:-D Got somebody in your Christmas circle whom YOU think ought to cut back on the sugar? I tried a new recipe (which has been in my collection for years, untested) just now, for a cream-cheese-based fudge that i consider an unqualified success. It even has that slightly gritty texture that REAL from-scratch fudge has!
I'll confess this stuff is not paleo-correct -- i used "forbidden" sweeteners -- but hey, it's holiday-time! If one is not going to be PERFECT all the time (the BEST plan, i agree) ... if one needs to take a sweet to a holiday party that isn't the "weird stuff" WE prefer ... if our diabetic-idiot Aunt Gertrude INSISTS on eating fudge ... well, this might be an acceptable choice. (I'll publish it here AND put in on my recipe page.)
CREAM CHEESE FOOLIN' FUDGE
8 oz. block of cream cheese
3 T. cream
1 c. granulated/powdered erythritol
1 c. granulated/powdered xylitol (don't let the dog have any!)
4-6 oz. unsweetened "baking" chocolate
1 1/2 t. vanilla
1 t. sea salt (i used coarse-ground)
nuts, to taste
Place cream and broken chocolate in the top of a double-boiler and heat together till chocolate is melty (it doesn't have to become homogenous). Blend the room-temp cheese in a food-processor and add in the sweeteners and vanilla till smooth. Add the chocolate mixture and mix well. Last, mix in the salt and nuts, then spread in a buttered pan, and chill to harden.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
new recipe
FYI, i just remembered to add my husband's stellar recipe for cauliflower to the list. It makes a good low-carb side for any meat dish, and even vegetable-haters tend to love it. Just in time for that Christmas feast.... ;-)
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
proud to present anecdotes!
Ya know ... an awful lot of writers/bloggers, amateur and professional, make a big point of sneering at anecdotes and proclaiming that THEIR point of view is the correct one because they have SCIENCE on their side!!! There are a few problems with that:
...Because ideal macronutrient ratios are different between rats and mice, let alone us.
...Because studies often use human subjects who are young, whole, and uncomplicated -- not the middle-aged, menopausal and carbohydrate-intolerant.
...Because the sometimes-arbitrary conditions of laboratory studies don't necessarily match real-world situations.
"Science" can be very good at pinning down mechanisms and processes once they're identified, but until they are, conducting studies can just confuse the poor myopic plodders who do things like feed, exercise and test nocturnal animals during the daytime.
So -- sorry -- claims of scientific evidence are not a clinching argument, but rather a starting point for enquiry into ways and means. You may feel your study is definitive, but until you can show that it works in real people under normal circumstances, it doesn't actually MEAN diddly-squat.
- one can design a study that will "prove" anything one bloody well pleases;
- the proclaimers get all nearsighted when accosted with a study that "proves" the opposite;
- just because it works on genetically-modified mice does not mean it will apply to humans;
- due to genetic and time/damage-wrought variations in humans, we can each react very differently to ANY stimulus.
...Because ideal macronutrient ratios are different between rats and mice, let alone us.
...Because studies often use human subjects who are young, whole, and uncomplicated -- not the middle-aged, menopausal and carbohydrate-intolerant.
...Because the sometimes-arbitrary conditions of laboratory studies don't necessarily match real-world situations.
"Science" can be very good at pinning down mechanisms and processes once they're identified, but until they are, conducting studies can just confuse the poor myopic plodders who do things like feed, exercise and test nocturnal animals during the daytime.
So -- sorry -- claims of scientific evidence are not a clinching argument, but rather a starting point for enquiry into ways and means. You may feel your study is definitive, but until you can show that it works in real people under normal circumstances, it doesn't actually MEAN diddly-squat.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
supplements "as needed"
When i go out of town, my supplement-taking becomes a lot less organized. It's a pain to have to pack all those little bottles -- they take up a lot of space which means they have a train-case of their very own. I can't always spread them out at my destination (if i stay in one place more than a couple of days), which makes my taking them more haphazard. But when i leave some behind at home, i see pretty clearly which ones have a strong impact on my well-being.
At home, they're ranged on my side of the bathroom counter with the contact-lens solutions, deodorant, salt container for the neti-pot, electric toothbrush and scented candle -- quite a lot of clutter! But they're also organized by time-of-day when they're taken, so i don't have to seek for the first-thing-in-the-morning bottles, and the midday take-these-together items are easily identified. I use my comb as a divider between those i've already taken and the ones i haven't. If i choose not to use a particular supplement today, i turn the bottle upside-down as i put it to the left of the comb. I "have to" do things like this -- i have so vivid an imagination that sometimes i wonder if i DID take those antihistamines or just THOUGHT about it....
Being systematic about my supplement-taking has helped to define which nutrients are really necessary, and some of the conclusions are surprising. After my thyroid glandular and the iodine and selenium, i find that the most obvious things i need to pack are the IRON and the BETAINE-HCl! The latter is an "emergency" supplement -- indispensable when i'm so drained that my stomach doesn't work properly. My absorption of iron from foods is obviously so poor that without the supplement, taken on an empty stomach in company with selenium, C and B12, the amount of hair i shed is directly connected with my depletion. I see NO correlation with shedding and copper, though balance of the two minerals is theoretically essential.
The "as needed" part is where things get tricky. I "know" that cod-liver oil (or capsules of it), K2, acetyl-carnitine and CoQ10 are beneficial, and i KNOW that magnesium and zinc are essential, but i don't feel their effects much if at all. I take them in modest quantities daily. Carnitine i'm convinced is a good addition, but like vitamin C is a behind-the-scenes "plus" rather than a star on stage -- if i skip a day or two, i don't expect to experience a big difference. Tyrosine is so potent a stimulant as well as a provoker of tremors, i'm treating it very gingerly these days. If circumstances make me need to pour out my energy, i have no doubt that it is a good thing, but for an ordinary day i find it winds me up too much -- rather than improving thyroid function and boosting dopamine, it seems to prefer to take the highway to adrenaline, and i tend to secrete that a lot already. The mucuna seems to be an antidote to tyrosine's action as an upper, balancing the catecholamines.
The pregnenolone arrived yesterday and i've let a 10mg sublingual melt in my mouth twice already -- i don't notice any reaction yet, but i'll keep you informed. In my mid-life reduced-hormone state, i may find that getting used to it then dropping it again might show me its effects more clearly; that's a sure test for the iron.
[sigh] The hoops i jump through, to try to function like a normal person...!!! The young and "whole" -- that is, most paleo bloggers -- don't have a clue how fortunate they are. And it's not like i "brought it on myself with poor choices." :-P- - - ...How do you blow a "razberry" using emoticons?
At home, they're ranged on my side of the bathroom counter with the contact-lens solutions, deodorant, salt container for the neti-pot, electric toothbrush and scented candle -- quite a lot of clutter! But they're also organized by time-of-day when they're taken, so i don't have to seek for the first-thing-in-the-morning bottles, and the midday take-these-together items are easily identified. I use my comb as a divider between those i've already taken and the ones i haven't. If i choose not to use a particular supplement today, i turn the bottle upside-down as i put it to the left of the comb. I "have to" do things like this -- i have so vivid an imagination that sometimes i wonder if i DID take those antihistamines or just THOUGHT about it....
Being systematic about my supplement-taking has helped to define which nutrients are really necessary, and some of the conclusions are surprising. After my thyroid glandular and the iodine and selenium, i find that the most obvious things i need to pack are the IRON and the BETAINE-HCl! The latter is an "emergency" supplement -- indispensable when i'm so drained that my stomach doesn't work properly. My absorption of iron from foods is obviously so poor that without the supplement, taken on an empty stomach in company with selenium, C and B12, the amount of hair i shed is directly connected with my depletion. I see NO correlation with shedding and copper, though balance of the two minerals is theoretically essential.
The "as needed" part is where things get tricky. I "know" that cod-liver oil (or capsules of it), K2, acetyl-carnitine and CoQ10 are beneficial, and i KNOW that magnesium and zinc are essential, but i don't feel their effects much if at all. I take them in modest quantities daily. Carnitine i'm convinced is a good addition, but like vitamin C is a behind-the-scenes "plus" rather than a star on stage -- if i skip a day or two, i don't expect to experience a big difference. Tyrosine is so potent a stimulant as well as a provoker of tremors, i'm treating it very gingerly these days. If circumstances make me need to pour out my energy, i have no doubt that it is a good thing, but for an ordinary day i find it winds me up too much -- rather than improving thyroid function and boosting dopamine, it seems to prefer to take the highway to adrenaline, and i tend to secrete that a lot already. The mucuna seems to be an antidote to tyrosine's action as an upper, balancing the catecholamines.
