Cow: RIP

Cow died on Tuesday, January 6th.

We were to bring him in for a bandage change, but busband and I were worried bc he wasn't going to the bathroom and his abdomen was swollen and hard. He was throwing up, which is normal with fatty liver, but it smelled terrible and I knew something wasn't right. We were supposed to go in for 4:30pm, but I got us in at 11am instead. Cow had been really lethargic, but managed to pull himself up on my bed to sleep with me, and for a good cuddle before we got up.

We took him in and saw a new vet, the one they use to sub in for vacations. We brought in a towel that Cow had thrown up on for him to smell...yes, gross but it just wasn't right. He said it smelled necrotic - dead tissue. He felt Cow's abdomen and did an xray. He'd already had two, and the other vet had seen an area she didn't like, but conferred with the head vet who felt it was nothing to worry about.

Well, it was. The vet suspected lymphoma. He offered us some options, ultrasound or exploratory surgery, and sent us home to think about it. We spent the whole day wondering what to do, and after long conversations with the vet we decided that putting Cow down was the most humane option. My sister works there, and let me know that the consensus in the back room with the vets was that that was the way to go (they can't tell you that) bc he was really, really sick and the prognosis was not good.

We went in at 4:30 and had a good long cuddle with him. Busband couldn't stay in the room, so my sister and I held him and stroked him and the vet put him to sleep. It was very gentle. We sat with him for a bit after. They did a post mortem, and found a mass in his belly that had mashed up his intestines...even if we'd opted for surgery, they wouldn't have been able to fix it.

I'm absolutely sure that we made the right choice for him. He was ready to go, just not himself at all. He wouldn't even get up to use the litterbox unless we picked him up and put him in there (he'd only get up to cuddle on my bed). But I've never had to do this before, and it really hurts to have him gone. He was my little shadow around the house, always following me everywhere, always wanting to be on my lap. Even though I have the other two at home, I can feel his absence intensely. It really f*cking hurts.

What's interesting (to me) is how the other cats behaved. It's like they knew. When he got sick, they gradually started ignoring him when he was around - he was like a ghost in the house. I really think they know when another animal is dying.

I miss him terribly. I'm just glad we got to have that last bedtime cuddle. He was the best cuddler. The thing about pets is that all they want from you is petting and cuddle time...and food, of course. They ask so little and give so much, all without trying. They just are. He was a best buddy and a great teacher to me, and before he fell asleep I thanked him for everything he gave me. I hope he felt loved.

Feline fatty Liver Disease and Tube Feeding - How to Survive

Again, the zero-carb post is on hold. Having a cat with fatty liver means pretty much everything is on hold - treatment really takes up most of your thoughts, and a lot of your time. The danger exists, then, for caregivers to get totally stressed and burned out, and that's no good. Whether it's an animal, a child, an elderly parent...caregivers need to take care of themselves, or else they can't take good care of their sickie.

So, for all the puss lovers out there who may be dealing with a FHL cat, here's some tips to make life a little easier!

• Don't fear the tube. Tube feeding can be scary - it's weird to see your puss with a big tube sticking out of its neck. Remember the tube is helping, not hurting. My fella is totally sicked out by the tube and afraid to feed Cow, but I'm working on it because I could use a break, especially at 6am! I am afraid I'll syringe my coffee into the cat, and put his blender food in my mug. I am not a morning person.
• Enlist help if possible. Tube feeding is not that bad - it's pretty easy, actually, much more so than force-feeding by hand. But it is stressful, and you don't have to do everything...show at least one other person how to do it. Guilt them into it, if you have to. In this situation, it is both acceptable and effective.
  
• If puss is lethargic and not moving around much, and vomiting is a problem, make a box for him/her and line it with multiple layers of blankets, towels, etc. When puss barfs, you just remove that layer of blanket and chuck in the wash, and the clean blanket is already there. You won't have to move your puss much to do this. If puss is happy on your bed, sit him/her on layers of towels. I have gone through three comforters and three sets of bedsheets in two days - no more! Sacrifice the towels. I received a set of extremely ugly tea towels for Xmas that are doing the trick just fine. Cow is partial to barfing on the ice-skating snowmen towel - which was my first reaction when I unwrapped it.
  
