Veggie Might: Eat Tamari Almonds!

Written by the fabulous Leigh, Veggie Might is a weekly Thursday column about all things Vegetarian.

Almonds are my go-to healthy, everyday snack that picks me up when I’m fading in the afternoon and gives me a boost without filling me up before a workout. Does that sound like copy for an Almond Board ad? Forgive me; I’ve been pulling some crazy hours at an ad agency these past few weeks.

However, it’s true what I said about almonds. I love them and eat them all the time, in teeny little handfuls of 24 almonds because 24 almonds is an ounce, and an ounce is a serving, and a serving is what a Reasonable Person shoves in her mouth when she needs a snack before her blood sugar crashes.

When I’m unreasonable, I eat several servings which equal several ounces which equal at least 96 almonds and sometimes more. But I forgive myself because I could be eating that many potato chips or ginger cookies, which are my true weaknesses.

My recent almond of choice has been the tamari variety, roasted in soy sauce. They are right there in the bulk bin next to the raw almonds that I’ve loved for so long. I was skeptical at first. They must be roasted in oil, I thought, not appropriate for everyday snacking. Not so! Only soy sauce, says the ingredients list on the bin. They’re a skosh cheaper than the organic raw almonds too, at $6.99/lb vs. $7.99/lb.

But when I find giant bags of plain raw almonds for less than $2.50/lb at the Indian market in Queens, that $1 savings doesn’t seem like so much. What better way to feed this new tamari almond addiction?

To the Interweb machine...and in less than 15 seconds I had a recipe from no less than Gourmet via Epicurious.

Insanely easy to make, I whipped up batch of tamari almonds while I watched the first bit of Max and Mary, a darkly funny and poignant animated movie about an Australian girl who becomes the “pen friend” of a 40-something New York City loner. I snorted from laughter and tears. Get thee to Netflix.

Right. Almonds. Tamari almonds. So good. I can’t stop eating them, still by the teeny handfuls, but with greater frequency. I’m trying to save some to go with the other fancy nuts I made for Christmas company. But they are so easy and fast, I will make more if I have to. I will probably have to.

~~~~

If these recipes tickled your fancy, you may also enjoy:

• Granola Bars
• Roasted Chickpeas
• Kale Chips

~~~

Tamari Almonds
16 servings
adapted from Tamari Almonds, Epicurious: Gourmet, December 2006

16 oz raw or dry roasted almonds, with skins (about 3 cups)
1/4 cup tamari (wheat-free soy sauce)
1/4 tsp demerara or turbinado sugar

1) Preheat oven to 300°. On a baking sheet, spread out almonds evenly and bake for 15 minutes.

2) In a large, heat-proof mixing bowl, combine tamari and sugar. When almonds are ready, pour into bowl and stir for five minutes.

3) With a small strainer or slotted spoon, transfer almonds back to baking sheet and toss out the extra liquid. Bake 20–25 minutes, stirring once about halfway through baking time, until almonds are dark red on the outside and light golden on the inside.

4) Cool about 20 minutes before serving to your face.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, Protein, and Price per Serving
164 calories, 14g fat, 3.25g fiber, 6g protein, $.19

Note: Your cost may vary wildly depending on the price of almonds.

Calculations
16 oz raw roasted almonds: 2592 calories, 224g fat, 48g fiber, 96g protein, $2.72
1/4 cup tamari: 32 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 4g protein, $0.24
1/4 tsp demerara sugar: 3.75 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.02
TOTALS: 2627.75 calories, 80g fat, 224g fiber, 96g protein, $2.98
PER SERVING (TOTALS/2): 164 calories, 14g fat, 3.25g fiber, 6g protein, $.19

Guest Post: New Year's Spiced Chickpeas with Avocado

Jaime Green writes our bi-weekly Green Kitchen post. She's guesting for Wednesday. Happy holidays!

Last New Year's Eve, my boyfriend and I had been dating for about two months. Not big fans of subway rides home in the wee hours alongside the inevitable puking revelers (though I guess that's better than facing drunk drivers on the roads), we decided to stay in.

I showed up at his apartment that night with two bottles of very cheap champagne (I love you, Andre) and a sparkly paper top-hat. I blew a noisemaker when he opened the door. I'd gotten the hat and noisemaker at the dollar store on my block about an hour before.

We didn't have any big plans – drink cheap champagne, pause whatever movie (okay, old episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation) to watch the ball drop – but we also didn't have any dinner plans at all.

He lived at the edge of a predominantly Mexican neighborhood in Brooklyn, with none of the trendy bistros and bars we associate with that hip little (big) borough. I was ready to cook for us, but it was already 9pm and the supermarket ten blocks away was already closed. And it's not like this bachelor apartment was so well-stocked with provisions.

There was a lot of this:

Me: I'll cook something. What do you want?
Him: I don't know.

Eventually we got to “chickpeas.” I never thought of myself as a big fan of chickpeas (unless they're mushed to death in hummus), but between that secret ingredient – hello, Iron Chef: Sunset Park – and my sense of what we might be able to round up from some nearby bodegas, a plan started to form.

I knew plenty of Harlem bodegas that stocked some fresh produce, and although things were a little more sparse, we managed quite well, and ended up with, if I do say so myself, one of the tastiest things I'd ever made.

I suppose this is one of the reasons I prefer cooking to baking, aside from wanting to surround myself with tasty vegetables rather than cookies. You can't improvise baking. Measurements and proportions are vital when you're trying to go from flour to cake. But cooking doesn't require a recipe. You can go with an idea and your knowledge of what works, and when you surprise yourself with the outcome it's not necessarily a bad thing. That sort of ingenuity and self-sufficiency is exciting and, dare I say it, empowering.

I'm not saying these chickpeas are why my boyfriend and I are still together, but they certainly haven't hurt.

(A note on nutrition here: This recipe is higher in fat than most “healthy” recipes you see around. But I would make a case for fat, as would a lot of scientific research. The low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets of the 80s and 90s did no one any favors. Fat is important for many aspects of health, from mood regulation and vitamin absorption to nice skin and feeling full after you eat. Fat is only a problem in that it is very calorie-dense, but that's more dangerous in processed foods with a higher fat content than you realize. For me, at least, a higher-fat diet really eases my junk and sugar cravings. There's some more good reading about fat here: Confessions of a Former Lipidphobe. Although this recipe gets about half of its calories from fat, it is relatively low in carbohydrates, and none of those are processed, and it's got a good dose of protein and fiber as well. The fats are good ones, and most importantly, this dish is delicious and keeps you full for hours.)

Spiced Chickpeas with Avocado
Serves 3

4 teaspoons olive oil, divided
1 large red onion, chopped
1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 avocado, diced
A couple handfuls of cilantro, chopped (about ¾ cup chopped)
Juice of one lime
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
3/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon hot paprika
Black pepper, to taste

1) Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a large sautee pan over medium heat. Add onions and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir and cook slowly for 20-25 minutes, until onions are just about done to your liking. (You can go slowly and caramelize them, or turn up the heat and go faster for crispier onions, however you like.)

2) When the onions are just about done, stir in chickpeas. Add cumin, paprika, a few grinds of black pepper. (Add the spices gradually, and taste as you go.) Add 1-2 teaspoons more oil as needed – you don't want this dry – and more salt, to taste. Cook until chickpeas are soft and creamy, 10-15 minutes. Adjust seasonings as needed.

3) Turn off heat and stir in avocado, cilantro, and lime juice.

4) Serve as-is, or over rice or in tortillas. Crumbled queso blanco makes a lovely addition.

Approximate calories, fat, fiber, protein, and cost per serving
313 calories, 33.6g fat, 9.6g fiber, 21.5g protein, $0.92

Calculations
4 t olive oil: 168 calories, 18.7g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.16
1 large red onion: 96 calories, 0.2g fat, 4.1 g fiber, 2.6g protein, $0.30
1 can chickpeas: 428 calories, 4.1g fat, 15.8g fiber, 17.8g protein, $0.89
1 avocado: 227 calories, 21g fat, 9.2g fiber, 2.7g protein, $0.89
½ cup chopped cilantro: 1 calorie, 0g fat, 0.1g fiber, 0.1g protein, $0.25
juice of one lime: 8 calories, 8g fat, 0.1g fiber, 0.1g protein, $0.20
½ t salt: 0 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.01
¾ t cumin: 7 calories 0.3g fat, 0.5g fiber, 0.3g protein, $0.02
½ t paprika: 3 calories, 0.1g fat, 0.4g fiber, 0.2g protein, $0.02
¼ t black pepper: 2 calories, 0g fat, 0.1g fiber, 0.1g protein, $0.01
TOTALS: 939 calories, 100.8g fat, 28.8g fiber, 64.6g protein, $2.75
PER SERVING (TOTALS/3): 313 calories, 33.6g fat, 9.6g fiber, 21.5g protein, $0.92

A Gluten-free January

Are You Gluten Sensitive?

