The Healing Art of Food

Orange Marmalade

2012-01-02T18:37:00.000-08:00

One thing cool about living in Florida is having my very own citrus tree in the yard. The lawn guy said it was an orange tree. My neighbor said he thought it was a lemon tree because of the thorns. Eventually I determined it was a bitter orange tree.

It was absolutely laden with ripe and juicy fruit, But FULL of zillions of pits. And the juice is, well, bitter. I guess that's why they are bitter oranges. One thing said about bitter oranges is that they are:

prized for making marmalade, being higher in pectin than the sweet orange

So with so many fruit dropping to the group I decided I HAD to try to make marmalade. Above are the peels of the oranges simmering in sugar water. I have to say that making marmalade is a very MESSY process. What a wreck it made of my kitchen. But I persevered and made two batches.

And I must say they are beautiful! And taste good. And made from my very own fruit plucked off the tree. Good thing I only have one tree though. Even as it is about 90% of the oranges are just rotting. What a shame. But I don't know what to do with them all. I'd love to have an avocado tree too though. :-)

Meeting Matt

2011-12-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

Matt Stone is one of the the brash and iconoclastic young men of the nutritional blogosphere. I've been a follower of Matt's for years and witnessed his various morphings from one eating pattern to another. But I can understand that. I've morphed a lot myself over the years, as witness the quote from Matt I have in my blog's header. I fully realize that the more and more I learn the less and less I feel I know.

I don't always agree with Matt. In fact I often don't. And as one of my friends says, nutritional advice from a young and healthy man, based on what works for him, is not likely to be of much help to a metabolically-damage post-menopausal woman! :-)

Sure he's worked with other people, but so have others out in the blogosphere, so I read lots of different blogs. But Matt's, whether I'm following his current advice or not, is always sure to entertain.

So after all the time of following his blog it was great fun to get to meet Matt tonight, as he is spending the night at my son's house in Jacksonville Beach, passing up on his way further north for Christmas. In person, at least in the persona presented to me, he was a very polite and almost reserved young man. But he mentioned some upcoming events that sounded interesting, and I'll have to try to keep my ears to the ground for more details.

In other news I attended the holiday pot luck dinner of the St. Augustine Art Association and I brought these as my pot luck contribution, and I have to say they were so awesome it was hard not to keep them all to myself! I didn't bother with any maple syrup. They were excellent just as is.

Pretty Paleo cookies

2011-10-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

I love being able to have my grandson visit and spend the night. When he was here last time I wanted to bake cookies with him! Such a grandmotherly thing to do. But I don't keep wheat in the house anymore and won't eat it or feed it to my grandson while he is here. I wanted to make gingerbread men but realized I no longer had any cookie cutters that shape, and ended up with only hearts and circles.

I don't measure anything when I make these things, so can only tell approximations. Recipe was:

- glob of softened coconut oil (about 2-4 tbsp or so)
- about a tsp each of ground ginger and cinnamon
- a pinch of salt
- some coconut flour (couple tbsp or so)
- some blackstrap molasses (maybe a tbsp or a bit more)
- an amount of almond meal to make the dough a rollable consistency

I rolled this out and we cut them and baked them at 350 for about 10 minutes.

We rolled them very thin, almost like Moravian cookies. So a couple of them burned a bit. But most came out nicely crisp and gingery, and only mildly sweet. My grandson was fascinated with the process and enjoyed eating a couple.

Farm Fresh Eggs

2011-10-20T12:50:00.001-07:00

Well one of my hobbies has helped me solve another issue down here in Florida! I'm a birder, and a bird feeder, and I made a visit to the closest Wild Birds Unlimited store to buy a bluebird house after seeing bluebirds in my yard! Seeing bluebirds was awesome. But best of all the store had information there about a local farm selling farm fresh eggs! Wow, just what I'd been looking for. I called the number and spoke to Manny, the farmer, and he invited me right on over to the farm for a tour, just a few miles down the road.

He gave me directions, which were good. But of course the sign was also hard to miss. I was there on a Friday but it was before 4 PM, but Manny said I could come right in anyway, and he would give me a tour so I could see the chickens myself!

They are not totally free-roaming as the predators would get them. In fact Manny and his wife lost their first two sets of chickens to predators. But they are kept in large open-air coops where they have plenty of room to move around, plenty of space to roost and to perch. They get fed a natural diet, including plenty of access to bug and worms and other forms of protein that chickens need to help make their eggs nutritious.

There were even a few big old roosters strutting their stuff among the hens, and crowing away. Manny and his wife sell at various farmer's markets, but also from the farm on Tuesdays and Fridays, and the farm itself is actually closer to home for me than any of the markets they sell in. But when I told my son and DiL about them it turned out they had already been buying their eggs at the Nocatee Farmer's Market!

The eggs were $5.50/dozen for Jumbo, $4.50/doz for large, or $3.50/doz for small/medium. I went for the small/medium since I'd read somewhere that eggs all mostly have the same sized yolk, and the size difference is the result of more white. And since the yolk is what I want, and I don't care about the white, why pay more for extra white? :-)

Manny said he occasionally gets someone who stumbles in, and says "Why should I pay you these prices when I can get eggs for $1.29 at Walmart?" but those folks are rare, and by the time most people find him they are already well educated on the benefits of eggs from properly nourished and healthy chickens.

This was a great find, and a fun place to visit. I look forward to going again, though I bought two dozen eggs my first visit, so don't have to go again immediately. LOL.

P.S. Now down 130 pounds as of this morning.

New Kitchen

2011-10-14T10:42:00.000-07:00

One of my serious dislikes about my new home was the kitchen cabinets, as shown above.. I thought they were *seriously ugly*. But if they have been functional I could have painted them or done something to them to live with them. But they were also pretty useless. A very small number of cabinets. Only *one* base cabinet with a single drawer. Lots of "dead" filler space on either side of the stove. I have a nice high ceiling in the kitchen with plenty of space for cabinets, but the cabinets were short and stubby. So I decided to just bite the bullet and have all new cabinets put in right away, before I even bothered trying to unpack any boxes!

I ended up working with Oxley Cabinets of Jacksonville. They were great to work with and were very affordable. I got new cabinets to replace my old ones, new countertops, and I added "stacker" cabinets on top of the new replacements, and additional cabinets on the blank wall of the kitchen which gave me much more storage space as well as more countertop! I also got cabinets on either side of the stove rather than dead filler.

What a difference in looks. When I saw how lovely it was turning out I couldn't even bear to reuse the old stainless steel sink I had before. I didn't like it in the first place, and it was dingy and dirty looking, so I went out and bought a cast-iron sink enameled in white and I love it so much better!

Best of all I got to finally unpack all those boxes that had been cluttering up my kitchen for 6 weeks now, and was able to set up a table and chairs. I also replaced the light fixture over the table, which had been hideously ugly before. So for the first time since I moved in I was actually able to sit at a REAL TABLE and eat a meal!

So here is the breakfast I made for myself to celebrate. It was great sitting there and eating it while I looked out at the birds in the yard. I saw a red-bellied woodpecker, which is a new yard bird for me. I used to get red bellies at my old New Jersey home, but didn't know if I would see them around here.

* 125 *

2011-09-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

125 pounds. That's how much weight I have lost from the highest recorded number in my doctor's office to what my balance beam scale registers today. It hasn't been a fast journey, but it continues to be an ongoing one, and my way of eating is often changing too. Currently I avoid grains as much as possible, especially wheat. I avoid all high-PUFA vegetable oils. I avoid anything low-fat or fat-free.

Other things shift around here and there. I'm eating more fruit these days and finding it a wonderful addition to my lifestyle without causing any negative effects that I've noticed. Sure fruit has fructose which has been much vilified of late. But I think the bad effects of fructose are the ones seen from intake of things like high fructose corn syrup or agave syrup. I have more problems accepting that natural fruit itself is so bad. I guess I hold to the statement made by Dr. Robert Lustig in his famous "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" where he said:

When God made the poison [fructose in fruit] He also made the antidote.

I still can't figure out what to do with the oranges on my orange tree though, way too bitter to eat. Surely they must be darned low in fructose, yet there must be something I can do with them.

Meanwhile my scale keeps inching down, and I keep feeling good. And what does the little guy above have to do with all of this? Nothing really, but I saw him out in front of a cafe this morning when I was out doing some errands. I liked his sentiment. I *do* like bacon. In fact I had some for breakfast this morning. Yum. It'll still be a while before I have a figure like his though. :-)

What kind of citrus am I?

2011-09-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

One of the cool things about moving to Florida last month was finding I had my very own well-grown citrus tree in the back yard. But what kind of citrus tree is it? The tree was loaded with fruit, but they were all still immature and green. The lawn guy who came to give me a clean-up estimate said that is was an orange tree. I was pretty excited about that.

But then my next door neighbor told me he thought it was a lemon tree. He said that he had helped the previous owner trim the tree one time, and he remembered that it had thorns. And he said that lemon trees have thorns and orange trees don't. So is it a lemon tree?

I checked, and sure enough it does have thorns. Ouch, not so easy to harvest the fruit. And the fruit is beginning to ripen, and it appeared that the fruit WAS turning yellow.

But I checked again today, and found that some of the fruit have gone beyond yellow and begun to turn a strong orange color. So is it an orange? One fruit had turned a very orange color, and had fallen from the tree, so I thought perhaps it was ripe, and brought it inside and cut it in half.

It was quite orange on the inside too. It sure *looked* like an orange and not a lemon, thorns or no. So I gave it a taste. Euwwwww. Talk about SOUR. This thing was the most sour citrus fruit I'd ever tasted! But it didn't taste like a lemon either. The taste was .... indescribable. Just sour.

Well, could it still be an orange? The lawn guy said that orange trees need to be fertilized with lime in the spring to grow sweet fruit, and my tree was not fertilized this year because the house had been vacant for a year before I moved in. The lawn guy says he'll fertilize for me this coming spring.

But in the meantime, just what sort of fruit do I actually have? And is there anything I can *do* with the dozens and dozens and dozens of fruit ripening on the tree?

Coming up to date

2011-08-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

Not long ago my son posted this on his own blog:

My knowledge about nutrition continues to shrink as I continue to prove myself wrong. At this point in my research on health and nutrition, here's what I think I know-
Polyunsatured fats (vegetable oils) are bad, and natural saturated fats are good (especially coconut).
Artificial flavors (HFCS, MSG, Aspartame, etc.) make you eat too much.
Fresh and whole is better than stale and processed.
Calories matter. Get enough, and let your body throw out what it doesn't need.
Nutrients matter. Get the most nutritionally dense stuff you can find.
The end. Anything that used to be on that list about macronutrients, ratios, carbs, etc. was merely the pretense of knowledge. Anything that used to be on that list about losing weight has been methodically crossed off.

Yeah Brock, I know the feeling. It's one of the reasons I have not posted here lately myself. I'm trying to pursue the foods that *heal* but seem to have less and less surety about which foods those are! I do agree with most of Brock's list - PUFAs are bad, natural saturated fats are good, fresh and whole is better than stale and processed, etc. It's all true. But *which* fresh and whole foods? That depends a lot on who you listen to. :-)

But actually one of the biggest changes in my life has been a non-food one. And this is finally finding a holistic nurse practitioner who is willing to prescribe natural dessicated thyroid (Armour brand) for my Hashimoto's condition, and not the synthetic T4 that my FORMER endocrinologist said was the *only* thing she would ever prescribe. Well that and STATINS (AKA the Medication of the Devil) for my high cholesterol - total cholesterol of 295 though I had high HDL and low triglycerides. I told her I was positive that my high cholesterol was the result of impaired T4 to T3 conversion by my thyroid, and that giving me a medication that included T3 would alleviate the situation. But she told me that was nonsense.

I told her that there has never been one single study that showed statins had any benefits for any women at all of any age, and she told me that was nonsense. I told her that wanting to give me statins for the high cholesterol was like trying to stop a flood by throwing sponges into the water, without any consideration about where the water was coming from in the first place. And she said nothing at all. I told her flat out that nothing on earth would make me take a statin. I'm surprised she didn't fire *me* as a patient, but I'm sure she wrote me up as a non-compliant one.

So I decided I would never see her again. And somewhat later I was lucky enough to hook up with Elaine Hardy after getting an email out of the blue from a woman I had known back in the late 90s from the old alt.support.diet.low-carb usenet group. She was a patient of Elaine's and said she had finally gotten switched to Armour after 30+ years of feeling like crap on Synthroid.

So I've been on Armour for about 10 weeks now. I have more energy. I've lost 10 pounds after being stalled for a long time. And my total cholesterol dropped, in 6 weeks, down to 196. So THERE to the endocrinologist who said that the idea of Armour lowering my cholesterol was "nonsense".

But I've also been eating a bit differently too. I'm finding that eating 5 small meals a day controls my blood sugar better than two large ones. Sort of a bummer actually, as by temperament I would much rather eat 2 large meals than 5 small ones. A small meal just leaves me so unsatisfied - psychologically that is. But so far it's working better so I'm trying to make it work.

I'm also eating different foods as well, and trying to incorporate more of the Ray Peatian ideas, such as daily gelatin, and more fruit. Whole fruit that is. I still have no interest in drinking fruit juice. But I've been eating 2-3 whole fruits a day and really enjoying them! I especially love my clementines and typically have one with my breakfast.

Ray says to avoid berries as the seeds are not so good for you. But I'm not sure I'm willing to slavishly follow every dictate of any one guru. Ray says it's fine to eat Haagen Dazs ice cream too, but even a small serving of sucrose makes my blood sugar go through the roof, with readings close to 200 when eating Haagen Dazs. So no juice for me either, but the fruit is great.

And of course I had no idea that Ray would say "no berries" when I planted my raspberry bush 5 years ago, and right now my berries are at their peak of ripeness. Pictured above are berries I picked yesterday. And I'll eat them and enjoy anyway, with some freshly whipped cream. Within a month I'll be moving to Florida, so will never get a raspberry crop from this bush again. I suspect my home's new owners will just rip the bush out. So I'll enjoy these berries while I can.

Caribbean dinner

2011-03-26T16:44:00.001-07:00

My sister and I are in North Carolina this week, visiting with our third sister and her husband. We all went to dinner two nights ago at a wonderful Caribbean-style local restaurant called Calypso North. We enjoyed the food so well that we decided to have a Caribbean night at home too. So last night I made this Caribbean Chicken for dinner! Sister Amy found the recipe we used here, except that we didn't use any potatoes in the recipe. It was absolutely delicious! I'll have to try it again some time. It might be good too with pork, or shrimp.

We had it with coconut-lime rice, which was also tasty, and as a side dish we served these fried plantains.

Jersey Shore Birthday

2011-02-25T18:16:00.000-08:00

It was a wild, windy and blowy day today, a perfect day to go to the Jersey Shore! It was my sister's birthday, so I drove to the shore with her and my niece to celebrate. This is just the way we like the shore - off-season, wild, windy, few people around. Even though it was raining I did run up to look at the jetty at Manasquan Inlet. Wow, the waves sure were crashing over the top of the jetty. I got pretty wet too. :-)
I even got my sister and niece to come up to look at the jetty with me, though they decided they would rather go further down the boardwalk where they could get a cup of coffee, and we all went into the Arcade and played Skee Ball , a traditional favorite.
After that it was lunchtime, and we went to our favorite restaurant and got a great corner table overlooking the Manasquan River. We all had seafood and it was delicious. I did succumb to a couple hush puppies, alas. But my scallops were wonderful.
Then we drove home along the shore, and my sister and niece indulged me in allowing me to drive around several ponds and inlets to look for water birds. And there were plenty, including Canada geese, brants, mute swans, mallards, muscovy ducks, hooded mergansers, common mergansers, red-breasted mergansers, ruddy ducks, northern shovelers, black ducks, canvasbacks, scaups, American widgeons, American coots...plus plenty of gulls, mostly ring-billed, but a few herring gulls, and quite a few great black-backed gulls also. Not to mention pigeons, mourning doves, starlings, robins, house sparrows, cardinals. All in all, quite a "birdy" day.

