Menu, Week 27

Three Notable Articles

In the recent flurry of food articles from the N.Y. Times, here are three that will interest you, arranged by subject:

Milk:  In this article, food writer Mark Bittman argues that we actually don’t need milk, excepting breast milk for infants.  It was a dark day for the dairy industry, but Bittman cured his lifelong heartburn simply by stopping all milk intake.  But is it good advice for all?  Like most topics in nutrition, it’s complicated.  Ninety percent of Asian-Americans, as well as 75% of people who are black, Jewish, or of Mexican descent are, to some degree, lactose intolerant.  Basically, coming from societies without a dairy tradition, they lack lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose.  So what about the other 250 million Americans?

My view is different than Bittman’s.  I like milk, but fear it has been made less healthy by Food Inc’s constant search for cost reduction.  It’s cheaper to take cows out of green pastures, tie them to stanchions, feed them the cheapest grains tolerable, and milk them three times a day through their short life.  Unfortunately, unhealthy cows don’t produce healthy milk.  As discussed here and here, I consume dairy sparingly and wish healthier forms were available.  The beautiful wife drinks very little milk but enjoys cheese and yogurt—a better solution for the lactose intolerant.

Bread:  The article “Against the Grain” reviews a recent book White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf.   You can see a review by the Whole Grains Council here.  This is a classic story of how well intentioned food reforms turn into businesses and how the product evolves to be the opposite of the original intent. 

Take bread, for example.  Early 20^th century concern about bacteria in bread made by immigrants in local sweatshop bakeries led to large factory bakeries all nicely sanitized, and eventually to Wonder Bread.  Did a worse product ever result from a good intention?  Yes, packaged breakfast cereal started out as a health food.  It’s an old story and it’s time for people to wise up.  We’ve spoken of bread here, and visited the supermarket bread aisle here.  Oh, and we visited the breakfast cereal aisle here.

Organic:  As you know, we care deeply about nutrition but rarely buy products labeled organic.  Let me explain.  You can buy just about any food in an organic version if you’re willing to pay more.  And if you’re willing to pay more, well, that’s a business opportunity.  And as we’ve just seen with milk and bread, businesses maximize profit and maximizing profit always corrupts the product, though skillful advertising can fool most people for a while.    

I know this sounds anti-business, but it comes from someone who believes, and worked, in the free enterprise system. 

The article, “Has ‘Organic’ Been Oversized?” argues that the industry’s standard-setting group, the National Organic Standards Board, is full of Food Inc cronies and is more about their profit than our well being.  Imagine that—another good intention corrupted by the constant craving for corporate growth. 

Here’s my view:  There should only be one standard for food—healthy.  Supporting a separate, more expensive, class of food for the privileged runs against everything America means to me.  And to you, I hope.  One more thing:  Don’t believe any advertisement by Food Inc.  Some may be true, but you never know for sure.  Better to listen to neutral third-party voices.  If I could fit it in, I'd make this a Healthy Change.

This Week’s Menu

We had a house full of guests this week and ate two meals in the homes of other children, so a short menu.  The guests are gone now, the house is strangely quiet, and we’re just snacking from the refrigerator. 

Monday

• Skip’s Stuffed Bell Pepper (from the freezer)
• Grapefruit-Avocado Salad (got this from Grausman’s book, At Home With the French Classics, called, Salade d’ Endives et de Pamplemousse Rose, so how special is that?  Now that I think about it, the BW added the avocado to the recipe.)
• Dessert:  Cantaloupe.  (So tasty, and so easy.)

Tuesday

• Skip’s Macaroni and Cheese
• Broccoli Salad
• Ship’s Homemade Applesauce

Wednesday (The 4^th of July, a day to eat whatever you want)

• Hamburgers and hot dogs, barbecued
• Green salad
• Chips and dips
• Watermelon

Our War on Sugar

Midterm Test

We’re at the midpoint of the year:  26 Healthy Changes delivered, 26 to go.  It’s a good time for reflection  I think we’re making progress in our modest goal of changing the world.  Last night I Googled the search term “Word of Wisdom.”  Thanks to you readers, of the 11 million results we were #2, a new high.  Only Wikipedia beat us.  To me it’s a big deal; in the Olympics that’s a silver medal. Now we just have to pass Wikipedia. 

Our stated goal is to change the world and according to Google, we’re doing just that.  But change is an action verb.  We write these charming posts not to entertain but to create change.  Talking is easy—doing is hard.  So we press on—in the next post we’ll ask you to score yourself on how many Healthy Changes you’re actually living.  Get ready.

A Public Dialog

Have you followed the recent discussion about calories and diet?  It involves three people—a physician/scientist, a chef turned food writer, and a serious journalist:

David Ludwig, MD, PhD:  Ludwig studies and treats child obesity.  A while back he made a controversial statement:  Severely obese children should be removed from the care of their parents.  One Ludwig study showed the risk of obesity jumped 60% with each daily soft drink.  

Ludwig’s most recent study evaluated three diets for their ability to keep weight off, once it has been lost.  This is important because in nearly all cases, when dieting loses weight, it is later regained.  The three diets were:

1. The standard low-fat diet you often hear recommended,
2. An ultra-low carb (Atkins) diet, and
3. A low-glycemic diet of vegetables, fruit, legumes, and whole grains (basically, the WOWL diet).

The low-fat diet did the worst, so it’s time to move away from the bad advice of the last generation.  The Atkins diet did best but with the complication of higher inflammation (measured by c-reactive protein) and cortisol (the stress hormone).  The low-glycemic diet (basically, the WOWL dietary) offered the best combination of weight loss and freedom from side effects. 