Many people are totally unaware of the fact that they react poorly to gluten. Because they've been eating wheat, barley and/or rye products every day for virtually their entire lives, they don't know what their bodies feel like without gluten. In susceptible people, eating gluten is linked to a dizzying array of health problems that stem from an immune reaction to gliadins and other proteins in gluten (1). Are you a susceptible person? How do you know?

The gold standard way to detect a gluten sensitivity is to do a gluten "challenge" after a period of avoidance and see how you feel. People who react poorly to gluten may feel better after a period of avoidance. After a gluten challenge, symptoms can range from digestive upset, to skin symptoms, to fatigue or irritability within minutes to days of the gluten challenge.

With 2011 approaching, why not make your new year's resolution to go gluten-free for a month? A man named Matt Lentzner e-mailed me this week to ask if I would help with his (non-commercial) project, "A Gluten-free January". I said I'd be delighted. Although I don't typically eat much gluten, this January I'm going 100% gluten-free. Are you on board? Read on.

A Message from Matt Lentzner

Hi There.

My name is Matt Lentzner. I'm just some guy who lifts weights on his patio and tries to eat healthy. That's not important, but I have an idea that just might be.

I am trying to get as many people as possible to go gluten-free for one month - this January 2011.

I've considered this whole ancestral diet thing and I've come to a conclusion. If you could only do just one thing to improve your health then not eating gluten would be it. This is not to say that avoiding other nasty things like fructose or industrial vegetable oil is not important. They are, but you'd get the most bang for your buck from not eating gluten.

"Eat No Gluten" is simple and easy to remember. I think that sometimes the rules get so complicated and overwhelming and people just give up on it. We're keeping it simple here. Even at this simplified level I see that it's difficult for a lot of folks. I think people, Americans especially, tend not to pay much attention to what they're eating - what it is, where it came from, etc.

Getting people to get out of their eating ruts and think a little about what goes into their mouths is a valuable exercise. It sets the stage for better choices in the future. I hope that some success with the simple step will encourage people to further improve their diets.

I have a website at www.glutenfreejan.com. If you want to sign up just send an email with your first name, last initial, and town of residence to glutenfreejan@gmail.com. If you are on Facebook there's a community you can 'Like' called: Gluten Free January. So far I have over 120 people all over the world signed up. If you are already gluten-free then I still want you to sign up - the more the merrier. You can also use this opportunity to spread the word and sign up your family and friends.

Merry Christmas - Looking forward to a gluten-free New Year.

Matt

Ask the Internet: Canned Tuna Ideas?

Today's question comes from reader Jessie:

Flickr's aMichiganMom

Q: I was wondering what to do with my cupboard full of canned tuna besides tuna salad or casserole. Thoughts?

A: Jessie, that is a most excellent question. The Kitchn had an excellent post about canned tuna options back in 2009, though my personal favorite is Herbed Tuna in Tomatoes, an easy, no-cook alternative to those omnipresent sandwiches.

Readers, what do you do with canned tuna?

Want to ask the interweb a question? Post one in the comment section, or write to Cheaphealthygood@gmail.com. Then, tune in next Tuesday for an answer/several answers from the good people of the World Wide Net.

Dairy Fat and Diabetes

Introduction

Having access to embargoed news from the Annals of Internal Medicine is really fun. I get to report on important studies at the same time as the news media. But this week, I got my hands on a study that I'm not sure will be widely reported (Mozaffarian et al. Trans-palmitoleic Acid, Metabolic Risk Factors, and New-Onset Diabetes in US Adults. Ann Internal Med. 2010). Why? Because it suggests that dairy fat may protect against diabetes.

The lead author is Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, whose meta-analysis of diet-heart controlled trials I recently criticized (1). I think this is a good opportunity for me to acknowledge that Dr. Mozaffarian and his colleagues have published some brave papers in the past that challenged conventional wisdom. For example, in a 2005 study, they found that postmenopausal women who ate the most saturated fat had the slowest rate of narrowing of their coronary arteries over time (2). It wasn't a popular finding but he has defended it. His colleague Dr. Walter Willett thinks dietary fat is fine (although he favors corn oil), whole eggs can be part of a healthy diet, and there are worse things than eating coconut from time to time. Dr. Willett is also a strong advocate of unrefined foods and home cooking, which I believe are two of the main pillars of healthy eating.

Let's hit the data

Investigators collected two measures of dairy fat intake in 3,736 Americans:

1. 24 hour dietary recall questionnaires, six times. This records volunteers' food intake at the beginning of the study.
2. Blood (plasma phospholipid) content of trans-palmitoleate. Dairy fat and red meat fat are virtually the only sources of this fatty acid, so it reflects the intake of these foods. Most of the trans-palmitoleate came from dairy in this study, although red meat was also a significant source.

After adjustment for confounding factors, trans-palmitoleate levels were associated with a smaller waist circumference, higher HDL cholesterol, lower serum triglycerides, lower C-reactive protein, lower fasting insulin and lower calculated insulin resistance. Furthermore, people with the highest trans-palmitoleate levels had 1/3 the risk of developing diabetes over the three years volunteers were followed. Keep in mind, however, that this is an observational study and does not prove that dairy fat prevents diabetes.

Even though certain blood fatty acids partially represent food intake, they can also represent metabolic conditions. For example, people on their way to type II diabetes tend to have more saturated blood lipids, independent of diet (3, 4)*. So it's reassuring to see that dietary trans-palmitoleate intake was closely related to the serum level. The investigators also noted that "greater whole-fat dairy consumption was associated with lower risk for diabetes," which increases my confidence that serum trans-palmitoleate is actually measuring dairy fat intake to some degree. However, in the end, I think the striking association they observed was partially due to dairy fat intake, but mostly due to metabolic factors that had nothing to do with dairy fat**.

Here's a nice quote:

Our findings support potential metabolic benefits of dairy consumption and suggest that trans-palmitoleate may mediate these effects***. They also suggest that efforts to promote exclusive consumption of low-fat and nonfat dairy products, which would lower population exposure to trans-palmitoleate, may be premature until the mediators of the health effects of dairy consumption are better established.

Never thought I'd see the day! Not bad, but I can do better:

Our findings support eating as much butter as possible****. Don't waste your money on low-fat cream, either (half-n-half). We're sorry that public health authorities have spent 30 years telling you to eat low-fat dairy when most studies are actually more consistent with the idea that dairy fat reduces the risk obesity and chronic disease.

What are these studies suggesting that dairy fat may be protective, you ask? That will be the topic of another post, my friends.


*Probably due to uncontrolled de novo lipogenesis because of insulin resistance. Many studies find that serum saturated fatty acids are higher in those with metabolic dysfunction, independent of diet. They sometimes interpret that as showing that people are lying about their diet, rather than that serum saturated fatty acids don't reflect diet very well. For example, in one study I cited, investigators found no relationship between dietary saturated fat and diabetes risk, but they did find a relationship between serum saturated fatty acids and diabetes risk (5). They then proceeded to refer to the serum measurements as "objective measurements" that can tease apart "important associations with diabetes incidence that may be missed when assessed by [food questionnaires]." They go on to say that serum fatty acids are "useful as biomarkers for fatty acid intake," which is true for some fatty acids but not remotely for most of the saturated ones, according to their own study. Basically, they try to insinuate that dietary saturated fat is the culprit, and the only reason they couldn't measure that association directly is that people who went on to develop diabetes inaccurately reported their diets! A more likely explanation is that elevated serum saturated fatty acids are simply a marker of insulin resistance (and thus uncontrolled de novo lipogenesis), and had nothing to do with diet.

**Why do I say that? Because mathematically adjusting for dairy and meat fat intake did not substantially weaken the association between phospholipid trans-palmitoleate and reduced diabetes risk (Table 4). In other words, if you believe their math, dairy/meat fat intake only accounted for a small part of the protective association. That implies that healthy people maintain a higher serum phospholipid trans-palmitoleate level than unhealthy people, even if both groups eat the same amount of trans-palmitoleate. If they hadn't mentioned that full-fat dairy fat intake was directly associated with a lower risk of diabetes, I would not find the study very interesting because I'd have my doubts that it was relevant to diet.