Then time to go have dinner at my sister's, and we finally got to cut the cake I made yesterday. I really enjoyed it, and love the peanutty hint of flavor that the peanut flour gives it.

The only problem was that the cake really was awfully flat and dense. It *tasted* good. But the first time I made this cake recipe the cake came out really light and fluffy, just like a standard wheat cake. The only difference between the two times was that I never use almond milk, so I used coconut milk in the recipe, but this time I went out and bought the almond milk the recipe called for. But I can't see why that would make the cake flat. It tasted good anyway, or at least it did to me. My sister's family mostly wanted the cake they bought at the bakery. :-)

Happy Birthday Patty

2011-02-24T16:26:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is my sister Patty's birthday. The weather forecast calls for rain, but assuming it's not too bad we want to go to Patty's favorite restaurant for lunch the Lobster Shanty/Wharfside in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ. It's one of my favorite places too. Great seafood, and a lovely water view along the Manasquan River. I do look forward to it myself.

But Patty also wants a cake, and I offered to make one for her. She dithered so about what she wanted. Finally decided that she wanted one that was wheat-free, sugar-free. Then she wanted something fudgy, then she wanted German Chocolate Cake, then she saw that had coconut-pecan frosting and wasn't sure she wanted it as she wanted fudgy frosting, then she couldn't decide what she wanted after all.

So in the end I just had to make a choice, so I want to thank Maria of http://mariahealth.blogspot.com, in particular for these recipes:

Extreme chocolate cake and German chocolate cake. I ended up making the Extreme chocolate cake cake recipe but made *both* frostings, and used the coconut pecan one for a filling, and the chocolate one for the frosting. Tomorrow we can try it out. I'll have to take a photo once I cut into the cake.

The only problem I had was that the cake didn't really rise at all. The layers came out flat as pancakes. The recipe says: "Split the layers of cooled cake horizontally" but there is no way on earth I could have split those skinny layers, so I ended up making another half of the recipe so I could make a 3-layer cake. Otherwise the cake would have been barely 1 1/2 inches high, if that.

Alternate Day Calorie Restriction

2011-02-08T10:57:00.001-08:00

Here is a beautiful mature red-tailed hawk I saw yesterday on a birdwalk up at Garrett Mountain. It's still cold and snow-covered here, but when the sun comes out it definitely has much more of a "feel" of a spring sun, not a cold and bleak winter sun. The birds are definitely twittering more in the mornings. Soon we see mating and nests and baby birds. And this red-tail will likely have a mate and nest somewhere in the park also. It made me think of the fact that wild-animals certainly don't have their three square meals a day. They look for food when they are hungry, and they go hungry if they don't find any. This red-tail seemed to be on the lookout, but there was nothing in sight right there.

So sometimes I feel this might be a better method for humans as well. I'm tired of my weight stall. I've lost a lot of weight, but have also been stalled for *16 months* now with still a lot of weight to lose, and I've decided I'm going to try the method that is sort of a form of intermittent fasting - one that is described here or here: (this are the abstracts from these two):

Short-term modified alternate-day fasting: a novel dietary strategy for weight loss and cardioprotection in obese adults.
Varady KA, Bhutani S, Church EC, Klempel MC.
Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA. varady@uic.edu
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The ability of modified alternate-day fasting (ADF; ie, consuming 25% of energy needs on the fast day and ad libitum food intake on the following day) to facilitate weight loss and lower vascular disease risk in obese individuals remains unknown.
OBJECTIVE: This study examined the effects of ADF that is administered under controlled compared with self-implemented conditions on body weight and coronary artery disease (CAD) risk indicators in obese adults.
DESIGN: Sixteen obese subjects (12 women, 4 men) completed a 10-wk trial, which consisted of 3 phases: 1) a 2-wk control phase, 2) a 4-wk weight loss/ADF controlled food intake phase, and 3) a 4-wk weight loss/ADF self-selected food intake phase.
RESULTS: Dietary adherence remained high throughout the controlled food intake phase (days adherent: 86%) and the self-selected food intake phase (days adherent: 89%). The rate of weight loss remained constant during controlled food intake (0.67 +/- 0.1 kg/wk) and self-selected food intake phases (0.68 +/- 0.1 kg/wk). Body weight decreased (P <>
CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that ADF is a viable diet option to help obese individuals lose weight and decrease CAD risk. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as UIC-004-2009.

The effect on health of alternate day calorie restriction: eating less and more than needed on alternate days prolongs life.
Johnson JB, Laub DR, John S.
Department of Surgery, Louisiana State University Medical Center, 2547A Lyon Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94123, USA. jim@jbjmd.com
Abstract
Restricting caloric intake to 60-70% of normal adult weight maintenance requirement prolongs lifespan 30-50% and confers near perfect health across a broad range of species. Every other day feeding produces similar effects in rodents, and profound beneficial physiologic changes have been demonstrated in the absence of weight loss in ob/ob mice. Since May 2003 we have experimented with alternate day calorie restriction, one day consuming 20-50% of estimated daily caloric requirement and the next day ad lib eating, and have observed health benefits starting in as little as two weeks, in insulin resistance, asthma, seasonal allergies, infectious diseases of viral, bacterial and fungal origin (viral URI, recurrent bacterial tonsillitis, chronic sinusitis, periodontal disease), autoimmune disorder (rheumatoid arthritis), osteoarthritis, symptoms due to CNS inflammatory lesions (Tourette's, Meniere's) cardiac arrhythmias (PVCs, atrial fibrillation), menopause related hot flashes. We hypothesize that other many conditions would be delayed, prevented or improved, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, brain injury due to thrombotic stroke atherosclerosis, NIDDM, congestive heart failure. Our hypothesis is supported by an article from 1957 in the Spanish medical literature which due to a translation error has been construed by several authors to be the only existing example of calorie restriction with good nutrition. We contend for reasons cited that there was no reduction in calories overall, but that the subjects were eating, on alternate days, either 900 calories or 2300 calories, averaging 1600, and that body weight was maintained. Thus they consumed either 56% or 144% of daily caloric requirement. The subjects were in a residence for old people, and all were in perfect health and over 65. Over three years, there were 6 deaths among 60 study subjects and 13 deaths among 60 ad lib-fed controls, non-significant difference. Study subjects were in hospital 123 days, controls 219, highly significant difference. We believe widespread use of this pattern of eating could impact influenza epidemics and other communicable diseases by improving resistance to infection. In addition to the health effects, this pattern of eating has proven to be a good method of weight control, and we are continuing to study the process in conjunction with the NIH.

I had read about this approach elsewhere and, funnily enough, decided to try out this approach before someone pointed out these studies to me. I totally *cannot* live on a calorie-restricted diet day after day. I don't feel it's healthy for one thing, and it leads to unbearable cravings. But one day of very-low-calorie eating followed by a day of ad libitum eating is totally doable and really just another form of IFing. Since I had a big eating weekend between my winter choir party on Saturday night, and the annual Super Bowl Party I attend on the Sunday night, I decided to start yesterday with the VLC day. I had nothing but a cup of coffee with a little cream until 5 PM, so started with an actual 20-hour fast. Then ate at 5 PM and 8 PM for a total intake of 764 calories.

Today is my ad lib day. I had a great breakfast of bacon and a cheese and avocado omelet, and lunch was some really great-tasting chili made with grass-fed beef from Whole Foods. Not sure what dinner will be yet, though I do have more chili I need to eat up. :-)

New USDA dietary guidelines

2011-02-01T10:41:00.001-08:00

Everyone is buzzing about the new USDA dietary guidelines. Thank goodness they are just guidelines, and not mandates. :-) Some of what they have to say is not bad, but I can't really agree with a lot of it. Some of the suggestions I support:

• Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals – and choose the foods with lower numbers. (I add: best yes, avoid commercial soup, bread and frozen meals altogether. It's not the sodium I worry about, it's all the other garbage that goes into prepared foods).
• Drink water instead of sugary drinks.
• Keep trans fatty acid consumption as low as possible by limiting foods that contain synthetic sources of trans fats, such as partially hydrogenated oils, and by limiting other solid fats. (I add: Grrr about that last few words, however).

But there is still a lot of the same-old, same-old which I don't support at all:

• Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk
• Consume less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fatty acids by replacing them with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids
• Use oils to replace solid fats where possible (Grrr again! You mean those high Omega-6 oils? No way)

The entire document can be found here. One of the surprising recommendations to me was this one, which I totally concur with:

• Monitor intake of 100% fruit juice for children and adolescents, especially those who are overweight or obese: For most children and adolescents, intake of 100% fruit juice is not associated with body weight. However, limited evidence suggests that increased intake of 100% juice has been associated with higher body weight in children and adolescents who are overweight or obese.

Yeah, I believe it. Great to see it documented here. When my son was young the "authorities" were pushing fruit juice like mad. You were made to feel like a good mother if you gave your kids fruit juice, which I now feel is little better than Coke. It's great to see the monitoring of fruit juice referenced in this document.

But they still keeping lumping saturated fats (good) with trans-fats (bad):

As noted previously, fats contain a mixture of different fatty acids, and much research has been conducted on the association between the intake of saturated and trans fatty acids and the risk of chronic disease, especially cardiovascular disease.

Even though there is a lot of current evidence that saturated fat intake has absolutely *no* correlation with cardiovascular disease. And yet they recommend:

s. For example, when preparing foods at home, solid fats (e.g., butter and lard) (e.g. good fats) can be replaced with vegetable oils (eeek! High PUFA bad fats!)

There is an entire section titled: "calories from solid fats and added sugars".

What an odd grouping that is. Of course a lot of foods commonly eaten in the US diet do contain large amounts of both fats and sugars. Think doughnuts, for example.

Solid fats and added sugars are consumed in excessive amounts, and their intake should be limited. Together, they contribute a substantial portion of the calories consumed by Americans—35 percent on average, or nearly 800 calories per day—without contributing importantly to overall nutrient adequacy of the diet.

And later on they stress one should limit the intake of SoFAS, which they define as: "*SoFAS = solid fats and added sugars"

Just such an odd combining. I agree that sugar is an empty calorie, and probably even far worse than an empty calorie as it's actively disease-promoting. But good fats help promote the body's health. So why lump them in a single category?

There are some good recommendations, like focusing on nutrient-dense food. I just have some differences of opinion over what constitutes "nutrient-dense". LOL. They also still stress that everyone should be drinking fluoridated water to prevent cavities! But if you truly eat properly, avoid sugars, avoid processed foods, eat real whole foods, you are unlikely to get cavities anyway, without exposing your body to the effects of all that fluoride.

I guess in the end I feel it has some good advice but plenty of bad as well, and I'm happy I am not required to follow the guidelines! For far more incredible detail please see the fantastic Denise Minger's blog.

Protein shopping at the supermarket

2011-01-31T13:16:00.001-08:00

Today happens to be unusually nice - though nasty weather is expected in tonight and through Wednesday at least. Grrr. I'm ready for winter to be do done. But as long as the sun was out I decided to run up to Whole Foods to buy one of my guilty pleasures - Applegate Farms hotdogs, made from organic grass-fed beef. While I was there I ended up going on a protein buying binge, picking up a bunch of my other faves they had in stock. I got three packets of grass-fed ground beef, three of my fave Wellshire Farms center-cut bacon, two packs of hot dogs. I got some blue cheese made locally from raw milk from Jersey cows, and raw-milk cheddar. Kerrygold butter was on sale for about the same price I pay at Trader Joe's, so I got some of that too. They had the Skytop organic grass-fed heavy cream, so two of those jumped into my cart, and I decided to try to Skytop plain whole-milk, cream-top yogurt as well.

They also had mascarpone cheese on sale for Trader Joe's prices as well, so I got two of those also. I love mascarpone. A spoonful or two of that is a total dessert. There, even if the weather is as nasty as they are predicting, and the roads get icy as I fear they may, I should have plenty to keep me going for a while. I came home and cooked some bacon in a skillet, then in the bacon grease (supplemented with some coconut oil) I cooked up some chopped up onion. When the onion was browned I added in the grass-fed ground beef, and when that was all browned I added in some Trader Joe's Three Cheese Tomato sauce. Yum.

I bought a great tripod to use with my new spotting scope, which I tried out a week or so ago, and it was great. I wanted to get back to the Meadowlands or the Kearny Marsh to use it again, but didn't get moving fast enough today, and the next few days are out. Oh well, at least I did get a little birding trip to Rifle Camp and Garrett Mountain today.

Sweet Potato Pancakes

2011-01-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm back from 2 1/2 weeks in North Carolina and Florida. I had a nice visit with my sister, and really enjoyed Christmas with my son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. John is as cute as they come and getting cuter every day as he learns more and more.

So the holidays were great, but I ate too much, and too much of the wrong stuff to boot, so back to mindful eating again now. This morning I made sweet potato pancakes for breakfast and had them with bacon. Yum, will definitely makes these again!

Sweet Potato Pancakes

1 smallish sweet potato (about the size of a Valencia orange, the one I had weighed 116g)

1 egg

2 Tbsp peanut flour

pinch of sea salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

dash of nutmeg

water

Mix all ingredients except water with a stick blender. If the batter seems too thick to pour well then slowly add a little water to get to the right "pancakey" consistency. Then cook on a griddle as you would any pancakes. I cooked mine in the grease from my bacon. Smaller pancakes are best for maximum flipability. Serve with fresh butter and whatever else you like. I use Kerrygold butter made from grass-fed Irish cows! Yum.

I've felt great being back on track with my eating, more energy, etc. I went to DeKorte Park yesterday to try out the AWESOME Christmas gift my son and DiL gave me -a spotting scope.

I quickly learned that the tripod I already had at home was no good for this use - not tall enough, not sturdy enough. I got a backache from stooping to look into it, and it was shaky and wobbly, and panned very jerkily. A fine tripod for indoor use with a camera, but NOT great for bird watching with a scope. So that was a learning experience, and it was a great day anyway.

I saw quite a few birds, including the northern pintail below, and the scope, even with all the faults of the tripod, helped me ID several birds, including a belted kingfisher, group of white-throated sparrows, and two birds who posed obligingly and turned out to be starlings!

Plum Pudding

2010-12-15T13:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, I confess I'm not good at creating recipes. Not that I can't create tasty things in the kitchen, but because I'm the sort who hates to measure stuff, and rarely measure anything when cooking. I'm definitely a "pinch of this and a blob of that" sort of cook and almost never make something the same way twice.

But I've been thinking a lot about Christmas dishes lately, and remembered how I used to love to make a steamed Christmas plum pudding every year. But it's been many years since I made one, and I no longer touch wheat or sucrose. Both of them do bad things to me and I can't see any reason to include them in my daily diet.

