Links & Quick Hits
~ Dr. Eades has been up to some good beyond his typical authoritative blog postings and books on sound weight loss and high nutrition. Now, he’s developed a kitchen appliance for best cooking your meats & vegetables: Low & Slow. It’s called sous vide, ("under or less than empty," i.e., vacuum). Here’s his post describing how he got the idea, testing and developing an actual manufactured product. I’m counting on the product delivering an even better "Low & Slow" way to cook. And now, check out the Sous Vide Supreme website.
~ In Current Diabetes Reports:
Some research suggests that low-carbohydrate diets may achieve better early weight loss than comparison diets higher in carbohydrate. Studies of up to 1 year suggest that weight loss on low-carbohydrate diet is comparable with fat-restricted diets with higher carbohydrate content. Limited research has been conducted to evaluate low-carbohydrate diets in managing type 2 diabetes. Although science continues to advance in this field, current research suggests that low-carbohydrate diets can be a viable option for achieving weight loss and may have beneficial effects on glycemic control, triglyceride levels, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in some patients.
That must’ve hurt.
~ The vitamin D news rolls in daily. Too much to keep up with. Now a new study finds that 70% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have vitamin D deficiency, defined as a level below 32 ng/mL. However, as I’ve shown before, based on vitamin D and cancer observations, a level above 50 ng/mL is desirable.
~ But let’s not leave out vitamin K2, the virtually unknown vitamin.
Current recommendations are based on levels to ensure adequate blood coagulation, but failing to ensure long-term optimal levels of the vitamin may accelerate bone fragility, arterial and kidney calcification, cardiovascular disease, and possibly cancer.
[…]
…inadequate intakes of vitamin K1 from the diet, vitamin K deficiency, and human polymorphisms or mutations were all associated with age-related conditions, including weaker bones and hardening of the arteries, which increased the risk of cardiovascular disease.
They only mention K2 at the end, but at least they mentioned it at all. As we’ve pointed out before, humans are very poor at converting K1 to K2, the more active form. That’s why we need to eat animals who are great at making the conversion. The best sources of K2 are liver from ruminants and fish eggs. K2 is hugely important: it’s likely the thing that makes calcium go everyplace it should, like bones & teeth, and no place it shouldn’t, like arteries. We do know that K2 reverses arterial calcification in rats. Here’s more of my past posts on this critical nutrient.
~ Don Matesz has some interesting evolutionary insights with regard to the new hominid discovery (Ardi).
~ Peter (DVM) at Hyperlipid is a funny guy. He points to this study. It’s yet another "paradox."
Hypercholesterolemia is a risk factor for coronary artery disease, yet is associated with lower risk of adverse outcomes in patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS).
Translation: high cholesterol causes heart disease and many other bad things; therefore, observing less heart disease and bad things in people with high cholesterol than with low is a "paradox."
No, I’m not making this up. Peter recalls an old joke.
A schizophrenic patient believes he is dead. The patient’s psychiatrist, trying to cure the him of his delusion says, "Do dead people bleed?" The patient says, "No, they don’t bleed." The Psychiatrist pricks the patient’s finger and blood flows out. The patient says, "Well, this shows that dead people DO bleed".
See? Paradoxical.
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I’ m a little hesitant about this Sous Vide thing. I’m not all that keen on wrapping my food in plastic to cook it. The website says ‘food grade plastic’ but, well, it’s still plastic. Have the Eades made any comments on this?
There is a really good book by Dr. Bernstein which is all about low carb control of Diabetes. The Doc is a type 1 diabetic.
http://www.diabetes-book.com/
The concept of Sous Vide blew my mind in a good way, but yeah, I wish there was a way to do it without the use of plastic, both in regards to, well, it being plastic in hot water, and the waste aspect.
Surely a glass or stainless steel vessel could be developed which could be re-usable and toxin free. I watched the video pitch, and it would seem that you could not cook the meat and vegetables at the same time. I may be mistaken, I’ve not had the time to peruse the information fully, but the video stated that the meat and veg were cooked at different temperatures, and demonstrated separately…..?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/07/2707311.htm?section=justin
Is the message starting to sink in?