Mark Bittman:  Is a chef turned author who writes for the N.Y. Times.  He gave his take on Ludwig’s study in an article titled, “Which Diet Works.”  Bittman said, “Over the long term, the low-glycemic (WOWL, or whole foods) diet appears to work best . . . . The message is pretty simple: unprocessed foods give you a better chance of idealizing your weight—and your health.”  I like the simplicity of this; if you eat healthy you’ll have a healthy weight.  We won’t all look the same, that would be boring and unnatural, but we’ll be our healthiest.

Gary Taubes:  A serious researcher and journalist, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories, the definitive work linking sugar and highly processed foods to obesity, diabetes (type 2, not type 1 which afflicts some children for unknown reasons), and chronic disease, weighed in next.  His N.Y Times article, titled “What Really Makes Us Fat” attacked our fascination with calories and calorie counting. 

Taubes doesn’t believe in the equality of calories—some are good and some, in his view, are bad for you.  He spent six years researching his book, an attack on America’s sugar addiction, and he’s pretty convinced the first step to improving our nation’s health is to eat less sugar.  So am I—counting calories won't take the place of eating real whole foods.  

The Inequality of Calories

When America’s overweight problem is discussed the calorie truism, based on the 1^st Law of Thermodynamics—which speaks to the conservation of energy—is usually mentioned.  "A calorie is a calorie," you hear that a lot.  Sometimes so-called experts simply say, “Calories in, calories out.”  They mean overweight is the simple result of eating more calories than you burn.  Or you hear this guidance: “Eat less, move more.”  But is it that simple?  If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know better. 

I took thermodynamics in college—taught by Dr. Milton Willie, a brilliant and caring teacher—and I believe in the first law.  But, because of the complexity of nutrition, I’ve never believed in the equality of calories.  Think about it:  Will a calorie from a carrot have the same effect in your body as a calorie from a soft drink?  Of course not—so stop counting calories and focus on your daily servings of vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, and a little meat. 

Our War on Sugar

As a young man I remember standing by the railroad track of a small town in rural Guatemala.  Lumbering past were car after car overflowing with sugar cane.  It was the time of the sugar cane harvest.  The harvest seemed a good thing, a blessing for the local economy.  Before that I remember watching long trains loaded with sugar beets in Davis, California.  And years later watching trucks load an Illinois corn harvest into massive tanks labeled, "high fructose."  These were all about the same thing: supplying our growing sugar gluttony.  Now we know that more and more sugar isn’t a good thing.  Our annual intake of about 100 lbs of sugar should be slashed to at least 20-30 lbs, per the AHA, to reduce our risk of overweight, diabetes, heart problems, and other chronic diseases. 

Of the 52 Healthy Changes, four have the goal of reducing our intake of sugar.  Here are the four strategies for reducing sugar intake:

• Our first Healthy Change went after soft drinks, the leading source of refined and artificial sugar: If you consume sugary drinks, real or diet, limit yourself to one (12 oz.) serving per week. 
• Healthy Change #10 was about grains and attacked the practice of removing natural fiber and adding sugar to grain products, beginning with bread but including breakfast cereal also:  Your daily bread must be whole grain with more natural fiber (see the nutrition panel) than added sugar. The mantra "more fiber than added sugar," drives us to eat whole foods.
• This week’s Healthy Change goes after the American love for candy: Enjoy your candy a piece at a time; never bring a bag or box into the home.  I like candy as a treat, but it should be a treat, not a habit.
• The final sugar strategy suggests a way to enjoy chocolate without gorging on sugar: Enjoy dark (70%) chocolate, with fruit and nuts. 

 
Please comment:  How do you manage sugar in your life?  How have you gotten past the false belief that artificial sweeteners like those in “diet” drinks—such a sad, pathetic name—are somehow healthier than real food?  Oh yes, happy 4th of July.  It's a great country but eating right would make it way better.

Menu, Week 26

The Cost of Eating

Does it cost more to eat healthy?  The answer—at least for us—is a definite, “No!”  In the last post we shared our food cost for June.  The beautiful wife (BW) and I saved our receipts, which totaled $428 for a month of food.  This is well below the $516 cost of the average moderate diet for two adults, according to the USDA.  

Bottom line:  To live longer and save money, write a menu and shopping list, then do your own cooking,

Last week reader Denae noted the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats and provided a link to pictures from the book showing the weekly food of 30 families around the world.  Back when this book came out I was less aware of food.  Now I find the differences around the world quite revealing.   I spent last evening studying the pictures of each family’s food for a week.  You can learn a lot from those pictures.

A refugee family in Chad ate for $1.23 a week.  A prosperous family in Germany spent the most, $500.  Now that’s a big difference.  Funny thing—the poor refugees looked healthier.  The poorest people eat pretty much as people have always eaten—vegetables and grains with a little fruit and a bit of meat.  The richer nations eat mostly processed foods—I estimated that 2/3 of their food came processed and packaged, just 1/3 was natural, and there was a lot of meat.

Bottom line: The very poor eat plant food in its natural form, as it was created.   The well-to-do eat processed foods.  My odd conclusion:  It’s healthier to be third-world poor.

Last Week’s Menu

We’re into summer eating so meals are simpler—more fruit, less cooking.  The week started in the mountains, at Midway, and finished back home in California.  After a travel week, we take a few days off from serious cooking. 

Monday

• Amy’s Pasta (leftover from Sunday)
• Green Salad
• WW Bread
• Root Beer Float (A guilty pleasure someone left behind; didn’t want to waste it.)

Tuesday

• Tamales (Last of the Costco tamales from the freezer.)
• Salsa (We made a quick salsa using tomatoes and onion.)
• Green salad

Wednesday

• A travel day, we ate at Café Rio in Cedar City.