• Play music when you tube feed. This is for your benefit, of course, but you can also pretend the puss likes it. Just be careful not to sing, as this can be nausea-inducing for your cat, who is forced to listen. If you do sing, be sure to insert your cat's name into the song, or something relevant to the situation. Example: "Hey Jude" becomes "Eat Food". This will annoy your cat enough to distract him/her from upchucking.
• Take a break. Climb down from the cross for an hour or so and do something that will make you laugh. I was deep into martyrdom today, so I watched The Simpsons Movie and that snapped me right out of it. Do something that requires no brain cells. Pamper the crap outta yourself too - since I work at home, I decided to spend the day in my bathrobe working from the comfort of my bed. If you can't do that, then wear your pj's to work and if anyone bugs you, start sobbing uncontrollably and show them a picture of your puss with his/her tube - they will leave you alone, possibly forever.

What not to do - stress eat. Unless, of course, you're stress eating with a nice, fatty ribeye!

Post coming soon...and a request

Like Lennon said, life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.

The plan was to get a few posts up in defense of zero carb over the holidays, since I would have lots of leisure time at my disposal. Instead, I have been nursing a very sick cat. Cow, my sensitive little guy, has developed feline hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver.

Just before the holidays, my army of pusses got into some takeout chicken wings. I'd stupidly left the garbage within puss access, and it didn't take long for them to go on a ravenous rampage, chewing on the remains of my dinner - chicken wing bones, with hot sauce on them.

They all had a good barf, as cats do. Cats are famous barfers. But I noticed that Cow's tummy was rumbling, and he was still throwing up a little a few days later. He was eating, but not as much as usual. I watched him for about a week and when his normal appetite hadn't resumed, I took him in. The vet gave us an appetite stimulant and shot him full of sub-q fluids, which helped for a day or two.

I took him back in a week later, because he was peeing outside the litter box. They checked him over and did blood work, and found that his liver enzymes were elevated - mild fatty liver. Because they were closing for christmas, I had to bring him back home and my fella and I began force feeding him for the next few days.

See, when a cat stops eating for whatever reason, their body starts sending fat cells to their liver to process into lipoproteins for fuel. Unfortunately, cats are not good at processing fat this way, so much of it stays in the liver. Unless they start eating normally again, their liver will fail and they will die. But because they feel crappy - lethargic, nauseus, etc - they have no desire to eat. The only way to recover then is force feeding. This condition is unique to cats, and happens with varying speed depending on the cat. Overweight cats can have this come on in a matter of days; Cow is not overweight, so it took longer to come on. Even though he was eating, he wasn't eating enough, and that will bring it on as well.

Cow has been on IV at the vet office since Monday, and has become slightly jaundiced - not a good sign as far as the liver is concerned. They are, of course, closing for new year's, so we are bringing him home today and will force feed him (about 12cc's every 2 hours, or 24cc's every four) until Friday, when he'll go back and have a feeding tube put in. We'll tube feed him until he starts eating on his own again.

So please send up a prayer, a wish, a happy thought for my little guy - he needs it. and if you have a cat who stops eating for a day or two, or is eating less than usual, take him to the vet pronto. I've actually been through this before with cats, and I knew what to look for, but I thought that since Cow was eating on his own that he'd bounce back. Cats are very tricky when it comes to food - I've since found out that a cat eating half of his usual dietary requirement can develop fatty liver, which makes it very hard for us Puss Parents to spot a problem - hey, they're still eating, so things must be ok. Nope. If your cat isn't eating the same, just bring him in. Cow was eating, and this still happened.

Cow is an odd name for a cat. I know. My fella and I are the king and queen of ridiculous pet names. 8 years ago, the fella brought home a stray who turned out to be preggers. She found him downtown at an ATM vestibule and, he claims, jumped in his car. I know pregnant women are demanding, but I also know my fella and his prediliction for pursuing stray pusses. Anyway, he brought her home and we set up a birthing box for her in our bedroom closet, as cats prefer to do messy, undignified things like popping out kittens in private. At about 4am one morning, I was startled awake by my fella rocketing out of bed with a howling cat in his arms and rushing to the closet - she had crawled in our bed, between us, to give birth (he thought it was sweet - I thought it was out of sheer cat desire to ruin good bedsheets, because cats don't like their people to have nice things). He set her down in her box, and about 30 seconds later the first of four kittens appeared. They were all grey except the last one - he was white, with grey/black markings on his back. "He looks like a little cow," I said, and knew immediately that he was my little guy. We kept the mum (Kayliss, who became Bunny for reasons we can't remember) him, and another boy (Nemesis, our big bruiser) and have been a happy family ever since.

