Good Stuff: Mexican Hummus

ByJohn Brown

I have been giving a new way of eating a go for the last few months. It’s high-fat, medium-protein, low-carb (HFLC).

Zoinks!?

High freaking fat, you exclaim. Has he gone mad!

Well, possibly.

One thing I do know is that I’ve lightened the load my godlike thighs have to carry by about twenty pounds, which is a nice thing. Oh, and by the way, I’ve paired this with intermittent fasting.

Horrors!

Yes, it is Halloween. Or was a few days ago.

In a few more months, when I’ve given this method a good long test, I’ll explain exactly what this is all about. But I’ll tease you by saying that it seems the scientific community isn’t immune to bias and jumping the gun. Not even close. We’d like to think they are, all those men and women in their white lab coats, but they aren’t. In fact, there are a number of doctors and researchers right now demonstrating that the advice we’ve been getting about fat and carbohydrates since the late 1970s was wrong. Like 180 degrees wrong.

Let me point you to some presentations you can watch about this right now.

“The Two Big Lies of Type 2 Diabetes” by Jason Fung, MD

“Reversing Type 2 diabetes starts with ignoring the guidelines” by Sarah Hallberg, MD

“Therapeutic fasting” by Jason Fung, MD

Okay, so with that lead up, who’s up for a delicious, high-fat meal? Here’s one of my favorites.

I call it “Mexican Hummus.” I found it in Always Hungry? By David Ludwig, MD, PhD. He calls it “Cheesy Pinto Bean Dip.” Which isn’t a bad name, but isn’t inspiring. You might call it modern refried beans, but that sounds like something out of a can or glopped onto the side of your dish. But Mexican Hummus, that has some class. A little zip.

Whatever you call it, it tastes great.

Use as a dip for red, orange, or yellow bell peppers cut into strips. Or eat it as a side. I like it with baked chicken thighs. It’s also good with fajita veggies—sautéed peppers and onions cooked with lots of butter, salt, and a bit a chili powder—and some slices of avocado.

MEXICAN HUMMUS

  1. Mix the following in food processor for 30 seconds or until smooth
    1. 1 C cooked pinto beans, drained and rinsed
    2. 4 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
    3. ¼ C water
    4. ½ tsp chili powder
    5. ¼ to ½ tsp salt
  2. Mix in ¾ C shredded cheddar cheese (you want cheddar cause it melts well)
  3. Heat in microwave or on stove until cheese just melts. Stir.

HOMEMADE CHILI POWDER

I don’t like the chili powder you get in the stores—it’s too strong, overwhelms everything I put it into, and gives me heartburn. So I found a recipe that’s awesome and make my own.

Mix the following together. Choose the amounts in the ranges shown based on your tastes.

  • 2 tablespoon paprika
  • ¾  to 1½ teaspoon onion powder
  • 1½ to 2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • ½  to 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1½ t garlic powder (optional)
  • ½ to 1½ teaspoon cayenne (optional, I put in barely a pinch; I do NOT like it spicy)

HERB-ROASTED CHICKEN THIGHS

This has got to be the easiest recipe on the planet for chicken.

  • 6 to 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (about 2 pounds)
  • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 to 2 teaspoons dried herb blend (Italian herb mix, poultry mix, lemon chicken mix, or chili powder above)
  • ½ to ¾ teaspoons of salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions.

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Grease a 9×9 inch baking dish with butter or some extra-virgin olive oil
  3. Put chicken skin side up in baking dish
  4. Brush with the olive oil
  5. Sprinkle on the herb blend, salt, and pepper
  6. Bake for 45 minutes.
  7. If you want, you can baste a couple of time through the cooking by spooning the juices in the baking dish over the thighs.

Bon appetite.

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    Update and Fage

    ByJohn Brown

    I passed the 90% mark today on SERVANT. It’s been wonderful going back through this story, remembering why I loved these characters so much. The cover too is coming along. I’m looking forward to revealing it in the near future. Right now everything looks like it will release on target, although that may change.

    While you’re here, you know I have been on a quest for delicious low-sugar yogurt for some time. I have found it at last. Behold.

    Fage 2 percent yogurt

    No Greek yogurt has a better taste or texture. And there’s no added sugar. Add some fruit and it’s heaven.

    It’s pronounced “fa-yeh.” Except, how do you pronounce that? Who comes up with product names nobody can pronounce? 

    But it doesn’t matter how you pronounce it. We luvs it, Precious.

     

     

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  • |

    Writing Update: Curse, trebuchets, CONduit, book industry, & Robinson Wells

    ByJohn Brown

    As of 5 PM this last Saturday I have finished 15,000 words of the climax of Curse of a Dark God. I think I have another 10,000 to go and the book will be done. I’m so close to the end of this draft! So don’t let the progress bars fool you. The ending is coming together fabulously–lots of spectacle, big reveals, and major heroics. At least, I think so.