Thursday

• Tuna salad sandwich—that’s all, just a sandwich for dinner.

Friday 

• Sushi (From a new Whole Foods store.)
• Cantaloupe
• Salad

Sunday

• Tuna Salad Sandwich (Finished the tuna.)
• Corn-on-the-cob
• Cantaloupe

Health Food Stores

A new Whole Foods store opened and the BW likes their sushi so we had it Friday night.  There’s an older Sprouts (formerly Henry’s) nearby and I thought the new store would dominate the healthy food business.  But it turns out that they’re different stores.  Sprouts is serious about good produce and stuff sold in bins—grains, granola, legumes, seeds and nuts.  Whole Foods is more expensive and has a big deli area, so it’s popular with working people not on a budget and too tired to cook.  

Here’s another example:  Sprouts offers the usual legumes in bulk at a good price; Whole Foods had 15 kinds of beans, 12 I had never heard of before, all at higher prices than Sprouts.  So they actually don’t compete head-on.  Whole Foods is fancier but I prefer Sprouts—but I’m a cheap guy.

Does It Really Cost More To Eat Right?

One Cheap Guy

Before discussing the cost of eating right, I should state my qualifications.  Everyone knows I’m a cheap guy.  I won’t deny it—in fact, on most days I consider it a virtue.  Readers of this blog know I’m also a contrarian, I question the accepted wisdom, and yes, that’s also a virtue, most days.  The beautiful wife accepts all this with scarcely a murmur.

As a contrary and cheap guy, I believe it’s no more expensive to eat healthy food than to eat the modern American diet (MAD).  Yes, I know how cheap you can buy Top Ramen.  The MAD is dominated by fast food and processed factory foods, all so affordable that in America even the poor people can be obese.   What a great country. 

Unlike the so-called experts, I maintain that it’s cheaper to eat healthy (if you’re willing to organize and cook) than to eat the MAD stuff that leads to chronic disease.  Of course, I also believe that it’s cheaper to be healthy than to be sick, but everyone knows that.  It’s also more fun.

The Cost of Eating The MAD Diet

The USDA keeps data on the cost on the MAD style of eating.  They divide the population into four socioeconomic eating groups:  Thrifty; low-cost; moderate and liberal (most expensive food).  I figured we were in the moderate group because though I’m cheap, the beautiful wife likes everything nice.   So on average we’re moderate.

In the month of June I collected receipts for every food item, including the three meals we ate out.  I laboriously added up the cost, dividing it into food groups.  Then I compared our total to the USDA costs for MAD eating.  Here are the costs to feed two adults for one month:

Thrifty plan                             $323

Low-cost plan:                        $418

Moderate plan:                        $516

Liberal plan:                            $621

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Skip & the BW:                       $428

So there’s the evidence.  I figure the USDA bases its data on the MAD, after all they’re the chief enabler.  One thing you readers know is we work hard at eating healthy (more on that below).  So ipso facto, if you’re willing to write a menu, follow a shopping list, and do your own cooking, it’s cheaper to eat healthy than to eat the MAD food that will make you chronically ill. 

And that doesn’t even consider the dreadful cost of health care, or all the fun you’re going to miss being sick.  Did I mention that we also had the family over for Sunday dinner once, and had guests over to dinner twice?  Subtract those costs and our cost for June drops below $400.  We also ate out three times, though I don't recall any white linen on the tables.

What We Spent on Food in June

Our shopping’s done for the month so I went through the grocery receipts and made a spreadsheet.  Here's how we spent our $428 in June:

Vegetables:                 $65

Fruits:                       $107 

Nuts:                          $14

Dairy:                         $52

Meat:                          $54  (Including a $20 roast for the family dinner.)

Grains:                        $56  (I only made bread once.)

Misc:                           $33 

You can get a lot of vegetables for $65, but just a little meat for $54.  If you divide this into three meals daily and subtract the food for guests, we ate for $2.16 per meal, each.  Bottom line for concerned budgeters:  A healthy diet doesn’t cost more than the MAD diet, in fact you can save money while saving your health.

Recipe of the Week

The beautiful wife is rolling her eyes but all I’m trying to do is improve our health by getting more vitamin K-2 into our diet by rediscovering . . . liver.  Yes, eyes are rolling.  I’m starting with chicken liver because it has more K-2.  The idea is to sauté it with onions, mushrooms, maybe some apples, perhaps a little curry, and serve it over wild or brown rice. 

I think you’ll like it.  Eating liver has gone out of style but it’s rich in the fat-soluble vitamins that can make you naturally healthy.  It's also very affordable—I paid just $2.98 a pound for my chicken liver.  Stay tuned—and keep an open mind.

Please Comment:  If you have a recipe you like for liver, please share it.

Sleep, Blessed Sleep

The quick answer:  To eat better, sleep better.  If you get adequate sleep in the dark, you’ll crave wholesome nutrients more than sugary stimulants.

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How Will You Measure Your Life?

We had lunch with old friends in a mountain town of enduring charm.  Guests included a young couple, recently graduated from college, about to head east for a Wall Street position.  They’re small-town kids, unusually bright, blessed with solid values, eager to be tested in the Big Apple.  The bottom of an economic cycle seemed an auspicious time to enter the world of high finance, I thought. 

The conversation turned to the unusual demands of such a job, which included sixteen-hour work days.  The Biblical warning against serving both God and Mammon was noted.  The world admires ambition, but the usual measures are material in nature and there’s that Biblical warning about coveting, you know.

Another recalled a man who, in similar circumstances, had purposely chosen to underachieve financially—judging time with wife and family to be of greater worth.  Well, I thought, there’s a guy who’s got his feet under him. 