I do enjoy some "sweet" on occasion, and lately have used erythritrol or sometimes stevia as sweeteners, each as equally "natural" (or unnatural, LOL) as table sugar, but neither affect my blood sugar or cause dreadful cravings.

Erythritrol, from: http://altmedicine.about.com/od/herbsupplementguide/a/erythritol.htm

Erythritol is a naturally-derived sugar substitute that looks and tastes very much like sugar, yet has almost no calories. It comes in granulated and powdered forms…Erythritol is classified as a sugar alcohol….Sugar alcohols also occur naturally in plants. Erythritol is found naturally in small amounts in grapes, melons, mushrooms, and fermented foods such as wine, beer, cheese, and soy sauce…Erythritol is usually made from plant sugars. Sugar is mixed with water and then fermented with a natural culture into erythritol. It is then filtered, allowed to crystallize, and then dried.

Or from: http://altmedicine.about.com/od/herbsupplementguide/a/stevia.htm

A plant native to South America and Central America, stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) produces sweet leaves that have long been harvested to flavor foods and beverages. In recent years, a stevia extract called rebaudioside A has become increasingly popular as a natural sugar substitute.

though adds:

If you're seeking a new natural sweetener, you should also consider erythritol (a nearly calorie-free sugar alcohol extracted from plants).

So lately I have been using Truvia, a combo of both of the above, as it's commonly available in supermarkets. And lately I've been using a lot of coconut flour too, so wondered if I could use the two to make a plum pudding. Of course it would have to be a slightly different plum pudding, one without the typical raisins (which I hate) and currents (which I like) because the sugar hit would have been too much for me.

So I gave it a try the other day, and it actually came out pretty well! It seemed like a plum pudding. Alas it DID stick and fall apart a bit as I removed it from the bowl it was cooked in, you can see the top looking pretty lumpy in the photo above. But I made an attempt to measure things as I cooked - though much of it is weighed in the more classic European fashion, which tends to be much more accurate. Some of the amounts (such as the tallow, butter, etc) were just because that was the amount I had on hand, but it worked, so here we go:

Plum Pudding

170g beef tallow*

110g butter

140g chopped fresh cranberries (about 1 1/3 cups)

60g chopped pecans (1/2 cup)

60g chopped hazelnuts (1/2 cup)

60g sliced almonds (1/2 cup)

1 tsp grated lemon rind

100g Nevada Manna SF chocolate chips (1/2 cup) OPTIONAL

1/4 cup heavy cream

6 eggs

1/2 cup Truvia

1 tsp ground clove

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 cup Irish whiskey

* Tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton fat, processed from suet. It is solid at room temperature. Unlike suet, tallow can be stored for extended periods without the need for refrigeration to prevent decomposition, provided it is kept in an airtight container to prevent oxidation...Wikipedia says "Christmas pudding is a steamed pudding, heavy with dried fruit and nuts, and usually made with suet." I've never been able to find suet, but I can get tallow from my Amish farmer.

Melt tallow and butter in a large oven proof bowl, until softened but not liquid. Remove from oven and stir, adding in the cranberries, lemon rind, pecans, hazelnuts and almonds. Then add Truvia and the spices, then the heavy cream. It should be cool enough by now to add in the chocolate chips, if desired, without them all melting. Then add in the eggs and beat until everything is well blended.

At this point turn the whole concoction into a small well-greased metal bowl which will fit into your crockpot with some room to spare around the sides. Put about a cup of water into the crockpot and lower the bowl into it. Water should come up roughly 1/2-2/3 up the side of the bowl. If it's not high enough gently add more water, trying not to get any into the plum pudding mixture!

Turn crockpot to high and cook about 4 hours. Pudding is done when it is springy to the touch in the center. You can probably cook it on low also, for longer. I just happened to start it late in the day and wanted it to be done before I went to bed. :-)

When done remove bowl carefully from crockpot (I needed to use two sets of tongs). Allow to cool for a bit, then turn out onto a platter or bowl. Mine fell apart when I did this, but I just pulled out the rest and stuck it on top!

Gently spoon the Irish whiskey over the top, letting it absorb into the pudding. If the whiskey gets all the way down to the plate just spoon it up from there and keep adding to the top. It soaks up pretty well. Then place in fridge to cool.

This is sort of dense and rich, so makes about 12 servings. Nutritional info per serving:

Calories: 413, carbs: 14,2g, fiber: 10.4g (so net carbs = 3.8g), fat: 36g, sat fat: 15.4g, alcohol: 3.8g, protein: 4g.

I had to try it out once it had cooled, and did add a squirt of homemade whipped cream on top, and a small sprinkling of nuts "for pretty". It tasted quite good.

Of course if I made it again I would probably not do it exactly the same. I'd love to see how it came out using coconut oil instead of the beef tallow, for example. And I would probably add more clove and nutmeg, and maybe cinnamon. It was less spicy than I prefer. If I had some unsweetened dried blueberries (which I can get at Trader Joe's) I would probably add some of those too. I might add a tablespoonful of molasses. And I wonder how it would be with peanut flour? And if you don't want the whiskey you could probably use something like DaVinci sugar-free Irish Cream syrup. Decisions, decisions. And it's not as if I make Christmas plum pudding every day of the year!

I'm still feeling excellent, and looking forward to Christmas with my family. It's been cold here lately, but yesterday afternoon I did go out to the gym to do my Slow Burn workout, and had a swim, and since I was out I went up to Rifle Camp Park and Garrett Mountain to do some birding. Brrr, it was cold! 30-40 minutes was about all I could take.

But I did see a whole flock of these Ring-necked ducks, about 20 of them.

And in addition I saw this Mute Swan. They are plentiful enough in New Jersey, but I have never seen one at Garrett Mountain before, so that was an interesting find for me. It will add to my site Life List as kept by eBird.org.

But by then the sun was starting to sink low over the horizon. It was barely past 4 PM, but we are only days away from the Winter solstice after all. I can't wait for the light to begin returning though. But Garrett Mountain was lovely in the golden afternoon glow, so I had to take a picture of that as well.

Bird-Friendly coffee

2010-12-09T13:29:00.001-08:00

This is a Cooper's Hawk I saw this morning in a 2-hour birdwalk through NJ's Hatfield Swamp, in 20-degree weather! There were 5 of us hardy souls and while I saw no new Life Birds it was fun to get dramatic close-ups of the Cooper's above and a Red-tailed Hawk, and also saw a brown creeper, great blue heron - 19 species in all. We did some checking for owls. Walk leader Dave Hall's son had put up a bunch of wood duck nest boxes in the Swamp for his Boy Scout Eagle project in 1999, and apparently some owls use the boxes in the winter. An owl would have been a life bird for me! But we didn't find any, alas. Oh well, I got *eight* new life birds on my 6-hour marathon birding session at Manasquan Inlet last Saturday, so I guess my average for the week is still pretty good. :-)

And while I love birding, and love reading about nutrition, I have not given much thought to places where they might coincide. But on Monday night I went to DeKorte Park to hear a talk on bird migration by Pulitzer Prize finalist Scott Weidensaul. They also had copies of his books for sale there, so of course I had to buy one - Of a Feather - and got him to autograph it for me. (it's a lot cheaper at amazon, but not autographed!).

But in his talk Scott gave a list of things that people could do - simple things - that could help with bird migration. I was happy to see I already did quite a few of them - planted bird-friendly native plants in my yard, use no pesticides or chemical fertilizers in my yard, buy organic as much as possible, keep my cats indoors. But I admit it never occurred to me to look for toilet paper made from recycled paper. Nor did I think to look for bird-friendly coffee.

Coffee of course is a controversial subject. You can find statements like this:

A German experiment from November 2008 discovered that caffeine appears to play a role in endothelial repair. Other investigations have reported that, if anything, regular coffee use tends to reduce risk markers relating to endothelial health (E-selectin) and systemic inflammation (C-reactive protein) which have both been associated with cardiovascular disease. The research that demonstrates positive effects for both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee could possibly be explained by other health promoting phytochemicals such as kahweol which is found in all forms of coffee.

A recent examination by the Center for American Indian Health Research at the University of Oklahoma looked for a correlation between coffee use and type-2 diabetes in a group of 1,141 men and women. The study volunteers were followed for an average of 7.6 years. Their ages ranged from 45-74 years old. The participants who drank the largest amount of coffee (a whopping 12 cups or more) demonstrated a 67% reduced risk of developing diabetes during the follow-up period. The authors of the investigation concluded that “a high level of coffee consumption was associated with a reduced risk of deterioration of glucose metabolism”.

And you can find contradictory evidence like:

Daily consumption of caffeine in coffee, tea or soft drinks increases blood sugar levels for people with type 2 diabetes and may undermine efforts to control their disease, say scientists at Duke University Medical Center...The findings, appearing in the February issue of Diabetes Care, add more weight to a growing body of research suggesting that eliminating caffeine from the diet might be a good way to manage blood sugar levels.

Or you can find statements like this:

Daily use of coffee results in the secretion of more cortisol which increases the production of lactate. Studies so far suggest that high level of cortisol shrivel the division of the brain that is responsible for memory. High volume of this hormone affects your immune system and decreases your body’s power to resist infections. If you take more than 3 cups of coffee daily then it will result in the depletion of your adrenals. If the adrenal gland is over stimulated, it may result in fatigue, insomnia, weight gain, depression and a weakened immune system. Usually, caffeine stays in people’s system for about eight to thirty hours. The presence of caffeine in the system leads to the release of more glucose in to the blood stream followed by a stern fall in blood sugar. Coffee also provides more stress on your kidneys.

Or:

From everything I've read about adrenal fatigue and the adrenals, the two biggest drainers are excess sugar consumption and excess stress. Now, yes coffee is a stress, and the body does recognize all the stress the same (doesn't matter whether you're being chased by a lion, or you just got a divorce).

The fastest way to burn out the adrenals through stress is the emotional/mental stress. Because that can go on forever, or at-least long periods of time and in unlimited amounts.

With coffee, a certain amount of cortisol is released with the normal half-life. But with emotional/mental stress, you can consistently release large amounts of stress.

So if you really want to avoid adrenal fatigue, head in the direction of a positive mind-set, and get the sugar under control.

Wherever you go you can find pros and cons. Many of them. I've had stages of my life where I drank 3-4 cups of coffee a day. I've also gone for months where I eliminated coffee entirely. I certainly didn't feel any different in any of the cases. I never got "caffeine jitters" from drinking coffee. I never felt tired and unable to get going when I didn't have coffee. I enjoy the *taste* of coffee. I usually have one cup every morning. And I do it because I like the taste and I agree with some of the pros of coffee drinking. But I don't *need* it. I went on my 2-hour birdwalk in the freezing cold this morning without having had any coffee, or experiencing any need for coffee.

But I also listen to the cons, so do limit myself to that one cup daily. But now I have to think about making it be "bird friendly" coffee! To understand what this means go here. I have to look for shade-grown coffee.

Not only better for birds, but better for people, and for the biosphere in general:

In its natural environment, coffee most often grows in the shade. However, most cultivated coffee is produced on full-sun,monocropping plantations, as are most commercial crops, to maximize production per unit of land. This practice is, however, detrimental to the natural environment, since the natural habitats which existed prior to the establishment of the plantations are destroyed, and all non-Coffea flora and fauna are suppressed - often with chemical pesticides and herbicides.... In addition, shade-grown coffee is considered by some to be of higher quality than sun-grown varieties, as the cherries produced by the Coffea plants in the shade are not as large as commercial varieties; some believe this smaller cherry concentrates the flavors of the cherry into the seed (bean) itself.

Keep that in mind if you are a coffee drinker.

Green Friday

2010-11-27T18:01:00.000-08:00

Instead of doing something crazy like shopping the day after Thanksgiving I went on this marvelous sponsored birdwalk at DeKorte Park in the NJ Meadowlands. I was *not* one of the people who kicked themselves for missing it. It was great! And I saw two new Life Birds - the Ruddy Duck, and the Northern Pintail (who is in the photo above). I also saw my fave - the Peregrine Falcon, pictured below - who is the bird I've often said I would want to be if I was a bird. :-)
It's especially nice to have the health and energy to be able to go on these birdwalks - which bring me such pleasure. The scale popped up a few pounds after Thanksgiving day, but I'm sure it will pop back down shortly too. I ate to enjoyment, but not enough to feel full and stuffed and bloated. And the food was all delicious *whole* food - no fake frankenfoods. I felt GOOD after my Thanksgiving meal.

And was full of pep and able to enjoy my birdwalk on Friday. I'm looking forward to more.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T18:19:00.001-08:00

I had my sister and her family over to my house for Thanksgiving today. I had fun setting the table, using plate and glassware I inherited from my parents. The menu consisted of:

- roast turkey breast

- "baby" corn bread stuffing

- my "easy" version of a green bean/roasted red pepper/pearl onion dish from "Southern Living" magazine

- roasted acorn squash

- homemade cranberry relish using Truvia and pure orange extract

- carrot/coconut muffins

- Carolina cauliflower "rice"

And for dessert:

- Brownie biscottis

- Pumpkin pie

- Coffee/decaf with fresh "Abner" cream

Many thanks to Maria Emmerich, as I used several of her recipes today. I have much to be thankful for - especially a lovely family. I'm looking forward to Christmas which I plan to spend with my son, daughter-in-law and darling grandson. My son tells me they hope to cook a Christmas goose!

gluten-free pie crust

2010-11-24T17:00:00.001-08:00

It's Thanksgiving time, and my thoughts turn to pumpkin pie. I love pie but the traditional wheat crust just does not agree with me. Since I hit my mid-40s I began having severe intestinal distress whenever I ingest gluten grains. And I'd much rather live without severe nausea, diarrhea, daily vomiting, depression, and stiff and aching joints, thank you very much! I get all those symptoms where I eat gluten grains, and they all vanish when I banish them.

So I have experimented with alternative pie crusts, and most have been nasty. I can't *stand* the "so-called" gluten-free mixes you can pie in the stores - usually full of nasty cr*p I don't want to eat anyway. I've tried almond meal crusts were are okay, but just don't have the texture of pie crust!

But this week I finally came up with a recipe that is gluten free, but also rolls out like real pie crust, has a similar texture to real pie crust, and tastes good too! This is how the crust looked after I rolled it out with the rolling pin between two sheets of waxed paper:

So this is the recipe I came up with:

Gluten-free pie crust

3/4 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup peanut flour

1/4 cup macadamia nut oil (can use light olive oil, or melted coconut oil too, have tried both)

1 tbsp heavy cream

1 tbsp water

1/2 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and blend until the ingredients all come together in a ball. If it seems too loose and floury slowly add a little more oil, a teaspoon at a time - rarely you might need another tablespoon or so of oil.

Place the ball on a sheet of wax paper, squash it down a bit, then place a second sheet on top, and begin rolling with a rolling pin as you would any crust, rolling out on all side until you have a round crust big enough for the pie pan, as in the picture above.

Then remove top paper, place pie pan over the crust, and then flip so that the pan is on the bottom and the paper on top, and slowly peel the wax paper off the back of the crust. This part does not work quite as well as with a wheat crust, but if it comes apart a bit you can just press it back together with your fingers when it's in the pan, and then use fingers or a fork to crimp the crust at the top edge of the pan just for "pretty". :-) That's the stage my crust is in in the following picture:

It looks a bit messy as I didn't add *quite* enough oil. But at this point I'm ready to add the pumpkin filling, which I made using this recipe:

Pumpkin Pie

1 small (15 oz) can of plain packed pumpkin

1 cup heavy cream

2 eggs

1 tbsp molasses

1/2 cup Truvia

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground clove

1/4 tsp ground mace or nutmeg

pinch of salt

Blend all together in a large bowl using either a whisk or a hand-mixer. When all is blended pour into the prepared crust as below. Here is the pie ready to go into the oven:

Then bake at 350 until the pie is lightly browned on top and firmish to the touch in the middle (not jiggly). In my oven this takes about 45-50 minutes or so, and comes out looking like this:

So that's my pie all ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow, and will be served with nice fresh whipped cream too. Yum.

