was well tolerated but seems excessive to me. Smaller doses were not tested. From the limited information available on the K2 content of foods, 1 milligram of K2 MK-4 per day seems like the upper limit of what you can get from food. That's about 40 times more than the average person eats. Anything more and you're outside your body's operating parameters. Make sure you're getting adequate vitamin D3 and A if you supplement with K2. Vitamin D3 in particular increases the secretion of MGP, so the two work in concert.