The title says it all hehehe
But first, a rundown of the past few days...
I now have a Meat Guy. A friend of mine works at Walmart in the meat department. He has now heard every meat-related gay joke, but more importantly he can inform me of special deals and sales before the general public knows about them! For instance, he got me a ten pound bag of chicken leg quarters for 5 bucks 0.0 That's less than half the best price I found at Costco... There are also plans to go to a huge processing plant called Minder's meats when I have some cash, Meat Guy in tow.
Speaking of when I have cash, the first things on the list for new trials include: lamb shanks, chicken liver pate, and (once again) bone marrow. I want to try the bone marrow in a different way though - maybe in a thick stew or something like that. There's also a recipe for pork shoulder boiled in milk (YUM) and steamed whole fish. I've been eying the eels in the freezer at the asian section in the grocery store... they are really loaded with fat and I loved the broiled eel sushi I've tried. Also want to try some duck again in the future - not that it would be new to me, but it is loaded with fat and very tasty. Also expensive, so I will need to get some free from hunters or go hunting myself... And duck season is several months away :/
Anyway, I got to talk to a vegetarian the other day. It was the first time I've ever had to confront someone about the way I eat. He claimed to be a vegetarian because of environmental reasons, citing land use as a major reason. Of all the reasons to be a vegetarian, I think I dislike this one the most. Essentially the solution to the land use/environmental issues is to have fewer people in the world. I don't want fewer people in the world, but I still want to eat meat. Since I live in America, where land use is essentially a non-issue, I considered that argument especially silly, but we chatted about it for a bit anyway. I tried to tell him that animals using land is a relatively efficient use of it, since grass grows almost anywhere year long and doesn't sap soil of nutrients as much as, say, corn does; meanwhile, a cornfield is harvested once a year and requires specific soil and weather conditions. We didn't come to a consensus here but we managed to move on anyway. He asked me if I was afraid of vitamin deficiencies and the host of usual questions, to which I responded flatly "no." I then showed him the nutrition data on various meats, eggs, and butter and showed him that by following a diet consisting only of them I would get almost all of the vitamins and minerals I needed in a day except vitamin C (calcium and vitamin D are the only ones that would be low if I were brave enough to eat liver, and by eating small bony fish I could fix calcium, and sunlight would fix vitamin D). I also brought up the fact that it seems that vitamin C is not necessary for low-carbohydrate diets for some reason, as the inuits show. He insisted that there must be something the body needs that you can only get from vegetables... I answered with fiber, but I haven't had any problems. I had him pretty well flustered, hopefully it will be enough to make him reconsider his vegetarianism... hahaha. No but seriously, I hope it will be enough for him to not think that meat is really bad for your health, which it is not.
As for food adventures, nothing too special except that I ate about 2 sticks of butter on thursday... I also made some teriyaki marinated chicken from the Meat Guy. I was out of ginger though, so the recipe was a bit off. There was a little honey on the marinade, but I don't think much of it ended up in the chicken. At any rate, I'm not worried about the carb content. The story is good though...
The chicken came in a bag and there were 9 leg quarters in it (included pope's noses!). They were all frozen into a truly solid block of ice and chicken parts. After letting them sit in a giant bowl of water for several hours, I managed to pry them apart. I let them thaw some more while I made the marinade. The marinade had some soy sauce, garlic, chives, honey, wine, and cloves (may have been more, but I can't remember). I stuffed the chickens into a baggy with the sauce and let them continue to thaw and marinate for half the day. Then after a long day of tutoring, I started roasting the chickens at 9:30... It was supposed to take only an hour... But 45 minutes in, my oven crapped out and cooled down to about 200 degrees. So the chickens never got above 150ish, and when I cut one of them open it was bleeding. I tried cooking the chickens more, and after giving them 25 minutes it still wasn't enough. I let the chickens "rest" for a bit (LOL cooking term!), not knowing what to do... then I decided to boil/steam them in a skillet. After 20 minutes the coldest spot was just under 160, so i decided I'd just give it a few more minutes... then lost track of time and came back about 25 minutes later and the probe was practically at 200... lol. I was pretty sure the chicken was toast, but it tasted great - I cleaned up an entire quarter and then broke open the thigh bone for the marrow - and that was amazing. Unfortunately, by the time I was done eating it was 1:30...
Basically I've decided that I need to eat more poultry, it's basically my favorite food.
H'okay, so, It's really late and I want to get this written before I forget about it so I'm going to do my best now.
INPUT
Breakfast: Half a super quiche, no bacon
Lunch: 4 eggs with hollandaise sauce, chopped up bacon, about 3 pieces
Afternoon Snack: 2 eggs basted in butter atop shredded cheese melted on half a can of tuna, 2 very small pieces of ham, all topped with the remainder of the hollandaise from lunch
Very Late Dinner: One chicken leg quarter, marinated in a clove teriyaki sauce (end result was very little added anything)
Throughout the day, times unspecified: about 1 cup of milk and about 4 cups of tea, an americano with a little half and half
OUTPUT
One mid-morning, nothing abnormal
Success!
A blog about eating a (mostly) meatetarian diet - one consisting of meat eggs and dairy (meat meaning any part of an animal or fish, and dairy mostly excluding milk, but including other products). Includes food adventures, the good, the bad, and the ugly. You have been warned...
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Monday, April 25, 2011
Easter!
Happy Easter! It's a little late for sure but I don't care.
Easter is a day about eating eggs apparently... I'm not even sure I want eggs much now lol - at least not hard-boiled eggs.
I spent the day at my sister's house and ate a LOT of sugar and starch... and I have to say I can tell. My stomach is feeling a bit upset, and despite sleeping for most of the day I've been feeling sluggish. I'm sure it will pass soon. I'm going to try to make up for it by being extra strict for the next couple days.
Anyway, the food we had was a strata, which is like an epic bread pudding. It has half and half and cream cheese and I think sour cream mixed with bread and eggs and spices and topped with jam. Then it gets baked. We also had some monkey bread, which is like a cinnamon roll baked in a bunt pan covered with cream cheese frosting. We had some raspberry cupcakes but I abstained. For dessert we had hokey-pokey ice cream... vanilla ice cream with crispy caramel candy stirred in... it really IS what it's all about.
In addition to the goodies, I also ate a lot of bacon, chicken, and sausage. And of course eggs. I also discovered that my sweet tooth is not entirely outside of my control... I may be willing to try a no sugar (not even milk) experiment temporarily... but I still don't want to become lactose intolerant so maybe not.
I also went the to gym before breaking my diet for the first time since being sick. I can say for sure that the strength has returned (or was just never gone) but the stamina is lacking :/ I think I just need to get back into making it a regular thing and soon everything will be normal again. Also, I'm really sore today XD
I finished reading the rest of Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat. My final conclusion is that I like it generally and think he is right generally, but he makes some assertions and logical jumps that maybe he shouldn't have. I won't get into specifics but I will say that I really liked it and highly recommend it. It has however, convinced me that I will lose weight on my diet XD which explains the initial weight loss and why I am still down about 5 pounds from the starting weight. I've been inspired by this to start including weight in my updates at least once a week.
My sister recommended that I try baked cheese chips from central market. I decided to take it a step cheaper and make my own. They made a mess of the kitchen when I scraped them off of the cookie sheet, but they were tasty. I want to try them microwaved because in my crappy oven it took forever and they baked unevenly. I also need parchment paper...
Anyway, I'm at school and it's really close to Earth Day so I don't wanna catch the ire of some angry vegans so I'm off! Till next time!
Easter is a day about eating eggs apparently... I'm not even sure I want eggs much now lol - at least not hard-boiled eggs.
I spent the day at my sister's house and ate a LOT of sugar and starch... and I have to say I can tell. My stomach is feeling a bit upset, and despite sleeping for most of the day I've been feeling sluggish. I'm sure it will pass soon. I'm going to try to make up for it by being extra strict for the next couple days.
Anyway, the food we had was a strata, which is like an epic bread pudding. It has half and half and cream cheese and I think sour cream mixed with bread and eggs and spices and topped with jam. Then it gets baked. We also had some monkey bread, which is like a cinnamon roll baked in a bunt pan covered with cream cheese frosting. We had some raspberry cupcakes but I abstained. For dessert we had hokey-pokey ice cream... vanilla ice cream with crispy caramel candy stirred in... it really IS what it's all about.
In addition to the goodies, I also ate a lot of bacon, chicken, and sausage. And of course eggs. I also discovered that my sweet tooth is not entirely outside of my control... I may be willing to try a no sugar (not even milk) experiment temporarily... but I still don't want to become lactose intolerant so maybe not.
I also went the to gym before breaking my diet for the first time since being sick. I can say for sure that the strength has returned (or was just never gone) but the stamina is lacking :/ I think I just need to get back into making it a regular thing and soon everything will be normal again. Also, I'm really sore today XD
I finished reading the rest of Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat. My final conclusion is that I like it generally and think he is right generally, but he makes some assertions and logical jumps that maybe he shouldn't have. I won't get into specifics but I will say that I really liked it and highly recommend it. It has however, convinced me that I will lose weight on my diet XD which explains the initial weight loss and why I am still down about 5 pounds from the starting weight. I've been inspired by this to start including weight in my updates at least once a week.
My sister recommended that I try baked cheese chips from central market. I decided to take it a step cheaper and make my own. They made a mess of the kitchen when I scraped them off of the cookie sheet, but they were tasty. I want to try them microwaved because in my crappy oven it took forever and they baked unevenly. I also need parchment paper...
Anyway, I'm at school and it's really close to Earth Day so I don't wanna catch the ire of some angry vegans so I'm off! Till next time!
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Ze goalz: Essential Readings
So far here is my list of essential readings, I will list them in order of importance (aka, ease of reading) and then give brief summaries because I know at least a few of you won't read them (or can't).
1. The Letter on Corpulence http://www.archive.org/details/letteroncorpulen00bantrich (this is the best link I've found, the PDF version is good enough, the pamphlet is in the public domain so this is completely legal)
2. The blog, Inhuman Experiment http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com/
3. "Adventures in Diet" by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (this is the best link for it I could find, and it's not very good...)
4. This scientific paper, published in Clinical Calorimetry in the 1930s about the aforementioned Stefansson, experimenting a one-year diet of just meat (not light reading, but very very informative).
5. Gary Taubes' blog http://www.garytaubes.com/
6. Gary Taubes' book, Why We Get Fat (can't get this for free yet, find it at your library or local bookstore and park it and read it - it's what I did)
If you are interested in the health risks or benefits of eating meat and especially fat, you must read and absorb all of these. In addition, they will improve your understanding of diabetes and diabetes treatments, and of dieting and weight loss.
I also recommend a few videos that are available on the internet, a series by the BBC called "Why Are Thin People Not Fat." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6-A0iHSdcA
I also recommend Fat Head which is a movie critical of Supersize Me. In Fat Head the host loses 13 pounds in a month eating fast food, and actually generally gets healthier. The movie itself is not terribly educational, but in my case I found it to be inspirational. If you are reading my blog, you are already inspired and can skip Fat Head (the quality of the movie is a bit low, and the humor is often stupid... but it is still interesting).
So for the summaries and why they are so interesting.