    While working on this, I had to spend a number of hours finding out how strong a wind must be to pick up humans and stones. I also needed to know the destructive forces of various classes of tornados and hurricanes. Why would I need to know such things? I write fantasy, for Leroy’s sake!

    (Yes, that’s good English; I’m a writer, and one of my prerogatives is to make up silly versions of common expletives using the names of friends and enemies.)

    Here’s why: I just can’t write if I don’t believe in what I’m writing. And when I’ve got monsters (skir) that can generate winds that will be used in a siege, well, I had to know the terminal velocities of what these creatures could throw, and what that might mean for fortress defense. I had to know the limitations and ramifications.

    I won’t rehearse all the fascinating details (and it WAS fascinating), but all that research did lead me to a wonderful documentary. It’s called Secrets of Lost Empires 2: Medieval Siege and was produced by Nova in 2000. You can get it on Netflix or Amazon.  In the film, fifty carpenters worked day and night to create and test what they dubbed “the fourteenth century version of the atom bomb”–the trebuchet (tre-byou-SHAY). The trebuchet as the most popular throwing machine in Europe during the middle ages. If you love the history of medieval war, you’ll love this film. You might want to add to it a reading of the excellent Ancient and Medieval Siege Weapons by Konstantin Nossov, which you can get via the inter-library loan program.

    I’ll share two cool factoids for you history fans. “Catapult” means “shield-breaker,” “cata” meaning break or penetrate and “pelta” being the name of the shield used by the Greek light infantry. The original catapults were NOT big spoons–they sped arrows and balls along a track like a crossbow. However, instead of using the spring force of a bow, they used torsion-springs, which is what you get when you twist fibers that want to be straight. In the case of catapults the fibers were ropes made out of animal sinews or hair (horse or human, a woman’s hair being considered the best) and soaked in oil. Click on the image to see a larger picture. 

    A modern example of a torsion-spring are those balsa wood airplanes with propellers attached to a rubber band that’s hooked to the belly of the plane. To fly them, you rotate the propeller round and round, twisting the rubber band. Then you let the propeller go. Because the rubber wants to be straight, it reverses the twist, spinning the propeller the opposite way you twisted it. 

    You might think these torsion-spring engines were weak. But one catapult was reported as being powerful enough that an arrow shot from it broke through a shield, and the armored warrior standing behind it, at a distance of 400 yards! Hence, the name.

    The other factoid is that “trebuchet” comes from the French term meaning to overthrow. If you saw Return of the King, you’ll recognize them as the engines used on the towers of Minas Tirith. Trebuchets are simply an evolution of the staff sling. When it came to breaking castle walls, there was nothing more effective until the cannon appeared. Of course, in my book I use them a bit differently. You’ll see.

    One funny thing. I watched the movie with my oldest who was just as fascinated with the engines as I was. When she was telling my wife about the film, she kept referring to trech-uh-butts. Which, I guess, is as fair an attempt at “trebuchet” as any. However, my wife kept picturing buttocks and couldn’t figure out what the heck my daughter was talking about–“You were watching what with your father?!”

    The French make things so hard . . .

    ***

    The Monday after CONduit I left for work in Mexico and then Vegas. I didn’t get back until this week. So I just wanted to say I had a great time at the con. Loved chatting with all the folks there.

    It was great to see the Larry Correia, Paul Genesse, Jessica Day George, Isaac Stewart (and his brother Dan), Mette Harrison, Eric James Stone, Darren Egget, Julie Frost, Sandra Tayler, LE Modesitt, Josh Perkey, Nicole (whose husband is an Orem cop and I lost his number), Daniel Who-I-Sacrificed-to-My-Editor, and the Dungeon Crawlers Radio guys.

    It was also nice to speak with Julie Wright who was one of the initial judges for the Whitney Awards. She’s always nice to chat with, but this time it was especially nice since she said reading Servant of a Dark God was like eating chocolate. I’ll take chocolate praise any day.

    I also met new author Janci Patterson who just sold a YA with a great premise. It’s called SKIP and is about a young girl whose parents are divorced. The girl has to go stay with her dad who lives in a trailer and is a bounty hunter. I’m a sucker for bounty hunter stories. Especially this one, because she goes out with him and falls in love with one of the guys her dad has to haul in. I’ve slaughtered the pitch, but I got that good old writer’s envy when she told me about it. Can’t wait to read it.

    I also got to see Barbara Hambly. I was at LTUE when she was there like 20 years ago. We loved her stuff. She suddenly dropped out of the writing scene in the early 90’s and now I know why–it appears Del Rey dropped all their midlist authors except for Anne McCaffery and someone else. Hambly was one of the causalities.

    ***

    After Hambly’s main address, I sat with a few authors and had a brief discussion about the book industry where it was suggested the industry was shrinking–fewer readers, fewer sales, doom, doom, doom. But that is exactly opposite all the data I’ve seen.

    1. Book sales have an annual average growth over the last seven years of 1.1%, adult paperbacks are growing 2.9% http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm or http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/documents/S12009Final.pdf . