Life After Carbs

A real person eating (mostly) real food

Great foods for a low carb diet (part 4): salmon and sardines

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Before adopting a low carb diet, the only canned fish I ever ate was tuna, mostly in the form of the classic tuna-salad sandwich. I still eat canned tuna, minus the bread, but because of two concerns, I restrict the amount. First, there is my concern about mercury in tuna.  I'm not in one of the government's "high risk" groups for mercury consumption (pregnant women, nursing mothers, children), but I figure, why take chances?  I buy only light tuna, which tests significantly lower for … [Read more...]

A typical day in my life after carbs

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Following up on my post "What is a low carb diet?" I'm presenting here a typical day of low carbing.   The day was a Saturday. Breakfast (6:30 a.m.) Most days, I'm an early riser.  The sun comes up, and I'm right there with it. no-filler salmon patty (leftover) two eggs scrambled with butter two mugs of coffee, each with two teaspoons of half-and-half one multi-vitamin for men Morning Snack (10:00 a.m.) Having this mid-morning snack was a-typical.  Often I make it to lunch … [Read more...]

Quick takes: farm subsidies and fork sizes

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At Salon, David Sirota examines Why Americans can't afford to eat healthy. He argues that "healthy food could easily be more affordable for everyone right now, if not for those ultimate elitists: agribusiness CEOs, their lobbyists and the politicians they own." Sirota has a point. Something ain't right here, folks. The federal government with its "Food Plate" is urging Americans to eat more vegetables and fruits, less sugar and less refined grains. It promotes whole foods over junk foods. … [Read more...]

What is a low carb diet?

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When I say that I follow a low carbohydrate way of eating, what do I mean? When you say it, what do you mean? I suspect we might all mean something a little different -- or even a lot different -- if we were to get down to specific foods we include or avoid, or to the number of grams of carbs we consume per day. The title of my blog -- "Life After Carbs" -- implies that I don't eat any carbs at all, but of course that's not true.  The title ought to be interpreted as meaning, "Life after … [Read more...]

For that special low-carb eater, a bouquet of beef jerky

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When I was a kid in the previous millenium, TV was a big deal.  Until the late 1960s, my family had one set, a black-and-white model in a blond-wood cabinet, and we gathered around it to watch programs as a family. Interesting, you say (being nice to the old guy), and a little quaint, but what has it got to do with beef jerky? I was getting to that. Words have emotive as well as cognitive meaning.  They can point outward at things in the world, and at the same time inward to our … [Read more...]

Great foods for a low carb diet (part 3): red wine

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Some may quibble that wine is a beverage, not a food, to which I say -- go get your own blog and quibble away. Others may object to calling any food/ beverage containing alcohol "great."  That point I will take under consideration, but only for those of you with a relevant addiction, religion or age status. Still, even readers who are OK with drinking alcohol on occasion might question if there is enough nutritional value in red wine to qualify it as a "great" food. After all, just the other … [Read more...]

Fudge on granola bars

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For the sake of argument, let's say that a granola bar by itself is "wholesome."  Is it still wholesome after you dip it in fudge? Traditional fudge is made with sugar, milk and butter.  I don't see butter and milk listed in the ingredients of the Keebler Granola Fudge Bars, but among the listed ingredients are sugar, brown sugar syrup, corn syrup, and hydrogenated and/or partially hydrogenated oils. If the granola bars are truly wholesome to start with, as Keebler claims in its ad … [Read more...]

Junk food smack-down: pork rinds vs. potato chips

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Pork rinds (also called pork skins or chicharrones) are another food I never ate before going low-carb.  I considered including them in my "Great foods" series, but decided they aren't in the same nutritional class as foods like almonds, avocados and salmon.  Still, pork rinds do fill a need many low-carbers have for a crunchy, salty snack that isn't a nut. Pork rinds are a specialty item in comparison to potato chips.  The local market where I do most of my shopping carries two brands of … [Read more...]

Exploring the HuffPo: Sugar, Paleo and Plaque

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Man does not live by steak-and-eggs alone.  Woman either, from what I can see.   Having consumed plenty of editorial red-meat in recent days, I decided to venture beyond the low-carb blogosphere this weekend to see who else was writing about diet and health. There was bound to be somebody. I ended up at the Huffington Post.  All Internet roads seem to lead there.  The HuffPo (as we insiders call it) is the New York Times of the Digital Age, except that apparently the HuffPo doesn't pay its … [Read more...]

Help fight the good fight against dietary dogma and bad science

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In a recent article published in Diabetes Health, Hope Warshaw, a nutrition/diabetes consultant and author, calls the idea of controlling type-2 diabetes with a low-carbohydrate diet an "old dogma" that needs to give way to a "new reality." Warshaw's statement ignited a fire-storm of opinion among diabetics and low-carb dieters, including vehement responses from bloggers Dana Carpender, Jimmy Moore, and Tom Naughton. (No one does vehement like Naughton, who wrote two brilliant posts about the … [Read more...]