The pregnenolone arrived yesterday and i've let a 10mg sublingual melt in my mouth twice already -- i don't notice any reaction yet, but i'll keep you informed. In my mid-life reduced-hormone state, i may find that getting used to it then dropping it again might show me its effects more clearly; that's a sure test for the iron.
[sigh] The hoops i jump through, to try to function like a normal person...!!! The young and "whole" -- that is, most paleo bloggers -- don't have a clue how fortunate they are. And it's not like i "brought it on myself with poor choices." :-P- - - ...How do you blow a "razberry" using emoticons?
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
new idea for me, borrowed from EB
I had occasion to reread Sidereal's last post, having referred my son to it this morning.... It's no surprise to me that blogs' comment sections can be just as fertile an area for ideas as the main text -- except where the audience is a pack of morons, and Ad Libitum's readers are NOT.
"Exceptionally Brash" made a comment which didn't particularly "click" with me when i first read it, but DID this morning. She observed that the use of bioidentical progesterone seemed to "fix" her ability to use carbohydrates in a "normal" way (my phrasing). Remember, she was a lean vegetarian for many years, then with midlife hormonal changes began to gain weight on the same intake that she maintained with before.
The discussion seems to me to settle on dopamine as the final substance which wrought the desirable end-product, but i wonder if testosterone might be a part of the equation. It occurs to me that the paleo world's "potato brigade" is peopled largely by the highly-T-endowed amongst us....
Since going out of town a couple of weeks ago, i have been abnormally low in energy. It's as though to have even MY usual levels of vitality, i need to have every nutrient in proper quantity and balance just like a house of cards -- and one puff of wind (in the form of a deficiency, or too many carbs, or too little sleep...) can tumble it right down. The tedious rebuilding of my Edifice of Energy can take a LONG TIME ... and i'm just beginning the second story at this point.
I'm going to try yet another experiment. Adding tyrosine made me hyper instead of energetic, and carnitine was less than perfect too, though i'm still using both supplements albeit in smaller, less frequent doses. I just ordered some sublingual pregnenolone tablets as suggested by Drs Peat and Sahelian (not that these guys are on my go-to list), and i'm interested to see what the effects will be. Ideally, it will be a better supplement than the progesterone cream i've used before, which tends to promote fat deposition on the location where it's applied!
one benefit of being away...
Yesterday afternoon, i indulged myself, and it felt GOOD! I was drinking champagne and catching up on half a week's blog posts.
Sometimes weeks go by without much new stuff too read -- sad for me, a reading junkie! Not that there isn't a lot of good older articles in the archives of my favorite blogs, but somehow "dried fruit" isn't as compelling to me as the fresh juicy stuff (figuratively speaking). When Peter, John, Emily or Mike writes about a study that's hot off the presses, and which confirms my low-carb bias, the sweet smell of victory fills the air! :-D And as for "think-pieces" from Sid or Wooo....
Being as incommunicado as i am in "cowboy town" gives me an exceptional opportunity of reading new stuff when i get back in range of a secure internet connection. In the wilds there, i depend on my Blackberry, and though my Verizon connection is better than the old AT&T one, it's still VERY iffy. Holding an audible telephone conversation isn't a sure thing, and when it comes to loading a page with too many pictures ... HA!
So getting back home i had a wealth of fresh blog posts and articles to read -- hurrah! My favorite reading chair was burdened for HOURS.
I've long believed in the power of reading for encouragement and reinforcement in "dieting," and there was a post at Mike Eades' blog (which eludes me, now that i'm trying to find it) that gave a good scientific reason for continuing my habit. These days i'm so confirmed in what works and what doesn't i don't really HAVE to get continued reassurance that whatever practice i'm pursuing actually WILL pay off ... but i must say i like the positive input anyway!
Sometimes weeks go by without much new stuff too read -- sad for me, a reading junkie! Not that there isn't a lot of good older articles in the archives of my favorite blogs, but somehow "dried fruit" isn't as compelling to me as the fresh juicy stuff (figuratively speaking). When Peter, John, Emily or Mike writes about a study that's hot off the presses, and which confirms my low-carb bias, the sweet smell of victory fills the air! :-D And as for "think-pieces" from Sid or Wooo....