***I find it highly doubtful that trans-palmitoleate entirely mediates the positive health outcomes associated with dairy fat intake. I think it's more likely to simply be a marker of milk fat, which contains a number of potentially protective substances such as CLA, vitamin K2, butyric acid, and the natural trans fats including trans-palmitoleate. In addition, dairy fat is low in omega-6 polyunsaturated fat. I find it unlikely that their fancy math was able to tease those factors apart, because those substances all travel together in dairy fat. trans-palmitoleate pills are not going to replace butter.

****That's a joke. I think butter can be part of healthy diet, but that doesn't mean gorging on it is a good idea. This study does not prove that dairy fat prevents diabetes, it simply suggests that it may.

Guest Post: Chestnut and Bulgur Stuffing, a.k.a. Holiday Time with the Man Who Discovered Food Has Calories

Miriam Isserow is a fundraising consultant based in Silver Spring, Maryland. In her misspent youth, she loved to make dessert. Now she likes to cook delicious and healthful meals.

This time of year, we seem to go from one food-centric event to another. This is a particular challenge for my dear husband, otherwise known as The Man Who Discovered Food Has Calories. I know my new nickname for him is a mouthful, so from here on in, I'll call him TMWDFHC.

I recently mentioned to TMWDFHC that for our own holiday meal, I would make a bulgur stuffing instead of our traditional bread stuffing. Years ago, my cousin whipped up a similar dish that I still remember—and given the dieting and monitoring of cholesterol we’ve been doing at my house, I thought it would be a great alternative to soaking bread with eggs.

But when I told TMWDFHC I would be doing a bulgur stuffing, he flipped out.

“How can you make stuffing without chestnuts?”

You see, one core principle in our house is that stuffing has chestnuts. I assured TMWDFHC that the bulgur stuffing would have chestnuts, too.

So, I found some bulgur stuffing recipes, added chestnuts and played around a little. This was the result. You can make it in the turkey, or, if you're expecting vegetarians or happen to live with someone who discovered that food has calories, you can bake it in a pan. An additional healthful plus: You don’t have to grease the pan as you would with classic stuffing.

Chestnut & Bulgur Stuffing
Serves 12

2 ½ c water,
2 oz. dried porcini mushrooms (around 2 cups)
1 oz. dried morel mushrooms (around 1 cup)
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 chopped medium sized onion
5 ½ c. broth
2 ½ c. bulgur (it’s good if it’s coarse but it really doesn’t matter)
1 c. flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 cup shelled chestnuts (use a freeze dried package that you can buy at an Asian market for next to nothing).

1) Bring water to a boil. Pour over mushrooms and soak for half an hour.

2) In a 4 quart sauce pan or chefs pan, sauté onion in olive oil until softened. Add broth and bring to a boil. Stir in bulgur and cook around 8 minutes more, uncovered.

3) Remove mushrooms from water, squeezing if necessary. Reserve soaking liquid, strain, and set aside. Rinse mushrooms and coarsely chop.

4) In a large bowl, toss together bulgur, ½ cup of the reserved liquid, mushrooms, chestnuts, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste. Let cool completely.

5) Now you can either stuff it in a turkey or bake it. If you are baking it in a pan, no need to grease the pan—and bake it at 325 for 40 minutes, covered.

NOTE: Our custom is to use some as stuffing and some in a pan for the vegetarians (using vegetable broth in that case). After all, even those who have discovered that food has calories and who are trying to be really good through the holidays are entitled to the divine taste of chestnut stuffing with turkey drippings.

Potato Diet Interpretation

If you read my post on December 16th, you know that Chris Voigt saw remarkable fat loss and improvements in health markers as a result of two months of eating almost nothing but potatoes. This has left many people scratching their heads, because potatoes are not generally viewed as a healthy food. This is partially due to the fact that potatoes are very rich in carbohydrate, which also happens to be a quickly digested type, resulting in a high glycemic index. The glycemic index refers to the degree to which a particular food increases blood glucose when it's eaten, and I've questioned the relevance of this concept to health outcomes in the past (1, 2, 3). I think Mr. Voigt's results once again argue against the importance of the glycemic index as a diet-health concept.

It's often pointed out that potatoes are low in vitamins and minerals compared to vegetables on a per-calorie basis, but I think it's a misleading comparison because potatoes are much more calorie-dense than most vegetables. Potatoes compare favorably to other starchy staples such as bread, rice and taro.

Over the course of two months, Mr. Voigt lost 21 pounds. No one knows exactly how much of that weight came out of fat and how much out of lean mass, but the fact that he reported a decrease in waist and neck circumference indicates that most of it probably came out of fat. Previous long-term potato feeding experiments have indicated that it's possible to maintain an athletic muscle mass on the amount of protein in whole potatoes alone (4). So yes, Mr. Voigt lost fat on a very high-carbohydrate diet (75-80% carbohydrate, up to 440g per day).

On to the most interesting question: why did he lose fat? Losing fat requires that energy leaving the body exceed energy entering the body. But as Gary Taubes would say, that's obvious but it doesn't get us anywhere. In the first three weeks of his diet, Mr. Voigt estimates that he was only eating 1,600 calories per day. Aha! That's why he lost weight! Well, yes. But let's look into this more deeply. Mr. Voigt was not deliberately restricting his calorie intake at all, and he did not intend this as a weight loss diet. In my interview, I asked him if he was hungry during the diet. He said that he was not hungry, and that he ate to appetite during this period, realizing only after three weeks that he was not eating nearly enough calories to maintain his weight*. I also asked him how his energy level was, and he said repeatedly that it was very good, perhaps even better than usual. Those were not idle questions.

Calorie restriction causes a predictable physiological response in humans that includes hunger and decreased energy. It's the starvation response, and it's powerful in both lean and overweight people, as anyone knows who has tried to lose fat by decreasing calorie intake alone. The fact that he didn't experience hunger or fatigue implies that his body did not think it was starving. Why would that be?

I believe Mr. Voigt's diet lowered his fat mass 'setpoint'. In other words, for whatever reason, the diet made his body 'want' to be leaner that it already was. His body began releasing stored fat that it considered excess, and therefore he had to eat less food to complete his energy needs. You see this same phenomenon very clearly in rodent feeding studies. Changes in diet composition/quality can cause dramatic shifts in the fat mass setpoint (5, 6). Mr. Voigt's appetite would eventually have returned to normal once he had stabilized at a lower body fat mass, just as rodents do.

Rodent studies have made it clear that diet composition has a massive effect on the level of fat mass that the body will 'defend' against changes in calorie intake (5, 6). Human studies have shown similar effects from changes in diet composition/quality. For example, in controlled diet trials, low-carbohydrate dieters spontaneously reduce their calorie intake quite significantly and lose body fat, without being asked to restrict calories (7). In Dr. Staffan Lindeberg's Paleolithic diet trials, participants lost a remarkable amount of fat, yet a recent publication from his group shows that the satiety (fullness) level of the Paleolithic group was not different from a non-Paleolithic comparison group despite a considerably lower calorie intake over 12 weeks (8, 9). I'll discuss this important new paper soon. Together, this suggests that diet composition/quality can have a dominant impact on the fat mass setpoint.

One possibility is that cutting the wheat, sugar, most vegetable oil and other processed food out of Mr. Voigt's diet was responsible for the fat loss. I think that's likely to have contributed. Many people find, for example, that they lose fat simply by eliminating wheat from their diet.

Another possibility that I've been exploring recently is that changes in palatability (pleasantness of flavor) influence the fat mass setpoint. There is evidence in rodents that it does, although it's not entirely consistent. For example, rats will become massively obese if you provide them with chocolate flavored Ensure (a meal replacement drink), but not with vanilla or strawberry Ensure (10). They will defend their elevated fat mass against calorie restriction (i.e. they show a physiological starvation response when you try to bring them down to a lower weight by feeding them less chocolate Ensure) while they're eating chocolate Ensure, but as soon as you put them back on unpurified rodent pellets, they will lose fat and defend the lower fat mass. Giving them food in liquid or paste form often causes obesity, while the same food in solid pellet form will not. Eating nothing but potatoes is obviously a diet with a low overall palatability.

So I think that both a change in diet composition/quality and a decrease in palatability probably contributed to a decrease in Mr. Voigt's fat mass setpoint, which allowed him to lose fat mass without triggering a starvation response (hunger, fatigue).

The rest of his improvements in health markers were partially due to the fat loss, including his decreased fasting glucose, decreased triglycerides, and presumably increased insulin sensitivity. They may also have been partially due to a lack of industrial food and increased intake of certain micronutrients such as magnesium.