Cow is slightly stupid. Stupid in that zen, Tao of Pooh way. He likes to fall off the bathroom sink, lie directly on my face when I am reading, and lick my toothpaste and deoderant. If you need an eyeball cleaned, Cow's your guy. But he also knows the value of a good cuddle, and spends most of his day cuddled up with his puss family or with me. He can tell if I've spent too long working on something, and considerately lets me know by vaulting on to my most accessible body part and butting me with his head until I relent and give in to petting time; or, as in the picture above, contorting himself into a position that enables the best ratio of puss parts touching human parts, and purring loud enough to drown out all conversation until he passes out (yes, he fell asleep in that position). He's my silly little carnivore, and I love him more than I ever thought I could love a cat.

The Zero-Carb Controversy

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Michael Pollan

Zero-carb. A phrase that sends shivers down the spines of...well, just about everyone, it seems.

Zero-carb discussions tend to get heated. Heated to the point that forum threads get closed down, or banned outright. Even the mention of zero-carb is, in some places around this low-carb web of ours, strictly taboo.

A zero-carb diet, also known as meat-and-fat, carnivory or human carnivorism, is really simple. You eat meat, and that's all, folks. Some people include dairy products, since they are of animal orgin - some don't. Some people include things like spices, herbs, tea/coffee - some don't. Some people like to point out that no diet is ever literally zero-carb, because there is a small amount of glycogen stored in muscle meats. 'Tis true. Zero-carb just kinda sums up the whole idea in a nut...er, crab shell.

It's actually the reverse of Pollan's quote. Zero-carbers eat food. As much as they want. Only (or mostly) animals. Blogger Matt Stone calls it the "FUMP" diet; the MP stands for Michael Pollan, and the FU stands for...well, you get it. Tee hee.

I've talked about zero-carb before - why am I bringing it up again now? Because it's been getting some bad press lately, at least in low-carb circles, and I'd like to address some of the most common arguments against it. I'm going to write a series of posts, each discussing an argument or common belief about zero-carbing, and provide counter arguments and alternative perspectives to each. I'm not zero-carb at the moment, but I do believe it's a perfectly healthy way to eat - so much so that I agreed to moderate over at Charles Washington's forum. Ahhh, I am mad with power.

I am also biased, as you may have deduced. But I have come to this bias after a lot of research, so it's totally ok. No really, it's fine. Look awaaaaaaaay from the bias.

Finally, I'm doing this because I wanted to get blogging regularly again, and this topic is currently the biggest blip on my radar screen. I'm reading about it, so why not blog too?

I'm looking forward to some good discussion here, and of course, comments are welcome, even if you think I'm completely off my stilettos. I'll get my first post up in a few days (she says).

Raw milk won't be stopped, says farmer as his trial concludes

Module body

Fri Sep 12, 6:04 PM

By Tamsyn Burgmann, The Canadian Press

NEWMARKET, Ont. - A possible conviction won't stop the flow of raw milk to his loyal consumers, a rural Ontario dairy farmer accused of distributing it against a court order vowed on Friday.

Neither the threat of a fine nor jail time deterred Michael Schmidt from backing down from his belief that people have the right to drink what they choose as his trial on contempt of court charges concluded.

"If (the outcome) is not favourable, and I end up in the crowbar hotel, it will continue," Schmidt proclaimed outside of court.

"There's no doubt in my mind. There's a lot of clear resistance."

Selling raw milk is illegal in Canada because health officials say it carries the risks of spreading salmonella, E. coli and Listeria monocytogenes.

Justice R. Cary Boswell reserved his judgment in the case until mid-October, and thanked both sides for their decorum, given that the trial "had the potential to be a little inflammatory, given some of the issues."

Schmidt has run a co-operative organic dairy farm near Owen Sound, Ont., for more than 20 years. York Region officials - who say raw, or unpasteurized milk is a health hazard - accuse him of selling or distributing the product, even after a court order not to do so.

On the third and final day of the trial, a York Region lawyer laid out what he called an "overwhelming case" against Schmidt.

