Lowcarbezine! 26 January 2000

Hey, Gang --

How was your week?  Me,  I'm really excited!  Know why?  Because
sometime in this week, Lowcarbezine! should pass 1000 subscribers!   Not
bad for an ezine that started just two months ago, huh?  My thanks to
all of you who have forwarded Lowcarbezine! to a low carbing friend or
family member -- you're helping me grow!

Dana

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All contents copyright 2000 by Hold the Toast Press.  All commercial
reproduction and/or use is expressly prohibited.  As always, feel free
to forward Lowcarbezine! to any family or friends you feel might enjoy
it, provided that you forward it in its entirety.

If Lowcarbezine! has been forwarded to you and you enjoy it, you can
subscribe for FREE at http://www.holdthetoast.com .  Please note!  When
you subscribe to Lowcarbezine! you *must* enter your *entire email
address*.  If you enter  yourname@aol" you will *not* be subscribed --
you *must* include the ".com"    Please realize that your subscription
is not seen by a human being who will recognize that "yourname@aol"
should include ".com", the process is completely automated.  If you give
the server an incomplete address, it will simply choke and spit you out,
and you will not be subscribed.  Which would be a shame!

Lowcarbezine! welcomes reader input!  If you have a question, a recipe,
a product review, a low carb success story, send it on in!!
mailto:dana@holdthetoast.com  However, please note -- although I really
do read all my email my very own self, I get a *lot* of mail --
generally over 200 posts a day (not all of them about Lowcarbezine!), so
I can't promise to answer every post personally.  Or I'll never get the
next book written!

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Thought For The Week

Here's my thought for the week:  I'm not your priest!

What do I mean by that?  As I've told people about low carbohydrate
dieting, I've noticed a very common reaction:  "But I really *LOVE*
sugar!"  (Or pasta.  Or potatoes.  Or...)  And the tone of voice in
which this is said always carries the message, "So tell me, pretty
please, that this doesn't apply to me!"  As if I have that power!

I remember, in particular, a radio interview I did with a very nice,
very bright host named Mary Jane Popp.  She kept saying, "But I *love*
sugar.  Don't tell me you're really going to take my sugar away!"  I
finally said, "Hey, I'm information, not enforcement.  You can do what
you like."  I could tell by the tone of her voice that she thought that
was pretty harsh -- that I should have been able to make some sort of
provision for her sugar addiction; that I should have been able to say,
"Of *course* you can keep eating sugar on your low carb diet!"  Again, I
have to say, "As if I have that power!"

All of which reminds me, in a way, of the practice of "selling
indulgences" that the Catholic Church engaged in during the Middle
Ages.  If you wanted to commit a sin without having to spend some really
nasty time in Purgatory, you could go to your local priest, who would
assess the graveness of the sin, and charge you a price for the Church
to forgive your sin in advance.  You could then go do whatever it was,
knowing that you wouldn't suffer the penalty.

It seems that because I'm the author of a low carbohydrate diet book,
people think I have this sort of power over their diet!  As if I were
some sort of magical High Priestess of the Cult of Low Carbohydrate
Dieting, and I had the power to sell them an indulgence.

I don't.  Look, I don't make this stuff up.  I don't do the clinical
research, I just read it, digest it, and spit it back out in a form
which I hope is both understandable and enjoyable to read, and makes you
think a bit about which options will work best for your life.  I can't
make sugar any easier on your body, and I don't know of any way you can
eat it with any regularity, in any great amount, without paying the
consequences. (There is, of course, the mini-binge diet, popularized as
The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet.  Works for some, not for others --
didn't work for me --  and it *still* doesn't allow *uncontrolled*
consumption of sugar!)  If I had that sort of power, do you think I'd be
doing this?  Heck, no!  I'd still be living on Snackwells and Healthy
Choice Butter Pecan Low Fat Ice Cream with Hershey's Syrup ("as always,
a fat-free food!")

 I have no control over what carbs will do to your body.  The only sort
of indulgence available to you is the sort of Indulgence that I
recommend over "cheating", and all you are absolved from is a sense of
guilt.  You're still likely to gain a few pounds, and have to spend a
day or two getting back on track.  And if you Indulge this way very
often, you'll get all the weight and health problems back.  I can't
change that, any more than I can defy gravity or stop time.

One of the basic truths of life is that you can have anything you want,
you just can't have everything you want.  You can have all the benefits
of eating right for your carbohydrate intolerant body.  Or, if you
prefer, you can have the taste and the high of sugar and other
concentrated carbohydrate foods whenever you want.  I know of no way you
can have both.

The choice is yours.  Choose wisely and well -- and take responsibility
for your own choices!

Because I'm not going to do it for you. :-)


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Frequently Asked Question

Won't all the fat in a low carbohydrate diet give me breast cancer?

No, it won't.  One of the real disgraces of the whole low fat mania of
the past twenty years has been the propaganda telling women that they
*must* eat a low fat diet to prevent breast cancer.

It isn't true.  I mean, it *really* isn't true.  Just about a year ago,
the New England Journal of Medicine published an article in which the
results of 7 different studies of the effects of fat restriction on
breast cancer were reviewed.  The result?  Absolutely *no* protective
effect was found *whatsoever* from a low fat diet.  In fact, the
researchers were startled to find that a very low fat diet was
associated with a *higher* rate of breast cancer.  They tried to explain
it away, of course. They said it was probably just an artifact in the
research.  Low fat diets couldn't possibly be *unhealthy*, could they?

