Category Archives: Nutrition

To agave or not to agave?

Posted on by
Reply

dreamstime_xs_30979583Passions about agave run deep these days. It’s popular with vegans (it comes from a plant, not a bee). It’s really sweet but isn’t synthetic (like aspartame or sucralose). And it’s super hip (used in cutting-edge cocktails and raw desserts). Its boosters promote it as a traditional, natural sweetener that doesn’t spike blood sugar like regular cane sugar or maple syrup, and that contains inulin, a fiber that supports healthy gut flora.

However, a number of articles have also presented agave as a much less desirable sweetener. Coming from trusted alternative-news sources (Andrew Weil, Joseph Mercola, the Weston A. Price Foundation) as well as more conventional sources (the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times), they present it as highly processed, and critique the high amount of fructose present, likening it to the much-maligned high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) – perhaps even worse. Continue reading →

Do you want test-tube fries with that?

Posted on by
Reply

Sergey Brin, the brilliant founder of Google, put up a boatload of money for the world’s first  hamburger that did not come directly from a cow: $330,000 U.S., in fact.

How’d it happen? Well, a Dutch scientist, Mark Post, proposed the idea. The concept is reasonably simple. Take muscle stem cells from a living cow (in this case, cells from both a Blanc Blue Belge and a Blond Acquitaine, both raised on organic farms). Culture the cells in a nutrient-rich broth, where they will increase in numbers sufficient to form a kind of tissue. Attach the tissue to a basic structure (like a scaffold), and stimulate with electricity so that the tissue grows into strips of bovine muscle. Grind them up, shape a nice little burger together, and cook – voilà, a genuine test-tube burger!

No fat, of course, and as a result nearly tasteless (according to those who took the first bites), but what a heartwarming victory for global warming activists, food rights activists, and animal rights activists everywhere. The San Jose Mercury News article on this historic meal quotes Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s president and co-founder, who was “…so excited, I could jump for joy…We have Champagne corks going off all over the place.”

The question is, why? Continue reading →

Lindner Bison update – keep calling, and an online interview 7/27!

Posted on by
2

Update on the Lindner’s situation as we head into the weekend:

The flood of calls and emails last week generated a phone meeting with a representative from Environmental Health, as well as a solid lead to a certified kitchen that may be able to rent the Lindners the space they need to plug in their freezers.

(You just wouldn’t think it would be that hard, would you?) A reasonably productive conversation took place, to the effect that as long as the kitchen was willing to store the bison, and the county was willing to approve the kitchen, everything would be solved and everyone would be happy.

With the inevitable back-and-forthing that seems to accompany getting anything signed off by a regulatory agency, the kitchen gave the Lindners permission to bring two freezers in on Monday. But this only comes with a 3-month lease, so we are all hoping – and I’m sure you are, too, if you’re reading this – that the relationship will work out perfectly and that the Lindners will have a home for their bison for some time to come.

But don’t stop making calls and sending emails till everything is signed, sealed, and Continue reading →

Action item: Lindner Bison at risk for lack of cold storage!

Posted on by
8

Ken and Kathy LindnerI admit it, I have a serious farmer’s market addiction. I love the markets not just because I can get the freshest, most in-season fruits, vegetables, and nuts, but like many people, I appreciate the fact that I can get products that you simply can’t get in stores – even some of the best natural foods stores. And of course, the community is unbeatable, both customers and farmers. The relationships we all build at the market are an essential part of our growing community. And one of these relationships is under immediate threat – the Lindners need your help! Continue reading →

Pamm Larry, Proposition 37, and moving forward against GMOs

Posted on by
Reply

Pamm Larry rocks. Seriously. This woman got the ball rolling for the initiative that resulted in one of highest-profile bPamm_Larryallot measures in the country in the 2012 election cycle.

If you were unconscious during late 2012, Proposition 37 sought to mandate labels identifying those processed/packaged foods that contained genetically engineered ingredients. It didn’t pass, rather famously, but it took the population at large – and not just in California – from “What’s a GMO?” to awareness very, very quickly. (And it didn’t lose by much, when it comes down to it, considering the vast amounts of cash spent by the opposition.) Continue reading →

What do ninjas have to do with the food supply?

Posted on by
Reply

ninjaWell might you ask.

But lately, it’s felt like there are ninjas all around what I’ll term loosely “real food,” and in particular our individual ability – even our individual rights – to acquire it. And they seem to be coming from all over. Their names don’t come out of a martial arts movie, though. Their handles are filled with letters, like FDA, USDA, CDC, CDFA, DATCP, and so many more. Continue reading →

This just in: Fluoride dumbs children down

Posted on by
Reply

dreamstimefree_15877Saw this intriguing tidbit on Kelly the Kitchen Kop‘s blog, and had to head on over to the National Institutes of Health to check it out.

Yup, it’s true. A distinguished team of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health explored the relationship between exposure to high levels of fluoride and childhood neurological development, and found that high exposure to fluoride depressed IQ. Continue reading →

Save the cheese!

Posted on by
Reply

cheddarI love cheese! There are so many wonderful ones to choose from, too, from Parmagiano-Reggiano to Manchego to Emmenthal to Pt. Reyes Blue to Camembert to…well, you get the idea. Raw milk cheeses are especially wonderful.

But this stuff can be really expensive too, so once I’ve invested in some yummy dairy goodness, I want to make sure to protect it. Continue reading →

CDC tries to scare us all about (gasp) raw milk with skewed data

Posted on by
Reply

“What?” you say, in shock and amazement that any government agency might try to fudge the numbers to support a foregone conclusion. “Surely not! Surely, in its wisdom and scientific approach to all things related to our health and safety, surely they have our very best interests at heart.”

Dear and gentle reader, I hate to break it to you, but while there are well-meaning people in regulatory agencies, there are also those who would – shall I say it delicately – attempt to persuade us of something less than true by demonstrating something known as “bias”.

On Tuesday of this week, 21 February, the taxpayer-funded agency, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), released a report with the plain-vanilla title, “Nonpasteurized Dairy Products, Disease Outbreaks, and State Laws—United States, 1993–2006.” How it’s being trumpeted all over the news media is much sexier; a typical title (like this one from The Washington Times) reads “Feds: Fresh milk 150 times more dangerous than pasteurized dairy.” Continue reading →

The food police are trying to help you – really!

Posted on by
Reply

So there I was this morning, mixing up a smoothie for breakfast. (Homemade kefir from Organic Pastures raw milk, nutritional yeast, a couple of egg yolks from pastured chickens, maca, fair-trade organic cocoa powder, and coconut oil. My husband walked into the kitchen, having finished his breakfast (steel-cut oats, butter, and crispy walnuts), and handed me the Health section from the Los Angeles Times. The featured article was titled “What’s Good for You,” and it’s all about the proposed changes to the nutrition information that’s thoughtfully been provided on every single food package since 1994.

The timing couldn’t have been better. I just finished listening to an excellent lecture about sugar by Robert Lustig, M.D., professor of pediatric endocrinology at UCSF.

And while the primary topic was sugar, he also discusses that ubiquitous nutritional panel – and the ways it obscures the actual nutritional content in various ways. Not to mention the politics that influenced the way the panel was created, leading to a significant amount of, well, let’s be nice and call it obfuscation.
Continue reading →