With the burden of proof on the municipality, Dan Kuzmyk told court his evidence - albeit circumstantial - "clearly points to the fact that (Schmidt) violated the order beyond reasonable doubt."

Video footage showing people carrying coolers and bottles of white liquid to and from a blue school bus, website postings purportedly from Schmidt saying "we will not stop," and several witnesses including a newspaper reporter who confirmed Schmidt told him he still provides raw milk formed the basis of his case.

"If it looks like a cow, if it walks like a cow, if it moos like a cow, it's a cow," Kuzmyk told court as he concluded a thorough summary which lasted about an hour.

Schmidt, who has defended himself to avoid bankruptcy, summarized his case in about 10 minutes, beginning with a retort.

"I agree completely with that," he said. "But does the cow give pasteurized or unpasteurized milk? That is the question."

The farmer, who earlier dismissed his three scheduled witnesses from testifying, told court none of the evidence presented by Kuzmyk was valid.

"It was not even proven that the subject milk was not pasteurized," Schmidt said.

Kuzmyk has repeatedly said no tests have been conducted to verify the milk in question is raw.

Raw milk advocates passionately claim it has many health benefits. Several Schmidt supporters - many of whom were present for the trial's duration - held hands in a moment of silence before he made his final statement.

"Knowing his principles, he's a good man," Shirley Ann Wood said after the trial concluded. "I think the court needs to hear what he's saying and listen to that, and hopefully act accordingly."

Schmidt plans to go back to his farm and tend to his cows while he awaits a verdict.

He'll also be preparing for a wider trial scheduled for 2009, in which he faces 20 charges laid by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Grey-Bruce Health Unit.

And now, a word from me about listeria and E. coli and other nasties in food...

We've had a huge listeria outbreak here recently, stemming from a Maple Leaf meat processing plant, that has killed 16 people. I subscribe to Health Canada food alerts, which means I get an email every time salmonella, E. coli, etc is found in foods. They are always found in packaged foods (bagged spinach, pasteurized cheeses etc) that have been handled by a processing facility. None of the offenders get arrested.

Michael Schmidt has been selling his milk for many years. No-one has become sick as a result. Yet he is being dragged through the courts.

I don't believe for one second that this is a public safety measure, no matter what the government claims (and that's what they claim, at least in response to my letters of complaint). This guy has had his home staked out by the cops, for chrissake, and his equipment taken. I mean, he's selling milk -- not meth.

My hope is that the courts actually look at the reality of this situation -- that he's selling milk to people who KNOW what it is and WANT to buy it, and who have not experienced food poisoning as a result. That large processing plants, despite their precautions, end up sickening and, in some cases, poisoning us far more often (statistically) than local farmers do. No food is ever going to be 100% safe. But come on -- if cigarettes are legal, why the hell not raw milk??

If a risk of food poisoning is enough to outlaw a food, then there's a heckuva lot of foods out there that should be locked up. Maybe one day, the government will decide to shelter us all from danger and just create a nutritional kibble. The we can do away with all that scary stuff that comes from natural food.

My Pyramid

Someone on Jimmy Moore's forum posted a link to this article on QFever, a site that publishes medical humour & satire for healthcare professionals (yes, apparently they do have a sense of humour). I'm posting it here because a) it's funny and b) it got me thinking, a dangerous occurrence to be sure. Here it is:

USDA Recommendations Followed
Florida man consumes 120 apples, 300 slices of bread per month

TALLAHASSEE, FL--Robert Steinholz is a stickler for details, and he's making sure to follow the USDA's dietary guidelines to a "T".

Steinholz, an accountant and Florida native, consumes the recommended 6-11 servings of bread and pasta every single day, as well as 2-4 servings of fruits and 3-5 servings of vegetables. He also has a glass of milk and a piece of meat with every meal, including breakfast.

USDA Food Pyramid

In total, this amounts to approximately 120 apples a month, plus upwards of 300 slices of bread. "With some 20-25 slices of bread per loaf, that's, like, 14 or 15 loaves of bread a month," he explains.

"Yeah, it's hard to keep up sometimes," admits the 5'7", 280 pound Florida native. "But I figure, hey, if the USDA doesn't know what's good for me, who does?"