Someone recalled Dr. Clayton Christensen’s 2010 Harvard commencement speech, “How Will You Measure Your Life?”  The table was silent for a moment as we reflected on the metrics that had governed our own lives.

Driving home, another metric important to life came to mind—sleep time.  Americans are hard workers but there’s a price—we generally don’t get enough sleep.  I’m not speaking of the new mother in those first months before baby has sorted out day and night.  I’m talking about all of us who think missed sleep reflects meritorious ambition. 

Sleep

This blog rotates through 13 themes each quarter of the year.  Thirteen weeks ago we discussed sunshine, the natural source of vitamin D.  Vitamin D from sunshine is reported to last twice as long in our body as vitamin D from pills—so it seems there is a physiological difference with sunshine that may be beneficial.  The full spectrum light from sunshine was addressed last year in the post, Let There Be Light. 

This time we address the opposite theme—the importance of time in the dark, sleeping.  I’m surprised how often we find guidance on how to live by the Creation account in Genesis:

“And God said, ‘Let there be light; and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.  And the evening and the morning were the first day.”  (Genesis 1:3,4)

The division of light from darkness was important, I believe, but in our time, with electric lighting, true darkness has been much reduced and the division compromised. 

Melatonin

 Melatonin is the master hormone of the night, a blessing of adequate sleep.  When we close our eyes in a darkened room the pineal gland, a sort of third eye, is triggered by darkness to produce melatonin.  The production of melatonin peaks in the fourth hour of sleep, which then produces other beneficial hormones that restore and prepare us for the coming day.  Basically, you make melatonin for 4 hours; the other hormones do their work the next 4 hours.  (In infants, melatonin production stabilizes in the 3^rd month, enabling them to sleep through the night, at last.)

Melatonin is also a potent antioxidant, a protection for your DNA.  Though our understanding of melatonin is incomplete, it seems important to health to not shortchange the body through insufficient sleep, in a darkened room.  The division of dark from light in the Creation is important today also.

Sleep Deficiency

Scientists have linked some chronic diseases to insufficient sleep, as discussed in the post, Blessed Sleep.  These include depression, hypertension, type 2 diabetes and overweight, heart disease and cancer.  There are also mental effects including dementia and impaired judgment. 

Losing Fat

I connect the growing dependence of stimulants like caffeine and sugary drinks in the last century to our decline of adequate sleep in a darkened room.  If sleep is not fully refreshing we crave stimulants to get going, more than nutrients.  A sugary breakfast cereal, a mid-morning soft drink, and candy snacks during the day will seem the right answer.  If you get adequate sleep, 8-9 hours per night, you’ll need less sugar and this will lower your insulin level thus allowing your body to release and consume fat for energy.  When insulin is high, sugar is stored as fat; when it’s low, fat is released for consumption.

A 2010 University of Chicago study of dieters found that those who got the most sleep lost twice as much fat as those with the least sleep (8.5 Hrs. vs. 5.5 Hrs.).  As excess fat is a widespread problem in America, adequate sleep in the dark may be the cheapest health aid available.  A prior post, The Skinny On Overweight, argued that rather than the pain of repeated dieting, it would be better to first try eating a wholesome diet combined with exercise. 

Please comment:  Are you able to get adequate sleep?  How much do you need?  Have you experienced sleep-related health issues?  Do you eat better if your sleep better?  What did you do to improve your sleep habits.

Menu for Week 25

A Quiet Revolution

The English poet William Wordsworth wrote a sonnet in the early days of the Industrial Revolution that captured the discord of the time:

“The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours . . . “

Wordsworth was on to something that troubles mankind to this day.  Industrialization freed man from backbreaking labor but alienated the human family from Nature.  The new question wasn’t whether to go forward, rather it was how to gain the “new” while keeping the best of the “old.” 

This clash of old vs. new took a more ominous form when industrialization changed, (better said, adulterated) our food supply.  Factory food made a good business but processing changed the nature of food and led to the chronic diseases that afflict us today. 

The modest goal of Word of Wisdom Living is to save the world by rediscovering how to eat.  The 52 Healthy Changes, delivered one per week, if faithfully followed, promise to restore mankind’s harmony with Nature.  It’s a revolution for sure, but a quiet revolution fought not on any battlefield but in the kitchen. 

Change Is Hard

To live better we must change how we eat and live, but change is hard.  So there will always be money made with any product that promises the benefits of change without the actual work. 

Due to an upset stomach we spent Sunday morning at home, a rarity for us.  So I watched the major networks and got a surprise.  The cable channels, Fox and CNN, were covering the issues of the day, mainly the 2012 presidential election.  The old networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, during the time I was watching, had turned their station over to infomercials filled with easy promises of doubtful benefit.  A few examples:

• The Nutribullet food extractor promised “amazing results” by simply drinking the juice from fruits and vegetables.
• The 6-Week Body Makeover promises weight loss without starving with a customized meal and exercise plan.
• The Insanity 60 Day Total Body Conditioning Program offers the body you want in just two months.
• The Tummy Tuck belt promised to melt away stomach fat if you apply a cream and wear an elastic midriff belt for 10-minute sessions.
• Cindy Crawford’s name is used from an age-denying magic potion from a rare melon found in southern France.
• Sprinkle the Sensa product over your food to lose weight eating whatever you want.

What happened to the major networks?  They seem more a carnival sideshow.  So, one more time, here’s our promise:  If you want to transform your health, you must also transform your lifestyle, beginning with your diet.  It’s hard (though doable with 52 steps) but it’s worth it.  If you do it you’re likely to look better, live longer, and have fewer regrets when your time does come.  That’s our promise, plain and simple.