Being as incommunicado as i am in "cowboy town" gives me an exceptional opportunity of reading new stuff when i get back in range of a secure internet connection. In the wilds there, i depend on my Blackberry, and though my Verizon connection is better than the old AT&T one, it's still VERY iffy. Holding an audible telephone conversation isn't a sure thing, and when it comes to loading a page with too many pictures ... HA!
So getting back home i had a wealth of fresh blog posts and articles to read -- hurrah! My favorite reading chair was burdened for HOURS.
I've long believed in the power of reading for encouragement and reinforcement in "dieting," and there was a post at Mike Eades' blog (which eludes me, now that i'm trying to find it) that gave a good scientific reason for continuing my habit. These days i'm so confirmed in what works and what doesn't i don't really HAVE to get continued reassurance that whatever practice i'm pursuing actually WILL pay off ... but i must say i like the positive input anyway!
Monday, December 3, 2012
finally back at home!
On the way home from Thanksgiving at my daughter's house in Houston, Spense and i attended a living-history weekend. It completed the conversion of my diet from "sloppy" to properly low-carb.
Did you all notice the recipe for jalapeno cheese squares? The batch i made on Wednesday provided several meals for me, and were very handy in the car. Fortunately, the nearest little town to our "playground for grown-ups" has one good basic restaurant where some of us ate a dinner and a breakfast before the event began -- an "ultimate omelet" for the latter meal and grilled shrimp, green beans, squash and spinach for the former. I was even saved from temptation to order a baked potato by the lack of REAL butter in the establishment....
While the other citizens of our old-west town chowed down on chicken and dumplings, i reheated the leftovers of my prime rib of Wednesday night. :-) I prepared lunch on Saturday, and i must blushingly confess to cooking them up some rather "evil" little pasties, which they polished off rapidly. My brunch was completely different, as you might imagine. Saturday dinner there is always STEAK, and usually very good ones. My bone-in ribeye was so big i couldn't finish it, and my side-dish was an innocent vegetable unlike the baked beans and rolls indulged in by the others. That evening my dessert consisted of a couple of jiggers of Curacao as the sweetening agent in the period-appropriate cocktails i was making for us. My single indulgence!
I ate breakfast with the others this (Sunday) morning -- bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs and black coffee. SOMEONE PUT MILK IN THE EGGS! YUK!!!!! Then i dashed madly about, packing stuff up, loading the car, and driving the 11 hours back home. There were certain misadventures, too, with my Verizon Navigator. :-( Only made two stops; I was VERY ready to reach my destination.
If my husband wakes me in the morning, i'll kill him....
Did you all notice the recipe for jalapeno cheese squares? The batch i made on Wednesday provided several meals for me, and were very handy in the car. Fortunately, the nearest little town to our "playground for grown-ups" has one good basic restaurant where some of us ate a dinner and a breakfast before the event began -- an "ultimate omelet" for the latter meal and grilled shrimp, green beans, squash and spinach for the former. I was even saved from temptation to order a baked potato by the lack of REAL butter in the establishment....
While the other citizens of our old-west town chowed down on chicken and dumplings, i reheated the leftovers of my prime rib of Wednesday night. :-) I prepared lunch on Saturday, and i must blushingly confess to cooking them up some rather "evil" little pasties, which they polished off rapidly. My brunch was completely different, as you might imagine. Saturday dinner there is always STEAK, and usually very good ones. My bone-in ribeye was so big i couldn't finish it, and my side-dish was an innocent vegetable unlike the baked beans and rolls indulged in by the others. That evening my dessert consisted of a couple of jiggers of Curacao as the sweetening agent in the period-appropriate cocktails i was making for us. My single indulgence!
I ate breakfast with the others this (Sunday) morning -- bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs and black coffee. SOMEONE PUT MILK IN THE EGGS! YUK!!!!! Then i dashed madly about, packing stuff up, loading the car, and driving the 11 hours back home. There were certain misadventures, too, with my Verizon Navigator. :-( Only made two stops; I was VERY ready to reach my destination.
If my husband wakes me in the morning, i'll kill him....
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