Steinholz, who began the USDA diet eight months ago, says that regular injections of insulin help his body process the enormous carbohydrate load that the "food pyramid" subjects him to.

"If that's what it takes to eat what the government thinks is a well-balanced diet, then that's what I gotta do, ain't it!," he says confidently.

His wife, Patty, is less than enthused about her husband's newfound adherence to the federal guidelines. "Look at this fridge," she says. "Between the apples, heads of lettuce, broccoli, and the freakin' loaves of bread, you tell me what there is to be happy about."

Not frickin' much!

I wondered -- what would it take for me to eat according to the food pyramid? So I signed up for USDA's My Pyramid Meal Planner to find out.

For me, a 5'2", 113lb, 33-year old female doing less than 30 minutes of exercise a day, My Pyramid recommended 1800 calories as my average daily target. My Pyramid then advised me that if I gained weight, I could simply cut back on added sugars, solid fats and booze. For now, I will ignore the fact that I gained weight eating less than 1800 calories a day (high carb, while exercising more than 30 minutes a day), and lost weight eating more (low carb, and exercising less), because I am feeling compassionate and don't want My Pyramid to get confused or upset. If you have a Pyramid too, you know how touchy they can be.

Next, the menu. My Pyramid, handy fella that he is, warned me to stay within these targets:

6oz grains
2.5 cups vegetables
1.5 cups fruit
3 cups milk (dairy)
5 oz meat/beans
5 tsp oils
195 'extra' calories from solid fats, added sugar and/or booze

So I searched for foods that would keep me within my targets. I tried to select foods that I used to eat all the time. After some fiddling (I kept going over on fat), I came up with this:

Brekkie
1c 1% milk
2 slices 100% whole wheat bread
2 tbsp peanut butter, reduced fat
1 medium banana

Lunch
6oz fat free, sugar free flavoured yogurt
3oz baked chicken breast, no skin
2c romaine lettuce
4 tbsp fat free Italian dressing (I'd need it, for that dry-ass chicken)

Dinner
1c 1% milk
1 tbsp Parmesan cheese (like, why even bother?)
2c whole wheat spaghetti
1.5 c meatless spaghetti sauce

Snacks
1 medium peach

This brought me in at 194 of my 195 allotted 'extra' calories, but only 1509 total calories, so to bring it up to 1800 I added:

1 tbsp olive oil (this maxed me out on fat)
1 tbsp vinegar (combined with the oil for dressing)
1 c romaine (salad at dinner)
1 medium tomato (split btwn my 2 salads)
1/2 c each chopped red pepper, raw broccoli and cooked eggplant (on my pasta or in salads)
1/4 c each mushrooms and cooked onion (in pasta sauce)
1/2 c unsweetened applesauce (snack)

This actually brought me to 5 3/4 cups of veggies and 2 cups of fruit, and 1802 calories for the day. Hope those 2 extra calories don't make me gain weight.

Then...My Pyramid informed me that my veggie choices weren't up to snuff. I have no orange veggies, no starchy veggies, and no dried beans. Sigh. Back to the drawing board. I got rid of the vinegar, 1c romaine, tomato, red pepper and eggplant and added:

1/4c baked winter squash
1/4 chickpeas
1/4 c baked french fries (I know, not bloody likely. What's that, like 3 fries? So say I was 'bad" and nibbled them from my fella's plate)

Now I'm 67 calories over. I removed the broccoli and the peach, and cut the applesauce to 1/4 cup. Now I'm low on fruit. I cut the applesauce completely, put the peach back and added three small strawberries. Dude, it is HARD to stay within targets on this thing. To be fair, I didn't have to include every type of veg (starchy, orange etc) every day -- My Pyramid advises choosing a variety from within each several times a week. But there was no way I was doing another meal plan, because this one took me 45 minutes and made me gain 6 lbs just from the reading of it.

Now to see how well I did. My Pyramid daily menu report tells me I've done "good" in each category, giving me happy green checkmarks across the board. I've stayed within my daily goals, and have remained under my limit of 20g saturated fat. I rock. I will never get fat or die.

But My Pyramid is holding out on me. There's no macronutrient breakdown. So, while My Pyramid isn't looking, I sneak off to confer with Fitday. Here's what I end up with:

Fat: 56g (28%)
Protein: 94g (21%)
Carbs: 250 g (53%)

That's a buttload of carbage. To continue to be fair, Fitday says this menu contains 37g fibre, so subtracting that from the carb count leaves me with 213g. Still a buttload.