1. The letter on corpulence details the trials of a fat man trying to lose weight. This is one of those rare moments when the person who is distributing this information was not an expert, was not out to make money, was not some thin healthy person telling you to do what he says because he's healthy, wasn't some college athlete who "got out of shape" then started working out and got back in shape, and was instead a man who understood the ins and outs, the emotional roller coaster, and the physical difficulties of being obese. He gives his account from beginning to end, from failed early attempts to his success on a meat-centered diet designed for the treatment of diabetes (this is mentioned in passing and not referred to by name, but this is indeed what he was speaking of). I found his story compelling despite being short. You will love the writing style if you like mine, and you will wonder why you have never heard of this, especially if you are a dieter (tbh, I'm not too surprised I've never heard of this because I've never really looked into diets before).
2. Inhuman experiment is a blog about self-experimentation for the purpose of improving one's health. His goals are different from mine but I don't mind. Unlike many people who experiment with things like this, this guy isn't out to sell anything. This guy examines scientific evidence and tries to avoid anything he can that will muddy up the info with preconceived notions. The reason you need to read this blog is that it will open your eyes to the scientific evidence out there that vegetarians will insist doesn't exist -- studies showing correlations between eating meat and being healthier among other things. It will also hopefully prove to you that a meat diet isn't insane (mine might no be so god at that...). This is one of the few sites out there that isn't pioneered by a madman who thinks his diet cured his BO.
3. Adventures in Diet will open your eyes to the fact that meat diets are not at all new, and are likely even more natural than the diets we eat today (excuse the use of natural, my intention is just to point out that our diet is forced rather than coming naturally). It's the story of a man who lives with the Inuit for several years on and off, and eats their diet of mostly fish, seals, and caribou. His health doesn't deteriorate, he doesn't get constipated, and he learns to like boiled aged fish. It will hopefully answer the question of why fat tends to be something we desire to eat, and hopefully show you that it is not bad for you. It will also show you that adapting to a diet is possible even if one must eat despised foods, as tastes can be changed. It is also very brief, and fairly easy to read. Despite the cheesiness of the site it is found on, it is a legitimate story (you can find it on other sites if you need to cross-reference it). I find the story interesting,, and if you're like me it will make you hungry for scientific evidence...
4. This study examines the results of eating an all-meat diet for an entire year. The two men in the study experience almost no adverse effects. It also goes in-depth into some things a bit over my head, such as the kidney function involved (the conclusion still makes sense - this wasn't bad for the kidneys). This study will prove to you that a year on meat alone will not cause anything near death, and will likely only improve your health. You will wonder what truly causes scurvy, and start to wonder if you could ever eat enough fat to meet the guidelines of this study. If you try this, you'll probably lose weight. You'll wonder about the importance of fiber, and water-soluble vitamins. You will consider if you could ever eat cow's kidneys and lots of other gross stuff. It's not light reading but it's not really long, and it's the largest source of scientific support for my diet. It will make you wonder why there aren't more like it.
5 and 6. Taubes' blog will be the substitute for his book if you can't find it. Among other things, he gives the results of his blood test (his diet is similar to mine). He tends to be long-winded; many of his posts are longer than the letter on corpulence. Taubes will make you want to read Atkins, but he's less "try my diet" and more critical of nutritionists and scientists. He counters the conventional notion of laziness and overeating causing fatness, and suggests that fatness causes laziness and overeating. He asserts that hormones and genetics cause fatness, which in turn causes the overeating and laziness. Traditional diet and workout plans, he says, are not sufficient for the majority of overweight people to lose weight for the long term. Instead, he suggests people ought to reduce the foods that raise insulin levels in order to lose fat. Interestingly, he also exposes the prejudices normal people (especially thin, healthy nutritionists and doctors) have against the obese, and the difficulties they face, especially when they are constantly told they are fat, lazy, stupid gluttons.
Why are thin people not fat details attempts to make naturally thin people fat by making them eat twice as much as usual. All of the people in the study gain weight (not a huge amount). All of them lose all of the weight they gained without exercising or dieting. It's an interesting look at how little control we actually have over our weight.
Whew, that was longer than expected! Enjoy!
1. The Letter on Corpulence http://www.archive.org/details/letteroncorpulen00bantrich (this is the best link I've found, the PDF version is good enough, the pamphlet is in the public domain so this is completely legal)
2. The blog, Inhuman Experiment http://inhumanexperiment.blogspot.com/
3. "Adventures in Diet" by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (this is the best link for it I could find, and it's not very good...)
4. This scientific paper, published in Clinical Calorimetry in the 1930s about the aforementioned Stefansson, experimenting a one-year diet of just meat (not light reading, but very very informative).
5. Gary Taubes' blog http://www.garytaubes.com/
6. Gary Taubes' book, Why We Get Fat (can't get this for free yet, find it at your library or local bookstore and park it and read it - it's what I did)
If you are interested in the health risks or benefits of eating meat and especially fat, you must read and absorb all of these. In addition, they will improve your understanding of diabetes and diabetes treatments, and of dieting and weight loss.
I also recommend a few videos that are available on the internet, a series by the BBC called "Why Are Thin People Not Fat." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6-A0iHSdcA
I also recommend Fat Head which is a movie critical of Supersize Me. In Fat Head the host loses 13 pounds in a month eating fast food, and actually generally gets healthier. The movie itself is not terribly educational, but in my case I found it to be inspirational. If you are reading my blog, you are already inspired and can skip Fat Head (the quality of the movie is a bit low, and the humor is often stupid... but it is still interesting).
So for the summaries and why they are so interesting.
1. The letter on corpulence details the trials of a fat man trying to lose weight. This is one of those rare moments when the person who is distributing this information was not an expert, was not out to make money, was not some thin healthy person telling you to do what he says because he's healthy, wasn't some college athlete who "got out of shape" then started working out and got back in shape, and was instead a man who understood the ins and outs, the emotional roller coaster, and the physical difficulties of being obese. He gives his account from beginning to end, from failed early attempts to his success on a meat-centered diet designed for the treatment of diabetes (this is mentioned in passing and not referred to by name, but this is indeed what he was speaking of). I found his story compelling despite being short. You will love the writing style if you like mine, and you will wonder why you have never heard of this, especially if you are a dieter (tbh, I'm not too surprised I've never heard of this because I've never really looked into diets before).
2. Inhuman experiment is a blog about self-experimentation for the purpose of improving one's health. His goals are different from mine but I don't mind. Unlike many people who experiment with things like this, this guy isn't out to sell anything. This guy examines scientific evidence and tries to avoid anything he can that will muddy up the info with preconceived notions. The reason you need to read this blog is that it will open your eyes to the scientific evidence out there that vegetarians will insist doesn't exist -- studies showing correlations between eating meat and being healthier among other things. It will also hopefully prove to you that a meat diet isn't insane (mine might no be so god at that...). This is one of the few sites out there that isn't pioneered by a madman who thinks his diet cured his BO.
3. Adventures in Diet will open your eyes to the fact that meat diets are not at all new, and are likely even more natural than the diets we eat today (excuse the use of natural, my intention is just to point out that our diet is forced rather than coming naturally). It's the story of a man who lives with the Inuit for several years on and off, and eats their diet of mostly fish, seals, and caribou. His health doesn't deteriorate, he doesn't get constipated, and he learns to like boiled aged fish. It will hopefully answer the question of why fat tends to be something we desire to eat, and hopefully show you that it is not bad for you. It will also show you that adapting to a diet is possible even if one must eat despised foods, as tastes can be changed. It is also very brief, and fairly easy to read. Despite the cheesiness of the site it is found on, it is a legitimate story (you can find it on other sites if you need to cross-reference it). I find the story interesting,, and if you're like me it will make you hungry for scientific evidence...
4. This study examines the results of eating an all-meat diet for an entire year. The two men in the study experience almost no adverse effects. It also goes in-depth into some things a bit over my head, such as the kidney function involved (the conclusion still makes sense - this wasn't bad for the kidneys). This study will prove to you that a year on meat alone will not cause anything near death, and will likely only improve your health. You will wonder what truly causes scurvy, and start to wonder if you could ever eat enough fat to meet the guidelines of this study. If you try this, you'll probably lose weight. You'll wonder about the importance of fiber, and water-soluble vitamins. You will consider if you could ever eat cow's kidneys and lots of other gross stuff. It's not light reading but it's not really long, and it's the largest source of scientific support for my diet. It will make you wonder why there aren't more like it.
5 and 6. Taubes' blog will be the substitute for his book if you can't find it. Among other things, he gives the results of his blood test (his diet is similar to mine). He tends to be long-winded; many of his posts are longer than the letter on corpulence. Taubes will make you want to read Atkins, but he's less "try my diet" and more critical of nutritionists and scientists. He counters the conventional notion of laziness and overeating causing fatness, and suggests that fatness causes laziness and overeating. He asserts that hormones and genetics cause fatness, which in turn causes the overeating and laziness. Traditional diet and workout plans, he says, are not sufficient for the majority of overweight people to lose weight for the long term. Instead, he suggests people ought to reduce the foods that raise insulin levels in order to lose fat. Interestingly, he also exposes the prejudices normal people (especially thin, healthy nutritionists and doctors) have against the obese, and the difficulties they face, especially when they are constantly told they are fat, lazy, stupid gluttons.
Why are thin people not fat details attempts to make naturally thin people fat by making them eat twice as much as usual. All of the people in the study gain weight (not a huge amount). All of them lose all of the weight they gained without exercising or dieting. It's an interesting look at how little control we actually have over our weight.
Whew, that was longer than expected! Enjoy!
Brief Update
I need this to be brief or I won't get breakfast this morning lol
This is a statement of my goals for the near future: I want to compile a list of essential reading for this blog. Anyone who reads my blog should read certain scientific papers, experiences, and books in order to understand much of what I speak of (and to understand that I'm not nuts). I also want a list of my favorite recipes so I can share and get new recipes.
I'm sure there was more than this when I planned this in the shower, but something has been lost in translation... oh well. That's what the "edit" button is for.
Until next time.
This is a statement of my goals for the near future: I want to compile a list of essential reading for this blog. Anyone who reads my blog should read certain scientific papers, experiences, and books in order to understand much of what I speak of (and to understand that I'm not nuts). I also want a list of my favorite recipes so I can share and get new recipes.
I'm sure there was more than this when I planned this in the shower, but something has been lost in translation... oh well. That's what the "edit" button is for.
Until next time.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Recovering
I am recovering from being sick finally. I know this because my cough is now producing legitimate results, my throat hurts less and I'm able to survive once again on fewer hours of sleep.
Enough of that though. Today I want to discuss something that has been weighing heavily on my mind ever since I first read the story of Vilhjalmur Stefansson (say THAT five times fast). In case you forgot, he's the guy who lived with the Inuit people on and off for about 9 years, eating their diet (90% fish, seal, and caribou) and later took part in a study in which he ate only meat for an entire year (there's a link to that story in my first blog post). This has been weighing heavily on my mind because truth matters more to me than so many other things; and when I see controversy surrounding truth, I have to wonder what the truth of the matter is, and what the truth behind the controversy is. In this case, I am of course wondering about the answer to the question, "Is fat bad for you?" and why it has become so controversial.
