Don't get excited -- it's nothing shocking -- it's just that i don't enjoy 90% chocolate! :-) Anything over 72% tastes like bitter fat to me -- not chocolate. To be honest, my favorite is the sugar-free Valor bar with cocoa nibs. But 90% was the only thing in the house, so i stuck it in my bag and am having it for "afters" with a cup of decaf.
I'm on the road again -- stopped for the night in Muskogee, OK on my way to Texas (got a late start). After having a higher-carb day yesterday, i'm happy to be showing a "small" reading on the ketone strips. ...Or maybe the carb-counts from MyFitnessPal were unreasonably high? When I tallied up all the vegetables in the veal scaloppine (served over spaghetti squash) it came out shockingly high.
One of the interesting points of view that came out on the Low Carb Cruise last year was from Eric Westman --- he doesn't believe in subtracting fiber to get "net carbs." He thinks we should count them all, and i tend to agree. When you hear authorities claim that "non-starchy vegetable carbs don't count" you open the door to people eating TONS of squash or turnips or other such things, not losing weight, and then saying LC doesn't work. LC DOES work -- but it's possible to do it wrong.
LC can be done wrong. ;-)
LC with LOTS of ground almond baked goods is highly questionable.
LC with lots of non-starchy vegetables is not zero-carb, no matter what the Jaminets think.
LC with too much alcohol means you're using another fuel, not the fat and ketones you want to be using.
People can eat so much vegetation, it's no longer LC. Yesterday i did just that. Today I had a little coconut, a little onion, a little capers and pickles, and a little lettuce (with my chicken, ground beef, mayo and cheese). This morning the keto-strip was no-trace, and this evening i'm back where i should be.
It's been a good day, despite finishing it with the "wrong" chocolate. ;-)
I don't like anything over 75% cacao, either. It's bitter as an aspirin and gives me a stomach ache.
ReplyDeleteI think the idea of eating unlimited vegetation came from the finding that most people would have to be paid to eat more vegetables. Who knew that it would become a fad to eat the stuff by the truckload and then wonder why you didn't feel good?
:-) for years it seemed like vegetables were the great common ground -- EVERYONE agreed that they were "healthy." When science started taking a good hard look at the claims, they evaporated like the illusions they are. Their low calorie-count has been appreciated by dieters for generations, but that mostly just points out that starving people are desperate. When i ate low-fat back in the late '80s-early '90s, i was miserable and hungry enough to eat ANYTHING.
DeleteDon't get me wrong, i enjoy eating some of them very much indeed -- i just have problems with a lot of them. For people who "can't get enough" ... enjoy!
I love vegetables, but I often indeed can't get enough, especially cooked ones, like a cabbage stew or roasted pepper.
DeleteIn that worthless course about nutrition I commented about a while ago, the professor said that our stomach was just two cups in size, but may be stretched when necessary up to a litter. It looks like in order to consume the recommended amount of vegetables (I am not influenced much by it) people have to either stretch their stomachs regularly or eat too often, both are questionable things.
I do 85% up to 90% chocolate, half a serving a day. Otherwise my food addiction comes out to play and F with my mind. I'm pretty happy I can have that- many cannot.
ReplyDeleteI don't subtract any carbs. Just like the WW mantras of Fruit and veggies being "free". Yes... how many people stuck in a non weight loss mode and certainly some who will be well on their way to type 2 diabetes. I'll bet if there were data gathered, the people with the genetic coding for type 2 will develop it by subbing out a snickers for tons of fruit. Totally my 2 cents. I could be wrong here..
Safe travels, Tess!
I'm glad the "serious" chocolate works for you! :-) I could imagine how a more candy-style version can be problematic.... Yes, in our era of 365-day fruit availability (of the high-sugar fruits we've bred), i'm sure it COULD happen! Fruit apologists speak of tropical areas of human evolution providing lots of fruit, but any time i'm in such an area, the only fruit i SEE is deliberately planted by humans. Then there's the competition from other species for it, as anthropologists point out....
DeleteThanks for the good wishes -- i always do my best to drive safely! :-)
The earth was cooler and drier and therefore less lush during most of our evolution than it is now. And most of our evolution took place in Africa, mostly grasslands, I believe, not South American or South Pacific jungles. As you'd expect, our anatomy, carbon isotope analysis, our rapidly growing brains (over millions of years), and the spread of human ancestors all point to their meat, not fruit, as a significant part of their diet.