Let's have some fun. Thanks to Migraineur, I know that 1tsp of sugar equals 4 grams. Since all carbs, regardless of their source, break down into glucose in the body, we can use this little fact to figure out how many teaspoons of sugar this menu contains -- and what my pancreas would have to deal with as far as insulin release goes.

213g carbs, divided by 4 = 53.25 teaspoons of sugar. If I ate like this for a week, that would give me 372.75 teaspoons of sugar. After a year, I'd have eaten the equivalent of 19,383 teaspoons of sugar...or over 200 pounds.

1 gram of carbohydrate raises blood sugar between 3-5 points, depending on your weight. How quickly or slowly they do this depends on other factors, but it goes up nonetheless (hence diabetics calculating carbs in their meal and how much insulin they'll need to take to cover the ensuing blood sugar spike). If I divide my total carb intake for the day equally across the three meals/snack, I could experience blood sugar spikes of between 213 and 355 points per meal. That seems insanely high to me, so if I am wrong, someone please let me know.

If that's correct, is it any wonder there's an epidemic of Type 2 diabetes? And since whatever glucose I don't burn off will be stored as fat (thanks to the insulin I am constantly secreting to cover these carbs, which shuttles it off for storage and keeps it there), is it any wonder so many of us are overweight, even though we're eating "right"? Is it any wonder so many of us have become sensitive to carbs? Have developed metabolic syndrome?

Never mind that this menu, as it is, would leave me hungry. I know this, because I used to eat like this and I was hungry. All. The. Time.

I was also overweight at 140 lbs. What would My Pyramid suggest in this situation? Reduce calories, mainly from added sugars, solid (read: saturated) fats and booze, and increase my exercise.

Now, as My Pyramid covers his eyes, let's look at reality. Here's an average daily macronutrient count for me now:

Fat: 152g
Protein: 124g
Carbs: 23g
Total calories: 1,953

And I'm 27 lbs lighter, rarely feel hungry, and have no cravings. And it doesn't take me 45 minutes to figure out what the hell to eat.

The moral of this story? Don't rely on the government, or anyone, to tell you what to eat in order to be healthy and/or slim. Rely on your body's response to what you're eating. And leave the pyramid to its intended role -- a tomb.

PS: For more fun, check out this parody USDA My Pyramid site. My favorite quote:

We cling to the profit-rich Milk category because the large percentage of Americans that are lactose-intolerant is not part of the profitable target demographic.

The CON, The Woo and a new degree program

Canada has now fully embraced the War On Obesity (hereafter referred to as "The Woo"). The Canadian Medical Association has partnered with the Canadian Obesity Network (or, ahem, "CON") to "formally encourage provincial medical associations to address the growing obesity epidemic". And to cement that, the University of Guelph-Humber has launched a shiny new degree program aimed at adding more soldiers to the front lines.

According to U. Guelph's press release, "the program is in response to a growing demand for professionals to know more about preventing and moderating obesity-related diseases when conducting physical assessments and developing exercise and nutrition plans for clients."
Elaine Popp, acting program head for the university, sums it up best: "Because the general population is not fit and not able to make good nutrition decisions, our students need to know how to prescribe lifestyle changes to people who aren't healthy."

Definition: The obesity epidemic exists because fat people are stupid and lazy. Hence, we need The Woo. And The Woo needs properly armed Woo-ites in order to succeed.

In order to do this, students will learn, among other things, the benefits of incorporating whole-grain foods and fibre into the diet to reduce cholesterol levels and gain an understanding of the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids and the dangers of saturated fatty acids. In other words, they'll learn the same crap that's been shouted from the mountains since before the obesity epidemic began; the same crap that hasn't made a dent in the problem and, in fact, has seen it worsen. Dare I say it -- the same crap that, at least in part, caused it to begin with.

Over 400 eager soldiers applied for the 60 available spots. One thing The Woo has accomplished is to turn obesity in to a very lucrative industry. Grads will be qualified to work as personal trainers, kinesiologists, wellness consultants and fitness practitioners in both clinical and rehabilitation settings, and learn “how to prescribe exercise and diet to an unhealthy population.” Ka-ching!