I like to think of myself as a relatively simple person and I like to project this onto other people. In my mind then, this ought to be a simple matter (I will explain my theories as to why it may not be, but bear with me for now). To figure out if fat is good or bad for you, all that needs to be done is an experiment that controls for any sort of potential confounding variable that tests the hypothesis that fat is good or bad for you. If results are inconclusive, it seems obvious to me that fat is neither good nor bad for someone. This makes me think that there must be ulterior motives -- if there were not ulterior motives, no one would have a reason to create a huge fuss out of something this simple. So what are the motives for stating that fat is bad for someone if it is not... I can think of a few, mostly by calling upon my own prejudices, and one very important one that is not based entirely on my prejudices. I want to list them all anyway just for fun:
Hippies got into doing science and want to be able to say high fat diets (which consists of animal products) are bad for you so that people will stop eating meat and eggs from those poor birdies. Vegetarians want people to believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong, because they are self-righteous hipsters, so they want the information to come out in support of them. People for whom low fat diets work think fat people need to practice more self-control and discipline in order to lose weight. Farmers who produce vegetables want people to buy their products instead of animal products (hurt the competition to better oneself). Lastly, people (similar to vegetarians) who believe they are right and who would lose positions of power if they were shown to be wrong don't want information to come out that shows them to be wrong (obviously).
I hope you can understand that the last reason is devoid of my bias. I can understand why someone in such a position of power would behave this way (not that it excuses it). I can even understand the hippies' position even though I disagree with it. But what this amounts to is sufficient reason to create controversy in all levels of society among both lay-people and scholars. Essentially the point I'm trying to make is that nutritionists don't want to say, "Fat is not so bad for you," because if they were to do so, people would react by saying, "Well, what good are you if you didn't tell us this sooner?"
To get back to why this isn't quite so simple is to point out the simple fact that nothing about the way the human body processes food is simple. Especially, doing a long term study of the effects of a particular diet is a daunting task - one that even has moral implications - in addition to practical implications like the prohibitive cost, and the difficulty of controlling for variables (like midnight ice cream binges).
So, to reiterate, we have two big reasons for a difficult question and an apparently unfounded controversy. Namely, to answer "Is fat bad for you?" we first have to consider how difficult it is to study such a thing, and why certain people in positions to study such things may be opposed to it.
Well, after that crazy tangent, I come back to my main point - there is indeed someone who has studied this controversy in relative detail. His name is Gary Taubes (see his blog: http://www.garytaubes.com). I've been reading one of his books, called Why We Get Fat, when I get no-showed by my students at Barnes and Noble on Thursday nights (and after I see them when they actually show up... it's just more fun to complain, amirite). Anyway, his book details something that makes me feel so much better about not being a hipster...
Way back before the internet age, in like the 19th century, there was a pamphlet published called Letter on Corpulence. This pamphlet essentially detailed my diet: high meat, little to no carbohydrates, no beer, and was published in 1863. It tells the story of a man who tried and tried to lose weight and finally, by trying a high-fat diet, managed to do so. As it turns out, it was actually well known that this was the only effective means of controlling weight by diet. Only later on did we recoil from this idea and start trying low-fat diets for weight loss. In other words, the idea of eating high fat is not new, it has only gone out of fashion. So while I can't slip on my hipster glasses as I tell you that I'm a pioneer in the world of eating, I can still tell you that you've probably never heard of it as I sip organic fair trade coffee (which I don't actually like, it just makes me feel better about my carbon footprint - or something like that).
In addition to bringing up the Letter on Corpulence Taubes also reviews mounds of scientific studies that show that, for instance, the American Heart Association's diet doesn't actually produce heart healthy (or even lean) people, and other studies to that effect.
I feel like wrapping this up now, so I'm only going to make a few more closing comments. Taubes makes another point that perhaps the reason we have found it so difficult to understand obesity is because of the tacit prejudices towards the obese. While I don't necessarily like the specifics of his argument, he makes a good point - why is it that we tend to think people only become obese by being lazy or eating too much? I could tell you the sob story of my battle with my weight, but honestly it's not that sad - more aggravating than anything really. Like I said, I'm not really fat, I just would rather be less fat than I am and don't seem to be capable of it because I like food too much. The only thing I've wondered is something like this "Why is it that people who are less active than me and who eat more than me can stay thin, whereas I will get fat if I don't go to the gym 4 days a week and eat nothing but lean fish and green veggies?"
A better question for me to ask is this: "How have I not become morbidly obese?" Not just to say that I haven't always lived healthy, but to consider people in situations similar to mine who have become obese. They didn't become obese because they were more lazy than me -- I'm not even sure that's possible. They didn't become obese because they ate worse than I did. Indeed, by any standard I ate way too many treats and even my ordinary diet was too high in anything everyone will tell you is bad. One would think I ought to be at least be MORE fat than I am, if not obese.
Taubes asks us to consider genetic and hormonal factors, and what affect our diet has on them (and also how the modern diet isn't very good for most people). It brings to mind the question I asked earlier, "What does it mean to say something is healthy anymore?"
I don't feel like detailing input and output today, so I'll skip to food adventures.
On the recommendation of a distant friend, I decided to make a crustless quiche. Now, I know real men don't eat quiche, but this had bacon in it.
4 eggs
1/2 c salted butter, melted
3/4 c milk
4 slices cooked bacon, chopped
2 c shredded cheddar cheese
pepper
thyme
Preheat oven to 450. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl (be careful not to cook eggs in melted butter or with bacon). Bake for 20 minutes uncovered, then cover with foil and cook for 15-20 minutes more (cover sooner if it begins to brown too much).
It was amazing :) Thanks Ashley
Until next time...
*I had to edit a few things in this post because of inaccuracies. My bad!
Enough of that though. Today I want to discuss something that has been weighing heavily on my mind ever since I first read the story of Vilhjalmur Stefansson (say THAT five times fast). In case you forgot, he's the guy who lived with the Inuit people on and off for about 9 years, eating their diet (90% fish, seal, and caribou) and later took part in a study in which he ate only meat for an entire year (there's a link to that story in my first blog post). This has been weighing heavily on my mind because truth matters more to me than so many other things; and when I see controversy surrounding truth, I have to wonder what the truth of the matter is, and what the truth behind the controversy is. In this case, I am of course wondering about the answer to the question, "Is fat bad for you?" and why it has become so controversial.
I like to think of myself as a relatively simple person and I like to project this onto other people. In my mind then, this ought to be a simple matter (I will explain my theories as to why it may not be, but bear with me for now). To figure out if fat is good or bad for you, all that needs to be done is an experiment that controls for any sort of potential confounding variable that tests the hypothesis that fat is good or bad for you. If results are inconclusive, it seems obvious to me that fat is neither good nor bad for someone. This makes me think that there must be ulterior motives -- if there were not ulterior motives, no one would have a reason to create a huge fuss out of something this simple. So what are the motives for stating that fat is bad for someone if it is not... I can think of a few, mostly by calling upon my own prejudices, and one very important one that is not based entirely on my prejudices. I want to list them all anyway just for fun:
Hippies got into doing science and want to be able to say high fat diets (which consists of animal products) are bad for you so that people will stop eating meat and eggs from those poor birdies. Vegetarians want people to believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong, because they are self-righteous hipsters, so they want the information to come out in support of them. People for whom low fat diets work think fat people need to practice more self-control and discipline in order to lose weight. Farmers who produce vegetables want people to buy their products instead of animal products (hurt the competition to better oneself). Lastly, people (similar to vegetarians) who believe they are right and who would lose positions of power if they were shown to be wrong don't want information to come out that shows them to be wrong (obviously).
I hope you can understand that the last reason is devoid of my bias. I can understand why someone in such a position of power would behave this way (not that it excuses it). I can even understand the hippies' position even though I disagree with it. But what this amounts to is sufficient reason to create controversy in all levels of society among both lay-people and scholars. Essentially the point I'm trying to make is that nutritionists don't want to say, "Fat is not so bad for you," because if they were to do so, people would react by saying, "Well, what good are you if you didn't tell us this sooner?"
To get back to why this isn't quite so simple is to point out the simple fact that nothing about the way the human body processes food is simple. Especially, doing a long term study of the effects of a particular diet is a daunting task - one that even has moral implications - in addition to practical implications like the prohibitive cost, and the difficulty of controlling for variables (like midnight ice cream binges).
So, to reiterate, we have two big reasons for a difficult question and an apparently unfounded controversy. Namely, to answer "Is fat bad for you?" we first have to consider how difficult it is to study such a thing, and why certain people in positions to study such things may be opposed to it.
Well, after that crazy tangent, I come back to my main point - there is indeed someone who has studied this controversy in relative detail. His name is Gary Taubes (see his blog: http://www.garytaubes.com). I've been reading one of his books, called Why We Get Fat, when I get no-showed by my students at Barnes and Noble on Thursday nights (and after I see them when they actually show up... it's just more fun to complain, amirite). Anyway, his book details something that makes me feel so much better about not being a hipster...
Way back before the internet age, in like the 19th century, there was a pamphlet published called Letter on Corpulence. This pamphlet essentially detailed my diet: high meat, little to no carbohydrates, no beer, and was published in 1863. It tells the story of a man who tried and tried to lose weight and finally, by trying a high-fat diet, managed to do so. As it turns out, it was actually well known that this was the only effective means of controlling weight by diet. Only later on did we recoil from this idea and start trying low-fat diets for weight loss. In other words, the idea of eating high fat is not new, it has only gone out of fashion. So while I can't slip on my hipster glasses as I tell you that I'm a pioneer in the world of eating, I can still tell you that you've probably never heard of it as I sip organic fair trade coffee (which I don't actually like, it just makes me feel better about my carbon footprint - or something like that).
In addition to bringing up the Letter on Corpulence Taubes also reviews mounds of scientific studies that show that, for instance, the American Heart Association's diet doesn't actually produce heart healthy (or even lean) people, and other studies to that effect.
I feel like wrapping this up now, so I'm only going to make a few more closing comments. Taubes makes another point that perhaps the reason we have found it so difficult to understand obesity is because of the tacit prejudices towards the obese. While I don't necessarily like the specifics of his argument, he makes a good point - why is it that we tend to think people only become obese by being lazy or eating too much? I could tell you the sob story of my battle with my weight, but honestly it's not that sad - more aggravating than anything really. Like I said, I'm not really fat, I just would rather be less fat than I am and don't seem to be capable of it because I like food too much. The only thing I've wondered is something like this "Why is it that people who are less active than me and who eat more than me can stay thin, whereas I will get fat if I don't go to the gym 4 days a week and eat nothing but lean fish and green veggies?"
A better question for me to ask is this: "How have I not become morbidly obese?" Not just to say that I haven't always lived healthy, but to consider people in situations similar to mine who have become obese. They didn't become obese because they were more lazy than me -- I'm not even sure that's possible. They didn't become obese because they ate worse than I did. Indeed, by any standard I ate way too many treats and even my ordinary diet was too high in anything everyone will tell you is bad. One would think I ought to be at least be MORE fat than I am, if not obese.
Taubes asks us to consider genetic and hormonal factors, and what affect our diet has on them (and also how the modern diet isn't very good for most people). It brings to mind the question I asked earlier, "What does it mean to say something is healthy anymore?"
I don't feel like detailing input and output today, so I'll skip to food adventures.
On the recommendation of a distant friend, I decided to make a crustless quiche. Now, I know real men don't eat quiche, but this had bacon in it.
4 eggs
1/2 c salted butter, melted
3/4 c milk
4 slices cooked bacon, chopped
2 c shredded cheddar cheese
pepper
thyme
Preheat oven to 450. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl (be careful not to cook eggs in melted butter or with bacon). Bake for 20 minutes uncovered, then cover with foil and cook for 15-20 minutes more (cover sooner if it begins to brown too much).
It was amazing :) Thanks Ashley
Until next time...
*I had to edit a few things in this post because of inaccuracies. My bad!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Still Sick
I am still sick and have developed some nasty complications. I'm also trying to type on the laptop so try to bear with the typos. I have to recall the food adventures too, and future food adventure plans.