One of the most striking changes was in his calculated LDL cholesterol ("bad" cholesterol), which decreased by 41%, putting him in a range that's more typical of healthy non-industrial cultures including hunter-gatherers. Yet hunter-gatherers didn't eat nothing but potatoes, often didn't eat much starch, and in some cases had a high intake of fat and saturated fat, so what gives? It's possible that a reduced saturated fat intake had an impact on his LDL, given the relatively short timescale of the diet. But I think there's something mysterious about this setpoint mechanism that has a much broader impact on metabolism than is generally appreciated. For example, calorie restriction in humans has a massive impact on LDL, much larger than the impact of saturated fat (11). And in any case, the latter appears to be a short-term phenomenon (12). It's just beginning to be appreciated that energy balance control systems in the brain influence cholesterol metabolism.

Mr. Voigt's digestion appeared to be just fine on his potato diet, even though he generally ate the skins. This makes me even more skeptical of the idea that potato glycoalkaloids in common potato varieties are a health concern, especially if you were to eliminate most of the glycoalkaloids by peeling.

I asked Mr. Voigt about what foods he was craving during the diet to get an idea of whether he was experiencing any major deficiencies. The fact that Mr. Voigt did not mention craving meat or other high-protein foods reinforces the fact that potatoes are a reasonable source of complete protein. The only thing he craved was crunchy/juicy food, which I'm not sure how to interpret.

He also stopped snoring during the diet, and began again immediately upon resuming his normal diet, perhaps indicating that his potato diet reduced airway inflammation. This could be due to avoiding food allergies and irritants (wheat anyone?) and also fat loss.

Overall, a very informative experiment! Enjoy your potatoes.


*Until the last 5.5 weeks, when he deliberately stuffed himself beyond his appetite because his rapid weight loss worried him. Yet, even with deliberate overfeeding up to his estimated calorie requirement of 2,200 calories per day, he continued to lose weight. He probably was not quite reaching his calorie goal, or his requirement is higher than he thought.

Trouble With RSS Feed?

I've received several comments that my blog posts are no longer showing up in peoples' RSS feeds. I've gone into my settings, and the blog is still set to full feed mode, so I don't know why that would be. I'm trying to understand if the problem is widespread or only affects a few people. Please let me know in the comments section if new posts (since the potatoes and human health series) are not showing up in your reader. Also, please let me know if new posts are showing up. Thanks!

Interview with Chris Voigt of 20 Potatoes a Day

Introduction

Chris Voigt is the executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission, which supports and promotes the Washington state potato industry (1). On October 1st, Mr. Voigt began a two month, potato-only diet to raise awareness about the health properties of potatoes. It was partially in response to the recent decision by the federal WIC (Women, Infants and Children) low-income assistance program to remove potatoes from the list of vegetables it will pay for. Mr. Voigt's potato diet has been a media sensation, leading to widespread coverage in several countries. He maintains a website and blog called 20 Potatoes a Day.


Diet Facts

For 60 days, Mr Voigt's diet consisted of nothing but potatoes and a small amount of cooking oil (canola and olive), with no added nutritional supplements. Based on what he has told me, I estimate that 10-15% of his calories came from fat, 10% from protein and 75-80% from high-glycemic carbohydrate. His calorie intake ranged from 1,600 kcal (first 3 weeks) to 2,200 kcal (remaining 5.5 weeks) per day. Prior to the diet, he estimated that his calorie requirement was 2,200 kcal, so he attempted to stay as close to that as possible.

Health Markers

Mr. Voigt has posted the results of physical examinations, including bloodwork, from the beginning, middle and end of the diet. The change he experienced during that time is nothing short of remarkable. He shed 21 pounds, his fasting glucose decreased by 10 mg/dL (104 to 94 mg/dL), his serum triglycerides dropped by nearly 50%, his HDL cholesterol increased slightly, and his calculated LDL cholesterol dropped by a stunning 41% (142 to 84 mg/dL). The changes in his HDL, triglycerides and fasting glucose are consistent with improved insulin sensitivity (2, 3), and are not consistent with a shift of LDL particle size to the dangerous "small, dense" variety (4).

Interview

What was your diet like prior to the potato diet?

My best estimate is that it was probably a little better than the average US citizen only because of a high rate of produce consumption. I generally would eat about 10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. But I ate everything else too. I would eat a wide range of food, a little bit of everything, including foods that aren’t considered “healthy”.

You essentially ate nothing but potatoes, fat and flavorings for two months. Can you give us an idea of how much fat you were eating? What kind of fat was it?

I averaged about 2 tablespoons of cooking oil a day over the span of the 60 days. Canola oil was used for frying and olive oil was used for roasting.

How was your digestion?

Potatoes are pretty easy on the digestive system. I actually got a lot of emails from people who suffer from severe digestive disorders and literally, potatoes are the only thing they can eat. My 60 days of potatoes was nothing compared to some folks with these digestive disorders. I was getting a lot of fiber so things were pretty regular, but not too regular :)

You lost 21 pounds during your two months of eating only potatoes. Do you have a sense of whether it came out of fat, muscle or both? For example, did your pants become looser?

Pants definitely became looser. I also noticed it in my neck size for shirts. I’m assuming most all of it was due to fat loss.

Do you think you were able to meet your calorie goal of 2,200 calories per day? Were you hungry during the diet?

I was not meeting the goal of 2,200 calories a day during the first 3 weeks of the diet. During the first three weeks of the diet I only ate until I was full. I didn’t realize that potatoes would give me such a high sense of fullness after each meal. So for those first 3 weeks, I was only consuming about 1,600 calories a day. After the third week I had lost 12 pounds and realized that I needed to change strategy. I then began to eat more potatoes despite the sense of fullness I was experiencing. So for the remaining 5 ½ weeks I was very diligent about eating the 2,200 calories. I continued to lose weight but at a slower place. I lost an additional 9 pounds over the course of those remaining 5 1/2 weeks. At the start of my diet I estimated, via a couple different on line calorie calculators, that I burn about 2,200 calories a day. Since I continued to lose weight, I’m assuming I actually burn closer to 2,800 calories a day. Something that may have also played a role in continued weight loss was the amount of resistant starch I was getting from potatoes. I ate a lot of cooked potatoes that had been refrigerated. These are generally higher in resistant starch. If I were to do the diet again, I would like to set up an experiment to gauge the effect of resistant starch.

What foods did you crave the most?

I craved mostly foods that had a “juicy crunch”, like an apple, or cucumbers, or carrots, or celery. I never acquired a taste for raw potatoes so virtually all the potatoes I consumed were cooked. No matter how you cook your potatoes, you always get that same soft cooked texture. I craved foods with a crisper texture.

How was your energy level?

My energy level was very good the entire time of the diet. I really didn’t notice a change in energy at the start of the diet so I assumed that the potato diet didn’t have a positive or negative effect on my energy level. It wasn’t until I finished the diet and started to consume other foods that I noticed my energy level has seemed to drop a bit.

How did you feel overall? Were there any unexpected effects of the diet?

I felt really good on the diet. I had lots of energy, slept good at night, and seemed to avoid the cold viruses that circulated at home and work.

The only unusual thing that occurred is what my wife told me. I’m a habitual snorer. The day I started eating only potatoes, my snoring stopped. It restarted the day I started to include other foods in my diet. I’m assuming it was just some weird coincidence but that’s what she tells me.

My doctor and I expected my cholesterol to drop but not at the level we saw. I’ve had borderline high cholesterol for the past decade. I started the diet at 214 and saw it drop to 147 at the end of 60 days. We anticipated a drop of maybe 10-25 points. It was a huge surprise to see a 67 point drop.

Your fasting glucose went from 104 mg/dL, which I consider high, to 94 mg/dL, which is on the high side for someone eating a high-carbohydrate diet, but within the clinically normal range. Do you have a family history of diabetes?

No history of diabetes. My parents are in their early eighties and their parents lived to their 70’s and 80’s with no history of type one or two diabetes.

Reading your blog posts, it seemed like you were having a hard time with the diet at first, but after a while you complained less and even seemed to enjoy it at times. Did you get used to it?

I would say that week 2 and 3 were probably the hardest. The first week was easy probably because of the novelty of the diet. Then reality set in for week 2 and 3. After that, I found my groove and it got easier. During the work week was easy but weekends, particularly Sunday’s, were the hardest. During the work week I did most of my eating at my desk so I wasn’t around a lot of other people eating or surrounded by other foods. Weekends were more difficult because I was around other people every meal and always had other foods in front of me at home.

