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 ...]
Sardines: low-carb, high-fat lunch in a tin
A tin of sardines makes a quick, easy, nutritious and portable low-carb lunch or snack. It's another food item that I seldom, or never, ate before going low-carb, a hard-to-explain list that includes salmon, almonds, macadamia nuts, and fresh avocado. Lately, I've been buying Season Brand Sardines in five-tin packs at Costco. (For the record, I receive no consideration from either of those companies, but may from Amazon.com, which sells several brands of sardines, including the Season Skinless and Boneless Sardines in Olive Oil, 3.75-Ounce Tins.) Aside from reliable quality and a decent price … [Read more ...]
Why we snack
Do we eat more because we eat more often? Yes, says a study that claims Americans eat 570 more calories per day now than they did 30 years ago because they are eating all of the time. The study's lead author, Professor Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told CNN Health that "the real reason we seem to be eating more (calories) is we're eating often." But is eating frequency all there is to it, or does what a person eats make a difference? To say we are eating more because we eat more often simply raises the question of why we indulge between meals. Is it just … [Read more ...]
Mice live longer, healthier on ketogenic diet, studies claim
A couple new studies find that a ketogenic diet promotes a longer, healthier lifespan. That's great, but the results have only been confirmed for lab mice. I've written about mouse-based dietary studies a few times over the years. None have impressed me much. Some have seemed quite odd. For instance, way back in 2011, I wrote a post entitled "Eating fish makes mice fat, study claims." Scientists fed some little rodents farmed raised salmon, and some the same diet without salmon, and found the fish-eating mice suffered more insulin resistance, visceral obesity, and glucose intolerance. As the … [Read more ...]
Avocado in the morning
Avocado in a low carb diet Pictured is my low-carb breakfast this morning: two eggs fried in coconut oil, three small and crispy strips of bacon, and the flesh of half an avocado. It's a fairly typical breakfast for me these days. I eat other things in the morning, including a goopy mixture of chia seeds, almond butter, walnuts and (LCHF purists avert your eyes!) oatmeal. But day in and day out, my breakfast is likely to include eggs. If I'm fortunate enough to have an avocado on hand, breakfast is likely to include that, too, in one way or another. Eating LCHF, I've banished most … [Read more ...]
No-filler salmon patties
Before I started eating low-carb, salmon was a minor part of my diet. If I ate salmon at all, it was in the form of a grilled or broiled salmon steak, usually in a restaurant. I never purchased or prepared canned salmon. But that has changed. Now I look for sales on canned salmon, and try to always have a few cans in the pantry. Canned salmon is usually wild-caught fish, which has a better reputation for purity than farm-raised fish. It's typically sold in 14.75 ounce cans, each of which provide 630 calories, 84 grams of protein, and significant calcium and Omega-3 fat. Salmon is … [Read more ...]
DNA, diet, and weight
Can spitting into a test-tube tell you which diet is best for you? Earlier this year, Anita and I each sent in a sample of our saliva to 23 and Me, a company that does commercial genetic testing. I'm not plugging the service, and this is not intended to be a full-scale review. But some of our DNA test results are relevant to the topic of diet. We both opted to receive ancestry and health-related reports of our DNA. At first, I was only going to get the ancestry report, but changed my mind after getting that report and seeing Anita's full set of reports. (Note: Anita has agreed that I may … [Read more ...]
Coffee = Life = Coffee
Early on in my low-carb adventure, I ran across the advice to stop drinking coffee. That nearly ended my low-carb adventure right then. There are some things you can't give up. Coffee's at the top of my list. Repeat after me, friends: "Coffee is life, life is coffee." That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. Coffee is low-carb -- right? There are carbs in black coffee -- about a tenth of a gram in a cup. S0 coffee is low-carb, though not quite as low-carb as plain water. In fact, black coffee has very little in terms of macro-nutrients of any kind. So why would low-carb … [Read more ...]
What about dietary fat and fatty liver disease?
A while ago, I published my annual blood test results for the last seven years. In terms of cardiovascular indicators, the tests were good. I did a little victory lap, celebrating (1) that I was still alive and (2) that the test results showed my LCHF diet seems to be doing me more good than harm. Then I heard something that gave me pause. It wasn't about heart health or clogged arteries. It was about fatty livers. I heard the claim in a podcast, the Tim Ferriss Show for May 12, 2017. Ferriss was interviewing Art De Vany. De Vany is well-known figure in Paleo Diet circles, and he published … [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 ...]
Fiber makes Brussels sprouts low-carb
Brussels sprouts, those cute little mini-cabbages named after a Belgium city, are one of the higher carb vegetables that I regularly eat. One cup of plain cooked Brussels sprouts will set you back about 11 grams of carbohydrates, and 4 grams of protein. All that, and you only get 55 or 56 calories of energy. That means a lot of us will be inclined to eat more than a cup. I probably eat between a cup-and-a-half and two cups at a time. As with other green vegetables, there is little fat naturally present in Brussels sprouts, just eight-tenths of a gram of fat in the one-cup portion. … [Read more ...]