So for the food adventures: I had a friend over and we tried to make some liver and onions and bone marrow with roast beef. The beef liver was horrible - it just had the nastiest flavor ever. I'm pretty sure I'm done with liver and onions, but I might try it marinated for a few days because letting it soak in milk for an hour wasn't enough. The bone marrow was once again a disappointment for two reasons: One was that the bones were big soup bones from the ends of the legs so they were mostly hard spongy bone with very little accessible marrow; two was that the flavor and smell were no better than last time. The marrow was actually cooked this time though, so it wasn't bad smeared on top of a slice of roast beef. Speaking of which, the roast beef was phenomenal - lots of onions and leeks in the broth that tasted so good after stewing for a couple hours. And the beef tasted good too of course. Cooking it was tough though :/ my oven is a bit touchy, and I had to watch it to make sure the temperature wasn't wrong for two whole hours.
In addition to liver pate, I'm really looking forward to experimenting with duck and duck innards. I have a friend who loves to hunt, and even though it's not really duck season right now, there's still a chance that I may be able to get one before too long (ducks are very expensive at the grocery store). I also found a recipe in a cookbook for a pork shoulder simmered in milk for a few hours that I think sounds really really good. I'm also looking forward to doing a bit more with cheese and cream, since I've been doing so much with eggs and butter it's time for a change of pace.
That reminds me of something else! Butter basted eggs are amazingly good! I've also found a way to soak up leftover oils from my plate when I'm done - canned tuna. It goes great with a couple of basted eggs and some shredded cheese and bacon. I've graduated to whole milk from 2% and I don't think there's much of a flavor difference, but it makes the fat goals a little easier to reach. So do breve lattes, though they put a dent in the wallet a bit more than I like.
So, about being sick. I figure that all I have is a cold, but it's been especially uncomfortable and today marks one week of it. I've had an unproductive cough and a shockingly painful sore throat. The cough has been intermittent but really bad when I have it, to the point where I've developed either a cracked rib or a strained diaphragm that hurts really bad at the bottom of my ribcage when I stretch or cough. I've been experimenting with treatments for it and found that none of them I have tried have done much of anything. Aspirin and Acetaminophen are good for the sore throat but do not help the cough. Caffeine makes me feel good, but doesn't really help any of the symptoms. Alcohol and prescription cough suppressants make me forget I'm in pain but also make me dizzy. Hot tea is soothing, but doesn't do much aside from hydrate me.
It's too late to try to recall past inputs and outputs, but I want to mention that I ate some bread the other day. My boss had a meet and greet for her tutors, and I was among them, and she offered us bread and other starchy foods. I didn't want to be rude, or reveal myself as being a complete whackjob in front of my boss and peers, so I just ate. However wonderful I think it is to be a meatetarian, I'm not going to be upfront about it like vegetarians endlessly are - I know that eating in a strange way is strange, so I don't want to appear strange if I can avoid it, especially in cases where money may be an issue. If I had told my boss, "Oh, no thanks. I don't eat plant products." I would have been stared at blankly, asked if I was crazy and treated oddly, much like I treat most vegetarians. The way I eat ought not to inconvenience anyone who tries to give me food in order to be polite, so I will politely eat what I am served.
So to reiterate, no formal input and output for this post, I'll try to get back into that soon. Probably when I'm no longer sick. I'm convinced that the dehydration has had an effect on it, even though it hasn't been devastating and hasn't led to diarrhea. I also haven't been going to the gym - I don't want to tempt the cough.
Until next time.
So for the food adventures: I had a friend over and we tried to make some liver and onions and bone marrow with roast beef. The beef liver was horrible - it just had the nastiest flavor ever. I'm pretty sure I'm done with liver and onions, but I might try it marinated for a few days because letting it soak in milk for an hour wasn't enough. The bone marrow was once again a disappointment for two reasons: One was that the bones were big soup bones from the ends of the legs so they were mostly hard spongy bone with very little accessible marrow; two was that the flavor and smell were no better than last time. The marrow was actually cooked this time though, so it wasn't bad smeared on top of a slice of roast beef. Speaking of which, the roast beef was phenomenal - lots of onions and leeks in the broth that tasted so good after stewing for a couple hours. And the beef tasted good too of course. Cooking it was tough though :/ my oven is a bit touchy, and I had to watch it to make sure the temperature wasn't wrong for two whole hours.
In addition to liver pate, I'm really looking forward to experimenting with duck and duck innards. I have a friend who loves to hunt, and even though it's not really duck season right now, there's still a chance that I may be able to get one before too long (ducks are very expensive at the grocery store). I also found a recipe in a cookbook for a pork shoulder simmered in milk for a few hours that I think sounds really really good. I'm also looking forward to doing a bit more with cheese and cream, since I've been doing so much with eggs and butter it's time for a change of pace.
That reminds me of something else! Butter basted eggs are amazingly good! I've also found a way to soak up leftover oils from my plate when I'm done - canned tuna. It goes great with a couple of basted eggs and some shredded cheese and bacon. I've graduated to whole milk from 2% and I don't think there's much of a flavor difference, but it makes the fat goals a little easier to reach. So do breve lattes, though they put a dent in the wallet a bit more than I like.
So, about being sick. I figure that all I have is a cold, but it's been especially uncomfortable and today marks one week of it. I've had an unproductive cough and a shockingly painful sore throat. The cough has been intermittent but really bad when I have it, to the point where I've developed either a cracked rib or a strained diaphragm that hurts really bad at the bottom of my ribcage when I stretch or cough. I've been experimenting with treatments for it and found that none of them I have tried have done much of anything. Aspirin and Acetaminophen are good for the sore throat but do not help the cough. Caffeine makes me feel good, but doesn't really help any of the symptoms. Alcohol and prescription cough suppressants make me forget I'm in pain but also make me dizzy. Hot tea is soothing, but doesn't do much aside from hydrate me.
It's too late to try to recall past inputs and outputs, but I want to mention that I ate some bread the other day. My boss had a meet and greet for her tutors, and I was among them, and she offered us bread and other starchy foods. I didn't want to be rude, or reveal myself as being a complete whackjob in front of my boss and peers, so I just ate. However wonderful I think it is to be a meatetarian, I'm not going to be upfront about it like vegetarians endlessly are - I know that eating in a strange way is strange, so I don't want to appear strange if I can avoid it, especially in cases where money may be an issue. If I had told my boss, "Oh, no thanks. I don't eat plant products." I would have been stared at blankly, asked if I was crazy and treated oddly, much like I treat most vegetarians. The way I eat ought not to inconvenience anyone who tries to give me food in order to be polite, so I will politely eat what I am served.
So to reiterate, no formal input and output for this post, I'll try to get back into that soon. Probably when I'm no longer sick. I'm convinced that the dehydration has had an effect on it, even though it hasn't been devastating and hasn't led to diarrhea. I also haven't been going to the gym - I don't want to tempt the cough.
Until next time.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Sick
I am sick, so for the moment this blog is going to be less interesting. I'm gonna skip recalling input and output because at this point I just don't remember back to sunday. There will be more later.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Food redemption
Saturday morning I made a beurre rouge to go with a steak for breakfast :) Despite using Carlo Rossi wine (which tastes like old juice) the sauce actually turned out really good; I can't resist the price tag. I used some Balsamic vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, which was probably really good for the flavor. I seasoned the steak with only pepper and used salted butter, so I didn't end up even needing to add salt. I also only just seared the steak really - it was quite rare. I've never liked the idea of raw meat... only after eating sushi did I even become open to the idea. But raw beef still gives me the chills. Anyway, I didn't notice any difference between this raw beef and the way I normally prefer my steaks (medium to medium-well) except for a change in texture which I found unpleasant; it was gummy but tender rather than being a bit chewy. Don't get me wrong -- I still loved the steak and it was so flavorful. I just didn't notice any real difference between this and how it would have been had I done my usual overcooking.
Today there are grand plans for redeeming the bone marrow. Going to make a roast and some liver to go with it, and I'm going to make sure it cooks fully this time - no more of this raw cooking crap. More than one cooking adventure at once! Then again, this morning I also had grand plans of going to church and then the gym, and then I woke up at 1 so who knows what will really happen.
I did go to the gym yesterday, though. The process is slower than I would like it to be, but the workouts are getting more and more back to normal. No magic side effects of the meat diet turning me into superman, though :/ oh well. I have noticed another interesting side effect of the meat diet though - my teeth and gums seem to be healthier. If anything I've even been taking worse care of them too, by rationalizing and saying to myself, "Well, you didn't have any sugar today, so why bother?" Rationalizing is an important skill.
I went out for beer and hookah last night. Me and a couple friends (I dare you to challenge my grammar) went to Hale's Ales, which is not as good as our REAL local brewery, Silver City. It was okay, but I doubt I'll go again. Afterward we smoked some hookah (tobacco only for me) and I even got to borrow it for a while :). I constantly wonder about the health effects of light hookah smoking, and about heavy drinking, although that wasn't a problem last night. But niether of those is on the diet so I won't go into details.
I've had enough of my own rambling so time for input and output
INPUT
Breakfast: Steak with beurre rouge, milk spiked with cream, 2 slices of bacon, Vitamin D, multivitamin
Midmorning: Two 12oz americanos with a litle half and half
Lunch: 6 scrambled eggs topped with leftover beurre rouge (unlike hollandaise, it keeps a nice texture and doesn't start to taste weird), 3 slices of bacon, 4oz milk
Dinner: About 1/3 of a large tasty bleu cheese bacon burger from Hale's Ales
Dessert: A heap of bacon (courtesy of my brother), 2 nutter butters and 4oz milk
Today there are grand plans for redeeming the bone marrow. Going to make a roast and some liver to go with it, and I'm going to make sure it cooks fully this time - no more of this raw cooking crap. More than one cooking adventure at once! Then again, this morning I also had grand plans of going to church and then the gym, and then I woke up at 1 so who knows what will really happen.
I did go to the gym yesterday, though. The process is slower than I would like it to be, but the workouts are getting more and more back to normal. No magic side effects of the meat diet turning me into superman, though :/ oh well. I have noticed another interesting side effect of the meat diet though - my teeth and gums seem to be healthier. If anything I've even been taking worse care of them too, by rationalizing and saying to myself, "Well, you didn't have any sugar today, so why bother?" Rationalizing is an important skill.
I went out for beer and hookah last night. Me and a couple friends (I dare you to challenge my grammar) went to Hale's Ales, which is not as good as our REAL local brewery, Silver City. It was okay, but I doubt I'll go again. Afterward we smoked some hookah (tobacco only for me) and I even got to borrow it for a while :). I constantly wonder about the health effects of light hookah smoking, and about heavy drinking, although that wasn't a problem last night. But niether of those is on the diet so I won't go into details.
I've had enough of my own rambling so time for input and output
INPUT
Breakfast: Steak with beurre rouge, milk spiked with cream, 2 slices of bacon, Vitamin D, multivitamin
Midmorning: Two 12oz americanos with a litle half and half
Lunch: 6 scrambled eggs topped with leftover beurre rouge (unlike hollandaise, it keeps a nice texture and doesn't start to taste weird), 3 slices of bacon, 4oz milk
Dinner: About 1/3 of a large tasty bleu cheese bacon burger from Hale's Ales
Dessert: A heap of bacon (courtesy of my brother), 2 nutter butters and 4oz milk
Saturday, April 9, 2011
The "Rant"
It had to happen - all blogs contain at least one rant (my rant against hipsters doesn't count - I did that to be funny, but I'm serious this time).