What kinds of potatoes did you eat?

I literally ate every kind of potato I could get my hands on. I ate yellow skin/yellow flesh potatoes, red skin/white flesh, red skin/red flesh, purple skin/white flesh, purple skin/purple flesh, russet potatoes with white flesh, russet potatoes with yellow flesh, white potatoes, yellow potatoes with white flesh, purple fingerlings, yellow fingerlings, red fingerlings and numerous experimental varieties.

Did you peel them or eat the skin?

I ate the skin at least 90% of the time if not more. There is a myth that all the nutrition in a potato is in the skin or right under the skin. That’s not true, there are nutrients spread throughout the potato but most of the fiber is located in the skin.

What variety of potato is your favorite?

It really depended on the cooking method. For frying, I preferred russet potatoes. For baking, I preferred red potatoes. For mashed, I preferred yellow potatoes. For roasting, a toss-up between russets and reds.

How long did it take you after the diet ended to eat another potato?

As strange as it sounds, potatoes were my first two meals after my diet ended. I was saving my first non-potato meal for a special event that was planned at the local Head Start facility. The beef, dairy, apple, and potato producers put together a nice dinner event and nutrition workshop for all the kids and their parents at the Head Start center in Moses Lake. I still eat potatoes pretty regularly, but most of the time now I’m eating them with more than just seasonings.

Are there any other facts about potatoes you think Whole Health Source readers might find interesting?

Just a reminder that I’m not encouraging anyone to follow in my footsteps and eat just potatoes. This diet is not intended to be the next “fad” diet but was simply a bold statement to remind people that there is a tremendous amount of nutrition in a potato. There is no one food product that can meet all of your nutritional needs. I fully support a well balanced healthy diet, which potatoes can be a part of.

In 2008, the United Nations declared it to be the “Year of the Potato”. This was done to bring attention to the fact that the potato is one of the most efficient crops for developing nations to grow, as a way of delivery a high level of nutrition to growing populations, with fewer needed resources than other traditional crops. In the summer of 2010, China approved new government policies that positioned the potato as the key crop to feed its growing population. The Chinese government formed a partnership with the International Potato Center in Peru to help them facilitate this new emphasis on the potato.

Thanks Chris, for doing your experiment and taking the time to share these details with us!

In the next post, I'll give my interpretation of all this.

Veggie Might: Last-minute Substitution - Oatmeal Apple Cookies

Penned by the effervescent Leigh, Veggie Might is a weekly Thursday column about the wide world of Vegetarianism.

This week, I planned to present you with an alternative to the Christmas cookie, as well as one of my favorite sweets: daifuku, Japanese rice balls stuffed with sweet red bean paste. Three tries ended with me covered in sticky, gelatinous goo.

Let’s just say my technique needs work.

Time was ticking when I decided to scrap the daifuku. My baker’s pantry is still pretty well stocked from Thanksgiving, so cookies seemed like the best choice for a quick and dirty replacement. I turned to the dependable and consistently marvelous How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman.

Bittman’s How to Cook Everything books take the guesswork out of cooking and baking by showing you how to customize recipes for any situation. If you’re a novice or by-the-book cook, you’ll feel at liberty to make substitutions to suit your tastes or pantry, and you’ll eventually gain the confidence to switch things up on your own.

One recipe reminded me of my mom and I just had to try it: Oatmeal Apple Cookies.

My mom was always trying to get me and my siblings to eat healthy snacks when the rest of our friends and classmates were eating ding dongs and zingers. Oatmeal Apple Cookies are just the kind of cookies she would have made to put in my Muppet Movie lunch box next to the carrot sticks and carob-chip trail mix.

So, at least for today, think of me as your wacky, veggie aunt, offering you whole-grain and fruit cookies when everyone else has laid out chocolate-coated, butter-infused treats rolled in nuts and dripping with icing.

I made a ton of changes, based on MB’s variation ideas and some based on my own preferences. He provides a vegan option for most of the recipes in the vegetarian cookbook, and I used his applesauce-for-egg and almond milk for cow’s milk suggestions. I also used nonhydrogenated vegan butter for dairy butter.

Here’s where I ventured out on my own: the original recipe calls for dried apples. I’m not a fan of dried fruit in general and don’t keep it around, so I took a chance and used the real thing. I also swapped granulated sugar for maple syrup. Excellent decisions all around.

The cookies are moist, sweet, and delicious. They may be a little on the soft side —no crispy edges, my favorite part of a cookie—but full of apple flavor and definitely a crowd pleaser; CB, my Roommate, and two of my officemates gave thumbs-up.

The recipe whipped up quickly too, from peeling and grating the apple to pulling the last pan out of the oven, the whole enterprise took less than 90 minutes. Oatmeal Apple Cookies would add a tasty and fast, if not entirely festive, option to the Christmas cookie rotation. And they’re much less sticky than daifuku.

~~~~

If this xx tips your canoe, swim on over to:

• Vegan Ginger Cookies
• Snickerdoodles
• Vegan Bran Muffins

~~~

Oatmeal Apple Cookies
Makes about 4 dozen; 2 cookies per serving

1/2 cup nonhydrogenated vegan butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup apple sauce
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats (not quick oats)
1 cup apple, peeled and grated (about 1 medium apple)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp clove
pinch of salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup soy, almond, or rice milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

1) Preheat oven to 375. Peel and grate apple and set aside.

2) In a large mixing bowl, cream together vegan butter, syrup, and sugar with mixer, then stir in applesauce.

3) In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, baking powder, and salt.

4) Alternately, add milk and dry ingredients to butter and sugar mixture until dough is formed, mixing in a little more milk if dough is too dry.

5) Spoon out tablespoon-sized dollops of dough onto ungreased baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool for a minute or two, remove from baking sheet, and continue on a wire rack.

6) Serve with a glass of almond milk or hot tea.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, Protein, and Price per Serving
137.3 calories, 3.8g fat, .9g fiber, 1.74g protein, $.23

Calculations
1/2 cup nonhydrogenated vegan butter: 800 calories, 88g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.96
1/2 cup maple syrup: 420 calories, 0.5g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $2.38
3/4 cup brown sugar: 628 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.43
1/4 cup apple sauce: 51.75 calories, 0g fat, 1g fiber, 0g protein, $0.26
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour: 682.5 calories, 1.5g fat, 4.5g fiber, 19.5g protein, $0.32
2 cups rolled oats: 609 calories, 9g fat, 16g fiber, 22g protein, $0.24
1 cup apple: 77 calories, 0g fat, 2g fiber, 0g protein, $0.50
1/2 tsp cinnamon: 0 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.02
1/4 tsp nutmeg: 0 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.02
1/4 tsp clove: 0 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.02
pinch of salt: 0 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.02
2 tsp baking powder: 4 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.04
1/4 cup almond milk: 10 calories, 0.75g fat, 0.25g fiber, 0.25g protein, $0.12
1 tsp vanilla extract: 12 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.26
TOTALS: 3294.3 calories, 90.75g fat, 21.75g fiber, 41.75g protein, $5.59
PER SERVING (TOTALS/24): 137.3 calories, 3.8g fat, .9g fiber, 1.74g protein, $.23

Green Kitchen: Local Going Into Winter

Green Kitchen is a bi-weekly column about nutritious, inexpensive, and ethical food and cooking. It's penned by the lovely Jaime Green.

Ignore the fact that it's snowing outside-- Wait, don't ignore that. Take a moment to enjoy that. It's snowing! But ignore it in terms of the point I'm about to make.

Ignore the fact that it's snowing. Ignore the fact that it's about 50 degrees in my apartment, that I'm wearing sweatpants and a hoodie and my hat. Ignore the down comforter on my bed, the cold toes, the date on the calendar.

How do I know it's winter?

Let's take a look at what's recently come out of my kitchen. Breakfast Sunday: an improvised take on what I remembered of Kris' Shaksouka – canned diced tomatoes, half an onion, a carrot, and eggs poached therein. Lunch today (and for the rest of the week, and taking up some space in the freezer): lentil soup made with dried lentils, canned tomatoes, frozen spinach, and an onion. Breakfast tomorrow's looking like a smoothie with frozen cherries and blueberries.

Where have all the fresh veggies gone?

Winter is rough on lots of people – the sun's gone, it's hard to spend time outside, and winter coats are uncomfortable and bulky. Snow is lovely and sweaters are cozy, but this time of year can bring your mood down. (I always wish, walking past Christmas decorations in December, that our holiday of sparkly lights took place a few months later, when even the snow is dreary and we could really use a little extra glitter.)