Menu from Week 25

We’re away from home in beautiful Midway enjoying the longest daylight of the year.  The warm sunny days and cool, pleasant nights delight, and influence our menu—we ate our monthly bacon ration in one week.

Monday

• Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich on whole wheat bread.
• Watermelon and leftover fruit
• Dessert: Root-beer float

Tuesday

• Tamales (Costco tamales from the freezer.)
• Chili (TJ’s, from the can.)
• Green salad

Wednesday

• BLT sandwich, again. 
• Corn on the cob, first of the year.
• Watermelon

Thursday (We had guests so a special dinner.)

• Skip’s Sweet Potato, Carrot Curry Soup
• Broccoli salad
• Whole wheat bread
• Dessert: strawberries with ice cream

Friday

• BLT sandwich (Yes, 3^rd time this week, but we were short on bacon and shared a sandwich.)
• Broccoli salad (Used the leftover ingredients)
• Corn on the cob.
• Dessert:  cantaloupe (First good melon of the season.)

Next week:  The next Healthy Change comes in the time of shortest nights—sleep.

Skip's Sweet Potato-Carrot-Curry Soup Recipe

Vitamin K-2 is the subject of the week.  Few people are aware of its essential role, along with minerals and vitamins A and D, in bone health.  It’s important to note that these are fat-soluble vitamins.  (You can remember the fat-soluble vitamins by this acronym:  KADE.)  If you’ve followed the low-fat craziness of recent decades you should reconsider—we have to eat fats to have healthy bones, and teeth.  Fats, especially from pastured animals, are essential to health.

The Odd Failure of Civilization

Here’s a contradiction:  You can live a more healthy life in the civilized world, I believe, but it doesn’t usually happen.  The more civilized you are—the more processed your food is likely to be.  It’s crazy:  Civilized people, on average, don’t eat as well as indigenous natives living in the wild.  This brings us back to Dr. Weston Price, a dentist who traveled the world in the ‘30s studying and photographing the teeth of indigenous people eating their native diets.  He also studied the teeth of their cousins who had moved to the cities and ate the modern diet.  Price also recorded the respective diets and collected food samples.  To my knowledge, nothing like this has been done before or since Dr. Price's expeditions.  (We should also note that his wife accompanied him to these remote corners of the world.)  It was a remarkable adventure.

Dr. Weston Price

As noted, Dr. Weston, alarmed by the rise of dental cavities among people eating the modern diet, visited indigenous people around the world, examining their teeth and diet.  Long story short, he found that people eating native diets had healthy teeth; those who moved to the cities had bad teeth.  The native food supply varied by locale, but their traditional diets all led to healthy well-formed teeth.  And the natives didn’t even brush or floss!

Weston linked processed foods to bad teeth, and also bad bones.  He worked outside the scientific establishment so his work was generally ignored.  I'm surprised by how many dentists today are unaware of his work but he is now credited with discovering vitamin K-2 (he called it "activator X"), this week’s subject. 

Dr. Stephen Guyenet, a Paleo guy, discusses Price’s work in his post Ancestral Nutrition and Health.  Guyenet recounts an experiment by Price, of feeding chickens.  The blood level of bone-building calcium and phosphorous depended on the vitamins A, D, and K-2 in their diet.  The vitamins played a synergistic and essential role in mobilizing calcium and other minerals.  Price also found that chickens preferred butter rich in vitamin K-2 over butter that was deficient, even when researchers couldn’t tell a difference in taste.

Vitamin K-2 Benefits

Can cavities be healed, rather than filled by a dentist?  Price found that a whole-food diet rich in vitamins A, D, and K-2 actually healed cavities.  His new idea: the demineralization of teeth that forms cavities is reversible.  The diet of indigenous people was higher in these vitamins, as well as necessary minerals, and they had healthy teeth. 

There are other benefits:  A Dutch study of 4600 men found reduced mortality from heart disease among those eating the most vitamin K-2.  Men who ate the most vitamin K-2 were 51% less likely to die of heart disease than the group eating the least.  No modern drug, even the statins, gives better results.

The region of France where foie gras is produced, and eaten, also enjoys the least cardiovascular mortality of any region in France, a nation known for it’s low rate of heart disease. 

Vitamin K-2—it’s good for the bones as well as the heart.  So eat foods rich in K-2, like natto (fermented soybeans) and foods from animals fed at pasture.  The recipe this week should include foods rich in vitamin K-2 but I need to do more research.  But we do have a recipe high in vitamin A, an essential companion to vitamins D and K-2 in bone health.

Sweet Potato, Carrot, Curry Soup

This was suggested by a reader when we discussed the orange vegetables rich in carotene, a preform of vitamin A, but it took until now to work out a recipe.  We had guests this week and wanted to serve something that was healthy and a little special.  They loved this soup.  Maybe they were being polite, but the beautiful wife loved it too and she’s darned honest.  I promise to find recipes for foods rich in vitamin K-2, like natto or liver.  Sorry I don’t have a picture of the soup, but we’re traveling.