I'm going to rant about school because the University of Washington has put me in an especially tight spot. I'm a commuter student and a math major. Math classes at UW tend to fill up before your registration period begins (other students are so cool that they had a spot in that class before you could even register...). This would be ok if they allowed the professors to overfill the classes, but they don't. It might even be ok if they offered the class every quarter, but they don't. Lastly it might be ok if they offered as many sections in parts of series as they offered in previous parts, but they don't. So basically I'm in limbo right now, trying to get into a class that is essential for my graduation - several upper division series (which I need) require this class. If I don't get into this class, I won't be able to start many of the upper division series until the Autumn of the following year because many of the beginnings of these series are offered only in the Autumn (so Autumn 2012 is when I will BEGIN many of these series). So whether or not I spend another entire year letting my student loan accumulate interest while I sit around playing DotA and working part time is entirely dependent on whether or not some warm-bodied drunk finally gets around to dropping that math class he forgot he registered for. At this point I will have to pay a modest fee in order to change my registration status. And you can bet I'm going to contest it.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting in an applied math class - which is a nightmare for someone who has an almost allergic reaction to all things computer not directly related to the internet or a game. Fortunately, it's all about linear algebra, which I love, so the material covered in class is simple for me. But then we are expected to code things in MATLAB, which makes me feel like an old, blind, deaf, dumb, toothless, two-legged, kink-tailed, de-clawed cat trying to rebuild an engine block. It's more fun than it sounds, but I'm also on the verge of not being able to afford school, which means I can't afford to purchase my own copy of MATLAB, which means I have to do all of my homework in one tiny portion of one building on campus... as a commuter student.
So, as rants usually do, this one is going to now go in a slightly different direction. At the UW, there are a ton of Asians. I don't mean to sound racists, but Asians are good at math - especially the ones who come from Asia rather than being born in America (no offense Asian-American friends, Asia just has better schools for math). Because of this, many foreign Asian students have a desire to become math majors. You (as the university) might think, "Wonderful! We can increase the number of seats available in math classes and then they will still fill and then we will make more money! Best of all, since they come from out of the nation they will pay us an enormous sum of cash for tuition!" But since universities are not people with brains, this doesn't happen. I'm inclined to think that this is because departments like math don't get a ton of attention because, as a whole, they aren't among the super popular majors such as business or communications. Pure math is also (stupidly) not considered a high-yield major such as chemistry or biological sciences or engineering. I'm also inclined to think that since the UW is a public university that receives funding, it is less inclined to react to market forces such as high demand for a particular major area - it is more profitable for the UW to focus on areas in which it is more likely to receive public funding (such as medicine - not that medicine isn't in high demand, mind you). This is almost enough to make me wish UW weren't a public school, but then I wouldn't be able to afford it.
Time to end the rant and talk about food. Friday is one of my commuting days, so it obviously involves a lot of walnuts. I also had ribs Friday :) and some really good cheese and salami.
Hmm, gonna go off topic just a bit here... I know health is not my reason for doing this diet (except as an experiment), but there are some things I know about food from my (limited) research that have me a bit... not worried, but thinking. Among other things, I know that cured meats are generally worse for you than fresh meats, and I am eating a lot of cured meats. If I really want to consider this diet as healthy as I can reasonably make it (I.e NOT buying exclusively grass fed organic yak imported from Tibet for $37 dollars/lb), then maybe I should reduce my intake of these foods. I've also been considering more low-temperature cooking, as high temperature cooking has a tendency to make all oils, even lard, less healthy for you. I'll be making some roasts soon, and I may try to skip the browning on them and see how they turn out. I'll try to get a health update soon as well ( at least BP). Might also wanna spread the alcohol out...
INPUT
Breakfast: 6 eggs scrambled with cheese, 4oz milk, Multivitamin, Vitamin D
Mid-morning: Handful of walnuts
Lunch: More walnuts
Afternoon snack: 16oz Breve latte (I burned my tongue), 4oz milk (this was quite a bit later)
Late dinner: Tons of delicious BBQed pork ribs, about a half block of English white cheddar, a fair amount of wine salami, a spicy sausage, and a couple bites of oil-drenched mozzarella. Oh and 2 glasses of Merlot
Dessert: About 2 glasses of Merlot, a little more white cheddar
I'm going to rant about school because the University of Washington has put me in an especially tight spot. I'm a commuter student and a math major. Math classes at UW tend to fill up before your registration period begins (other students are so cool that they had a spot in that class before you could even register...). This would be ok if they allowed the professors to overfill the classes, but they don't. It might even be ok if they offered the class every quarter, but they don't. Lastly it might be ok if they offered as many sections in parts of series as they offered in previous parts, but they don't. So basically I'm in limbo right now, trying to get into a class that is essential for my graduation - several upper division series (which I need) require this class. If I don't get into this class, I won't be able to start many of the upper division series until the Autumn of the following year because many of the beginnings of these series are offered only in the Autumn (so Autumn 2012 is when I will BEGIN many of these series). So whether or not I spend another entire year letting my student loan accumulate interest while I sit around playing DotA and working part time is entirely dependent on whether or not some warm-bodied drunk finally gets around to dropping that math class he forgot he registered for. At this point I will have to pay a modest fee in order to change my registration status. And you can bet I'm going to contest it.
Meanwhile, I'm sitting in an applied math class - which is a nightmare for someone who has an almost allergic reaction to all things computer not directly related to the internet or a game. Fortunately, it's all about linear algebra, which I love, so the material covered in class is simple for me. But then we are expected to code things in MATLAB, which makes me feel like an old, blind, deaf, dumb, toothless, two-legged, kink-tailed, de-clawed cat trying to rebuild an engine block. It's more fun than it sounds, but I'm also on the verge of not being able to afford school, which means I can't afford to purchase my own copy of MATLAB, which means I have to do all of my homework in one tiny portion of one building on campus... as a commuter student.
So, as rants usually do, this one is going to now go in a slightly different direction. At the UW, there are a ton of Asians. I don't mean to sound racists, but Asians are good at math - especially the ones who come from Asia rather than being born in America (no offense Asian-American friends, Asia just has better schools for math). Because of this, many foreign Asian students have a desire to become math majors. You (as the university) might think, "Wonderful! We can increase the number of seats available in math classes and then they will still fill and then we will make more money! Best of all, since they come from out of the nation they will pay us an enormous sum of cash for tuition!" But since universities are not people with brains, this doesn't happen. I'm inclined to think that this is because departments like math don't get a ton of attention because, as a whole, they aren't among the super popular majors such as business or communications. Pure math is also (stupidly) not considered a high-yield major such as chemistry or biological sciences or engineering. I'm also inclined to think that since the UW is a public university that receives funding, it is less inclined to react to market forces such as high demand for a particular major area - it is more profitable for the UW to focus on areas in which it is more likely to receive public funding (such as medicine - not that medicine isn't in high demand, mind you). This is almost enough to make me wish UW weren't a public school, but then I wouldn't be able to afford it.
Time to end the rant and talk about food. Friday is one of my commuting days, so it obviously involves a lot of walnuts. I also had ribs Friday :) and some really good cheese and salami.
Hmm, gonna go off topic just a bit here... I know health is not my reason for doing this diet (except as an experiment), but there are some things I know about food from my (limited) research that have me a bit... not worried, but thinking. Among other things, I know that cured meats are generally worse for you than fresh meats, and I am eating a lot of cured meats. If I really want to consider this diet as healthy as I can reasonably make it (I.e NOT buying exclusively grass fed organic yak imported from Tibet for $37 dollars/lb), then maybe I should reduce my intake of these foods. I've also been considering more low-temperature cooking, as high temperature cooking has a tendency to make all oils, even lard, less healthy for you. I'll be making some roasts soon, and I may try to skip the browning on them and see how they turn out. I'll try to get a health update soon as well ( at least BP). Might also wanna spread the alcohol out...
INPUT
Breakfast: 6 eggs scrambled with cheese, 4oz milk, Multivitamin, Vitamin D
Mid-morning: Handful of walnuts
Lunch: More walnuts
Afternoon snack: 16oz Breve latte (I burned my tongue), 4oz milk (this was quite a bit later)
Late dinner: Tons of delicious BBQed pork ribs, about a half block of English white cheddar, a fair amount of wine salami, a spicy sausage, and a couple bites of oil-drenched mozzarella. Oh and 2 glasses of Merlot
Dessert: About 2 glasses of Merlot, a little more white cheddar
Thursday, April 7, 2011
2 DAYS SUPER UPDATE
H'okay, so, it's been more than a day - I had a long day on Wednesday so I have given an excuse and that's good enough for me. Unfortunately, recalling all the food I ate won't be that easy but if anyone can do it, I can.
I think I'm gonna talk about booze today. Booze is only sort of on the meat diet. It's not high in fat, but its also not high in carbs. Because of this I find it acceptable (plus it greases up the social engine). Because of the way alcohol is metabLOLized it doesn't raise your blood sugar (which can actually be a concern... you did read that link from the first post, didn't you?). But it also doesn't help me reach my fat from calories goal for the day, so I've tried to restrict it. Plus, most alcohol has some carbs in it, especially mixed drinks and beer - which is why I tend to prefer the straight stuff and wine. I love wine... especially red wine. I don't know how I became a wine-o anyway. I started liking booze in mixed drinks - it's hard to beat whiskey and soda, and many, many other mixed drinks for that matter - from there I moved on to Guinness and various other beers (never liked light beers though, I prefer bitter stouts and IPAs). Then i started to really like cabernet-sauvignon, and I haven't moved from there since. It's dangerous though - I become severely tempted to drink it straight from the bottle, which is when stupidity starts to happen.
I should discuss cheese too, since I'm talking about wine. Cheese is one of those things I would like a lot more if it weren't so expensive. Plus, if I could avoid buying wine and cheese at the same time I would prefer that. The other day, when I was out buying my "dessert" (wine and cheese), I felt totally normal digging through the cheeses and finding white cheddar. But then I found my way to the wine aisle, and realized that I would be waiting in line at Safeway buying wine and cheese - I just had to hope that I didn't see anyone I knew. You see, this is the sort of thing that makes for a funny story, but in reality it's actually quite embarrassing. Imagine yourself doing something really snobbish - say you're telling your friend why you think Debussy is one of the best Romantic era composers - and then you suddenly realize that you don't have an excuse like you drank a half bottle of whiskey and a couple beers (if you had the booze this is totally reasonable, except you probably forget that Debussy was a Romantic/impressionistic composer and just lumped him into "classical"). This is how I felt. Actually, this is kind of how I feel right now - no excuse for being a know-nothing "snob." I don't know anything about wine or cheese, except I know that for some reason they tend to go really well together. Anyway, after realizing this and waiting in line I felt extremely awkward because the two people in front of me commented on the fact that I was buying wine and cheese. To make matters worse they at least pretended it wasn't snobbish. Anyway, at least it makes for a good story, eh?
Cheese is mostly on the diet as well. It usually lacks carbs and is high in fat. It also tastes wonderful with just about everything else on the diet. It's been a staple along with eggs. Fortunately, if you eat cheese straight from the package it doesn't encourage stupid behavior.