Note: pie crust recipe can be easily doubled for a double-crusted pie. I've also tried it with all coconut flour, but was not overwhelmed with the taste or texture.

It's the protein, dummy

2010-11-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty religious about checking my blood sugars for at least the past 18 months or so - and sometimes they are up and sometimes down - but never as low as I would like them to do. At least not since spring of 2009. Back then was when I was trying to eat following the Kwasniewski diet, and I was getting totally normal blood sugar readings down in the 80s. But I slowly drifted off as it was a hard eating plan to follow if you want to have a normal social life and go out and eat. That's because it limits the amount of protein you are allowed to have, ro an amount considered enough to preserve your muscle mass - but not more. It basically means things like no more hamburgers when you go out to eat - you can only eat half the hamburger. No more steaks, you can only eat one third of the steak, or maybe one quarter.

So I slowly began eating more protein again. So did I put two and two together and realize there was a tie-in to my slowly rising blood sugar also? Well maybe at the back of my mind I did, but I enjoyed my protein, so kept thinking there had to be some other way to control my blood sugar, but nothing else worked that well, so I began to think my metabolism was just totally and fatally busted.

But this past week I went back on the Kwasniewski plan. Kwasniewski believes that if you are going to eat carbs you are better off eating the starches, rather than fructose-containing carbs, and I wanted to enjoy some of the starchier fall veggies I was getting from my CSA haul, so I decided to add in some starches and cut back my protein to the Kwasniewski levels.

And within only 2-3 days I suddenly found I was getting blood glucose readings back down in the 80s again! The reading above is what I saw this afternoon two hours after eating lunch. Below is the fasting blood glucose number I saw this morning when I woke up. Last night for dinner I had a 2-egg leek and potato frittata for dinner, with plenty of sour cream added to it to bump up the fat, and topped with some shredded cheddar cheese. My one-hour PP reading after that meal was 114, my 2-hour reading was 101. By bedtime I was back down to 87. Okay, smack me upside the head, dummy. This time I'm sticking with Kwasniewski's protein goals. :-)

And as an added bonus, since going back on Kwasniewski, my weight hit a new low this morning since I began seriously monitoring with daily weighings - which was January 2009.

Bird Walking

2010-10-24T18:07:00.001-07:00

It's funny how our childhood conditioning sticks with us. Eagle Rock Reservation is a county park not far from where I live. When I worked in West Orange for 17 years I used to drive through Eagle Rock every day (except in bad weather when the park roads were closed) to get to and from my office. The view of Manhattan is wonderful from there. But I have never actually been in the park much itself. In my childhood we used to drive through there too, but my mom would always warn us that we should *never* actually go into the park itself. She constantly told us that sex maniacs in the form of rapists and rapist/murderers lurked along the trails of Eagle Rock waiting to prey on the unwary who ventured off the road.

So I have enjoyed birding in many other country parks in the area, but have *never* ventured into Eagle Rock, even though it's been more than 40 years since mom made her dire warnings. Yet, as I've driven through the park I've noticed one parking area often filled with cars, and the people getting out of the cars heading into the park have been people with dogs, families with toddlers - quite normal, unmaniacal looking folks. So on Friday I was coming home from 1) my acupuncturist, and 2) my picture framer, where I had one of my paintings framed - and I was passing through Eagle Rock. And it was a glorious day and leaves were all ablaze. I had my binoculars and camera with me, and decided to stop and go for a walk! The vista above is what greated me as I headed down the trail and into the woods.

As I went further I came up along a ridge where there were breaks in the trees showing the Manhattan skyline. I had meant to walk just a short way in to check it out, but it was so marvelously lovely that each turn of the trail brought me to something else I needed to check out, and so I kept going and going - until suddenly my trail ended, giving out onto a suburban street. Where was I? I found a sign saying I was at Afterglow Ave. in Verona. Wow, I had no idea the park even went there. At that point I had to turn around and go back again, but the way back was just as lovely. I walked for 90 minutes, and saw maybe a half dozen other people on the trail, all quite normal folks. Except for one asian man with a huge camera with a foot-long lens all the other walkers had dogs with them. Everyone nodded politely and said hello, not a maniac among them. And I saw two new life birds! A hermit thrush and a ruby-crowned kinglet, bringing my Life List up to 135 birds.

That walk was so lovely that today I decided to take a walk at Rifle Camp Park(in the photo above), another park I've often driven through, but have never gotten off the beaten path of the road before. And it was lovely also. No new life birds but I saw birds galore, including multiple yellow-rumped warblers, and white-breasted nuthatches, and another ruby-crowned kinglet, and a northern mockingbird, a downy woodpecker, a goldfinch, tufted titmice, an eastern phoebe, 9 wild turkeys, several crows and blue jays - 18 species in all.

As I walked along the crest of the hill I also got a wonderful view of the Manhattan skyline. It was a bit hazy today, and the skyline does not show as clearly here as it did from Eagle Rock the other day.
So I used the zoom lens on my camera to show you what I was seeing! Anyway, not really FOOD related, but it is HEALTH related. Eating real food is what helps give me the energy to go on walks like this. When I used to eat JUNK, like sugars and refined grains and processed foods, I never had any energy. I dragged myself to work in the morning and then home again at night, and would occasionally drag myself to things in the evening or on weekends. But that's what it was, a drag! Now I WANT to do these things. I love doing them. The weather is glorious now and I'm already envisioning trips to the Great Swamp and to the Meadowlands.

And I think I'll even go back and explore more of Eagle Rock!

Water Weight

2010-10-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, this photo may not seem to have much to do with the title of this post, LOL, but there is a connection. So I have to backtrack to begin my story.

My dad died on December 31, 2009. My mom had died almost exactly 5 years early on December 18, 2004. When she died my dad just kept all her stuff, but when he died we had to go through all the stuff, and that included my mom's jewelry.

Now my mom was never one for expensive jewelry, most of her stuff was costume stuff, but my two sisters and I divided her stuff up based on our likes. She had one ring that I sort of liked, although it was filthy dirty, and missing a stone right in the center - though it had two pretty red stones on the left and right, and it also fit me, so I decided to take it. But of course it was sort of unwearable with the center stone missing, and filthy as it was. I didn't think it was worth much but it had sentimental value, so I took it to a jeweler to see if he would be willing to clean it, and repair it and find me a third stone - which I assumed was actually just glass.

So imagine my surprise when he told me the two stones actually still on the ring were quite nice quality *rubies*. And he said it might take him a while to actually find a third ruby that was of similar quality, clarity and color as the other two, and I would be talking $$$. But I decided to go ahead with it since the ring was an inheritance, and I picked it up from the jeweler yesterday. And a lovely job he did on it too - cleaned and brightened, and repaired the prongs, which were rather loose (undoubtedly how the middle stone had gotten lost). And he did a wonderful job of finding a stone that exactly matches the two end stones still on the ring!

So many thanks to Craig at Valley Jewelers in Upper Montclair, NJ.

It was rather loose on the ring finger of my left hand, so I moved it to my right hand (which has a slightly larger knuckle) and it fit fine there.

So to come back to the blog focus a bit - I was away in Canada last week, and got home Friday afternoon, so weighed myself at home Saturday morning for the first time in almost 10 days, and I was down at my lowest weight of the last 4 years, which was quite nice to see on the scale.

And then yesterday I was out and about and busy most of the day, with barely time to eat! A small protein shake and 4 brazil nuts for breakfast, and then for lunch I barely had time to eat a can of sardines, and that was it all day until 7:30 PM.

But I was out for the afternoon with friends, and we decided that we would stop at the local Whole Foods and buy food from the salad bar, and come back to friend's house and watch a DVD and eat our dinners. So that was what we did. I selected some pulled pork and bacon, and some various veggie dishes, and the ingredients all *sounded* quite acceptable.

But then this morning my scale was up *three and a half pounds* from what it had been the previous morning. One can hardly gain 3 1/2 pounds of fat overnight. It had to be water weight. And the proof seemed to be in the ring. This morning I went to wear it for church, and I could barely squeeze it onto my right ring finger, so I ended up transferring it to the left where it was comfortable.

But as the day went on it began to feel looser and looser on the left ring finger. Finally I ended up transferring back to the right finger. I'm still wearing the ring, but now even on the right it's feeling loose enough that the stones keep slipping to the underside of my finger as I type.

So the moral of the story seems to be "be careful what you eat" as if we didn't know that moral anyway! Clearly something from Whole Foods must have caused me to retain fluid. One more argument for doing your own cooking from fresh whole foods, as opposed to Whole Foods, LOL.

I made a really yummy Langostino Florentine for dinner tonight with nice CSA spinach, and langostinos from Trader Joe's. I'm hoping the loose ring fingers mean the scale will be back down again tomorrow!

Trying new veggies

2010-09-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting things about getting veggies from a CSA is that you never know what you will get! Which of course often means I get pounds and pounds of things that I don't eat. But it also means that I sometimes get things I've never had before.

Like just this week - where I got a big bunch of swiss chard. I've never had it in my life before now, and didn't even have a clue about how to cook it. I'm sure there are many ways but I did a quick google and the first recipe I hit seemed simple enough, so I made my own modifications and prepared it. I cut the ribs from the leaves and chopped up the leaves, as in the photo above, and then sauteed the leaves in butter with some garlic.

And I have to say it was awesome. Sadly, the recipe page I used quoted the following:

I never liked Swiss chard, until several years ago I had some that had been freshly picked from a friend's garden. It was so sweet and buttery I couldn't believe it was actually Swiss chard. It was then I learned that freshness was the key determinant to whether chard was delectable or detestable.

Hmm, so unless I get more swiss chard next week my odds of getting it very fresh are slim indeed. But I sure enjoyed it while I had it, and today I intend to cook up the ribs using the other recipe referenced on that first page but minus the pasta!

Back to the Gym

2010-09-23T16:21:00.001-07:00

Well, I finally went and renewed my membership at Jersey Fitness. My membership had long since lapsed, and when I was working I basically had to go there at either 5 AM, or in the evening after dinner. And I just found it harder and harder to think about getting up to go there at 5 AM. And in the evening after dinner I didn't want to go out and do anything strenuous!

But now that I have joined the ranks of the unemployed I have more time on my hands. And I find I can go to the gym at 9 AM, a civilized hour, and find it nearly empty. It's just perfect. I love Jersey Fitness because they have a *pool* and I love to swim. True the YMCA has a pool too, but it's much more expensive, a real pain to park at the Y, the pool hours are so often limited and constrained, when the pool IS available it's always full of other swimmers.

Here the pool is basically available all the hours the gym is open, and I almost always have the pool completely to myself. I went for a nice swim on Tuesday when I rejoined, and again this morning, and I plan to go tomorrow morning too.

I know exercise does not help with weight loss. In fact there are many who actively discourage exercise if you are trying to lose weight. I know plenty of dieters who GAINED weight when they added exercise to their regimen.

But it just feels so good to swim. I adore it. It's almost like a moving meditation. And now that I have my prescription swim goggles I don't have to stumble around blindly either.

My new membership also gives me a free 30 minutes with a personal trainer, so I'm going to ask for a refresher on using the weight machines, and try to start up with Fred Hahn's Slow Burn program as I found it hard to do at home.

Wearing Jeans

2010-09-16T15:47:00.000-07:00

Well I'm finally back after being away for two weeks - a few days with my sister and her husband in North Carolina, then on to Florida to spend a week with my son and daughter-in-law and grandson to celebrate my grandson's first birthday, then back up to spend a day with a cousin in North Carolina, and back home again.

So that was two weeks of being without a scale, and not eating exactly as I would normally like to be eating, though I did my best to stick with my eating plan for the more part - although I caved to the Awesome Coconut Cake for my grandson's birthday (which I made myself, and it is indeed Awesome - but of course filled with evil ingredients, LOL). And also two weeks *without a scale* which is scary for someone like me who really relies on daily weighing to keep myself on-track and focused.

So it was with some trepidation that I got on the scale when I returned home, even though all the clothes I had worn on the trip were still fitting fine. So I didn't *lose* any weight. But I'm at the exact same weight I was when I left for me trip, so that's a victory in and of itself.

I had packed a pair of jeans in my suitcase, but it was far too hot in NC and FL to wear them, so they never left the suitcase. But it's been cool and fall-like here in NJ the last couple days, so I have put on the jeans up here.

And interestingly, they feel even a bit looser on me right now than they did when I left for my trip. No explanations for that. I guess I could have lost a bit in inches. But I won't take any meaurements as that generally leads to major disappointments when I do. But it's nice the jeans are so comfy. And my sister up here in NJ, who saw me two weeks ago, said "wow, you're looking thinner" when she saw me today. So maybe it is the inches since the weight is the same.

Lazy Moussaka

2010-08-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

I call this "lazy" because I used pre-made tomato sauce from Trader Joe's in the recipe. I don't normally do this sort of thing as I prefer being a "from scratch" cook, as I hate most prepared foods and their long lists of icky ingredients I don't want in my body. But I was at Trader Joe's the other day, and I know they are often better than most about things like that, so I picked up a bottle of sauce and looked at the ingredient list. All real foods, and nothing I wouldn't eat or use myself anyway (as long as I was having tomato), so I popped it into my grocery cart, and today I found a use for it in my nightshade moussaka dish.

But if you are a *really* lazy cook you might still think this recipe is too much work. :-)

Lazy Moussaka

- 1 lb. ground beef (mine was grass-fed)

- 1 largish leek (onion is fine but I had a leek)

- 1 green pepper

- 3 tomatoes

- 1 eggplant

- 3 medium-sized potatoes

- 1/2 a jar of Trader Joe's Three Cheese Pomodoro Pasta Sauce*

- 1 tsp. cinnamon

- plenty of cheese of your choice, shredded or thinly sliced

Pre-heat oven to 350 F (180 C)

Peel and then thinly slice the eggplant, and lay slices on a paper-towel lined cookie sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt, and set aside. This will drain some of the watery juices from the eggplant, and some feel it helps get rid of the bitter taste some people experience. (note if you have more eggplants you are welcome to use 2-3 of them and slice a little thicker. I just happened to have only one, so this recipe is how I made it).

Then peel the potatoes, and slice them thinly as if for potato chips. Place in a pot of water, and bring to a boil, cooking until you can pierce them with a fork pretty easily. Then drain.

While they are boiling slice the tomatoes thinkly into slices. Set aside. Then chop and dice the green peppers and the leek, including as much of the leek's green top as you wish. Ditto if you are using scallions. Obviously not an issue if using a plain onion.

Then saute the leek and pepper in a large skillet with your choice of cooking fat. I used bacon grease. When they have softened and slightly browned transfer them to a large bowl.

By now the eggplant should have drained, so take the layers and layer them on a greased baking sheet. I used coconut oil for the grease. Place in oven to bake.