Skip’s Sweet Potato-Carrot-Curry Soup

Ingredients (feeds 4 adults):

• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 orange bell pepper (most recipes use a green chili but we used a bell pepper; any color is okay, actually)
• 3 T butter
• 2 cloves garlic (I used 1 tsp of garlic paste)
• 1 T grated ginger
• 4 C chicken stock
• 1 lb. sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1” pieces
• 4 medium carrots, cut into 1” pieces
• 1 apple, peeled and roughly chopped  (Most recipes include a chili, but the apple gives a sweeter taste.)
• 2 tsp curry (see Homemade Curry below)
• ½ tsp salt (add more if your stock is unsalted)
• ½ tsp white pepper (black is okay)
• 1 C full-fat milk or half-and-half (not fat-free half-and-half, which seems a crazy idea)
• Dollop of cream, or a bit of chopped parsley or cilantro

Directions (takes about 1 hour):

1. In a Dutch kettle, sauté the onion and bell pepper in butter.  Wash, peel and chop the sweet potato, carrots, and apple.  When the onion is translucent, add the garlic and ginger and cook one minute.
2. Add the chicken stock, sweet potatoes, carrots, apple, curry, salt and pepper to the kettle and cook until soft (about 30 minutes at sea level).   If the apple is a soft variety, add it after 15 minutes.
3. When the vegetables are soft, blend the soup in batches (I let it cool a little first to avoid problems with hot steam) by pulsing in a blender, or using an immersion blender.  We prefer a little texture in our soup so don’t blend too much.
4. Add 1 cup of milk.  Check for seasoning and adjust as needed.  (Depending on your curry and taste, some chili powder or red pepper can be added but don’t overdo it as these spices are lasting and accumulate as you eat.)
5. Serve in soup bowls; add a dash of cream or half-and-half or chopped parsley or cilantro to decorate.  This can also be served cool, as a summer soup.

Homemade Curry

I made this away from our regular home so didn’t have curry available.  I researched curry and found the recipe varies widely around Asia, where it’s normally a sauce.  The powdered form in the store typically contains turmeric, cumin, cardamom, coriander and chili powder.  Some versions include mustard, clove, white pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg.  We had all these things except the cardamom and coriander.  It’s easier to use purchased curry but I like to experiment and mixed up this recipe (all spices are ground):

• ½ tsp turmeric
• ½ tsp cumin
• ¼ tsp clove
• ¼ tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp chili powder (I added a little more later, for extra heat)
• ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
• 1/8 tsp mustard
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg

I was pleased with my homemade curry with one caution:  Spices like turmeric and nutmeg can turn bitter if too old; I think it has to do with the natural fats turning rancid.  I didn’t have fresh versions available but I think fresh would have improved the taste even more, if that's possible. Ha ha. 

Animals Need Vegetables Too

The quick answer:  A vitamin you haven’t heard much about, K-2, is essential to bone health.  (Yes, this is linked to animals eating vegetables.)

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First an Apology

Yes, I'm sorry to say this post is a little long, but the subject is complex: bone health.  There's much still unknown about building bones, hence we get conflicting advice.  Here's my take on the subject in three steps:

1. Vegetables are vital to humans, but also to the animals that feed us, in the form of green grass.
2. The four essentials for bone health include the little-discussed vitamin K-2.  A connection between osteoporosis and atherosclerosis (calcification) is also noted.
3. Over the last 50 years we inadvertently reduced the K-2 in animal products by moving animals away from green grasses as a major feed.  Eating food from pastured animals, rich in vitamin K-2, is critical to bone health.

Vegetable Overview

It’s not hard to eat the recommended 3-4 daily servings of fruit—fruit is sweet and delicious.  However, for most Americans, eating 4-5 daily portions of vegetables is a challenge.  The evidence supports this:  If you exclude French fries and ketchup, the average American averages just one daily vegetable serving.  Our distain for vegetalbes gives those French food snobs one more reason to look down on us

For this reason, of our 52 Healthy Changes, eight are dedicated to the food group kids love least—vegetables:

#6   Set a family shopping goal for pounds vegetables.

#12 Eat green salads most days.

#19 Eat orange vegetables and fruits.

#25  Choose products of animals fed on vegetables (pasture grass).

#32 Add stock-based vegetable soups to your weekly menu.

#38 Eat cruciferous vegetables most days.

#45 Eat a serving of legumes most days.

#51 Add tubers to your menu.

Curiously, this post is about the vegetables eaten by the animals that supply us with food.  As it turns out, your health is linked to their health, and that includes vitamin K-2.

Vegetables for Animals

The early colonists in America brought an important farming tradition—the common pasture.  Families could leave their sheep, cows, and goats in the common pasture and a single herdsman would ensure the animal’s safety.  At least one of these still exists, though as a park—the Boston Common. 

Following WWII pastured animals, accustomed to eating green grass much of the year, became victims of a well-intentioned but misguided efficiency drive.  The new idea was the CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation).  Cattle spent six months in a feedlot eating grains, industrial wastes, and the bare minimum of hay, before going to market.  The last thing you’ll see in a feedlot is green grass.  Milk cows were taken from the pasture and tied to stanchions; energy used walking around now went into making milk.  Chickens were confined to henhouse cages.  Hogs were similarly caged and fed. 

In every case, the natural vegetable of the animals, pasture grass, was replaced with the cheapest feed available—commodity grains and industrial waste. The CAFO was cost effective but inhumane and bad for the animals’ health.  Because mankind eats the meat, eggs, and dairy products of these animals, healthy animal products were replaced by less healthy versions. 

Remember the Creation account in Genesis, how man was given dominion—a responsibility of stewardship—over the beasts?  There’s a hook in that relationship—we control their diet but our health depends on their health. 

What Your Doctor Didn’t Have Time to Tell You About Bone Health

In a recent post we took a fresh look at the factors for strong bones.  Your bone health began with what your mom ate during your fetal period.  Now it depends on what you eat—whole foods are the source of needed minerals (calcium, and a balance between magnesium and phosphorous).  Exercise matters.  Strong muscles go with strong bones—use them or lose them.  Vitamins matter too, especially D and K-2.  In a prior post we discussed vitamin D.  Today’s post is about K-2.