Meaning that crap loaded with antioxidants is still just crap!
hehe! I like the joke! That’s a good one!
I dunno about there being some prophylactic level of Vit D outside of other factors. The traditional Inuit had very low levels of Vit D (likely due to a low exposure to the sun) and yet no cancer. I don’t think it’s so much about circulating Vit D as it is about hormonal regulation in general. When everything is working as it should (no disruption or interference from Insulin, for example) then Vit D and all other hormones can do their jobs properly as well.
I would be seriously concerned about cooking something in plastic. Plastics are full of endocrine disruptors (ie. molecules that mimic our hormones), which leach out into whatever they come in contact with. Heat them up and the leach faster. This is why those nalgene bottles that have BPA in them have been so denigrated in the past couple years. BPA is an endocrine disruptors. Expose people to it and they get cancer. Expose babies/fetuses to it and they are born with birth defects.
Here’s the kicker though – its not just nalgene bottles. All plastics have endocrine disruptors, and in general the more flexible the plastic the more endocrine disruptors that leach out of it. Doesn’t matter if its food grade or not. That whole “food grade” rating is definitely bulls**t.
The endocrine disruptors in plastics are usually estrogenic in nature. This may be one of the reasons that puberty is coming along earlier, along with the dramatic increase in breast/ovarian/uterine cancers in women in the last 50 years. There are girls as young as 6 years old now who are starting puberty…
As for men, well there was an interesting study done in Europe that compared sperm counts of men in 1960 to men around the year 2000. Turns out that in those 40 years, the average man’s sperm count declined by around 45%. During that time prostate cancer also increased. You can bet that both these things are at least in part due to all the estrogenic endocrine disruptors that we’re exposed to on a regular basis.
If you want more info, I highly recommend the book Our Stolen Future, or the corresponding website:
Matt:
This issue with regard to SV has been thoroughly dealt with, but I don’t have the time right now to look it all up. There is no BPA risk in SV. The plastics are configured specifically to eliminate.
Yes, of course there is no BPA risk in SV, because BPA is only in harder plastics like polycarbonate/lexan. But, you have to realize that there are literally tens of thousands of other chemicals that go into all types of plastics, and the vast majority of them have never been tested for negative effects on humans/animals.
I’ve studied this topic quite a bit, and have not yet found ANY satisfactory evidence that plastics are safe to heat food in, much less store it in. In my opinion, there is no such thing as food-grade plastic.
Our Stolen Future is mostly about endocrine disruptors, and since BPA is the endocrine disruptor with the most research done on it that is why it is talked about so much.
But here’s the facts – BPA is known to be bad because it has been studied. All the other plastics that are deemed safe, are just the plastics that haven’t been studied yet.
I found an article that addresses food plastics more directly. Here is a quote:
“For decades, the plastics industry has deceived us with assurances that the polymerization process binds the constituent chemicals together so perfectly that the resulting plastic is completely nontoxic and passes through us without a hitch. In spite of this industry disinformation,[9] the polymerization process is never 100% perfect. Logically then, there are always toxicants available for migration into the many things they contact — your food, air, water, skin, and so on. Both the FDA and the industry know this. However, because of many millions of dollars worth of advertising and public relations work, consumers are educated to think that plastics are safe.”
I would recommend reading the whole article, as it is well written and has lots of citations in it. Here’s the link:
And besides, plastics and SV cooking are definitely NOT paleo. Grilling something, or cooking it in a pot (well, I guess a ceramic pot…) ARE paleo.
I myself have received great benefit from switching to a paleo diet, but many of my friends have not even after I have told them about it. The reason I switched was because I was open to new information, even thought I loved bread and at one point wanted to become a baker. My friends haven’t received the benefits because their minds aren’t open.
So, I guess the question is, are you willing to be open to new information?
-Matt
I’m open to new information but these sorts of lines need to be decided by individuals themselves. The best way to minimize plastics use is to cook fresh everyday and eat what you cook.