Winter's an extra downer for local eaters, though. I'm not even a 100% locavore. Not at all - I love bananas and avocados and cans of coconut milk. I do appreciate the environmental and economic repercussions of shopping at the farmers market, but I keep doing it because I love how it feels. Meeting farmers, knowing where my kale comes from. Even just the ritual of the market – walking between stalls, comparing produce, and the week-to-week cycle of the growing season. From asparagus to tomatoes to butternut squash, that's how the year goes.

But now we've, like we do every year, come to the end. The farms are mulched over and resting for the winter, and just about every night brings a freeze. We have a few more weeks of the real hardy stuff – kale and leeks and Brussels sprouts – and food that stores well lasts a little longer. Apples and onions and winter squash stick around basically until springtime at the year-round greenmarkets (so do bison meat and eggs). But the growing season is drawing to a close, and with it goes a big part of what I love about cooking.

From Flickr's stevendepolo

So many of my culinary decisions in the warmer months are based on what I find at the market – radishes are cheap or the parsnips look nice, and I get inspired and try something out. (Maybe this is just a relief from my usually agonizing decision making process.) But in winter I don't think I get down cause the food's not local – the problem is that, for the next five months, all of the food is the same. Cheap and mediocre at my local supermarket, or pricier and lush at the Whole Foods downtown, it's shipped in from wherever, in-season in California or Chile or Taiwan, and nothing changes from one week to the next.

What do you do when your local veggies dry (or freeze) up? Do you come up with new, slightly less local, guidelines? Maybe food from your country, or hemisphere, rather than a 300-mile greenmarket radius? Maybe I can let sales direct me in winter the way the seasons do the other half of the year. Do you transition to canned and frozen foods? Canned tomatoes beat fresh ones seven months out of the year, and frozen kale – flash-frozen when it's fresh – is looking mighty good, and cheap, compared to the produce section at Whole Foods.

I've got my freezer supply of mashed cauliflower and apple sauce, and there's always room for soup in there, too, but it's not enough to make it through until spring. What's most important about how you choose where to get your food? Is it price, convenience, localness, or just the experience of it all? And how do you make the second-best choice feel good?

Ask the Internet: Healthy Study Snacks?

Today's question comes from college student Caitlin, who has finals coming up.

Q: What about healthy study snacks? i think i ate my weight in popcorn yesterday and definitely need an alternative!

A: Caitlin! Having been a carouser of the late-night cafeteria scene (read: mozzarella sticks, pizza, something called "broccoli cheesebake"), I understand your delicate, frommage-craving pain. You'd like something filling, but light. Tasty, but not time-consuming. And if it's caffeinated, all the better.

This sounds lame, but fruit was always a good bet to start, with coffee acting as my beverage of choice. Energy drinks weren't so popular back in 199X, but I might have avoided Monster and its ilk like a florescent green plague.

How about some all-natural granola bars? Or trail mix? Or, when all else fails, hummus, carrots, and pita will work wonders.

But I hand it over to you, sweet readers. What snacks will help Caitlin ace her semester-end tests?

Want to ask the interweb a question? Post one in the comment section, or write to Cheaphealthygood@gmail.com. Then, tune in next Tuesday for an answer/several answers from the good people of the World Wide Net.

Dr. Mellanby's Tooth Decay Reversal Diet

I have a lot of admiration for Drs. Edward and May Mellanby. A husband-and-wife team, they discovered vitamin D, and determined that rickets is caused by poor calcium (or phosphorus) status, typically due to vitamin D deficiency. They believed that an ideal diet is omnivorous, based on whole foods, and offers an adequate supply of fat-soluble vitamins and easily absorbed minerals. They also felt that grain intake should be modest, as their research showed that unsoaked whole grains antagonize the effect of vitamins D and A.

Not only did the Mellanbys discover vitamin D and end the rickets epidemic that was devastating Western cities at the time, they also discovered a cure for early-stage tooth decay that has been gathering dust in medical libraries throughout the world since 1924.

It was in that year that Dr. May Mellanby published a summary of the results of the Mellanby tooth decay reversal studies in the British Medical Journal, titled "Remarks on the Influence of a Cereal-free Diet Rich in Vitamin D and Calcium on Dental Caries in Children". Last year, I had to specially request this article from the basement of the University of Washington medical library (1). Thanks to the magic of the internet, the full version of the paper is now freely available online (2).

You don't need my help to read the study, but in this post I offer a little background, a summary and my interpretation.

In previous studies, the Mellanbys used dogs to define the dietary factors that influence tooth development and repair. They identified three, which together made the difference between excellent and poor dental health (from Nutrition and Disease):

1. The diet's mineral content, particularly calcium and phosphorus
2. The diet's fat-soluble vitamin content, chiefly vitamin D
3. The diet's content of inhibitors of mineral absorption, primarily phytic acid

Once they had defined these factors, they set about testing their hypotheses in humans. They performed eight trials, each one in children in an institutionalized setting where diet could be completely controlled. The number of cavities in each child's mouth was noted at the beginning and end of the period. I'll only discuss the three most informative, and only the most successful in detail. First, the results:

I'll start with diet 1. Children on this diet ate the typical fare, plus extra oatmeal. Oatmeal is typically eaten as an unsoaked whole grain (and soaking it isn't very effective in any case), and so it is high in phytic acid, which effectively inhibits the absorption of a number of minerals including calcium. These children formed 5.8 cavities each and healed virtually none-- not good!

Diet number 2 was similar to diet 1, except there was no extra oatmeal and the children received a large supplemental dose of vitamin D. Over 28 weeks, only 1 cavity per child developed or worsened, while 3.9 healed. Thus, simply adding vitamin D to a reasonable diet allowed most of their cavities to heal.

Diet number 3 was the most effective. This was a grain-free diet plus supplemental vitamin D. Over 26 weeks, children in this group saw an average of only 0.4 cavities form or worsen, while 4.7 healed. The Mellanbys considered that they had essentially found a cure for this disorder in its early stages.

What exactly was this diet? Here's how it was described in the paper (note: cereals = grains):

...instead of cereals- for example, bread, oatmeal, rice, and tapioca- an increased allowance of potatoes and other vegetables, milk, fat, meat, and eggs was given. The total sugar, jam, and syrup intake was the same as before. Vitamin D was present in abundance in either cod-liver oil or irradiated ergosterol, and in egg yolk, butter, milk, etc. The diet of these children was thus rich in those factors, especially vitamin D and calcium, which experimental evidence has shown to assist calcification, and was devoid of those factors- namely, cereals- which interfere with the process.

Carbohydrate intake was reduced by almost half. Bread and oatmeal were replaced by potatoes, milk, meat, fish, eggs, butter and vegetables. The diet is reminiscent of what Dr. Weston Price used to reverse tooth decay in his dental clinic in Cleveland, although Price's diet did include rolls made from freshly ground whole wheat. Price also identified the fat-soluble vitamin K2 MK-4 as another important factor in tooth decay reversal, which would have been abundant in Mellanby's studies due to the dairy. The Mellanbys and Price were contemporaries and had parallel and complementary findings. The Mellanbys did not understand the role of vitamin K2 in mineral metabolism, and Price did not seem to appreciate the role of phytic acid from unsoaked whole grains in preventing mineral absorption.

Here are two sample meals provided in Dr. Mellanby's paper. I believe the word "dinner" refers to the noon meal, and "supper" refers to the evening meal:

Breakfast- Omelette, cocoa, with milk.
Lunch- Milk.
Dinner- Potatoes, steamed minced meat, carrots, stewed fruit, milk.
Tea- Fresh fruit salad, cocoa made with milk.
Supper- Fish and potatoes fried in dripping, milk.

Breakfast- Scrambled egg, milk, fresh salad.
Dinner- Irish stew, potatoes, cabbage, stewed fruit, milk.
Tea- Minced meat warmed with bovril, green salad, milk.
Supper- Thick potato soup made with milk.

In addition, children received vitamin D daily. Here's Dr. Mellanby's summary of their findings:

The tests do not indicate that in order to prevent dental caries children must live on a cereal-free diet, but in association with the results of the other investigations on animals and children they do indicate that the amount of cereal eaten should be reduced, particularly during infancy and in the earlier years of life, and should be replaced by an increased consumption of milk, eggs, butter, potatoes, and other vegetables. They also indicate that a sufficiency of vitamin D and calcium should be given from birth, and before birth, by supplying a suitable diet to the pregnant mother. The teeth of the children would be well formed and more resistant to dental caries instead of being hypoplastic and badly calcified, as were those in this investigation.