Anyway, food adventures for the past couple days:
Have you ever had Korean style short ribs? They are sooo good. A friend of mine kept telling me he needed to take me out for Korean BBQ so he could "de-white" me lol. I'd be a fan as long as I got to eat more short ribs. Plus they're basically ok for the diet - lots of fat, but with a thin, sweet sauce. I guess really that's the only food adventure aside from some ruined Hollandaise sauce - I added too much vinegar to it and it was... vinegary.
I've noticed a possible side-effect from the meat diet.... Though I'll admit I have no means of confirming this. I shaved today and noticed that my skin and hair weren't catching the razor as much as they normally seem to. I'm intrigued, as I have no idea what this means has changed in my skin/hair - I'm even more intrigued because it made shaving infinitely more enjoyable. If this keeps up, I might avoid looking like some disheveled hobo at least one day a week.
One final thing - I seem to have regained some of the weight that I lost in the first two weeks of the diet lol. This probably has something to do with skipping the gym, but there are a number of other possibilities. I'm not worried too much - I didn't do this to lose weight. At the same time though, I would prefer not getting fatter. I'm back up to about 150 from the low point of 145, starting weight of 155. Which reminds me, at some point I want to start keeping track of my blood pressure, and maybe even get a blood test or two.
Anyway, it's tired and I'm late (lol... did u catch that?) and I still have to recap the past two days.
Wednesday:
INPUT
Breakfast: 6 eggs scrambled in bacon fat, 3 pieces of bacon, multivitamin, Vitamin D, 4oz milk
Midmorning: handful of walnuts
Lunch: handful of walnuts, fair amount of cheese
Afternoon "snack": Korean style BBQed shortribs and chicken
Dinner: flank steak and sausage, 4oz milk
Thursday:
INPUT
Breakfast: 6 eggs scrambled in bacon fat with nasty vinegary hollandaise, 4 pieces of bacon, 4oz milk, multivitamin, vitamin D
Lunch: 3 scrambled eggs in bacon fat with cheese, 3 slices of bacon, leftover steak
Afternoon snack: 12oz americano with half+half
Dinner: 4 Gutted BBQ shredded pork sliders, 22oz Ridgetop Red (delicious Silver City brew)
Dessert: 3 eggs scrambled in bacon fat and butter with cheese, toasted walnuts, 4oz milk
I also went to the gym today - the workout was short but I'm convinced that the strength is coming back... may have something to do with regaining the weight...
I'll be making steak tomorrow; going to try to redeem the beurre rouge - wish me luck!
I think I'm gonna talk about booze today. Booze is only sort of on the meat diet. It's not high in fat, but its also not high in carbs. Because of this I find it acceptable (plus it greases up the social engine). Because of the way alcohol is metabLOLized it doesn't raise your blood sugar (which can actually be a concern... you did read that link from the first post, didn't you?). But it also doesn't help me reach my fat from calories goal for the day, so I've tried to restrict it. Plus, most alcohol has some carbs in it, especially mixed drinks and beer - which is why I tend to prefer the straight stuff and wine. I love wine... especially red wine. I don't know how I became a wine-o anyway. I started liking booze in mixed drinks - it's hard to beat whiskey and soda, and many, many other mixed drinks for that matter - from there I moved on to Guinness and various other beers (never liked light beers though, I prefer bitter stouts and IPAs). Then i started to really like cabernet-sauvignon, and I haven't moved from there since. It's dangerous though - I become severely tempted to drink it straight from the bottle, which is when stupidity starts to happen.
I should discuss cheese too, since I'm talking about wine. Cheese is one of those things I would like a lot more if it weren't so expensive. Plus, if I could avoid buying wine and cheese at the same time I would prefer that. The other day, when I was out buying my "dessert" (wine and cheese), I felt totally normal digging through the cheeses and finding white cheddar. But then I found my way to the wine aisle, and realized that I would be waiting in line at Safeway buying wine and cheese - I just had to hope that I didn't see anyone I knew. You see, this is the sort of thing that makes for a funny story, but in reality it's actually quite embarrassing. Imagine yourself doing something really snobbish - say you're telling your friend why you think Debussy is one of the best Romantic era composers - and then you suddenly realize that you don't have an excuse like you drank a half bottle of whiskey and a couple beers (if you had the booze this is totally reasonable, except you probably forget that Debussy was a Romantic/impressionistic composer and just lumped him into "classical"). This is how I felt. Actually, this is kind of how I feel right now - no excuse for being a know-nothing "snob." I don't know anything about wine or cheese, except I know that for some reason they tend to go really well together. Anyway, after realizing this and waiting in line I felt extremely awkward because the two people in front of me commented on the fact that I was buying wine and cheese. To make matters worse they at least pretended it wasn't snobbish. Anyway, at least it makes for a good story, eh?
Cheese is mostly on the diet as well. It usually lacks carbs and is high in fat. It also tastes wonderful with just about everything else on the diet. It's been a staple along with eggs. Fortunately, if you eat cheese straight from the package it doesn't encourage stupid behavior.
Anyway, food adventures for the past couple days:
Have you ever had Korean style short ribs? They are sooo good. A friend of mine kept telling me he needed to take me out for Korean BBQ so he could "de-white" me lol. I'd be a fan as long as I got to eat more short ribs. Plus they're basically ok for the diet - lots of fat, but with a thin, sweet sauce. I guess really that's the only food adventure aside from some ruined Hollandaise sauce - I added too much vinegar to it and it was... vinegary.
I've noticed a possible side-effect from the meat diet.... Though I'll admit I have no means of confirming this. I shaved today and noticed that my skin and hair weren't catching the razor as much as they normally seem to. I'm intrigued, as I have no idea what this means has changed in my skin/hair - I'm even more intrigued because it made shaving infinitely more enjoyable. If this keeps up, I might avoid looking like some disheveled hobo at least one day a week.
One final thing - I seem to have regained some of the weight that I lost in the first two weeks of the diet lol. This probably has something to do with skipping the gym, but there are a number of other possibilities. I'm not worried too much - I didn't do this to lose weight. At the same time though, I would prefer not getting fatter. I'm back up to about 150 from the low point of 145, starting weight of 155. Which reminds me, at some point I want to start keeping track of my blood pressure, and maybe even get a blood test or two.
Anyway, it's tired and I'm late (lol... did u catch that?) and I still have to recap the past two days.
Wednesday:
INPUT
Breakfast: 6 eggs scrambled in bacon fat, 3 pieces of bacon, multivitamin, Vitamin D, 4oz milk
Midmorning: handful of walnuts
Lunch: handful of walnuts, fair amount of cheese
Afternoon "snack": Korean style BBQed shortribs and chicken
Dinner: flank steak and sausage, 4oz milk
Thursday:
INPUT
Breakfast: 6 eggs scrambled in bacon fat with nasty vinegary hollandaise, 4 pieces of bacon, 4oz milk, multivitamin, vitamin D
Lunch: 3 scrambled eggs in bacon fat with cheese, 3 slices of bacon, leftover steak
Afternoon snack: 12oz americano with half+half
Dinner: 4 Gutted BBQ shredded pork sliders, 22oz Ridgetop Red (delicious Silver City brew)
Dessert: 3 eggs scrambled in bacon fat and butter with cheese, toasted walnuts, 4oz milk
I also went to the gym today - the workout was short but I'm convinced that the strength is coming back... may have something to do with regaining the weight...
I'll be making steak tomorrow; going to try to redeem the beurre rouge - wish me luck!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The winz, the failz, and the uglyz
I'm gonna start with the wins today because it'll make me feel better about the other things.
Winz:
Today I successfully made Hollandaise sauce. This was after my epic fail making Bearnaise sauce, which made for a tasty but very runny and fully separated buttery eggy mixture - which made a great topping for a steak. I don't have a double boiler so I tried just holding a pan over another pan with simmering water in it. It didn't work so I ended up setting the pan into the boiling water and my egg yolks scrambled. At that point I gave up, stopped trying to clarify the butter and just threw everything into the bowl with a hand mixer. Lol... this is supposed to be the winz section... Anyway, I watched a video on making Hollandaise, cut the recipe in half, and got to work with my little glass bowl over the simmering water. It worked perfectly and tasted AMAZING. I made eggs Benedict with real bacon instead of that Canadian garbage, and I skipped the English muffin of course.
Another win of recent times involved my other sister bringing me a large portion of beef steaks and roasts and ground meats that she butchered herself (totally brutal). The beef is really good, and I have only made steaks so far. Looking forward to some epic burger patties and roasts soon. Most important thing: free good meat.
Another win involves workouts and is also kind of a fail. When I first switched to this diet it was a week before finals (lol y u so stooped?). Definitely not the best choice... But anyway, when I first switched to the diet, I swear that I felt more energy while I was working out, was lifting more weight/reps, running faster/longer, and feeling less sore afterward and blah blah blah (let me be the first to cry placebo effect). But I only went a week on the diet and working out before the stress of finals overwhelmed me and I stopped going to the gym during finals week. Then the storm of laziness that is Spring Break overtook me and I spent another week of not going to the gym. When I first went back, I felt weak and couldn't finish the workouts I was doing comfortably before my extended vacation, even while lifting less weight, running slower, and for a shorter period of time. I'm the first person once again to be wondering to myself, "maybe it's because I'm not making enough glycogen because I'm not eating carbohydrates." Which is entirely possible, but there are too many variables - a two week break is a two week break and time should be allowed to make things normal. The point here is that it's dumb to draw conclusions from such a small sampling with so many other variables - what I experienced very likely could have been experienced exactly as I experienced it on a normal diet; there's no reason to associate my feelings with the diet unless I can show that the diet truly had the effects I noticed.
Failz:
Well, aside form the Bearnaise sauce, which I already explained (which at least still tasted good) there is also the issue of the marrow bones I tried to eat.
I've seen people devouring marrow straight from the bone; I've even done it myself, though admittedly only with slow cooked ribs that I cracked open (which don't have much bone marrow). Since I've heard people like Anthony Bourdain talk about how much he loves marrow, I decided to try making marrow bones like some famous chef does, only he recommends serving bread and herby lemon juice with them. Since I'm not eating bread, I skipped the other stuff too. But I still cooked the bones the same way in my temperamental oven. I cooked the bones for 18 minutes at 450 degrees, like the recipe said, stopping when I noticed juices running out of the bone and the ends of the marrow looked nice and browned. I had mine with bacon but there was only one slice left... and I at most of it while waiting for the bones to finish... So the first bite was amazing, slathered on top of a small piece of bacon - it seemed to just enhance the flavor and make the bacon melt in my mouth. The next bite was the same, only less unexpected, and sad because I was out of bacon. For the third bite I hesitated - the piece of marrow I pulled out looked and felt a little... raw... and the bad smell (I forgot to mention the offputting smell) was starting to get to me. It didn't feel like anything I'd ever eaten before - perhaps like stiff, unmelting jello without the sweet flavor, and with more connective tissue. I uncomfortably choked it down. The fourth bite was my last, and I barely managed to get it down - the smell, the texture and the mental images of raw animal product were too much for me. I had to throw the remaining bones away and clean the dishes to get rid of the bad smell asap. However, I have not given up on marrow. Next time I'm going to slow cook it, at maybe 300 or 325, and screw the stuff that melts out. I wanna cook the connective tissue down until it tenderizes what's left into butter. Then I'm gonna make sure I have something to put it on.