Vitamin K is a little like the essential omega-3 fats.  The short-chain omega-3 fats are found in green plants, whether grass or algae.  The animals that eat those greens produce essential long-chain omega-3 fats.  So cold-water fish and eggs from free-range chickens, for example, are good sources.  Our body makes the long-chain omega-3 fats but not enough; we need to get the rest from fish or animal products.

Vitamin K works the same.  We get the K-1 form essential to blood clotting from green plants.  Vitamin K-2 (menaquinone) is created in mammals that eat those green plants, during digestion, by bacteria acting upon the K-1.  In the last 50 years, when we were moving animals from pastures to CAFOS, we unknowingly removed vitamin K-2 from our diet.  The human body can make K-2 from K-1 via bacteria in our gut, but (like the long-chain omega-3) it’s not enough.  Good bone health requires sufficient K-2 in our diet and that’s another reason to eat pastured meat and dairy products, sparingly.

To summarize, for good bone health do these things:

1. Eat vegetables, fruits, and grains rather than processed foods for proper mineral balance.
2. Make strong bones by building muscles through exercise (for more go here).
3. Get a little noonday sun on your skin to make vitamin D (read more here.)
4. Eat animal products from pastured animals rich in vitamin K-2.  The less you eat, the more important the K-2 level is.

Osteoporosis and Calcification

Everyone knows about osteoporosis but few know about calcification.  Calcification is the other side of the osteoporosis coin.  If you don’t have the vitamins and minerals needed to move calcium into your bones, your body may deposit excess calcium in your soft tissue.  This is called calcification—though little discussed it’s a big problem.  Calcium, for example, is deposited in the plaque that coats your main arteries so plays a role in heart disease.  Plaque consistently contains about 20% calcium; calcification makes your arteries rigid and inflexible. 

Vitamin K-2

The next big thing in healthy foods, I think, will be foods rich in vitamin K-2 from pastured animals.  We have insufficient information about the K-2 levels of different foods; it’s not even listed in the nutrition panel on packaged foods.  The Japanese food natto is rich in K-2, but smelly and inedible to most.  Liver is a good source for K-2, especially if from grass fed mammals.  Eggs from free-range chickens are another source.  Mutton and lamb is not currently CAFO fed, to my knowledge, so should contain K-2. 

Bottom line:  try to include pastured animal products in your diet.  If you have a concern about calcification or osteoporosis, talk to your doctor about your vitamin K-2 level.  Some doctors may be unaware, but they're usually caring enough to do some research.

Please comment:  Share your experience with bone health, or with osteoporosis/calcification.  What works for you?  Have you a source for vitamin K-2?

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.

Menu, Week 24

The End of Illness

Had a great weekend, in case you wondered.  Friday we made the long drive to picturesque Midway, high in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.  Though it’s always a wrench to leave home, we love these trips to Midway.  Likewise, when it’s time to return home, it’s hard to leave lovely Midway. 

The last trip we came for a wedding.  This time's a work trip but I brought a new book recommended by a friend, titled The End of Illness.  The point of the book, I learned, is that just as we conquered last century’s pandemic of infectious diseases, we maybe could also conquer our current killers, the chronic diseases. 

The infectious diseases (influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, cholera, smallpox, etc.) had existed in history but were made suddenly worse by Industrial Revolution crowding of people into cities.  These people had once lived close to Nature—and Nature’s food supply—in farms and villages.  Now they lived in crowded cities without sanitary water or systems of waste removal, separated from fresh foods and dependent on processed foods whose only virtue was a long shelf life. 

The infectious diseases were the short-term result of these changes and were conquered by developing clean water and waste removal systems (vaccines came later).  I shouldn’t say conquered; it’s more accurate to say they were prevented by the rise of public health works.  Unfortunately, the food supply kept getting worse.

The chronic disease, such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and stroke, were the long-term result of industrialized life, and factory food.  They take decades to develop and are the plagues of our time.  A large part of medical research today is directed towards finding a cure for these diseases.

It’s the theme of this blog that prevention also offers our best chance of surviving the chronic diseases.  So imagine the encouragement of reading a book that advocated just that—prevention of chronic disease, through better diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, and becoming your own doctor.  (The author shares my caution about vitamin pills and supplements.)

Because the author is both researcher and doctor, The End of Illness posits that science can offer better treatment through research into the million or so proteins triggered by our DNA.  The idea works like this:  The proteins in a drop of your blood can identify whichever chronic disease(s) you’re developing and guide you to a healthier lifestyle. 

A current example of protein testing is the PSA test for prostate cancer, the usefulness of which has been recently questioned, after several decades of use.  So I’m doubtful about how easy it is to innovate and implement such tests.  Besides, one lesson from writing this blog is an appreciation of how hard it is to change one’s lifestyle.  It’s easier to start down the right path than change it after you’re ill, though course adjustment could come from the protein testing advocated. 

The Wasatch Back Ragnar relay

Saturday morning, as I came outside to enjoy the morning air, a runner jogged by, followed by others.  These weren’t your regular Saturday joggers because they carried numbered tags.  I realized our home was on the route of the biggest relay race in the country, the Wasatch Back Ragnar relay.  Did I say “relay race”?  I suppose it is, but it’s more a mutual encouragement marathon.  The Ragnar is basically 197 miles with thousands of runners encouraging each other.  It’s the most positive thing I’ve ever seen.

All day long on Saturday runners and team vans, creatively decorated, passed by the house.  There appeared to be several thousand teams, each team composed of 12 relay runners and two support vans.  So, I’m guessing, 2000 runners, 4000 decorated vans and 24,000 cheering team members, mostly thirtyish moms.  There were guys too, but the Ragnar is really a women’s race.