The Harvard Nurses study, still ongoing, also has looked at the
relationship of fat intake to breast cancer -- and once again, the
highest rate of breast cancer is found in the women with the *lowest*
fat intake.

In 1996, an Italian study was published in the Lancet, another highly
respected medical journal, analyzing diet and breast cancer rates.  The
*lowest* rate of cancer was found in the women with the *highest* fat
intake, while the highest rate was found in the women with the highest
*carbohydrate* intake -- especially starch; those "nice" complex
carbohydrates we've all been told are so good for us.

Shades of Linda McCartney.

Begins to be clear why the medical researchers are trying to explain
this away, doesn't it?  How would *you* like to have to face millions
upon millions of women and tell them, "Oh, by the way -- that, uh,
healthy low fat diet, with 6 to 11 servings of grains a day, that we've
been telling you to eat for the past couple of decades?  Probably raises
your risk of breast cancer.  Sorry about that."  I'd be blaming it on an
"artifact in the research", too.

We know that breast cancer, like so many of the other diseases that are
a scourge in modern, industrialized nations, is strongly associated with
high levels of insulin in the blood, or hyperinsulinemia.  And we know
that restricting dietary carbohydrate is an extremely effective way to
lower those levels of insulin.

A low carbohydrate diet, high in healthy, natural, untampered fats, will
*not* give you breast cancer.  And it may well be a good prevention.

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Don't know which kind of low carbohydrate diet is for you?  Atkins?  The
Carbohydrate Addict's Diet?  SugarBusters?  Bored and confused by
long-winded medical jargon?  Read _How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet and
Lost Forty Pounds!_   Friendly and fun to read, with plenty of options
to help you design *your* way of eating for *your* body and *your*
life.  Read the first chapter FREE at http://www.holdthetoast.com

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Protein In The News!

And now, something for my men readers!

The BBC News carried an article this past Friday regarding protein
intake and virility in older men.  Interestingly, the research is
American, but I haven't seen it either in my newspaper, or on my online
news service.  Hmmm.

Here's the deal:  Dr. Christopher Longcope, of the University of
Massachusetts Medical School, has found that low protein diets lead to a
reduction in testosterone in older men.  The reduction comes from an
increase in a chemical called globulin, which binds the hormone.  This,
according to Longcope, can result in a decline in sexual function and
red cell mass, and a loss of bone density.  Low protein diets also lead
to a loss of muscle mass.

Dr. Longcope also said that vegetarians, and especially vegans, are
particularly at risk, and need to take great caution to get sufficient
protein.  The elderly, who often are malnourished, are also at risk.

Looks like that old stereotype about "real men eat meat" might have a
grain of truth in it.  Of course, real men also eat salmon. And eggs.
And tofu. :-)

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Product Review

If you've read _How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet and Lost Forty Pounds!_
(or even the first chapter, at the website), you know I'm a fan of Paul
Newman's Own Salad Dressing.  So I'm giving it a plug this week!  What
used to be called "Original Recipe" is now called "Olive Oil and
Vinegar", so look for it under that name.

This is  the best bottled salad dressing I know, both because it tastes
*wonderful*, and because it has *no* junk it it whatsoever.  No sugar,
no corn syrup, no odd-sounding chemicals -- just really, truly food.  No
wonder it tastes so good!  And it has only 1 gram of carb in 2
tablespoons, which is very low for bottled salad dressing.

Here's the list of ingredients, right off the label:  Olive oil,
vegetable oil (soybean and/or canola oil), water, red wine vinegar,
onion, spices, salt, garlic, lemon juice, distilled vinegar.  Yep, real
food!  By contrast, the majority of bottled salad dressings -- even the
ones that are reasonably low carb -- have at least *some* corn syrup or
sugar in them, and they often have chemical junk as well.

Of course you know how to use salad dressing -- you pour it over a big
pile of leafy, green stuff, right?  But here's a couple of suggestions:

First of all, have you tried actually *tossing* the salad with the
dressing recently?  Really makes a difference.  If you've just been
pouring your dressing over the salad, try tossing it in and see how much
better it is!

Oh, and if you like the flavor of the Newman's Own, but you prefer a
creamier dressing, just toss in a tablespoon or so of mayonnaise with
the dressing!  You can also add parmesan cheese, or crumbled bleu
cheese.  (Did you know that the original "bleu cheese" dressing was just
exactly this -- an oil and vinegar dressing with bleu cheese crumbled
in?  A far cry from our heavy bleu cheese dressings today.)  (Did you
also know that oil and vinegar is the original "French dressing", not
that sweet red stuff?  When any good cookbook refers to "French
dressing", they're talking about vinaigrette.)

A classic oil-and-vinegar dressing like this makes a *great* marinade.
Try simmering fresh mushrooms in it, to make a classical French hors
d'oerve.  Put your leftover green beans in some and let them sit in the
fridge for a day or two.  When you want a fast vegetable, add a little
chopped sweet onion, and serve the marinated beans on a bed of lettuce,
as a salad.  Good with cauliflower, too.  Lots of vegetables are good
marinated -- experiment!

Also try it for marinating meat -- In the morning,  put a steak in a big
zip lock plastic bag with some dressing, zip it shut, squish it around
to make sure the meat is all covered, and let it sit -- again, in the
refrigerator -- all day.  Broil the steak as usual that evening.  Yummy,
and a nice change from plain broiled meat.

Use it as a baste for chicken -- especially nice if you're having
boneless, skinless chicken breasts *again*.

This  is a terrific, versatile, tasty, high quality product, folks.   It
would be at home in any low carb refrigerator!


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That's it!  See you next week!

Dana W. Carpender
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