If I could add something to this program, I would recommend daily tooth brushing and flossing, avoiding sugar, and rinsing the mouth with water after each meal.

This diet is capable of reversing early stage tooth decay. It will not reverse advanced decay, which requires professional dental treatment as soon as possible. It is not a substitute for dental care in general, and if you try using diet to reverse your own tooth decay, please do it under the supervision of a dentist. And while you're there, tell her about Edward and May Mellanby!

Preventing Tooth Decay
Reversing Tooth Decay
Images of Tooth Decay Healing due to an Improved Diet
Dental Anecdotes

Veggie Might: Getting in the Mood with Sweet Potato and Swiss Chard Soup

Written by the fabulous Leigh, Veggie Might is a weekly Thursday column about all things Vegetarian.

Happy last day of Hanukkah, friends! Hope you had a super week plus one.

Gentle Readers, though I live on Holiday Island, USA (not to be confused with Christmas Town, USA—just down the road from my folks’ place), and I was sick for most of Hanukkah, I’m just not feeling it—it being the holiday juju that’s supposed to filling my heart with magic.

Thanksgiving was so delicious and festive; and I want Christmas to be the same. But if I start getting into the holiday mood too soon, I’ll be over it by the time Christmas actually gets here. To avoid holiday burn out, I refuse to decorate, shop, or cook anything holiday related until December 12. Even that is pushing it, but I don’t want to be anywhere near a retail outlet on Christmas Eve either.

In the meantime, I’ve been on the lookout for recipes that use seasonal vegetables but don’t have cinnamon, clove, or pumpkin pie spice. A few clicks around the Internet machine and tada! Yellow Split Pea Soup with Sweet Potato and Kale at one of my favorite recipe blogs, Fat-free Vegan Kitchen.

This is the recipe I’ve been dreaming about—clearly, since I didn’t have to buy a single ingredient to make it. I swapped out the kale for a gorgeous, emerald bunch of Swiss chard chilling in my crisper and made the easy substitution of toor dal (split pigeon peas) for yellow split peas.

For a minute, I thought this recipe was going to be too easy and it would only take me the 30 minutes of prep and 60 minutes of relatively inactive cooking (occasional stirring) time to make. But I had to take it a step further.

The recipe calls for curry powder which, after a few introductory lessons in Indian cooking, gives me pause. I’ve stopped keeping it around, opting to use whole spices instead. However, my imaginary friend and mentor Madhur Jaffrey shares a recipe in World Vegetarian for her own every day curry powder (called My Curry Powder). So I whipped up a batch.

Within minutes, my apartment was filled with the aromas of cumin and coriander as I roasted the whole spices and then ground them fine in the coffee grinder. (I have one dedicated for that purpose.) Having freshly ground spice blends is worth the minimal amount of effort it takes to grind them yourself.

Otherwise following the recipe, the soup was everything I wanted it to be: hearty, flavorful but not overpowering, and fragrant. The Indian spices perfectly complemented the sweet potato and the hint of bitterness in the Swiss chard gaves it a nice balance. Toor dal added a creamy texture to the soup without being mushy.

Plus the recipe made enough for this army of one-singular-sensation to have lunch and dinner for a several days. If CB and the Roommate are sweet, maybe I’ll share.

So let’s fortify ourselves, Gentle Readers, for the coming holidays with this delicious, satisfying, Indian-inspired soup. Cinnamon and peppermint will be scenting our dreams soon enough.

~~~~

If you fancied this recipe, you may take delight in:

• Shipa’s Dal and Rice with Ginger and Green Chilies
• Pindi Chana
• Fast Easy Soups for Sick Vegetarians

~~~

Sweet Potato, Swiss Chard, and Toor Dal Soup
Serves 8

2 medium onions, chopped
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black mustard seeds
2 tsp canola oil
1 tbsp fresh ginger, grated
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
8 cups water
3 cups dried toor dal or yellow split peas, picked over and rinsed
1 tbsp mild curry powder (to taste)*
Salt to taste (optional)
1 bunch Swiss chard, washed, trimmed, and chopped

Note: Swiss chard stems are edible. They have a crunchy texture, like Romaine lettuce, and add a nice color contrast to the dish, whether you choose red, yellow, or white. When trimming Swiss chard, snip off any ends that are tough or dried out, but it’s not necessary de-stem like you would with kale or collard greens.

1) In a large saucepan or stock pot, heat 1 teaspoon canola oil and cook onions 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until translucent. Move onions aside in pot and add second teaspoon of oil and whole cumin and mustard seeds. Stir seeds with spatula for about 30 seconds.

2) When mustard seeds begin to pop, stir together spices with onions. Then add ginger and garlic and cook for about 1 minute.

3) Add water, sweet potato, toor dal, and curry powder and stir. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about an hour or until the dal is tender.

4) In the meantime, wash and chop Swiss chard and set aside. Stir dal occassionally to prevent sticking and burning.

5) When the dal is tender, turn off heat, remove lid, and stir in Swiss chard. Replace lid and allow chard to wilt for 5–10 minutes.

6) Serve piping hot with crusty bread or naan and put off shopping for another day.

*Bonus Recipe:
Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Powder
from World Vegetarian
Makes 5–6 tablespoons

2 tbsp whole coriander seeds
1 tbsp whole cumin seeds
2 tsp whole peppercorns
1 1/2 tsp whole brown mustard
1 tsp whole fenugreek seeds
5 to 6 whole cloves
3 dried chilies, crushed
1 1/2 tsp ground turmeric

1) Heat a small cast iron skillet over medium heat. Combine all whole spices in skillet and roast for 1–2 minutes until aromas begin to emerge, stirring or shaking the pan intermittently. Some spices will brown and change color.

2) Add ground turmeric and heat for another 10 seconds. Remove from heat and transfer mixture to a plate or bowl to cool.

3) Grind in spice or coffee grinder until mixture is as fine as possible. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place. Take a deep breath and smile.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, Protein, and Price per Serving
306 calories, 2.4g fat, 13g fiber, 18g protein, $.39

Calculations
2 medium onions: 80 calories, 0.4g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.88
1 1/2 tsp whole cumin: negligible calories, fat, fiber, protein, $.02
1 tsp black mustard seeds: negligible calories, fat, fiber, protein, $.02
2 tsp canola oil: 79 calories, 9g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.05
1 tbsp fresh ginger: 6 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.06
3 cloves garlic: 12 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0g protein, $0.04
2 medium sweet potatoes: 112 calories, 0g fat, 4g fiber, 2g protein, $0.34
3 cups dried toor dal: 2109 calories, 9g fat, 92g fiber, 133.5g protein, $0.18
1 tbsp curry powder: negligible calories, fat, fiber, protein, $.02
Salt: negligible calories, fat, fiber, protein, $.02
1 bunch Swiss chard: 56 calories, 0g fat, 8g fiber, 8g protein, $1.50
TOTALS: 2454 calories, 19g fat, 104g fiber, 143.5g protein, $3.13
PER SERVING (TOTALS/8): 306 calories, 2.4g fat, 13g fiber, 18g protein, $.39

Guest Post: Slow-Cooker Mexican Beans

Lorri Brown is a mom, writer, and avid Murder She Wrote fan, who lives far away in the Mountains of Western Maine with her four awesome kids and three cats. When she’s not working in public health, she writes for About.com and bunch of other fun sites. 

Greetings CHG readers! I am sooo excited about being a guest blogger while Kris moves! (I just moved to a new house, so I know how much work that is- bleck). Anyway, I’m here to share with you my super-easy slow cooker recipe for Mexican Beans.

By day I work in community health, in the Wilds of Western Maine, doing nutrition outreach (please note, I am not a dietician, nurse, or doctor- nor do I play any of these on TV). By night I am a single mother of four children ranging in ages 14 to 6. So, I like cheap, healthy, good and quick foods. Therefore, my slow cooker is my BFF.

This meal, adapted from an old family recipe, is easy-peasy to make and it goes a long, long way. I freeze leftover beans and use them in everything from scrambled egg breakfast burritos to a base for bean soup or chili. I’ve tried different variation of the recipe, but none satisfy me like the original version. In one case I thought I’d spice ‘em up with a little of Dave’s Insanity Hot Sauce- If you’ve never tried Dave’s – he’s not joking. One teaspoon of the hot sauce made two pounds of dried beans taste like you were eating molten lava. No one- not even my Middle Son who puts Tabasco sauce on everything- could eat them. I chalked that cooking experiment up as a valuable lesson learned.

