The classic low-carb breakfast starts with eggs, in one form or another, and often ends there. Scrambled eggs and fried eggs are my mainstays. Sometimes, for the sake of variety, I might have hard-boiled or poached eggs, but the problem with those is too little fat. Remember, I'm eating a HIGH fat, low carb diet. I want a great fat-busting ratio of fat to carbs plus protein to start my day. (See my post on calculating the Skaldeman fat-burning quotient.) So eggs pan-cooked in butter or coconut oil are typically the core of my classic low-carb breakfast. And as I've written before, the best fruit to add is avocado. It's super delicious and nutritious, and is the only fruit I know of that has more fat than carbohydrate. As for breakfast meat -- yes, please! However, I am aware of the … [Read more ...]
Beliefs can cause inflammation of the brain
How dangerous is that beef-steak? Beliefs, dogmas and habits of mind are powerful things. I'd sooner have them on my side in an argument than the puny forces of reason and evidence. Take the belief that saturated fat is the source of all evil in the modern diet. It's a deeply and widely held notion in the Western World. Somehow, we all just know that eating red meat will kill us by clogging up our arteries with its saturated fat. Doctors, nutritionists, media pundits and ordinary people have repeated the idea so often that it has taken on the aura of folk wisdom. You could hardly be blamed … [Read more ...]
Keto reboot at four weeks
I started my Keto Diet Reboot four weeks ago today. I'm five and a half pound lighter now than I was then. That's a slow rate of weight loss, just under a pound and a half per week. However, I had a lost weekend in the middle of the four weeks. It was a nice lost weekend spent with Anita at a romantic bed and breakfast, and I did my best to stay the low-carb, high-fat course. I thought I did a good job, but when we got home, I found I'd gained back over two pounds. (See this earlier post.) … [Read more ...]
Food facts vs food myths with Dr. Zoe Harcombe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdznfiWvGq0 … [Read more ...]
Great foods for a low-carb diet (part 1): almonds, avocados, macadamias
If you're like me (which you probably aren't, but let's pretend), you may find your food tastes expanding as you adapt to a low carb way of eating. Over the last few months, I have added several foods to my dietary repertoire, and I have eaten more of some other great foods than I ever did in the past. In general, I eat more whole foods now than processed/ packaged foods. Nuts, seeds, berries and fish are classes of foods that I always liked, but eat significantly more of on my low-carb plan. Of course, I eat somewhat more meat, cheese and eggs now than in my high-carb days, but that … [Read more ...]
Low carb lunch: a lettuce-wrapped burger
I tried a lettuce-wrapped burger for lunch today. Nothing fancy -- just a pan-broiled patty of ground chuck with mustard and pickle enclosed in large leaves of ice-berg. Who needs bread or buns? Well, a lot of people think they do. I used to be one of them. Before I reduced my carb-intake, I ate bread nearly every day, and often twice a day. The main purpose of bread in my life was to make sandwiches. Yes, I occasionally toasted a slice or two for breakfast, usually coating it with jam but not that demon butter, and every few weeks I might dip a few slices in egg to make French Toast. … [Read more ...]
A real person eating (mostly) real food
One day, in a fit of flexibility, I changed the tag-line of my blog from whatever it used to be to "a real person eating (mostly) real food." I feel I ought to explain -- to define my terms, or at least try to. First, what do I mean by a "real person"? I mean me, of course, good ol' Jim Anderson -- as ordinary a guy as you will ever meet, with an ordinary name, the son of a factory-working man and a home-making woman. A guy born in a city whose name denotes a hard, sharp, slivered rock -- the ideal material for sparking fires or shaping arrow-heads. I don't think any of that makes me … [Read more ...]
Announcing The Low Carb Nugget
Are you sitting down? Good. I have stunning news. You can now listen to me go on about low-carb, high-fat eating and related issues on my very own podcast, The Low Carb Nugget. Yes, I'm charging madly into the 21st Century, and you can charge with me. In fact, it would be good if you got a little out in front. Three days a week, you can experience the voice that thrilled countless college students over a span of 30 years, often to the point that they passed out in class from sheer bliss. Or something. Some mornings, the whole back row was out. It's been said that my delivery could … [Read more ...]
A windy, low-carb weekend in Chicago
This past weekend Anita and I traveled to Chicago by train. I was attending a professional conference, and she came along for the ride. The train is our favorite way to get to the City of Broad Shoulders. It picks us up at a small town in mid-Michigan -- a major hub in the old days but now just a place that the train stops at twice a day, going west in the morning and east at night. A few hours after we get on board, the train deposits us at Union Station, a short cab-ride from the Loop. … [Read more ...]
Cauliflower: the better mashed potato
You can do a lot of things with "cabbage flower" on a low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diet: steam it, roast it, mash it, rice it, or just eat it raw. Of course, one drawback to raw veggies, including cauliflower, is that they're harder to fatten up that way. But a good, fatty dip will do the trick. I've never had cauliflower deep-fried or baked, but I suppose those are possibilities, too. I'm not sure what you'd bread it in, though -- crumbled pork rinds, perhaps? Oh -- you can also eat cauliflower pickled. (I don't, but you can.) … [Read more ...]
Mindful eating: slow down and smell the pork chop
On Episode 6 of The Low Carb Nugget podcast, Jim examines the conflict between "grabbing a bite" and "mindful eating." There's an expression in American English, an idiom, "to grab a bite." Some variations include "grab a bite to eat," "grab something to eat" or just "get a bite." I haven't done extensive research on this idiom, but what I have done suggests it is, indeed, of American origin. That makes sense. The idiom perfectly suits the American mind-set. It turns getting a meal into a quick, decisive action -- quick and a little violent, even. It suggests a busy life-style, a full … [Read more ...]