I stayed outside all day Saturday, reading The End of Illness, looking up as runners passed, or enjoying the sun on my back as I took breaks to weed flower beds.  Picking up on the spirit of the race, I also spent time at the front gate, giving encouragement to the runners.  Despite their exhaustion, a few runners would glance over and then shout back as they passed, “Love the house.” 

You couldn’t watch the Ragnar and see all the cheering and encouragement that accompanied the hard running without just feeling great.  It was infectious.  At the end of the day I told the beautiful wife I’d never felt more positive about the chances for food reform in our society.  Sunday was Father’s Day.  It was the greatest weekend.

Please comment:  In you've run in the Ragnar relay, please share your experience.

This Week’s Menu

Monday—leftovers from Sunday.

• Chuck roast, cooked with potatoes, onions, and carrots
• Green salad

Tuesday

• Skip’s Vegetable-Cheese Sauce Casserole au gratin.  I’ll have to share the recipe but we had some cheese sauce left over so I cooked it with steamed eggplant, bell pepper, onion, and carrots and then finished it with a breaded crust.  The first time I made this it was great, this time I didn’t use enough cheese sauce plus the eggplant was undercooked.  My bad.

Wednesday

• Sweet Potato-Carrot Soup—well that was the plan because I wanted to work on a recipe but I got busy preparing for a trip to Midway and didn’t get it done.  My bad.  We ate leftovers but we do need to clean out the refrigerator before the trip.  Ditto for Thursday.

Friday

• Café Rio salad and pork enchiladas.  We were traveling and had lunch at the Cedar City Café Rio.  We ordered enough to have leftovers for dinner.

Saturday

• Egg omelets with vegetables cooked by the beautiful wife—a common Saturday dinner.

Sunday (Father’s Day)

• Salmon marinated in a spicy Thai sauce and pan-fried.
• Baked potato
• Cole slaw

A Family Heritage

The quick answer:  If you cook, your healthy recipes are a family heritage worthy of preservation.

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A World Heritage

The UN has a list of world heritage sites precious to our civilization—like Stonehenge, the Pyramids of Egypt, and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the site of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.  The list now includes an intangible asset: the Mediterranean diet.  Scientists claim this diet protects against the chronic diseases that plague our country.

The Mediterranean diet is defined as “olive oil, grains, fruits and vegetables . . . a moderate proportion of meat, fish, and dairy products, and plenty of condiments and spices.”  Sound familiar?  Because the diet is an intangible it requires definition.  You could write a book, but the real definition, I submit, is found in menus and recipes. 

Cooking in New York

Our talented daughter (you can visit her blog here—and also see an old picture of the beautiful wife) told a funny cooking story the other day, from her years in New York City.  Here’s the story: 

Two young professionals, tired of eating take-out every night, thought it would be healthier to have home cooked food.  Pretty smart guys, you’re likely thinking.  But they were super busy starting their careers, too busy to cook, so they hired a professional to prepare their meals during the day while they worked.  It cost a lot, but each day they came home to a refrigerator of healthy home cooked food, left by the cook.  They thought it a tasty and creative solution.

One weekend they wandered into a nearby health store and found an array of prepared foods much cheaper than what they had been paying for.  The food looked good; there was just one problem.  On closer inspection, they recognized it as the dishes they had been getting from their “personal cook.”  The cook had got the food at the deli, put it in their refrigerator, and pocketed the savings.  Welcome to New York boys!

Cooking In Your Kitchen

As you know, the 52 Healthy Changes cover 13 topics, visited and revisited each quarter of the year.  For the 11^th, 24^th, 37^th, and 50^th week the subject is cooking.  Healthy Change #11 said: “Put love in your food with home cooking.”  It’s a simple phrase, but it repudiates the main food thrust of the last century—to save labor.  “Put” is a verb and implies effort.  Cooking, as enjoyable as it can be, is work.  When the pressure is on, it’s hard work.  The switch from saving labor to investing the family food with love has profound implications and is essential to good nutrition.   

Today we’ll talk about your personal recipe collection.  In 13 weeks we’ll discuss the limits of factory food processing.  How to you tell when food processing turns from good (as in churning butter) to bad (hydrogenating refined soybean oil into margarine)?  Finally, in week #50 we’ll review how to health-up favorite but less-nutritious recipes. 

In addition, during the year we offer 52 Breakthrough Recipes, one each week (except this week, as we’re traveling to Midway).  We use the term “breakthrough” because though they’re familiar dishes, they represent a new food culture.  We call this new culture Word of Wisdom Living and you can have the recipes for free.  You don’t get that in New York City.

Make A Recipe Journal

The place you save recipes—be it a metal box of 3”x5” cards, a plastic binder, or a file on your computer—needs upgrading from time to time.  I keep my recipes on the computer with hard copies, torn and stained from use, in our menu binder.   The beautiful wife has a notebook with plastic compartments for each menu, a past Christmas or Mother’s Day gift.  She refers to it often but it’s so stuffed with recipes clipped out of magazines and newspapers it’s hard to use. 

Value your recipes as a priceless part of your heritage and give them a proper storage.  My Dad passed away a few years ago.  He made wonderful whole wheat bread but after he was gone we realized he cooked without a recipe.  It’s sad, but the recipe is lost to our family.  When I wrote a family history for my parents’ family, I made sure to include a couple of cherished recipes, like Aunt Kate’s Chili Sauce.

Please comment:  Organize your family recipes and arrange to preserve them.  Share your method of saving recipes, even if you just stuff them in your favorite cookbook.

Need a reminder? Download our Healthy Change reminder card. Print and fold, then place in your kitchen or on your bathroom mirror to help you remember the Healthy Change of the week.