Uglyz:
If there's one thing that has been tough for me as far as following this diet is concerned its been getting enough fat. I have always liked leaner meats - I like lean beef, I love poultry, and I love white fish and tuna. This is not to say that I despise all fatty cuts, but I always prefer white meat. Given a choice, I would take turkey breast over thighs, halibut over salmon, and would trim the fat from my steaks. Of course I still love cheese and butter and eggs, which is why these things have made up such a large portion of my diet - there's no way I could enjoy eating this much fat without them (unless I just ate bacon every day). This doesn't mean I don't like steak, it just means that the way I enjoy it wouldn't technically be appropriate for this diet (unless it was covered in Bearnaise sauce).
One more uglyz. When I tried to find real, good information on eating this way I found a lot of dumb websites filled with tons of anecdotal evidence, feel good crap, and buzzwords. I hate seeing people call this a Paleolithic diet - and I hate the reasons they give for why they think its good even more. The fact that early humans never ate nightshades because they come from the New World does not mean that nightshades must not be part of a healthy diet. For that matter, the fact that early humans ate things in the Old World does not make them healthy. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either an idiot or a liar. I read one website with a claim that the Paleo diet cured someone's BO... maybe I have magic BO but mine is no better than ever. These people remind me of hipsters.
It's late and I'm tired, so time for input/output.
INPUT
Breakfast: 6 eggs scrambled in bacon fat, 4 slices of bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, 4oz milk, Vitamin D, multivitamin
Midmorning: half a cookie, small bit of regular cheddar
Lunch: 4oz milk, 4 poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce and three slices of bacon
Afternoon: 12oz Americano with cream
Dinner: 4oz milk, steak with leftover Hollandaise (tastes weird leftover), and a little more steak
Dessert: some oil-toasted walnuts with cinnamon, 4oz milk
Lotsa water
Tomorrow... will be a day of walnuts as I won't be home to cook much.
Winz:
Today I successfully made Hollandaise sauce. This was after my epic fail making Bearnaise sauce, which made for a tasty but very runny and fully separated buttery eggy mixture - which made a great topping for a steak. I don't have a double boiler so I tried just holding a pan over another pan with simmering water in it. It didn't work so I ended up setting the pan into the boiling water and my egg yolks scrambled. At that point I gave up, stopped trying to clarify the butter and just threw everything into the bowl with a hand mixer. Lol... this is supposed to be the winz section... Anyway, I watched a video on making Hollandaise, cut the recipe in half, and got to work with my little glass bowl over the simmering water. It worked perfectly and tasted AMAZING. I made eggs Benedict with real bacon instead of that Canadian garbage, and I skipped the English muffin of course.
Another win of recent times involved my other sister bringing me a large portion of beef steaks and roasts and ground meats that she butchered herself (totally brutal). The beef is really good, and I have only made steaks so far. Looking forward to some epic burger patties and roasts soon. Most important thing: free good meat.
Another win involves workouts and is also kind of a fail. When I first switched to this diet it was a week before finals (lol y u so stooped?). Definitely not the best choice... But anyway, when I first switched to the diet, I swear that I felt more energy while I was working out, was lifting more weight/reps, running faster/longer, and feeling less sore afterward and blah blah blah (let me be the first to cry placebo effect). But I only went a week on the diet and working out before the stress of finals overwhelmed me and I stopped going to the gym during finals week. Then the storm of laziness that is Spring Break overtook me and I spent another week of not going to the gym. When I first went back, I felt weak and couldn't finish the workouts I was doing comfortably before my extended vacation, even while lifting less weight, running slower, and for a shorter period of time. I'm the first person once again to be wondering to myself, "maybe it's because I'm not making enough glycogen because I'm not eating carbohydrates." Which is entirely possible, but there are too many variables - a two week break is a two week break and time should be allowed to make things normal. The point here is that it's dumb to draw conclusions from such a small sampling with so many other variables - what I experienced very likely could have been experienced exactly as I experienced it on a normal diet; there's no reason to associate my feelings with the diet unless I can show that the diet truly had the effects I noticed.
Failz:
Well, aside form the Bearnaise sauce, which I already explained (which at least still tasted good) there is also the issue of the marrow bones I tried to eat.
I've seen people devouring marrow straight from the bone; I've even done it myself, though admittedly only with slow cooked ribs that I cracked open (which don't have much bone marrow). Since I've heard people like Anthony Bourdain talk about how much he loves marrow, I decided to try making marrow bones like some famous chef does, only he recommends serving bread and herby lemon juice with them. Since I'm not eating bread, I skipped the other stuff too. But I still cooked the bones the same way in my temperamental oven. I cooked the bones for 18 minutes at 450 degrees, like the recipe said, stopping when I noticed juices running out of the bone and the ends of the marrow looked nice and browned. I had mine with bacon but there was only one slice left... and I at most of it while waiting for the bones to finish... So the first bite was amazing, slathered on top of a small piece of bacon - it seemed to just enhance the flavor and make the bacon melt in my mouth. The next bite was the same, only less unexpected, and sad because I was out of bacon. For the third bite I hesitated - the piece of marrow I pulled out looked and felt a little... raw... and the bad smell (I forgot to mention the offputting smell) was starting to get to me. It didn't feel like anything I'd ever eaten before - perhaps like stiff, unmelting jello without the sweet flavor, and with more connective tissue. I uncomfortably choked it down. The fourth bite was my last, and I barely managed to get it down - the smell, the texture and the mental images of raw animal product were too much for me. I had to throw the remaining bones away and clean the dishes to get rid of the bad smell asap. However, I have not given up on marrow. Next time I'm going to slow cook it, at maybe 300 or 325, and screw the stuff that melts out. I wanna cook the connective tissue down until it tenderizes what's left into butter. Then I'm gonna make sure I have something to put it on.
Uglyz:
If there's one thing that has been tough for me as far as following this diet is concerned its been getting enough fat. I have always liked leaner meats - I like lean beef, I love poultry, and I love white fish and tuna. This is not to say that I despise all fatty cuts, but I always prefer white meat. Given a choice, I would take turkey breast over thighs, halibut over salmon, and would trim the fat from my steaks. Of course I still love cheese and butter and eggs, which is why these things have made up such a large portion of my diet - there's no way I could enjoy eating this much fat without them (unless I just ate bacon every day). This doesn't mean I don't like steak, it just means that the way I enjoy it wouldn't technically be appropriate for this diet (unless it was covered in Bearnaise sauce).
One more uglyz. When I tried to find real, good information on eating this way I found a lot of dumb websites filled with tons of anecdotal evidence, feel good crap, and buzzwords. I hate seeing people call this a Paleolithic diet - and I hate the reasons they give for why they think its good even more. The fact that early humans never ate nightshades because they come from the New World does not mean that nightshades must not be part of a healthy diet. For that matter, the fact that early humans ate things in the Old World does not make them healthy. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is either an idiot or a liar. I read one website with a claim that the Paleo diet cured someone's BO... maybe I have magic BO but mine is no better than ever. These people remind me of hipsters.
It's late and I'm tired, so time for input/output.
INPUT
Breakfast: 6 eggs scrambled in bacon fat, 4 slices of bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, 4oz milk, Vitamin D, multivitamin
Midmorning: half a cookie, small bit of regular cheddar
Lunch: 4oz milk, 4 poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce and three slices of bacon
Afternoon: 12oz Americano with cream
Dinner: 4oz milk, steak with leftover Hollandaise (tastes weird leftover), and a little more steak
Dessert: some oil-toasted walnuts with cinnamon, 4oz milk
Lotsa water
Tomorrow... will be a day of walnuts as I won't be home to cook much.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Fixing the lies
OK, so I lied a little bit in the first post/in this blog... I don't swear very often among other things. My sister says not to be a potty mouth so from now on I'm gonna try to avoid it (but it's so hipster to use the f-word repeatedly). I'm also not very fat, although I used to be. But I'm also not skinny and due to my love of food I never will be.
I'd be a liar if I told you I'd do things and then didn't. Since I said I would explain the theory behind the meat diet I'm gonna do that now. If you followed my link from the first page (you did... didn't you?) then you understand most of it, at least slightly. Unless of course, like all of us, you think scientific papers are really boring and even seem to be intentionally difficult to understand at times -- and were unable to figure out what the point was. The point was that the two men in the study who were eating nothing but meat showed no obvious signs of deteriorating health after one year. This isn't what one would expect at all. They weren't even taking vitamins and they didn't develop any deficiencies. They were also eating a diet that consisted of about 75% calories from fat and only 25% from protein and almost none from carbohydrates. The theory, as far as I can understand from reading various sources, is that we don't need plant material as our sources of micronutrients, we don't need carbohydrates (mostly from plants) and can replace them with fats - making a change in the way our body gets energy, and we don't need fiber to keep our bowels moving regularly as long as we only eat animal products.
It calls into question a lot of things which we - and primarily for good reason - hold to be true. For example, we know that if we eat a normal diet but don't get enough fiber then we will have problems - so what actually causes the issues if we can go without fiber? What causes scurvy and how could we get vitamin C from meats? Why would someone want to eat lots of fat? How did they not develop vitamin deficiencies? What about cancer? How could all of this meat not cause kidney damage? What about Eskimos? Don't they essentially eat this way? Why has this not been studied to death?
And of course I think that last question is the most important one. And in some ways we can answer it. These days, and even in the recent past, there has been a hysterical reaction to meat in general and specifically to fatty meats. The idea of an all meat diet is generally responded to with "you're going to die." Everyone is absurdly insistent on the healthiness of vegan diets -- which are honestly questionable. Imagine a school trying to set up a volunteer study. The only volunteers would be considered insane or at least abnormal by the civilized in society, the higher-ups in the school would be very unlikely to authorize something like this, and the cost to insure the researchers and volunteers against potential health issues and liability would be prohibitive. On the other hand, given the popularity of vegan diets, a school doing a similar study on vegan diets would run into none of these roadblocks, despite potential health issues, and if the volunteers reported that they "felt really good" it would be expected and left unquestioned.
The final part of the theory is the explanation for why they were able to eat so much saturated fat and cholesterol without developing heart issues. But they did somehow, as one of them had improved blood pressure levels and other was unchanged (The one whose BP didn't change had been living on this diet for about 9 years on and off, had low-normal blood pressure levels, lived an inactive life, and lived to be over 80 years old, despite being born in the late 1800s). I'm going to leave this research to the reader, but still give a brief explanation. There's a theory that dietary saturated fats and cholesterol aren't the cause of clogged arteries and other problems, and there are at least a few studies to support it.
That's it for the day cuz I'm tired, so onto the food
Today I ate a lot of walnuts. I had to include them in my diet because they travel well and don't require preparation. I also made a meatloaf with my brother and his wife out of ground turkey, pork sausage, and bacon. We took pics :)
INPUT
Breakfast: 4oz milk, smal bowl of egg salad, multivitamin, vitamin D
Midmorning: handful of walnuts
Lunch: Other half of the previous block of white cheddar, another handful of walnuts
Afternoon snack: last bit of cheddar, handful of walnuts, 4oz milk
Dinner: Large wedge of delicious meatloaf
Dessert: half a cookie with 4oz of milk
A fair amount of water
I'd be a liar if I told you I'd do things and then didn't. Since I said I would explain the theory behind the meat diet I'm gonna do that now. If you followed my link from the first page (you did... didn't you?) then you understand most of it, at least slightly. Unless of course, like all of us, you think scientific papers are really boring and even seem to be intentionally difficult to understand at times -- and were unable to figure out what the point was. The point was that the two men in the study who were eating nothing but meat showed no obvious signs of deteriorating health after one year. This isn't what one would expect at all. They weren't even taking vitamins and they didn't develop any deficiencies. They were also eating a diet that consisted of about 75% calories from fat and only 25% from protein and almost none from carbohydrates. The theory, as far as I can understand from reading various sources, is that we don't need plant material as our sources of micronutrients, we don't need carbohydrates (mostly from plants) and can replace them with fats - making a change in the way our body gets energy, and we don't need fiber to keep our bowels moving regularly as long as we only eat animal products.