Put the chopped beef into the skillet and saute until the beef is browned. Then add the cooked beef to the pepper and leek in the large bowl. Pour in a half jar of the Trader Joe's Three Cheese Sauce, add the tsp of cinnamon, and blend well.

Check the eggplant. If sliced thinly enough they should be easily pierced with a fork at this point, and slightly browned. You can flip them if you want and let them lightly brown on the other side too.

Then get out a 9x13 casserole dish, and grease it. I use coconut oil for the grease, but olive oil or butter would be fine too.

Remove eggplant from oven. Then line the bottom of the casserole dish with half the eggplant. On top of that place a layer of half the potato. Then top with a layer of half the tomatoes. Spoon half the meat mixture on top of that and try to spread evenly. Sprinkle or layer half your cheese over the meat. Then repeat the eggplant/potato/tomato/meat sauce/cheese layers with your remaining ingredients.

Place in over and bake for about 20-30 minutes, until heated through, and the top layer of cheese is a bit browned and bubbly. Enjoy and eat!

* Trader Joe's Three Cheese Sauce Ingredient list:

- imported Italian plum tomatoes, Romano, Parmesan and Asiago cheese (milk, salt, cheese cultures, enzymes), olive oil, onion, salt,, crushed garlic, oregano.

NOTE: I have been having one serving of this every day for three days now, but my knee has not been bothering me. I guess the jury is still mixed on nightshades.

Nightshades Redux

2010-08-23T11:16:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I posted about nightshades. I had decided to give them up to see if they alleviated the terrible arthritic pain I had in my knees. Well as often happens you start out with good intentions, and you start having a slice of tomato here, a few home fries there ....

The good thing about the experiment is that I had *no* knee pain the entire time. And over the years my knees have given me so much trouble to the point where sometimes I feel I can hardly walk. So was it the nightshade ban? Or were my knees just going through a period of calm? After all, my ban was not total. It was more a low nightshade period rather than a no nightshade period.

I still don't know. But my son and daughter-in-law joined a CSA earlier this year before my son was offered the job that took them down to Jacksonville, Florida. But they had already paid for and committed to the season. So they told me and my daughter-in-law's parents that we could use the remainder of the season, and pick up the weekly vegetables.

My daughter-in-law's parents had picked them up the last four weeks while I was up in Canada. But this past Tuesday I made my first pickup. What did my order include?

- 4 beets

- 1 bunch of leeks

- 4 green peppers

- 1 melon of choice (there were multiple types)

- 1 watermelon

- 2 lbs. of potatoes

- 5 lbs. of tomatoes

- 2 heirloom tomatoes

- 1 carton of cherry tomatoes

- 1 lb. rattlesnake beans

- 1 bunch of parsley

- 1 eggplant

So what do I see on that list? Tomatoes, peppers, more tomatoes, eggplant, potato, more tomatoes - all *nightshades*. My entire order seemed to be the foods I had been trying to eliminate or at least limit, and now I had a week to use these up before my next order arrived.

So I was having leek and green pepper omelets with sides of home fries, sliced tomatoes with all my meat and cheese, and omelets as well. I admit it all tasted good.

But also .... this week BOTH MY KNEES have been killing me. I have not had this sort of knee pain in months. The pain was enough to keep me awake for some hours one night this week. And even when awake I've been hobbling around and popping aspirin.

Is it the weather? The season? Or is it the nightshade overload of the past week? I don't know. But I'm trying one thing. I've taken all the veggies shown in the photo I took above, and I am cooking them up to make a big casserole of moussaka. The moussaka is in the oven even as I type. This will be a real nightshade overload. If I wind up with more knee pain then maybe I will go back into avoidance mode.

But I still have a bunch of tomatoes left (as well as all four beets, 1 remaining leek, and lots of rattlesnake beans), and tomorrow a new CSA delivery arrives. If it is also heavy on the nightshades I may have to find new homes for them.

Farm meals

2010-08-17T16:03:00.000-07:00

Yes I ate well when I was up at the farm. I ate hearty, that's for sure, and yet I didn't gain any weight while I was up there. And yet I routinely had things like lobster, lobster stew, cheese omelets, and all sorts of other good things to eat - including farm-fresh blueberries and raspberries. So here is a sampling of some of my meals up at the farm!

Lobster Stew

2010-08-16T17:47:00.000-07:00

We love to have lobster when we are up in Canada on vacation. But we especially LOVE to get an extra lobster and make lobster stew the next day. In fact my son won't even eat a plain boiled or steamed lobster anymore. But he loves the lobster stew!

So I made it a few times up in Canada, twice for myself, son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. And once to invite a neighbor to lunch. This is NOT a recipe for someone who is a fat-phobe, LOL.

Lobster Stew

meat from one lobster, cut into small bite-sized chunks (don't forget the meat from inside the body, lots of good stuff there too)

1 pound bacon

1 medium to large onion, diced

1/2 pound mushrooms, diced

2-4 cloves garlic, minced

1-2 tsp. sea salt

Optional: 2-4 potatoes (depending on size), peeled and cubed

1 quart or 1 liter heavy cream

If potatoes are desired peel them and cut into small bite-sized cubes. Boil until soft enough for a fork to pierce them (about potato salad consistency) and then drain and set aside.

In a large high-sided skillet cook bacon until crispy. Remove bacon from the skillet to drain and cool, and when it is cool crumble into bite-sized pieces.

Add the onions, mushrooms and garlic to the bacon grease in the skillet, and saute until all have browned. If potatoes are being used add the potatoes at this point and the sea salt, and saute for a few more minutes.

Once potatoes have lightly browned pour in the cream. Stir all ingredients well, and continue to cook over low heat, stirring to prevent burning, until the cream has slightly reduced and thickened.

Just before serving stir in the bacon and the lobster meat - and remove from heat, stirring or another minute or two. You want the meat to be heated through, but not overly cooked and toughened. Makes about 4-6 servings and is very hearty.

To lessen carb impact for those you need it you could substitute cooked cauliflower or turnip chunks for the potatoes.

Chocolate Coconut Raspberry flax muffins

2010-08-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

I'm finally back after nearly a month up in Atlantic Canada, enjoying a wonderful respite from the hot weather here at home - and getting my fill of lobster and fresh wild blueberries, and Cole's cheddar cheese. All definite annual treats.

We also got lots of fresh raspberries from our neighbors' garden, and I tried to think of various ways to use them. It's hard to put down recipes though as I so rarely measure things when I cook, LOL. But I did make these muffins and they were pretty darn tasty, so I'm doing my best to recreate:

Chocolate Coconut Raspberry Flax Muffins

1/4 cup flax meal

1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. sea salt

1/4 cup melted shortening (I used a mixture of butter and coconut oil)

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

water or cream as needed

1/2 to 1 cup fresh raspberries

Blend all ingredients through the eggs together. If mixture is very thick (and it probably will be) slowly add some water or cream and blend until you get a thinner consistency. Not as thin as a pancake batter or a commercial cake-mix batter, but definitely thinner than a cookie dough batter.

When consistency seems right gently fold in the raspberries. Add a little of some sweetener of choice if desired. Then spoon into paper-lined muffin cups about 3/4 full. Bake at 350F (180C) until the tops spring back to the touch, maybe 20 minutes. I think this made about a dozen for me.

They are really a yummy treat, and especially good when served warm with some fresh farm butter. And getting a rich burst of fresh raspberry in your bite is a real treat. :-)

I tucked in my shirt!

2010-07-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had an opening reception to go to for the annual Member Show of the Pastel Society of New Jersey. I was fussing around over what to wear, as I especially wanted to wear some new handmade jewelry I bought yesterday. The earrings and necklace were a pretty turquoise color, and nothing in my wardrobe seemed to go with it. Finally I pulled out a cheap $3 T-shirt from AC Moore that I had bought to paint in. But had not used it yet so it was still clean.

It was the only thing I could find in the right color! So I pulled it on over my slacks. But it still looked like a cheap $3 T-shirt, so I tried to see how I could "dress it up", and pulled a vest of the closet. That started to look better. But the T-shirt still looked cheap, and looked a little weird hanging so long below the vest.

So I ended up TUCKING THE SHIRT IN. Maybe only someone who has been as large as I was can understand what a milestone this was for me. It's been YEARS since I last tucked in my shirt. I can't even remember the last time I did it. I like my shirts long and loose so they come way down over my hips, and hide my tummy. The idea of wearing a shirt tucked in is just totally alien to me.

But tonight I did it! And I was not even all that displeased with how I looked. Of course I did have the vest on too. But it's not a long vest. I was actually *okay* with how I looked.

So might as well celebrate the little things in life, . Tucking in a shirt is sure a little thing, but it's a big milestone for me!

The reception was great too. I got to hand out the prizes (didn't win any, boo hoo). Lots of awesome cheeses to try, and some veggies and hummus, and water and unsweetened iced tea. I just avoided the chips and crackers and the dessert and sweet table, and had a great time.

Cauliflower salad

2010-07-04T12:12:00.001-07:00

It's July 4th - the US Independence Day. Typically a day of parades and fireworks, but also a day for picnics and barbecues. I was invited to two today. First a picnic lunch at my sister's house, and second a barbecue at a friend's house. For the first I was asked to only bring myself. For the second I was asked to bring a side dish.

Barbecues classically feature grilled meats of some sort, so from that standpoint provide no problems for eating, but the side dishes are often problematical - things like pasta salads and potato chips (likely fried in trans fats and/or high PUFA oils), or baked beans with lots of sugar.

At my sister's it was so easy to eat. She had fresh cold cuts, including my favorite KerryGold cheese, made from the milk of grass-fed Irish cows. There were pasta salad and chips there too, but also plenty of nice fresh veggies and dill pickles. We sat in her backyard in the shade, with a light breeze blowing, and watched birds and chipmunks and a woodchuck playing in the stream and the woods behind her house - very pleasant indeed. And after eating we took a ride through Rifle Camp Park and Garrett Mountain and saw plenty of deer and wild turkeys. The coyotes were all in deep hiding though, despite the "beware of coyotes" signs posted at both parks!

But for this evening's barbecue I figured I had better bring a side dish I knew I could eat, as I couldn't count on any of the others being acceptable to me, so I made my cauliflower salad, which is very tasty indeed.

Cauliflower Salad

1 head cauliflower, steamed, and broken up into bite-sized pieces

6 eggs, hard-boiled and chopped up

3-4 scallions, cut into pieces, including as much of the green part as you can manage

1/2 shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup spicy mayo

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Turn into a serving dish and sprinkle paprika or cayenne over the top. Chill until ready to serve, at least a few hours, to give the flavors a chance to meld.

As for spicy mayo? I made my own mayo more-or-less following the spicy mayo recipe in Nourishing Traditions. But you can take a cup of any mayo and add to it:

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1/4 tsp hot sauce

1/2 oregano

1/2 tsp thyme

1 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp cayenne

I made it last night and the flavors have been blending since then. The party is in 30 minutes so we will see how it goes over. But I also made it on Memorial Day, and my friend who is having the party today had it then, and requested it for today. So I know at least one person will like it. :-)

Macadamia Nuts

2010-06-17T07:34:00.001-07:00

Oooh, macadamia nuts. When you need a satisfying snack what could be better? Well, I love most all nuts, but macadamias are special. They have that satisfying nutty crunch, but also a smooth, buttery texture which no other nut matches. But best of all they have an excellent Omega6 profile. Since ODing on Omega6 in relationship to Omega3 is essentially rampant in the Standard American Diet I especially like to find foods I can enjoy that are low in Omega6.

Not that macadamias don't have a few drawbacks, of course. One scary thing about them is that they are quite toxic for dogs, and it doesn't take too many of them to bring about toxicosis. This was more of a worry when my dogs Willow and Maggie (especially Maggie), the chowhounds, were still alive. Maggie in particular had a knack for getting into impossible places to nose out food. I used to call her the Rasputin of Dogs as over her lifetime she got into things that were deadly for dogs many a time - ingesting a bunch of dark chocolate, a baseball-sized onion, a half a cannister of raisins - and didn't even cause her so much as a burp, and she lived to be 15 1/2. But I still worry about macadamias even though Bran, my current dog, is much more of a wimp about stealing food. His worst offense is a bite from the cat food bowl as I am taking him out to the back yard.

Macadamias tend to be expensive too. That keeps them from being an every-day treat. But the *worst* thing about macadamias is their addictive nature! They are so awesomely yummy that the old potato chip slogan of "betcha can't eat just one" is especially apt. I've tried to limit my intake by buying the smallish jars in the supermarket - typically 4 or 6 ounces. Yet a jar goes in a single sitting, or a single morning or afternoon at least. I get the jar home, pour a handful into my palm, or a bowl if I'm being fancy. I'll eat those, and decide a couple more can't hurt, so have a few more, then I'll notice there are aren't that many left in the jar, and I'll end up polishing them off! No wonder I don't buy them often.

But the other day I found a solution to it, :-). I was at Costco looking for the wonderful big blocks of KerryGold cheese that they sell there. I found the cheese, but took a quick spin around some of the other aisles too, and spied a large cannister of macadamia nuts. 24-ounces large to be precise. Having that many nuts in the house was a bit scary to contemplate, but the cannister jumped into my cart anyway and I allowed it to stay there. They are dry-roasted (no rancid high-PUFA oils) and salted with sea salt.

And I found that a LARGE cannister of macadamias is better for portion control than a small jar. Who'd a thunk it. But much as I adore macadamias I could still never eat 24 ounces worth at a single sitting. And I could take a good handful to eat but the cannister still looked sufficiently full that I had no urge to go back for more to finish it off. So for the last few days I've had a handful of macadamias as a treat at some point during the day. And I was content with just that handful. I didn't need to go back for more.

So so-far-so-good. Interesting that more means less, as far as eating goes. My weight was down to a new low this morning also, so it is not hurting me there either.

The tyranny of the scale

2010-06-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

To weigh or not to weigh is always a big debate among the community of people who hope to lose weight by whatever method they choose - and there are often heated arguments on both sides. At one end you have people who weigh themselves several times daily, and on the other you have people who never weigh themselves!

Of course there is no right answer to this debate, as the only correct answer is the one that works for the person in question. For ME the correct answer is daily weighing - first thing in the morning.

This helps keep me honest, and keeps me from rude surprises. How many times in the past have I given up daily weighing, only to find that somehow I have gained 20 or 30 pounds in the meantime without realizing it? Alas when you are not a skinny Minnie, as I am not, 20 or 30 pounds is hardly noticeable. That is until you step on the scale and then it creates depression.

Only last summer I spent two weeks up in Canada without a scale, and I would have SWORN I kept to my eating habits, and ate only Real Food, and didn't eat any differently than usual. But when I got home I found I was 12 pounds heavier than I had been on the day I left for Canada, and I HATE rude surprises like that. Even eating as healthily as I can does not save me from those sorts of surprises.

So daily weighing keeps me on top of things before that 12-pound gain happens. But this past week I spent in North Carolina without a scale. I tried to be careful about what I ate, but I was still worried. I was especially worried as the day before I left for North Carolina I had inexplicably gained 4 pounds overnight. In the past such overnight gains were very common, but since I have modified my diet to avoid most all processed foods, and sticking to healthy real foods, I have rarely seen overnight gains like that. The scale varies up and down, but in much smaller increments.

So being scaleless in North Carolina had me nervous. Another 4-pound gain there would have put me at a number that would have been depressing for sure. The only good thing was that I tried on my jeans the day before I left to head home, and they still fit comfortably. The jeans are the only good barometer for me without a scale, as most of my other clothes can easily accommodate a 10-20 pound gain without perceptible change in comfort.