Back to CON. CON is based out of U. Guelph. CON is the leading lobbying organization for pharmaceutical, obesity, “health” and bariatric interests. Academics from Guelph’s Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences, Food Technology Centre, and Human Nutraceutical Research Unit have a leading role in CON and in producing papers to support the network’s initiatives. CON’s influence over government spending and health policies has extended to the development of the clinical practice guidelines for doctors, developed by the heavily industry-sponsored members of the Obesity Canada Clinical Practice Guidelines Expert Panel.

Some of CON's clinical guidelines include: a focus on BMI and extensive and regular laboratory testing of fat people from the age of ten years; suggested screening for mood and psychiatric disorders and medications to be considered; a weight management program with diet and lifestyle interventions, and counseling by a clinical psychologist; prescriptions are suggested for those not able to maintain weight loss, including orlistat for adolescents; and bariatric surgery for BMIs ≥ 40 or ≥ 35 with health problems “when lifestyle intervention is inadequate to achieve healthy weight goals.”

So we've got a university that houses a pharma-backed CON developing a recruitment program for The Woo that pretty much ensures a steady stream of both soldiers, and fat 'enemies' for the soldiers to prescribe to. Anyone wanna wager that Good Calories, Bad Calories ain't on the reading list?

Thanks to Junkfood Science for much of the info in this post.

Eat Your Nitrates!

As an unabashed lover of cured meats, I've always lived in denial of the nitrate/cancer warnings. Partially because my taste buds just weren't willing to give up bacon, pancetta, prosciutto, breasola, cappicola or other deli delicacies. But more so because the warnings never made sense to me. After all, charcuterie has been around for some 6,000 years as a pre-refrigeration way of preserving meats. Salting, smoking and curing meats seemed natural enough to me -- and since lots of other foods contain nitrates and/or nitrites, I wasn't sure why meat was being singled out as the "bad" source.

Still, now and then I'd go out of my way to get nitrate-free products. And generally, the results were somewhere between "meh" and "blecchh" as far as taste went. Nitrate-free hot dogs practically brought me to tears.

Enter Sandy Szwarc of Junkfood Science to alleviate my grief. She has a wonderful post that debunks the "there is no safe level of processed meats" warnings we've been hearing since the '70's. The link to her full post is below, but here's a snippet to whet your appetite:

In 1981, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the scientific literature and found no link between nitrates or nitrites and human cancers, or evidence to even suggest that they’re carcinogenic. Since then, more than 50 studies and multiple international scientific bodies have investigated a possible link between nitrates and cancers and mortality in humans and found no association.

What may be more surprising to learn is that scientific evidence has been building for years that nitrates are actually good for us, that nitrite is produced by our own body in greater amounts than is eaten in food, and that it has a number of essential biological functions, including in healthy immune and cardiovascular systems. Nitrite is appearing so beneficial, it’s even being studied as potential treatments for health problems such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, sickle cell disease and circulatory problems.

Some other interesting facts from her post:

• Nitrate, from any dietary source, does not accumulate in our body. Nor does nitrite.
• 70-97% of our total nitrite exposure comes from our own spit.
• The primary source of nitrite on our diets comes from vegetables.
• In order to ingest a lethal dose of sodium nitrite, you'd have to eat between 2,222-4,444 hot dogs in one sitting.
• There is no evidence that nitrates or nitrites cause cancer in animals or humans.

I advise reading the rest of her post while munching on some Genoa salami and a nice hunk of pate -- or a big ol' nasty hot dog. Just skip the bun.

Junkfood Science: Does banning hot dogs and bacon make sense?

PS: Okay, hot dogs. I know, I know. There are lots of other nasties in hot dogs. I managed to find, in my local grocery store, something called "European Wieners". If you're anything like me, "European wiener" immediately brings to mind Jude Law, whose wiener-ness would still not prevent me from taking him home should I find him available on my grocers' shelf. But the wieners I'm speaking of are not nanny-diddling rapscallions who need a firm spanking. These are hot dogs in a natural sheep casing that do not contain gluten, MSG, soy, lactose or anything other than pork, seasoning and the curing stuff. Very tasty.

Top 100 Women's Health Blogs

Nursing School Search recently posted their top 100 women's health blog picks, and I was overjoyed to see that they included a Nutrition and Special Diets -- and that Fear and Loathing made the list! A big thanks to Kelly Sonora for that.