ReplyDeletei belong to the "humans ate a lot of meat" camp -- our guts haven't been like that of other primates for a long time!
DeleteI don't like the dark stuff (shit) either. It's so not worth it. Give me a small amount of cashews instead. ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't count carbs. At all. I eat a good amount of produce, and as long as the weight stays normal, I sleep good, I poop good, and no other symptoms, I'm very 'meh' about it. (I am OCD enough without adding to it with getting all macro'd out.)
i like to think that by our time in life, we SHOULD know what foods we thrive on.... :-) However, if we haven't discovered wheat to be problematic, there's a lot of confounding possible!
DeleteI like Trader Joe's 73% chocolate. In the words of Goldilocks, it's "just right". And no soy lecithin.
ReplyDeleteI do not like all the Lindt bars everyone raves about. When doing a Whole 30 I got desperate and nibbled some bakers 100% chocolate and that tasted better to me than any Lindt bar!
Recently Trader Joe opened a location in the area where I live, and I was disappointed to find very little interesting (like there are mostly ready-to eat things, and I cook food myself) while most people on internet are so exited about that store. May be I should try their chocolate. I don't eat it often anyway.
Deletethe Trader Joe's nearest us isn't very impressive -- i tried their grassfed beef, which was a good price, but it was too finely ground and too tightly packed, which makes it hard to work with and creates burgers that aren't very juicy, but tough. :-( ...Therefore i don't go there enough to get attached to their chocolate, which i hear is so good. But maybe that's a good thing?
DeleteIf you still have some, try putting some shredded, steamed cauliflower with it.
DeleteHi Tess
ReplyDelete"Don't get excited -- it's nothing shocking"
What a let down. I was thinking maybe you are an ex lap dancer in Tony Soprano's Bada Bing club, or used to have a serious coke habit. Dark, chocolate, I love it but It is kept under control, one bar a week and kept ice cool, and served with top notch coffee.
Kind regards Eddie
:-) No, my deepest darkest secrets aren't nearly as interesting as that! I sometimes enjoy chocolate, and it makes a good after-dinner treat, but i don't have the passion for it that some people do.
DeleteTess, you can use a melted 90% chocolate to cover nuts or mix it with a mascarpone cheese and some AS to create a less concentrated treat.
ReplyDeletei have been interested to try a recipe that Wooo has been raving about, for which i was going to chop it up into "chips" ... but i've never gotten around to it. :-) thus, there it was, and i took it along with me because if i feel in the mood for something sweet, it keeps me out of trouble to have chocolate available!
DeleteAs a person who is almost paranoidly concerned about most people are being unaware about danger of the foods promoting allergies, I think a chocolate shouldn't be a staple in a diet. I understand my own degree of such awareness could be excessive, and I mention it only in my small internet social circle.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible that the aversion to a very concentrated flavor is the signal your body gives you about a chocolate being not a very suitable food substance for you, but when it is diluted with a fat and a sweet agent, your body reacts on it as the sweet fatty mix.
I noticed among my family members that during the times when allergies are worse, people often do not want to eat and even smell the foods which are better to avoid at such period.
i agree with you! When i started "studying" nutrition, i came to the conclusion that my life-long antipathy to milk was an indication that it wasn't really good for me. When i finally had a chance to try raw milk and actually liked it, i considered it a sign that what i find objectionable are the altered proteins that mass-pasteurization creates!
DeleteI made the Beach Body low-carb cheesecake last week w/my luscious goose eggs (thanks Goosifer!), but honestly it was NOT worth the trouble... Don't get me wrong, it came out GREAT if I do say so myself! but when I'm the only person in the household that eats it (well I took 1/4 cake to my folks, who are obligated to say everything I cook is wonderful ;-) - in the future I'm sure I can find a low-carb bakery in Big D if I have a yearning for cheesecake. Honestly, sweets have become less & less appealing to me! I've been partitioning out some dark chocolate w/pumpkin-seed bark which does the trick for me - have NO idea what the percentage is, really could care less w/my 45 g allotments...
ReplyDelete