But getting on the scale on the day after my return home I found I was down the 4 pounds I had quickly gained, and was at the current lower end of my weight journey. So that was a relief for me. But getting on the scale after a gap of 8 days is just too nerve-wracking for me. That's why daily weighing is what I need to live with.

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T15:50:00.000-07:00

First of all - Happy Mother's Day to everyone out there. Even if you are not a mother yourself you surely have, or have had, a mother, and therefore it's a fine day to celebrate for everyone. Where would we all be without mothers? :-)

It's a special Mother's Day for me, as it's the first year that includes my fine grandson, and my daughter-in-law's very first Mother's Day as a mother herself.

My son and daughter-in-law took me out to lunch at The Ship Inn in Milford, NJ, a British-style brew pub which has long been a family favorite. Their standard menu is one we have always enjoyed, although they often have weekend and holiday specials as well.

When you are on an eating plan that is not the "standard", and you follow various blogs and message boards, you will find those who exhort you not to deviate one iota from your plan, and others who tell you "it's a holiday. Eat whatever you like."

Hmm, well my own feeling is that option two is often a slippery slope that can lead to more and more reasons to find "special". But that option one is sometimes too stringent.

My own method tends to be more middle-of-the-road, as I tend to be about things in general. Does this make me wishy-washy? A mugwump? Hey, it works works for me. Try not to go wildly careening off center - no falling face-down into plates of pasta made with white flour. But don't freak out about every bite.

As for my own meal- I drank only water with a lemon slice in it. I split two appetizers with my son and daughter-in-law, so had one potato skin with crumbled bacon and Stilton cheese, and some chicken sausage sauteed with apple slices, both very tasty.

For my main meal I got the "catch of the day" fish, which came with some sauteed veggies, a small seaweed salad, and sweet potato fries. I did eat a few of the fries though most remained on my plate, but the few I had were tasty. And I gave in to a dessert as well, sharing a serving of cheesecake with my son.

But at the risk of TMI, on our ride home I was overcome with a case of intestinal distress and had to make an emergency stop at a Walmart, to run in and use the restroom. "Hmmm", I thought to myself, "something at the restaurant must have disagreed with me."

And as I was writing this post I decided to google on escolar, which was the type of fish I had eaten. I was not surprised to read that it is sometimes referred to as "super white tuna" as I have never seen a fish so white! It was so blindingly white it almost looked fake. The white-meat codfish my daughter-in-law had in her fish and chips looked outright dingy in comparison. The flesh was as true a white as glossy white paint, and had a rich buttery taste and texture. The fact that Wikipedia says it is often sold as "butterfish" or "oilfish" does not surprise me in the least.

But the fact that *did* surprise me was reading that its sale is banned in several countries because of the severe intestinal distress it has caused consumers, and that at one time the FDA had issued a bulletin recommending against its importation for sale because of this.

At least it solves a mystery for me, and I now have a good idea why I needed to make a stop at Walmart on the way home! But it certainly tasted good while I was eating it. However I think escolar will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.

Starvation rations

2010-04-28T07:05:00.001-07:00

This is a picture of my breakfast this morning. Coconut pancakes with a side of bacon. Does it look like I'm deprived? Yet the scale dropped again this morning. I'm now down 110 pounds, with 10 lost just since mid-March. And yet I eat food like this *every day*. In fact this is the same thing I had for dinner last night - though today I'm shaking it up a bit later on with a shrimp and scallop stir-fry with snow peas and mushrooms and garlic, and I have some chicken livers lined up for later on in the week.

Besides, only 4 eggs left until my next Real Food delivery on Saturday, so I have to husband them wisely. :-)

Yet when most people think of the word "diet" they think of starvation rations. Breakfasts of a small fat-free yogurt and a slice of dry toast with black coffee. Lunch of a small salad with minimal dressing. Dinner of a dry skinless chicken breast. etc. In many ways I feel it goes back to our Puritan roots - obesity is a *sin* caused by gluttony and sloth, and therefore you must do penance to atone for it - which includes starvation rations.

And I'm sure everyone hears that all "diets" are doomed to failure, and inevitably people gain back the weight they have struggled to lose. Yet I am currently rereading "Good Calories, Bad Calories" where Taubes mentions that the statistics on the high percentage of diet failure are *all* based on calorie-restricted diets.

Yet surely you must restrict calories to lose weight? Isn't that what everyone says? I don't have the answers, but the more I read the more I am convinced that it's the kind of calories that matter, and not the specific number. And what kind?

Well I don't think low fat is the answer. I don't think high grains is the answer. I do think adequate protein is part of the answer, and that decent levels of fat is part of the answer. And I definitely don't think sugars or refined grains have any part in the answer, nor high-PUFA vegetable oils.

So I don't even *count* my calories. In fact I don't count anything these days. I just eat to appetite from the food groups I allow myself - good fats, good carbs, good proteins, no processed foods with long lists of frankenfood ingredients. Basically everything is made at home from scratch. I'm a supermarket perimeter shopper. That's where all the real foods are. I don't even go down the aisles unless I need toilet paper or laundry detergent.

Do I have the final answer? Damn, I wish I did. I don't think anyone has it yet. But this way seems to be working for now. 110 pounds down total, and other health markers improved as well.

But I keep reading books and blogs. I don't want to become too wedded to my own beliefs, as who knows what new truths will come to light tomorrow.

Coconut Pancakes

- 1/4 cup cream

- 2 eggs

- 2 Tbsp coconut flour

- 2 Tbsp whey protein powder (optional)

- 2 tsp baking powder

- pinch of celtic sea salt

- packet of Truvia if desired

Mix all ingredient together in a bowl until smoothly blended. If necessary add water to thin the consistency. Then cook as you would any pancakes, though you need to keep them small - like silver dollar pancakes. Otherwise they are unlikely to flip well! I usually have them with bacon. I cook the bacon first, then cook the pancakes in the bacon grease. Otherwise I cook them in coconut oil.

P.S. - based on the comment I got I did try adding 2 tbsp of whey protein powder to the mix. I'm not sure yet if I like it better, but it does make them come out with more of a "pancakey" texture.

Make a Joyful Noise

2010-04-25T09:50:00.001-07:00

I sing alto in a church choir. Besides singing weekly for the Sunday service we also perform two concerts a year, one at Christmas and one in the spring. Today is the day for our spring concert, and I finally feel pretty comfortable with the music and ready to go.

This morning at church I happened to pass one of the sopranos in the hallway. She has a lovely trained voice and has been a paid choir section leader for years, though she is singing as a volunteer with us. Her husband teaches voice and has one of the best tenor voices I've heard, and he sings with us as well.

As we passed she reached out and stopped me. "I just wanted to tell you", she said, "what a lovely voice you have. I'm not usually in a place where I can hear you, but the other day I happened to be placed where I could hear you singing. I was really surprised. I told my husband, 'wow, Deb Cusick has a really nice voice'. That's a fine instrument you have there. Congratulations."

Naturally I was quite chuffed, and even managed to just thank her graciously, unlike the "old me" who would probably, instead, have started sputtering out all the things that were wrong with my voice.

So, other than tooting my own horn, what does this have to do with a food blog? Nothing specifically perhaps. But someone who is ill-nourished is unlikely to be able to sing well. There is a lot involved in singing, breath control probably being one of the most important. You have to be able to get the breath support from deep within your diaphragm, and to control it to be able to sustain a line.

Someone who is ill-nourished is also likely to have weaker muscles, less diphragm control, just less energy all around.

I certainly had less energy back in the "bad old days". Our choir director often makes us stand to rehearse certain numbers, especially for a final rehearsal. That used to kill me! I never had the energy to stand and sing, and would stubbornly stay in my chair while everyone else was on their feet. And I could never take in enough breath to sustain me to the end of a line, and was constantly having to sneak in little catch breaths.

Here we are at the dress rehearsal yesterday. I'm the one in the second row to the far right, with my head tilted inward. We were rehearsing the second half of the program here. But the first half features a performance of Randall Thompson's "The Peaceable Kingdom" as well as his well-known "Alleluia". Both are a capella works and we will sing them straight through. "The Peaceable Kingdom" alone takes about 20 minutes to perform.

Since it's a capella the orchestra will have moved, and the choir will come out and stand in front of the organ console to perform the work. So that was how we rehearsed it yesterday. Since it was a rehearsal it didn't take 20 minutes! We had to keep going back and repeating things, so it was probably more like 40 minutes, plus the Alleluia. So that was more like 45 minutes straight on my feet for rehearsal. I could never have done that in the days when my diet was so much worse, and I weighed 109 pounds more than I do now. I would have had to walk off and sit in a pew.

So energy and strength are certainly among the good things I have been acquiring, and which have helped me greatly with my voice. I came home from church and had some delicious parmesan-crusted chicken thighs and some coconut-rhubarb compote for lunch, and that will surely sustain me through the concert.

Farmer's Markets

2010-04-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

I love farmer's markets, or the idea of farmer's markets - fresh local produce brought directly to you, the consumer, at the height of ripeness. Although, alas, many "farmer's markets" don't fit that bill. There is a farmer's market in the park across from my office every Wednesday during the summer. But the farmers are in short supply. It's mostly prepared food vendors - local restaurants setting up stands to sell hot lunches to the business crowd. There is one token purveyor of produce (although with lots of pies and breads and cookies) but it depresses me so to see the bananas and oranges offered for sale there, and wondering where New Jersey's orange groves and banana plantations are. Local produce????

But the farmer's market in nearby Montclair, NJ is a fabulous one - a shining example of all that a farmer's market should be. I wait each year for it to open, usually in June. But my run-in with the "seasonal produce" google gadget made me realize I had read somewhere that there was a spring farmer's market open in Montclair.

So I went over this morning. Yes, there were two local vendors there. One was selling freshly made Polish food - sauerkraut, stuffed cabbage, kielbasa, some other meats, pierogies, etc. The other was a farm vendor. Sure enough, his only fresh produce was lovely asparagus, but he also had fresh eggs, grass-fed meats, freshly-made cheeses, his own tomato sauces. Their sauces are lovely - made with fresh ingredients and spices, with no preservatives or additives, no sugar, no HFCS. I especially love their vodka sauce which is a standard tomato sauce but with the addition of vodka (naturally) and heavy cream. I nearly bought a jar before I remembered I was avoiding nightshades for the time being. :-)

But I did buy some grass-fed ground beef, some fresh asparagus, and a container of the Polish sauerkraut. I began trying to quiz the vendors about how the sauerkraut was made but they hadn't a clue. They did assure me that it was made by a Polish lady using old-fashioned Polish methods. Well shades of Dr. Kwasniewski - I figured it was far better than supermarket sauerkraut and bought some of that too.

And as I was driving home I got the email that my Real Food order was in, so I just went right on to pick up my order of 3 dozen pastured eggs, 1 quart of grass-fed heavy cream, and two packages of dog food meat (beef ground up with all the bones, blood and organs) for my collie, Bran.

So all in all it was a good morning's haul, and I'm less peeved now about my google gadget. I had delicious orange pancakes for breakfast (sour cream, an egg, a pinch of salt, some baking powder, a rounded spoonful of coconut flour, a rounded tbsp of low-sugar orange marmalade, and some water to make it the right consistency) with some Whole Foods bacon, I have two pork loin cutlets marinating right now in a pork marinade from Julia Child's "The Art of French Cooking" for dinner - maybe with some saurkraut, or fresh asparagus, and maybe some more of my caramelized onions. Tomorrow I'll do something with the grass-fed ground beef, yesterday I had delicious chicken livers with caramelized onions, as well as a great veggie (red cabbage, zucchini, mushroom) omelet with Wensleydale cheese. I feel like I've been eating like a Queen lately, and the scale has dropped a couple pounds over the last few days. Can't beat that. :-)

Pretty Chickens's Caramelized Onion recipe:

- 3-4 pounds of onions, peeled, sliced into slices 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick, then separated into rings

- 1 cup (two sticks) butter

Put one stick of butter on the bottom of a slow cooker (you can slice up into pats if you want). Then put all the onion rings on top. Then slice the second stick of butter into pats and put on top of the onions. Turn the slow cooker on to low for about 14 hours, and you will have perfect caramelized onions! Chickens's recipe did not include salt. but I *might* add a pinch of salt if I make these again.

What's up with Google Gadgets?

2010-04-17T05:28:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, this is really just a silly sort of rant I suppose. But when I first set up this blog I thought it would be cool to include some nice google gadgets to dress it up a bit Of course there are thousands of google gadgets, so what to add? Since this is a blog that centers around food I thought a food-related gadget would be fun to include.

So I searched the gadgets and found one called "Seasonal Foods". Its little description reads:

Seasonal Fruits and Vegetables. Every day see the fruits and vegetables which are in season in your area. See what foods are growing near you. Click to find recipes for any ingredient. Fresh, seasonal food should be an important part of our everyday diet. Support your local farmers and growers and see what is available in your area for the freshest, most delicous foods you can find.

And this sounded perfect to me! I'm moving in the direction of being more of a locavore which would involve eating fresh foods in season. When I started my blog in March the gadget sadly told me that nothing was in season in the NY area in March. But now in April I'm starting to see things...but my list is: apples, onions, potatoes, turnips....

Hmmm, seems like an odd list to me. I mean apples and potatoes seem like classic *fall* foods to me, not foods that are in season in mid-April. Heck, the apple blossoms are barely starting to bud! So where does this list come from. This site shows asparagus and spinach as being fresh in NJ at this time but does list apples, onions, potatoes and turnips (and a few others) being available locally from area greenhouses.

Okay, I guess that is still local. But hothouse products were not what I had in mind for a gadget promising to show the produce that was in season. I thought it would show lists with items more like this:

Oh well, I'll keep it for a while and see what it comes up with as the growing season progresses. Otherwise I may be gadget shopping again.

On a personal note, I have lost 6 pounds in the last month, so that is a total of 108 pounds lost. Yay me. I'm having to break out jeans that were still a tad too tight for comfort a month ago. Now they are feeling fine.

Babies - then and now

2010-04-08T04:48:00.000-07:00

(John, March 2010)

Yesterday on my way to art class I stopped by to visit with my 7-month-old grandson, John. John is clearly the cutest baby on the face of the earth at this time. :-) He's a sturdy little guy, and at 30+ inches long and 21+ pounds he's big for his age. But though you seem to hear a lot about the obesity epidemic, even in infants, John is clearly not fat. Sure he has baby fat, but just the normal round cheeks and chubby thighs of a well-nourished infant.

I'm so impressed with the care and attention John's parents give him, and how determined they are to do the right things to raise him in a happy and healthy and well-nourished manner. Yet don't most of us wish to do the same thing? I know that was certainly my own goal in raising my son, but the paths of knowledge I had available to me in 1978 were not even close to those available to new parents today.

John has been breast-fed from birth, but he is now also a fearless eater, willingly trying new things. His parents use a baby food grinder to puree their various adult foods into things for John to try. One of his favorites is a mixed banana-and-liver puree. Did baby food grinders exist in 1978 when my son Brock was born? My sister, whose oldest was born in 1981, says she used the food grinders for all of her children.