I'll be checking out several of these blogs, especially A Gluten Free Guide (a little carby at times, but great recipes and pics) and A Life Less Sweet, the trials and tribulations of a woman trying to avoid high-fructose corn syrup. In Canada, we aren't bombarded with HFCS but from what my American friends tell me, it's in bloody everything. Even chicken. Why anyone would add HFCS to chicken is beyond me. You wanna add something to chicken? Try BACON. Unless it has HFCS in it...

Also featured in the Weight Loss section is Jennette Fulda, whose podcast interview with Jimmy Moore I just listened to last night. She lost almost 200 lbs on a South Beach-type diet, and her book Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir sounds like a damn good read. I'll read pretty much anything to do with food and diets, and if it happens to have "ass" in the title, all the better. If you've read it already, let me know what you think -- I have about 628 books sitting on my coffee table/bedside table/living room floor/toilet tank waiting to be read, but what's one more?

What are you guys reading lately? Listened to any good podcasts lately? Let me in on it. I've been away for a while, and have a lot of catching up to do!

Halle-loumi

After a few upheavals, life has settled down again and I’ve snuggled happily back into my routine – which includes blogging and, best of all, hitting the farmer’s markets to discover new and exciting treasures. And oh – I found one.

Sunday I headed down the street to my local market to pick up some bison, eggs, rib-eyes and a cow heart for the pusses. On the way out, I decided to pop by Monforte’s table. They make gorgeous sheep’s milk cheeses and yogurt that don’t seem to bother my sensitive tum.

As I was fingering a silky block of garlic scape cheddar, a cute little wedge caught my eye. White, creamy but firm, lightly speckled with herbs.

“What’s this one?” I asked.

“That’s halloumi,” said the Nice Cheese Lady.

“What’s halloumi?”

“It’s a Greek cheese,” she replied. “You fry it.”

You know in the movies, when the guy sees the girl for the first time, like when she’s walking into the classroom or the bar or the office, and suddenly everything is in slow motion and she flips her hair and it’s all shiny and gorgeous and “Dreamweaver” starts playing? Well that happened to me, but with cheese.

Nice Cheese Lady was waxing poetic about halloumi originating in Cyprus and how it doesn’t melt with the heat because the curd is cooked in whey at high temperatures and the protein structures are altered, or something to that effect, but all I could hear (besides “Dreamweaver”) was my belly crooning to me in a soothing, lovers whisper:

You fry it.

Fried cheese.

This is cheese you can fry.

Well ‘fry’ rhymes with ‘buy’, and I’m not one to ignore meaningful coincidences. I plunked down five bucks and floated home, smitten.

According to “The Rules”, one should wait three days before calling one’s crush so as not to appear desperate. I chose to use this tactic with my halloumi. If I took it home, ripped it open and fried it up right away, what would it think of me? Would it respect me? I doubted so. My halloumi sat and wrung its hands (“Will she cook me? She is gonna cook me, right?”) until this evening.

I was going to fry my new love in olive oil to make it feel more comfortable, being Greek and all, but nary a drop in the house. So, I used a bit of lard. (“Ooooh, you’re frying CHEESE in LARD!” squealed my belly, delighted by the rebellious decadence of it all). Three slices, a few minutes per side, then on to a plate and simply but smartly dressed with some dried mint leaves, sea salt and a doosh of lemon juice.

It was a dream date. My halloumi turned out to be just like the human love of my life: crispy on the outside, firm yet tender on the inside, and lets out a little squeak when bitten. (yes – my fella fits this description, but that’s a whole other blog.)

Halloumi is nice on its own, simply dressed as I had it – it was almost like a dessert. But you can also grill it in a skewer, kabob-style, or cube it, fry it and serve it like a crouton in salads or soups. It has a neutral flavour, so I imagine it would take on other herbs and spices very well. You can also get it packaged in brine, which gives it a more salty flavour and I imagine helps it last longer in the fridge.

Not that you’ll keep it around long. It’s far too delicious and versatile to just sit there. If my gut approves, I may start eating it, oh I don’t know, like every day at every meal for the rest of my natural life. I know it’s still early on in the relationship, but when I fall in love, I fall hard.

I’ll be sure to post the wedding photos.