Friday, February 21, 2014

follow up on the "self-evident" truths, etc.

After my emmer-bread "first breakfast" I had a second-breakfast of scrambled eggs with bacon crumbled in.  I finished editing my post and I climbed out of my reading-chair ... and felt very achey and tired!  Just out of curiosity I took another blood-glucose reading -- it was fifteen points under my pre-breakfast reading!

Reactive hypoglycemia!  I never noticed myself prone to that problem before....

My husband hasn't seen any negative results from the emmer bread.  He likes it, but observed that it isn't as tasty as the rye.  He gets the rest of the loaf!

My bowels have been rather unhappy today, too.  Coincidence...?  Anyway, I took some probiotics this afternoon.  I think my supper is going to be some "cheese crisps" and kippers.  (Cheese crisps are what I call quarter-ounce portions of cheese baked at 450 F on parchment paper till they're brown and bubbly.  When they cool enough to handle, they're little disks of heaven!)

*******

AND

HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN!!!

I mentioned the other day that i'm reading all of Hyperlipid, from the beginning.

During a discussion of apoptosis, the comment section contains many excellent, clear-thinking inputs from pre-doctor Stephan Guyenet.  It's SO SAD!  From the bright pre-doc to the "good doctor" has been a biblically-epic fall from intellectual grace! 

"Hey Peter,

"Nice post. I think the connection between insulin, hunger and obesity is not really appreciated in mainstream medicine.

"Gary Taubes has a nice discussion of it in "Good Calories, Bad Calories".

"I'm working on a post about obesity that touches on this; I'll probably post it within a week or so."
[wanna bet that post is one of the ones he's deleted since?]

THAT was why I read him with enthusiasm about five years ago.  He obviously had a fine grasp on physiological detail, and described it well.  His photograph revealed a healthy good-looking man.

Not anymore -- on so any levels.  :-(

17 comments:

  1. You're much braver than I...I would never try emmer bread. My Celiac disease is very reactive. I too, get reactive hypoglycemia from oatmeal and a lot of starch...so I guess I can't try the RS stuff that's all the rage now, eh?
    Sad about SG.

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    1. :-) i'm one of those dumb people who wants to find out how much she can get away with.... I don't have celiac and when my gut had healed after years of NO wheat, I cautiously tested and found that my worst short-term symptoms were joint pain and brain fog.

      and I have to say that I WAS curious about heritage wheat! I knew that the archaeological record clearly shows grains to be problematic, but that various grains are different. WAP found healthy Swiss who were eating lots of rye. The Maya and ancient Egyptians both had obesity, but diabetes didn't develop on corn. ... so i'm tempted to experiement! :-D

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    2. May be it is not particularly scientific, but my major reservation against RS in the form of a raw starch is that eating it is absolutely against human instincts. Imagine green banana or raw potato. It is just revolting as a form of food. Eating it on purpose feels very wrong.

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    3. I hadn't thought of it in those terms before but i think you're absolutely right!

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  2. You've made me crave some cheese crisps now! :)

    Isn't it fun reading those old comments? I think SG used to post under the name 'sasquatch' on Peter's blog as well. Some of the comments are hilarious in light of subsequent developments. Luckily for us he hasn't (yet) gone over and deleted all his old comments.

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  3. Words of wisdom from one 'sasquatch' aka the Good Doctor:
    "I've always suspected that the reason vegetables are healthy is because when you eat a salad or a saute, you're essentially replacing carbohydrate in your meal with fat. "
    http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.co.nz/2007/09/fruit-and-vegetables-last-post-almost.html
    Lol. You notice he said "I've always suspected". Really? Always? I thought recently he claimed he'd only temporarily lost his mind and bought into the LC nonsense.

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    1. yes, to cover his ass, SG "should" probably go back and delete comments on the other blogs he frequented. :-( ... but what he SHOULD actually do is say "i got carried away with my FR hypothesis, and didn't realize it was just a restating of the old 'tasty food is moreish' concept. low-carb bland food causes better weight-loss than high-carb bland food so ... NEVER MIND."

      but you know damned well he isn't going to say it, even though it's a crashing failure.

      when he first told about the study upon which he based his hypothesis, it sounded interesting -- but then it turned out that the big success on the bland-liquid diet was ONE man! there were only four people in the test, and the woman who was doing the same thing as the ONE successful guy ... wasn't successful! how can you base a philosophy on ONE person???

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  4. There's nothing like a good boy going bad. But a good boy going dumb is like a bucket of cold water.

    I spent much of my life dealing with reactive hypoglycemia: hunger, mood swings, nightmares, brain fog, fatigue--I'm so glad those days are over.

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    1. knowing what the right answer is, when it comes to what one should eat and what one shouldn't, is such a blessing! i know i only have myself to blame if i consume something questionable, but i also have a stable of "fixes" for what can go wrong -- exercise, fasting, betaine-HCl tablets, probiotics, ....

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  5. Like you, I don't care much for reading SG anymore. Nevertheless I thought I'd just have a look to see what he's up to now. And then I see this comment today:

    "By the way, I think it can be very useful to "research the obvious" such as the hypothesis that people eat more of food that tastes good. Sometimes common sense turns out to be wrong, or an oversimplification."

    Wow. Is he saying the FR hypothesis may be wrong? It sounds like it (but then Stephan does like to play semantics as JJ said).

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    1. I really do hope that he's becoming more intellectually ethical. I suspect that the temptation to have his own signature hypothesis aligned with pressure from his mentors to follow the "conventional wisdom" of his alma mater. perhaps he's finding that this road is eventually bound to be a dead end...?

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  6. "breakfast of scrambled eggs with bacon crumbled" is just the way to start the day - well it is for me, although I know many who just grab a coffee and go !

    Like the sound of your "cheese crisps" - to be enjoyed any time of the day.

    All the best Jan

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    1. sound nutrition indeed! :-) with the addition of an occasional lamb-chop, I would find it enough to live on forever!

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  7. Coconut flour is the only thing I experiment with paleo baking. Are you going to experiment with more safe grains ?

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    1. i'm going to bake a loaf of barley bread to see if I tolerate it as well as rye -- it too is a gluten grain, but I suspect it may be less toxic than wheat.

      I've used quinoa before, and buckwheat too. the former would be a good replacement if one longs for a tabouli salad without the wheat. :-) the latter makes some interesting traditional dishes, but interestingly enough, it isn't tolerated by my DIL who is horribly allergic to tree nuts.

      the biggest trouble with all these lower-toxin grains as well as pseudograins -- they may be less problematic than wheat, but they're ALL high-carb! when I use them at all, I use them VERY rarely.

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    2. Did you use buckwheat flour or grains for a buckwheat bread? My son eats gluten-free grains, and buckwheat is his favorite. I make crepes for him from the lacto-fermented green buckwheat kernels.

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    3. I've used buckwheat flour to make pancakes, and put buckwheat in mixed-flour breads.

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