Yet when Brock was born in 1978 I had never heard of such a thing. I had never seen a baby food mill, my pediatrician never suggested such a thing, no one else that I knew who had babies or small children had ever used such a thing. Babies were fed "baby food". I was, then as now, widely read and had dozens of books on child-rearing and feeding, and none of those had anything about baby food mills in them. In that pre-google era it was sometimes hard to know what you didn't know.

But I "knew" some things about the way I wanted to raise my child. I knew I wanted to breast-feed him for one thing. Luckily, in 1978, that was a relatively easy thing to do. I was a breast-fed baby myself, and when my mom chose to do that with me in 1952 she was regarded as almost mentally deranged. In her solidly middle-class world this was not "done". Babies were almost exclusively formula-fed, and she had to fight tooth-and-nail against her doctor and the hospital, who were determined to give her injections to dry up her milk. Mom was really quite a pioneer in the back-to-breastfeeding movement.

But by 1978 the movement was well underway. When I was admitted to the maternity ward I was matter-of-factly asked "breast or bottle" so that I could be paired with a roommate doing the same thing. We breast-feeders were a minority still, but a very sizable one.

I had also, in my reading, come across reports stating that babies who were breast-fed exclusively, with no solids foods, up to the age of 6 months, were less likely to become obese as adults than babies who were introduced to solid foods earlier. So I had decided on breast-milk only for at least 6 months. But I didn't accomplish this goal. Brock was a big baby at birth, 8 lbs. 14 oz., and he continued to grow steadily on his breast-milk diet, so by the time he was 4 months old the pediatrician felt he needed to start getting introduced to solid foods.

So I started slowly introducing him to "baby foods". It seems amazing to me now - but back then baby foods were almost all heavily adulterated with sugar and salt. Heck, maybe food coloring too. But I was totally determined *not* to fill my baby with sucrose. Despite my incomplete knowledge even back in 1978 I had the nebulous idea that things like table sugar and white flour were bad for your health, and I was determined to keep them away from my baby as long as possible.

By 1978 baby foods that were sugar and salt free were just beginning to appear on the market, and I was a ruthless reader of labels. So Brock got nothing with added sugars or salt, his baby food being supplemented by foods that were easily soft or easily mashable - gently scrambled eggs, unsweetened applesauce, mashed bananas, mashed sweet potato. And I continued to breast feed.

My pediatrician told me that babies were not capable of digesting cow's milk prior to about 8 months of age, so that if I stopped breast-feeding before then I would need to go to formula. But after 8 months I could transition him to cow's milk. But I was not to give him full-fat cow's milk! I was told this was too fatty for babies. Fortunately he didn't suggest skim milk. He did tell me, quite correctly, that babies *need* fat in their diets - but that 1% or 2% milk would be fine.

So again I was determined to breast-feed past 8 months as I didn't want to expose my son to that "evil" formula. I began weaning him, finally, at 10 months, in preparation for my return to the work force, and we transitioned to 2% milk as I was fearful about going against my doctor's advice about the full-fat milk, but the 1% was just too thin and watery for me to want to give it to my child.

But Brock thrived and was a healthy baby - and had the usually baby chubbiness without being the least bit obese. He was a normal, healthy weight.

And in fact I came to appreciate the US baby food market even more when I took Brock up to his first summer vacation in Canada in August of 1979. Baby food in jars does travel well when unopened, and I took a big cache of it up to Canada with me. And I was happy I had done it as baby food without added salt and sugar didn't exist in Canada! I tried several supermarkets and could not find a jar or fruit or veggies that didn't list sugar as one of the principal ingredients.

(Brock, August 1979)

So Brock existed on a lot of meat along with the fruit and veggies jars I had brought, supplemented by the foods he could eat from the adult world. He was able to handle chunkier textures by then, and surprised me by eating almost all the blueberries it had taken me a good 30-40 minutes to pick.

So how does this early feeding affect us? I was breast-fed, and was such a skinny beanpole of a child that my pediatrician accused my mom of not feeding me properly. But then I hit puberty and began to gain weight, and have struggled with weight issues my entire adult life, even though up to age 11 I was about as skinny as I could be.

(Debbie - 1963)

And my son was the same. He was a skinny little stringbean also until he hit about the age of 10 or 11. And then he began to gain weight and has struggled with weight issues as an adult also.

Of course there is more to diet than mere infant food. My childhood diet was awful - full of white bread and sugar and margarine and processed food galore. I tried to do better by my own child, but still fed him plenty of whole-wheat bread. And while I tried to avoid white sugars and limit other sugars we did have lots of brown sugar and maple syrup and honey. I remembered my own "cookies and milk" childhood snacks and wanted to make the same for my son. So I was always baking Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies - except instead of white flour I use half whole wheat flour and half old-fashioned rolled oats. And instead of the 3/4 cups of white sugar and 3/4 cups of brown I only used a cup of brown, and I added in tons of chopped nuts, and I used to add it lots of dried fruit.

Okay, I *thought* I was being healthier! Yet when my sister was babysitting for my son one time she made Tollhouse cookies with him and just followed the recipe as written - white flour, the mixture of white and brown sugars. "Yes, *real* chocolate chip cookies!" my son exclaimed.

So what determines these things? Due to health problems my mom was unable to breast-feed either of my two younger sisters, so they were both bottle babies, and both grew up eating the same diet I ate as a child. Yet both remain slender into their 50s and neither has ever had a problem with obesity.

Yet I also have the feeling that maybe baby formula was actually better then that it is now. That was prior to the high fructose corn syrup era, so I know the formula was not adulterated with that. It was also prior to the vilification of tropical oils, so might have contained coconut oil also. But I don't know what it did contain. Maybe google will help me out. :-)

So here is the $64,000 question. Will John's diet keep him fit and healthy as he grows into a child and a young man? Only time will tell, of course, and who knows what new nutritional knowledge will come our way over the next 20 years?

Easter Dinner

2010-04-06T05:31:00.000-07:00

This year again I hosted Easter dinner at my house. Guests were my sister and her husband and two college-aged kids, my son and daughter-in-law, and my 7-month-old grandson, and my DiL's parents. As was the case last year it was a bit tricky trying to plan the menu. That's because I knew I would have leftovers, and I no longer want to serve any food or drink that I would not eat myself. My eating plan is not *that* restricted. I'm not a raw vegan or something totally out in left field. But I have a few "don'ts" - all of which are heavily infused into the Standard American Diet. My don'ts?

- No gluten grains, especially no wheat in any way, shape or form

- No sugars, or at least very very minimal sugars

- No highly-polyunsaturated vegetable oils

I also sing alto in the choir at the Glen Ridge Congregational Church so would be there most of the morning, so I needed food that I could prepare ahead of time, or that would be easily cooked between the time I got home and the time my guests were due to arrive at 1:30 PM.

This is finally the menu I came up with:

Easter Menu

Starters:

Brie cheese with sesame/flax crackers

Shrimp with garlic tahini sauce

Roasted peanuts

Main Course:

Orange-teriyaki chicken, with mushrooms

Garlic roasted pork loin

Asparagus with Hollandaise sauce

Artichoke-spinach casserole

Sweet potato casserole

Sliced tomatoes

Coconut blueberry muffins

Butter/salt/pepper

Beverages:

Iced tea/water/hot tea/decaf/coffee/wine

Dessert:

Rhubarb compote with whipped cream

Lemon meringue pie

Okay, I was not going to eat the tomatoes since they are a nightshade, but I had bought some vine-ripened tomatoes before deciding to try a nightshade-free diet, so figured I might was well use them up on my guests. The peanuts were a birthday gift from my other sister in North Carolina.

The biggest issue is dessert. I could have served just fresh berries with whipped cream. That was what I did last year. But when I was shopping at the supermarket I found fresh rhubarb in the produce department and I adore rhubarb! But it can't be eaten raw, and is way too sour without some sort of sweetening.

For sweeteners I used stevia and erythritol which, arguably, are at least as "natural" as table sugar (meaning not very, but I don't feel they are any worse, and they don't affect my blood sugars as table sugar does).

My sister brought the lemon meringue pie and I believe she used Splenda as the sweetener.

I had never made Hollandaise sauce before. It was easy and delicious! Essentially mayo made with melted butter rather than olive oil. I'll have to make it again. :-)

That was probably my last holiday in my house. I'm sad to be leaving it after 30 years, but with my job going to India, and May 31 being my last day at work, I need to find somewhere cheaper to live. The hardest part of the process is going through 30 years worth of clutter! I confess I'm a major pack rat and bookaholic.

Nightshades?

2010-03-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

(artwork by Debbie Cusick)

Many members of the nightshade family are relatively low carb - things like eggplant and tomato. Yes I've heard bad things about the nightshade family, but nothing that seemed apply to me, until I was reading a post on nightshades today from the Weston A. Price Foundation's blog:

And that was mention of a link between nightshade consumption and arthritis. Now I do have severe osteoarthritis in my left knee, no cartilage at all there. The orthopedist told me to keep his card as sooner or later I would need to be back for knee replacement surgery! And sometimes my knee just hurts like hell. And sometimes it's fine. Could it possibly be a food related? The WAPF post says:

For those of you who think you have tried “everything” for your arthritis pain, tried this and tried that but haven’t tried avoiding nightshades— in my opinion, it’s something you do need to try... If you’re one of those people whose pain treatments (be it chiropractic, acupuncture, laser, energy medicine, whatever!) provides only a day or two of relief, you’re quite possibly nightshade sensitive.
A physical therapist once told me that if a patient isn’t responding to treatment, one of the first things to consider is nightshade sensitivity— there is simply nothing else that anyone can do to help somebody in pain when nightshade sensitivity is the cause—because once they eat some nightshades again, their pain will return as it was before.

Could I be sensitive?The WAPF article asks the same question:

But the real question is, why are some people more sensitive than others? Nutrient deficiencies certainly come into play. For example, if you don’t have enough magnesium, you will be more prone to calcinosis. Deficiency in vitamin D may exacerbate the problem. The speed at which one’s liver and kidneys detoxify these compounds plays a huge role, and this is dependent both on genetics and nutrition...A key nutrient is vitamin K₂

_{Hmm, I already supplement with magnesium, D3 and K2 (both MK4 and MK7). But when I get the knee pain it's still excruciating. Is it worthwhile trying to avoid most of the nightshades? This website lists the common ones.}

Potatoes, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, tamarios, pepinos, pimentos, paprika, cayenne, and Tabasco sauce are classified as nightshade foods.

_{And also goes on to add:}

A particular group of substances in these foods, called alkaloids, can impact nerve-muscle function and digestive function in animals and humans, and may also be able to compromise joint function.

_{Of that list I guess tomatoes are the ones I have most often. Heck, I plant them in my garden!}

_{Arthritis.about.com points to a university report which warns:}

"No foods have been definitively shown to cause or exacerbate arthritis in most individuals. A variety of diets and hand-me-down information exists about certain foods and arthritis, in particular the night shade plants, but none of it has been proven."

_{In other words, very similar to other nutritional dicta - unsupported by the mainstream, but lots of anecdotal evidence to support it. The 'about' article above had lots of comments from people about how eliminating nightshades alleviated their pain.}

_{I have honestly never thought of tracking my pain and seeing it it correlated to anything in my diet. Yet last week I was in such pain I was delving back into the ibuprofen - which I had been trying to eliminate to ease stresses on my liver. I was also eating up a couple big eggplants last week too. Possible relationship?}

_{At any rate, I think at this point I'm willing to try an experiment of one to see if going nightshade-free helps, and to try to be more mindful, if my pain recurs, about what I may have eaten in the previous days. This week I am totally pain-free, and have also been nightshade-free. Not purposefully. It just happened.}

_{But damn, I will miss moussaka. One of my favorite dishes. But I'm giving it a shot.}

Caffeine or not Caffeine?

2010-03-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

That is the question. I have to admit I adore the taste of coffee. But I never really got into the whole caffeine "buzz". I'm just as happy with a good cup of brewed decaf because I still get the taste I like. Yes, I know decaf is not totally caffeine free so it I were trying to kick it utterly I'd have to give up even decaf - not to mention chocolate, black teas ... eeek.

But what is the status of caffeine? The three respected authors of the recently published The New Atkins for the New You say:

Caffeine also gently assists the body in burning fat ... Moderate caffeine intake is actually associated with improved long-term health and regulation of body weight.

Dr. Briffa has a recent post on his blog that states things like:

Coffee, despite its not-so-healthy reputation, has been quite consistently linked in the scientific literature with benefits for health including a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia. See here,here, here, and here.

But warns:

While the research regarding the effects of coffee on health is voluminous, the great majority of it comes in the form of so-called epidemiological evidence. Such studies can identify associations between things, but that’s about all.

And then comments on a recent study:

I was therefore interested to read a study published in the April edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition which looked at the effect of coffee-drinking on a variety of biochemical surrogate markers for disease [1]. A group of coffee drinkers were asked to abstain from drinking coffee for a month. The following month they were asked to drink four cups of coffee a day (a total of 600 mls of coffee a day). The month following this they were instructed to drink 8 cups of coffee a day.

Compared to drinking no coffee, drinking 8 cups a day was associated with significantly reduced levels of inflammatory markers (interleukin-18 and 8-isoprostane), as well as significantly raised levels of adiponectin (a hormone is secreted by fat cells, and has been shown to have generally beneficial effects on the body’s physiology including an anti-inflammatory effect). These effects may be relevant not just to cardiovascular disease, but diabetes too. The authors of this study point out that inflammation is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

For what it’s worth, the higher coffee consumption was also associated with lower ratios of LDL to HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B to apolipoprotein A1. These changes in the lipid levels in the blood would generally be taken as evidence of reduced cardiovascular disease risk.

Dr. Michael Eades finds:

I can still say that there are many, many studies out there indicating that coffee has a protective effect against heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes. So I highly recommend it. In fact, I’ll go on record as saying that if we could have a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of coffee I predict that coffee would be much more protective against heart disease than the statins.

Yet on the other side of the coin:

Mark Sisson, at "Mark's Daily Apple" says:

And, apparently, some of us are “slow caffeine metabolizers” (who knew?). Being part of this crowd and partaking of caffeine, some research shows, puts us at increased risk for non-fatal heart attacks. Caffeine has been shown to also raise blood sugar levels in those with type 2 diabetes.

And Dr. Eades also cautions:

No one likes coffee more than I. But when I want to pick up my weight loss after I’ve gone off the wagon for a while, I cut back on my coffee. Why? Because caffeine is metabolized in the liver just like...drugs. It also consumes some of the liver’s capacity. I switch to decaf for a few days whenever I’m getting back on the straight and narrow.

The iconoclastic Matt Sone claims:

The second pillar of metabolic ruin is habitual usage of substances which overactivate endocrine glands and neurotransmitters – better known as “drugs.” These include everything from prescription medications, most of which have a direct impact upon the biochemical system in some way, to recreational drugs, to “street drugs” such as artificial sweeteners, refined sugars, alcohol, and caffeine – all of which are recognized to be highly addictive precisely because they are stimulating in ways that normal foods are not.

Lots of other stuff out there, both highly pro and highly con. So what's a body to do? I certainly don't want to become a "True Believer" on the issue, as described by Tom Naughton, from a book by Eric Hoffer, in Tom's recent blog post.

Tom quotes from Hoffer's book:

It is the true believer’s ability to shut his eyes and stop his ears to facts which in his own mind deserve never to be seen nor heard which is the source of his unequalled fortitude and constancy. He cannot be frightened by danger, nor disheartened by obstacles, nor baffled by contradictions, because he denies their existence.

