bakingstone's Profile

We started an egg collective a year ago, and I wouldn't dream of going back to purchasing store-bought eggs. Our pastured eggs taste better, look better, and they come from happy, healthy hens that aren't dispatched at 18 months, like commercial ones are. Here in Ontario, it's a dirty little secret that the eggs in the stores come from chickens that are raised 100% indoors. That means they can never peck at the bugs in the ground like ours do, and they never ever see the sun.

I've made this recipe for red cabbage and ricotta salata with thyme scented grains several times, usually without the accompanying grains, and it's a keeper: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/warm-short-grain-brown-rice-with-red-cabbage-and-ricotta-salata

To my knowledge all the hoopla about chocolate milk as a post-exercise recovery drink is based on just one study of 9 athletes, in a paper that was paid for in part by the Dairy and Nutrition Council. You can read it here: http://oakbrooksc.com/docs/stager_chocmilk_study.pdf.

The study looks at the interactions of the sugars and proteins in the milk vs. the sugars in energy drinks like gatorade, and not at all at the possible beneficial compounds in cocoa.

In my very firm opinion, anybody who drinks chocolate milk in the belief that its benefits are based on scientifically proven facts, has been taken for a ride.

My local cheese store gives them away free. You just have to ask for them and hope nobody else has done the same thing before you!

It shouldn't be a big deal, but I think the low fat movement totally villified lard over the years. I suspect the vegetarian movement played a role in our disgust for the product as well. So much so that many people would rather eat hydrogenated fats than lard.

Lard is probably a very low margin product (by-product even), and the manufacturers of oils and hydrogenated fats were probably all too happy to sell us the "benefits" of their added value PUFAs instead.

It's interesting that it's through the popularity of paleo and low-carb eating that we are beginning to understand that lard is not the cardiovascular enemy that 30 years of indoctrination have brainwashed so many people to believe.

It's so gratifying to see this being covered - and so many people who agree.

I came to the same conclusion not too long ago, after it hit me that we live in a culture of baking.

In my opinion, the answer is to move to non-food related activities -- gardening & sewing in my case.

I'm a long time yoghurt maker, but a couple of months ago I managed to get hold of some kefir grains. That's even easier to make. All I do is strain it, use the liquid (smoothies usually) and immediately pour the grains back into the mason jar I make it in with about a cup of milk from the fridge. Left on the counter overnight, it's ready for consumption the next day.

I'm totally in agreement with DinerGirl about the vast amount of fruit.

It's a message that hasn't reached most people yet and clearly the USDA is nowhere ready to tackle it.

Itsakitty,
I found that Gary Taubes' book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" gives a very comprehensive and well-researched explanation for why starchy carbs are so bad for us. It is about 600 pages though, and his follow-up book "Why We Get Fat" is the easy to read version (the content is very similar).

The idea of replacing carbs with fats and proteins takes some getting used to, though once people get their head around it, there's a wealth of delicious food to be eaten! And there's nothing that beats the high you get from effortless weightloss after years of slow weight gain.

Although I eat meat, I don't eat it every day by any means. There are so many lacto-ovo recipes that work very well in a low-carb diet, and in my opinion, there's little reason to go back to the boring beiges of breads, pastas and starches.

I agree. Potatoes on their own are not the problem. It's fried potatoes, whether they are french fries or tater tots, or whatever form they come in that should be under the spotlight.

Baked or boiled potatoes with their skins on are carbohydrate dense but otherwise nutritious.