If you aren’t familiar with the benefits of beans, here are a couple of quick facts: Beans are an excellent source of protein, containing 14-16grams per cup. They have approximately 1/3 the amount of protein of beef, without any of the fat or cholesterol. Beans are also a good source of fiber, potassium, magnesium, iron and folate. Okay, health lecture over, on to the recipe.

Slow Cooker Mexican Beans
Serving size – 1 cup of cooked beans
Makes 12 servings

 2 pounds (or 4 cups) of dried pinto beans
1 diced onion
½ a bottle (roughly 3 tablespoons) of cumin – it sounds like a lot, but this recipe makes a lot of beans!
1 Tbs. black pepper
1Tbs. garlic powder
1Tbs. onion powder
2 tsp. salt

1) Rinse beans and check for any stones.

2) Throw beans (no soaking required! Yay!) and onion into the crock pot and fill ¾ of the crock pot with water

3) Add all the spices

4) Set to low (8 hours)

5) Round up the kids and go to work. Come home to the fragrant smell of dinner already done!

Nutrition Facts:
I used Nutritionist Pro to calculate the nutrition info.

• Calories- 224
• Fat - .08 g
• Sodium – 395 mg (16% DV)
• Fiber – 10 g (40% DV)
• Sugars – 2 g
• Calcium – 76 mg (8% DV)
• Iron – 3 mg (19 % DV)
• Potassium – 895 mg (26% DV)

Cost per serving: $0.19

• Bag of beans - $1.19
• Onion - $0.50
• Cumin - $0.50
• Onion powder -$0.03
• Garlic powder - $0.03
• Salt - $0.03
• Pepper - $0.03

Serving Suggestions
I like to serve the beans with a little bit of shredded cheddar cheese and a tortilla to dip into the broth. However, they would go great with salsa and guacamole. Of course, what doesn’t go great with guacamole? After a day or two in the fridge the beans thicken to a porridge-like consistency, good for quesadillas.

Things You Should Know
I’ll be honest- this is a trial and error recipe at first. You might have to up the amount of spices, depending on your tastes. But I always stick with the time-honored advice of you can put in more salt/pepper/cumin/whatever- but you can’t take it out.

Ask the Internet: Inexpensive Holiday Wines?

Greetings, sweet readers! Today's post comes from a CHG Facebook discussion a few weeks ago.

Q: With the holidays fast approaching, we'd all like to imbibe a bit. So, what are your favorite inexpensive wines?

A: While Trader Joe's house brand, good ol' Three Buck Chuck, is always a hit, Indaba's Sauvignon Blanc has really become a recent favorite. It's flavorful without hitting you over the head, and I can usually find it for around $8 a bottle.

Readers, what about you? Lettuce discuss some boozery.

Want to ask the interweb a question? Post one in the comment section, or write to Cheaphealthygood@gmail.com. Then, tune in next Tuesday for an answer/several answers from the good people of the World Wide Net.

Guest Post: Pressure Cooker Black Bean Soup Recipe

Joy Manning is senior recipes editor at TastingTable.com. She blogs at OysterEvangelist.com. She enjoys all things cheap, healthy and good from her home/office/test kitchen in South Philadelphia.

I may be five-years-married and in my early-middle 30s, but I am having a crazy hot love affair: 252 degrees Fahrenheit, to be exact. That’s the temperature at which water boils—way hotter than the usual 212—inside my pressure cooker.

Some pressure cooker enthusiasts are keen on the fact that things cook in about one-third of the usual time under pressure. True, but for me the allure lies in its ability to produce slow-cooked flavor in a hurry. The pressure cooker happens to work magic on some of the inexpensive ingredients we all know can be made to taste amazing over the course of an hours-long braise—dried beans, beets, cheaper cuts of meat like brisket and pork shoulder—in almost no time flat. And contemporary models are so tricked out with safety features, there is absolutely nothing to fear.

This recipe for black bean and chipotle soup hits the table in 45 minutes. And 30 of those minutes are completely inactive: While you wait for dinner, have a glass of wine and watch the Daily Show on DVR. It is the absolute best black bean soup I have ever made, not just because it uses 90 percent pantry staples or the fact that it’s vegan, but because the slow cooker manages to intensify and meld flavors better and faster than seems imaginable until you use one.

As kitchen gadgets go, pressure cookers are pretty inexpensive and they’re so great at dinner on the fly you’re bound to save a bundle on take out. Get yourself one, and start with this soup that I promise will become a staple:

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If you like this recipe, you might also enjoy:

• Black Bean Burrito Bake
• Black Bean Salad with Fresh Corn
• Curried Chickpeas and Black Beans

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Black Bean and Chipotle Soup
Serves 4 to 6

1 tablespoon canola oil
1 medium onion, diced (about 1 cup)
2 medium celery stalks, diced (about ½ cup)
1 small carrot, diced (about ¼ cup)
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
3 garlic cloves, minced
1½ cup dried black beans
8 cups cold water
1/2 to 1 cup raw cashews
1 cup boiling water
1 to 2 chipotle in adobo sauce(depending on your heat tolerance), plus 1 to 2 tablespoons adobo sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Juice of ½ lime
¼ cup chopped cilantro

1) In a pressure cooker, combine the oil, onion, celery, carrot, cumin and salt and cook, stirring frequently, over medium-high heat until the vegetables soften, about 5 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic, and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

2) Add the black beans and cold water and lock the lid shut. Bring to high pressure over high heat, and then, once high pressure is achieved, reduce your heat to medium, as low as you can while still maintaining a steady hiss from the pressure-release valve. Cook under pressure for 30 minutes. Use the quick-release button or allow the pressure to come down naturally.

3) Meanwhile, cover the cashews with the boiling water and allow to stand while the bean soup cooks. In a blender, combine the cashews in their soaking water, the chipotles and adobo sauce, the tomato paste and 1 ladle full of cooked beans from the pressure cooker. Blend on high until a smooth puree has formed, about 1 minute. Whisk this puree back into the soup.

4) Stir in the lime and cilantro and season with additional salt if necessary. Serve immediately, or freeze for up to three months.

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, Protein, and Price Per Serving
Four servings: 438 calories, 14.2 g fat, 19 g fiber, 21.9 g protein, $1.13
Six servings: 292 calories, 9.4 g fat, 12.8 g fiber, 14.6 g protein, $0.80

Calculations
1 tablespoon canola oil: 124 calories, 14 g fat, 0 g fiber, 0 g protein, $0.08
1 medium onion, diced (about 1 cup): 46 calories, 0.1 g fat, 1.5 g fiber, 1 g protein, $0.25
2 medium celery stalks, diced (about ½ cup): 11 calories, 0.2 g fat, 1.3 g fiber, 0.6 g protein, $0.36
1 small carrot, diced (about ¼ cup): 25 calories, 0.1 g fat, 1.7 g fiber, 0.6 g protein, $0.10
1 tablespoon cumin: negligible calories, fat, fiber, and protein, $0.05
1 teaspoon salt: negligible calories, fat, fiber, and protein, $0.01
3 garlic cloves, minced: 13 calories, 0 g fat, 0.2 g fiber, 0.6 g protein, $0.18
1½ cup dried black beans: 1022 calories, 3.9 g fat, 67.3 g fiber, 68.6 g protein, $0.75
8 cups cold water: negligible calories, fat, fiber, and protein, FREE
1/2 to 1 cup raw cashews (calculations are for 3/4 cup): 470 calories, 37.3 g fat, 2.8 g fiber, 15.5 g protein, $1.95
1 cup boiling water: negligible calories, fat, fiber, and protein, FREE
1 to 2 chipotle in adobo sauce, plus 1 to 2 tablespoons adobo sauce: 20 calories, 1 g fat, 1 g fiber, 0 g protein, $0.37
1 tablespoon tomato paste: 13 calories, 0.1 g fat, 0.7 g fiber, 0.7 g protein, $0.05
Juice of ½ lime: 5 calories, 0 g fat, 0.1 g fiber, 0.1 g protein, $0.12
¼ cup chopped cilantro: 1 calories, 0 g fat, 0.1 g fiber, 0.1 g protein, $0.25
TOTAL: 1750 calories, 56.7 g fat, 76.7 g fiber, 87.7 g protein, $4.52
PER SERVING (TOTAL/4): 438 calories, 14.2 g fat, 19 g fiber, 21.9 g protein, $1.13
PER SERVING (TOTAL/6): 292 calories, 9.4 g fat, 12.8 g fiber, 14.6 g protein, $0.75