Of course Hoffer equates True Believers with fanatacism, and I certainly don't feel I am fanatic about anything, but I don't want to get wedded to my own beliefs either - not where health and nutrition are concerned! So for now I sit on the fence, and have a cup of real coffee about 2-3 times a week, and a cup or two of decaf on other days. I love it with either heavy cream or coconut oil added to it, and am just as happy to have it black. But one way I cannot *stand* coffee is with added milk. And skim milk? Might as well pour it right down the drain, LOL. If no heavy cream or coconut oil is available I'll have mine black please, and no sweeteners!

Anyway, in honor of this topic I will close with a recipe of mine. :-)

Coffee Jello

- 1 cup HOT brewed coffee or decaf (your choice)

- 2 packets of truvia (or sweetener of your choice to taste)

- one package Knox unflavored gelatin

- 1/2 cup cold water

- 1/2 cup heavy cream

Pour the gelatin over the cold water in a small cup and allow to sit for a few minutes. Pour the coffee into a larger bowl. Then add the cold water/gelatin mixture and stir for several minutes until the gelatin has dissolved. Then add the heavy cream and stir.

Pour into four dessert dishes and chill until set. Good served with a dash of whipped cream on top, and gets you some gelatin, without the icky stuff that commercial Jello has in it. Note that you can decrease the heavy cream and increase the water for less of a carb hit.

About 1g of carbs per serving. Makes 4 servings.

Sunny Spring

2010-03-21T16:05:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was the first official day of spring, and what a glorious day it was. The old adage says that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. It certainly was lionlike earlier in the month, but yesterday was as lamblike as one could wish for, sunny and warm. The crocuses in my yard are blooming and the daffodils are beginning to bud, and dead winter sticks are starting to showing swelling of new buds also.

Yes I know, we've had blizzards in April before, so no relying on March's lamblike nature yet, but it was a weekend so I had to take advantage while I could. For me this ended up meaning taking a ride out to the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.

There was an absolute cacophony of frogs. The noise just boomed throughout the entire swamp no matter where you went, surrounding you from all sides. When you glimpsed some of the small frogs in the water it was hard to believe they had such amazing lung power.

Even snakes had come out of winter hibernation and were sunning themselves on the tussocks and banks of the swamps.

Butterflies had hatched as well, and were flitting here and there. Naturally plenty of birds also, and in all I covered at least two miles of boardwalks and walking trails, and spotted ten species of birds including a new Life Bird for me, the American Widgeon.

So what does this have to do with a food blog? I guess when I think of the healing art of food I mean not only food - but all aspects of nutrition. Lately there has been a lot of press about Vitamin D and its healing properties, and now many of us are deficient in it. I currently take 7500 IU of D3 in gelcap form daily, but of course the classic way to absorb vitamin D is through sunlight.

And yesterday was certainly the day for soaking up the sun's rays. It was actually starting to feel uncomfortably warm. Many people at the Swamp were in shorts and I almost found myself wishing I was too, and I was glad of the brim of my Tilley hat protecting my eyes. I did have short sleeves though, and was able to feel the sun on my arms. I was in the swamp right around high noon, so about the high point of the sun for the day.

I've read, though, that humans have a dramatic drop in the ability to convert sunlight to Vitamin D after the age of 40. Hmmm, if it truly does have such protective properties I suppose that is one of Mother Nature's ways of getting rid of the older generation. If true I'm not going to stop with my supplements. But on a day like yesterday I'll try to get out and enjoy the sun more often.

Slow Burn

2010-03-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

Fred Hahn, author of the 'Slow Burn Fitness Revolution' , was on the recent low carb cruise and he gave some workout demos in the ship's gym for us. It certainly psyched me to give his methods a try, and I did use the machines in the ship's gym following his methods.

Now that I'm home it's not as easy to get to a gym - not that there are not gyms nearby. I used to belong to Jersey Fitness and liked it a lot. But when you go to a gym the 20-30 minutes for the Slow Burn workout turns into more like 90 minutes when you add in the travel and other things. Not quite as easy as saying "Heck, I have 20-30 minutes free right now, let me try this out."

But his book does offer a home workout option too, and since I'm so totally UNfit at the moment I figured I could start there, and did so last night. I knew I was in trouble when the workout started with pushups, which have always been the bane of my existence, when when I was younger and far stronger and more fit. In fact I could not manage even *one* pushup! I could not even manage the lowering portion, let alone the pushing back up bit. I started to lower myself down, got about 3-4 inches down, and my arms just totally gave out and I collapsed on the floor.

Hmmmm, off to a great start. Luckily it got better from there. :-) But I sure felt all a weeble-wobble by the time I had finished all the exercises. Note to self: Don't do this again on a night when I have to go out for a 2-hour choir rehearsal. I just wanted to take a nap after working out - but not only had to get to choir, but it was my night to bring the choir snack!

The choir loves their snacks, which I rarely eat as they are always sugary, floury carbfests. Last time I had had snack snack duty I had tried to provide something "healthy" I didn't hear the end of the moaning about it. So last night I brought:

- 2 rums cakes I bought in the Bahamas on the cruise (chocolate, and vanilla walnut)

- a dish of mixed nuts (brazil nuts, macadamias, almonds)

- some homemade chocolate-coconut candies

Chocolate-Coconut Candies:

1 1/2 oz 72% chocolate (percent can vary, but try not to go below 70%)

3 tbsp coconut oil

1/3 cup thick coconut milk (note: the milk separates in the can into a thick creamy portion and a thinner more translucent portion. I just scooped out and used the thick creamy stuff only)

2/3 cup shredded unsweetened coconut flakes

Place chocolate and coconut oil in a bowl or saucepan and melt using method of your choice. I don't own a microwave so melted mine in my toaster oven. Remove from heat and stir in the the thick coconut milk. Stir until well blended. Then add in the coconut flakes and blend well.

Spoon into mini-muffin paper cups and refrigerate until then have hardened, but they still have a creamy texture because of the coconut milk. This made 18 candies.

So that did it for my choir snack. The rum cakes were pure carbage of course, but the other two choices were not so bad. The nuts were actually popular, and people enjoyed the candies too.

But boy, I could hardly stand when our choir director wanted us to stand to practice some of our pieces, and today my muscles are sore and I feel like quivering Jello. But it's not a painful or injured sore, more a "gee, you sure haven't asked us muscles to do anything like this for a long time" sort of sore, which I guess is a good thing. :-)

Nuts to You

2010-03-17T06:30:00.001-07:00

Okay, I admit it. I love nuts, almost all kinds of nuts. I love almonds and cashews and pistachios and pecans. and macadamias. I wish I could eat them every day, even every meal - though when it comes to nuts I'm trying harder to practice moderation. It's just that they are so darn satisfying as a snack in a way hardboiled eggs never are. :-)

I've been avoiding high-PUFA vegetable oils for a long time now, close to a couple years probably, to keep my Omega6 intake on the low side, but I never really thought about nuts in that context. Now suddenly I'm seeing a lot of press about nuts being high in O6 and we need to avoid them if we want to have low O6 intake. The amount of O6 in a serving of nuts? -

Omega-6 Content Various Nuts (1/4 cup)

Walnuts – 9.5 g

Almonds – 4.36 g

Cashews – 2.6 g

Macadamias – 0.5 g

Brazil nuts – 7.2 g

Hazelnuts – 2.7 g

Pistachio – 4.1 g

Pine nuts – 11.6 g

Pecans – 5.8 g

As you can see, some are far higher than others. The highly touted walnut is close to the top of the list. Nice to see macadamias so low though. I do love them, although I have to be careful if I have them in the house because they are toxic for dogs. But how much O6 is too much? I was discouraged when I first began cutting O6 in my diet to read somewhere that it can take *years* for your body to purge the excess in its tissues. I don't want to hinder that process. I have too many years of damage to undo as it is.

I guess I'm trying to lean towards this quote from a recent blogpost by Mark Sisson:

My general take, as I see it, is that nuts shouldn’t make up the bulk of your caloric intake. It’s not that Omega-6s are inherently dangerous, especially bound up in whole food, nut form; nuts may even be beneficial to heart health, probably by decreasing systemic inflammation. It’s that they’re often too available, too plentiful, and way too easy to consume in excess. What drew our ancestors to nuts – the caloric density and the fat content – is what makes them “dangerous” to modern man. Most seeds, including grains, were passed over because the labor involved in their gathering and their refining was prohibitive with inadequate payoff. Nuts are meaty, though, and they’re dense and (somewhat) filling. It makes sense that we easily snack on them all day, because our ancestors probably gorged themselves on nuts when they were available. We should eat them, too, but it’s important to stick to reasonable, evolutionarily realistic amounts.

I love nuts, and could eat them every day, just as I could cheese! Cheese! Nuts! Toss chocolate into the mix and you've got all my faves right now. :-) When I eat nuts it is the whole nuts, not nut oils. I won't avoid them totally but will work harder to make them an occasional thing, and not an every meal sort of thing!

Eat Real Food

2010-03-16T16:53:00.000-07:00

That's my main mantra when it comes to food and has been for a while - though I will guiltily confess to having occasional artificial sweeteners. But if I do it's still in foods I make myself with real ingredients, and not any commericial sugar-free products which are mostly nasty frankenfoods.

But I buy lovely eggs and raw cream from the Real Food network I belong to, and use Kerrygold Irish butter from grass-fed cows (pretty cheap at Trader Joe's), and try to find organic meats, grass-fed beef, etc. I enjoy following bloggers who investigate these sorts of issues too. One of those I love is Stephan Guyenet's "Whole Health Source" blog. I enjoyed this quote of his for an interview he did at bizymoms:

How do we fix it[metabolism issues causing overweight]? It's always easier to prevent a problem than to repair it, but we still have some tools. First, eat Real Food. Whole, natural foods that you have prepared at home. Throw out anything made with white flour, sugar and vegetable oils. No soda, no snacks. Fat is not the enemy. In fact, it's part of the solution for many people. Many overweight people find that low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets are helpful for weight loss and general health. I don't think low-carb is the solution to all the world's ills, but it has its place. Prioritize foods rich in fiber such as leafy greens, and include seafood in your diet. Many people find that eliminating wheat aids weight loss and general health.

That ties in pretty well with my philosophy. Eat Real Food, whole natural food prepared at home. No white flour, sugar or vegetable oils (okay, I get teensy bits of sugar when I have some 70-90% chocolate), no sodas, no gluten grains. Eat good fats. I don't think low carb is the end-all for everyone, but it works for *me*.

Helps me control my blood sugar for one. For example - last night for dinner I went to a local pub with a friend for their corned beef and cabbage special and I ate a small potato with the meal. Two hours later my blood sugar was over 200!

Tonight I had pan-sauteed duck breasts with sliced cucumber, and some lettuce, onion and tomato sauteed in the duck fat. Two hours later my blood sugar was 130. I don't think starches are the devil, but they don't seem to do well with *me*.

But I'm human. I do wish that I could lose weight too! Okay, I've lost over 100 pounds, but it has taken over 4 years, and now I seem to be losing at a rate of about a pound every few months. Have not lost anything (just bouncing up and down a 4 pound range) since December at this point. And so it goes.

Jicama

2010-03-15T07:16:00.000-07:00

I still remember when I first had jicama. It was in 1983 or so, and I had gone to Disneyworld with my former fiancé for a few days. One night we went to the Mexican pavilion at Epcot Center for dinner and I had a salad. It had something in it totaly unfamiliar to me - light and crisp and sweet and crunchy. I loved it, and asked the waiter what it was. He was stumped and said he didn't know the word for it in English. "No problem", I told him, "just tell me what it's called in Spanish". "Jicama", he replied. I told myself to remember the name, and so I did for *years and years* but without ever once seeing it in a market. Eventually it slipped from the forefront of my memory.

Then a few years ago I was rereading "Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution" and found jicama listed under the induction-friendly vegetables. But I still never found it in the markets. The supermarket I usually shop at caters to a largely Caribbean and Hispanic clientele, but even they don't seem to carry it.

But yesterday I ran up to Whole Foods, and found they had a whole bunch of jicama there, and so I bought two of them. I had seen some recipes online that called for baking them, so decided I would give that a try. I peeled one jicama root, quartered it, and then sliced it into very thin slices as though I were going to make potato chips. This one yielded about 4 cups of slices. So what I did was make:

Jicama Bake

4 cups jicama, peeled, quartered and very thinly sliced

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 tsp cinnamon

Place sliced jicama in a large bowl. Add the cream and cinnamon and stir thoroughly until all the slices are well coated in cream. Turn into a greased casserole dish and bake at 400 F until the jicama has softened, stirring a few times to make sure all the slices continue to be coated with cream. This takes a *long* time. I think I baked it for about two hours. The cream is mostly gone at this point.

But it was yummy, and low in carbs. I've read recipes that use peeled and de-seeded zucchini interchangeably with jicama. I may have to try the recipe with zucchini also, as I'm sure it would cook much more quickly. That jicama took forever. But still good, and I have brown-bagged some to have for lunch today also.

A new beginning

2010-03-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

Well, new for this blog at any rate, though not really a new beginning for me. That began half-heartedly several years ago, when I began to develop some health problems, and seriously about 15 months ago, after I read Gary Taubes's "Good Calories, Bad Calories". That book changed my life like nothing else I had ever read. At about the same time I read Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions" which also had a profound effect on my life.

I was morbidly obese in 2006, and my doctor was pressing me to consider weight-loss surgery, something I totally did not want to do, so I told her I wanted to try a low carb diet - the only thing I had ever felt I could live with forever. Over the next three years I lost 60 pounds on a half-assed low carb diet - one that included lots of cheats and side tracks.

It took Gary Taubes and Sally Fallon to make me see there was more to eating than weight loss, and in January 2009 I began to get serious about eating for *health*. Yeah, I still had a ton of weight to lose, but they made me realize that losing weight was not everything. What I wanted to do was *regain health* and I am totally convinced now that it cannot be done with the processed frankenfoods that so often pass as part of the Standard American Diet.

So my new mantra became, low carb, made from scratch, no frankenfoods, no sugars, no high PUFA oils, no gluten grains. In 2009 I lost an additional 40 pounds, bringing my current total loss to just over 100 pounds. Alas, still miles to go before I sleep. But good health is a journey, not a destination.

Early in 2009 I signed up to go on Jimmy Moore's Third Annual Low Carb Cruise, which took place last week. The cruise was awesome with an outstanding panel of speakers: Dr. Mary Vernon, Dr. Andreas Eenfelt, Dr. William Davis, fitness expert Fred Hahn, low carb cookbook authors Dana Carpender and Judy Barnes Baker, Jackie Eberstein, R.N., who worked with Dr. Robert Atkins for nearly 30 years.

I had decided ahead of time that I would stick to my eating plan and eat only "real food" on the cruise, and found it easy to do. I didn't lose weight on the cruise but I didn't gain either, unlike the folks who claim it's common to come back 10-20 pounds heavier after a cruise.

My friend and shipmate Sandy and I both agreed we want to go back for the 2011 cruise, but we have set ourselves the goal of being thinner and healthier for the 2011 cruise. This is part of my plan to keep myself accountable. I look better than I did 4 years ago and am healthier too, but I hope to be even thinner and more healthy next year. So I will try to document this coming year and what I try to do to achieve my goals, and will close this with a photo showing the me of 2006 versus the me of now. I hope next year to have an even better "now" photo to post.