It calls into question a lot of things which we - and primarily for good reason - hold to be true. For example, we know that if we eat a normal diet but don't get enough fiber then we will have problems - so what actually causes the issues if we can go without fiber? What causes scurvy and how could we get vitamin C from meats? Why would someone want to eat lots of fat? How did they not develop vitamin deficiencies? What about cancer? How could all of this meat not cause kidney damage? What about Eskimos? Don't they essentially eat this way? Why has this not been studied to death?
And of course I think that last question is the most important one. And in some ways we can answer it. These days, and even in the recent past, there has been a hysterical reaction to meat in general and specifically to fatty meats. The idea of an all meat diet is generally responded to with "you're going to die." Everyone is absurdly insistent on the healthiness of vegan diets -- which are honestly questionable. Imagine a school trying to set up a volunteer study. The only volunteers would be considered insane or at least abnormal by the civilized in society, the higher-ups in the school would be very unlikely to authorize something like this, and the cost to insure the researchers and volunteers against potential health issues and liability would be prohibitive. On the other hand, given the popularity of vegan diets, a school doing a similar study on vegan diets would run into none of these roadblocks, despite potential health issues, and if the volunteers reported that they "felt really good" it would be expected and left unquestioned.
The final part of the theory is the explanation for why they were able to eat so much saturated fat and cholesterol without developing heart issues. But they did somehow, as one of them had improved blood pressure levels and other was unchanged (The one whose BP didn't change had been living on this diet for about 9 years on and off, had low-normal blood pressure levels, lived an inactive life, and lived to be over 80 years old, despite being born in the late 1800s). I'm going to leave this research to the reader, but still give a brief explanation. There's a theory that dietary saturated fats and cholesterol aren't the cause of clogged arteries and other problems, and there are at least a few studies to support it.
That's it for the day cuz I'm tired, so onto the food
Today I ate a lot of walnuts. I had to include them in my diet because they travel well and don't require preparation. I also made a meatloaf with my brother and his wife out of ground turkey, pork sausage, and bacon. We took pics :)
INPUT
Breakfast: 4oz milk, smal bowl of egg salad, multivitamin, vitamin D
Midmorning: handful of walnuts
Lunch: Other half of the previous block of white cheddar, another handful of walnuts
Afternoon snack: last bit of cheddar, handful of walnuts, 4oz milk
Dinner: Large wedge of delicious meatloaf
Dessert: half a cookie with 4oz of milk
A fair amount of water
Sunday, April 3, 2011
I hate hipsters...
So... The title of the blog and the title of this first post may seem entirely unrelated, but you've probably never heard of my reasoning...
I have a love-hate relationship with hipsters. Their lifestyle is essentially anathema to mine. They strive for attention in all areas of life, whereas I generally try to remain unknown or at least anonymous. But on one occasion I was saved from needing to draw attention to myself by a hipster - an occasion for which I am entirely grateful. Also, hipsters are an endless source of people-watching enjoyment -- nothing beats seeing an alleged man in all black on a summer day in a wool coat, a scarf, a hat, and leather boots in tight pants carrying a large coach bag smoking a designer cigarette - ironically of course.
But there is one small area of life in which hipsters and I have an overlap. Both myself and hipsters have an inexplicable obsession with telling people about the diet we have adopted. Of course, my diet has absolutely nothing to do with saving the planet or being kind to animals (as I know that an individual's personal vendetta against an "evil industry" will have no true effect, except maybe to create yet another evil industry. Not to mention the hilarious concept of being nice to a creature that you fully intend to murder, dismember, and devour - it doesn't matter if you name it Lardie and rub its belly if you intend to stuff it into yours after you kill it). Mine has entirely to do with an obsession with knowledge and information -- I couldn't find much of any (true scientific) information on the effects of eating a meat-only diet, and with the preponderance of hip vegan diets I decided to test the effects of eating only animal products on none other than myself.
With that said, I would like to credit hipsters with encouraging me to try this diet in their own unique little way. I would like to add, though, that my experiment is not truly the opposite of a hipster's vegan experience. Like my blog's title may suggest, I'm not a skinny hipster -- I fucking love food. I didn't do this to be philosophical and eschew the evil and cruel eating of voiceless masses of plant material. I didn't do this so I could tell all my friends how I felt a new spiritual connection to the Earth because I wasn't killing plant life. I wanted to eat bacon every morning. I wanted steak and eggs. And I didn't, for even a moment, want to give up garlic and celery and soups and olive oil. Understandably, I'm not going to tell you that my new diet has changed every aspect of my life for the better, or hide the hardships -- or, for that matter, the failures and disgusting things I have tried and almost thrown up attempting to shovel into my mouth. So, to clarify, I will point out that my diet has consisted of meat, eggs, dairy (though milk sugar intake has been measured and restricted), fish, walnuts, pecans, herbs and spices, incidental vegetables (such as those required for recipes), and occasional desserts (in small portions - I do not have the power to deny my sweet tooth).
What I want to do is share the true, unadulterated, meatetarian experience -- the theory behind it, the cuisine, the bowel movements, the numbers, what's fun and what sucks, and why I think you should try it. Also, in my own anti-hipster way, I want you to know a little bit about me, and why I'm not really that unique, and why I think it's so wrong for people to want to be so.
I also want to share my food adventures for the week. I experimented with butter sauces this week... I tried to make a beurre rouge, but didn't have any red wine and didn't reduce the vinegar enough, so my sauce ended up thin and runny and white. I also tried to make a bearnaise but the recipe I had sucked and I was out of shallots. Lastly I tried marrow in two forms - one of which made me gag uncontrollably and the other fueled my desire - details to follow at some further date -- hopefully with redemption.
Lastly, I want to leave you with my inspiration (I mean, aside from all those fucking hipsters)...
http://www.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf+html
And a brief rundown of the day's dietary input/output:
INPUT
Breakfast: 4 ounces 2% milk, vitamin D, multivitamin
Midmorning: 12 oz breve late
Lunch: 6 scrambled eggs in butter and bacon fat with bearnaise sauce (I effed it up), 2 slices bacon, 4 ounces 2% milk
Afternoon snack: handful of walnuts, half of one nutter butter cookie
Dinner: 1 glass of Cabernet, 4 large barbecued pork ribs, 1 barbecued Italian sausage
Dessert: Half a small block of Irish white cheddar (SOFAKING GUD)... 3 more glasses of cabernet...
A fair amount of water throughout the day - total amount unknown.
OUTPUT (I'm going to include this even though it's gross because it surprised even me -- I didn't expect a diet without fiber to be functional, let alone comfortable but I have had little to no problems)
One bowel movement midmorning - nothing abnormal.
Anyway, this is probably something you've never heard of, so I hope it's, like, an eye-opening experience for you, or something... Like reading Pascal for the first time -- but you've probably never heard of him... All hipster jokes aside, I hope you enjoy my story and find it educational as well as entertaining.
I have a love-hate relationship with hipsters. Their lifestyle is essentially anathema to mine. They strive for attention in all areas of life, whereas I generally try to remain unknown or at least anonymous. But on one occasion I was saved from needing to draw attention to myself by a hipster - an occasion for which I am entirely grateful. Also, hipsters are an endless source of people-watching enjoyment -- nothing beats seeing an alleged man in all black on a summer day in a wool coat, a scarf, a hat, and leather boots in tight pants carrying a large coach bag smoking a designer cigarette - ironically of course.
But there is one small area of life in which hipsters and I have an overlap. Both myself and hipsters have an inexplicable obsession with telling people about the diet we have adopted. Of course, my diet has absolutely nothing to do with saving the planet or being kind to animals (as I know that an individual's personal vendetta against an "evil industry" will have no true effect, except maybe to create yet another evil industry. Not to mention the hilarious concept of being nice to a creature that you fully intend to murder, dismember, and devour - it doesn't matter if you name it Lardie and rub its belly if you intend to stuff it into yours after you kill it). Mine has entirely to do with an obsession with knowledge and information -- I couldn't find much of any (true scientific) information on the effects of eating a meat-only diet, and with the preponderance of hip vegan diets I decided to test the effects of eating only animal products on none other than myself.
With that said, I would like to credit hipsters with encouraging me to try this diet in their own unique little way. I would like to add, though, that my experiment is not truly the opposite of a hipster's vegan experience. Like my blog's title may suggest, I'm not a skinny hipster -- I fucking love food. I didn't do this to be philosophical and eschew the evil and cruel eating of voiceless masses of plant material. I didn't do this so I could tell all my friends how I felt a new spiritual connection to the Earth because I wasn't killing plant life. I wanted to eat bacon every morning. I wanted steak and eggs. And I didn't, for even a moment, want to give up garlic and celery and soups and olive oil. Understandably, I'm not going to tell you that my new diet has changed every aspect of my life for the better, or hide the hardships -- or, for that matter, the failures and disgusting things I have tried and almost thrown up attempting to shovel into my mouth. So, to clarify, I will point out that my diet has consisted of meat, eggs, dairy (though milk sugar intake has been measured and restricted), fish, walnuts, pecans, herbs and spices, incidental vegetables (such as those required for recipes), and occasional desserts (in small portions - I do not have the power to deny my sweet tooth).
What I want to do is share the true, unadulterated, meatetarian experience -- the theory behind it, the cuisine, the bowel movements, the numbers, what's fun and what sucks, and why I think you should try it. Also, in my own anti-hipster way, I want you to know a little bit about me, and why I'm not really that unique, and why I think it's so wrong for people to want to be so.
I also want to share my food adventures for the week. I experimented with butter sauces this week... I tried to make a beurre rouge, but didn't have any red wine and didn't reduce the vinegar enough, so my sauce ended up thin and runny and white. I also tried to make a bearnaise but the recipe I had sucked and I was out of shallots. Lastly I tried marrow in two forms - one of which made me gag uncontrollably and the other fueled my desire - details to follow at some further date -- hopefully with redemption.
Lastly, I want to leave you with my inspiration (I mean, aside from all those fucking hipsters)...
http://www.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf+html
And a brief rundown of the day's dietary input/output:
INPUT
Breakfast: 4 ounces 2% milk, vitamin D, multivitamin
Midmorning: 12 oz breve late
Lunch: 6 scrambled eggs in butter and bacon fat with bearnaise sauce (I effed it up), 2 slices bacon, 4 ounces 2% milk
Afternoon snack: handful of walnuts, half of one nutter butter cookie
Dinner: 1 glass of Cabernet, 4 large barbecued pork ribs, 1 barbecued Italian sausage
Dessert: Half a small block of Irish white cheddar (SOFAKING GUD)... 3 more glasses of cabernet...
A fair amount of water throughout the day - total amount unknown.
OUTPUT (I'm going to include this even though it's gross because it surprised even me -- I didn't expect a diet without fiber to be functional, let alone comfortable but I have had little to no problems)
One bowel movement midmorning - nothing abnormal.
Anyway, this is probably something you've never heard of, so I hope it's, like, an eye-opening experience for you, or something... Like reading Pascal for the first time -- but you've probably never heard of him... All hipster jokes aside, I hope you enjoy my story and find it educational as well as entertaining.
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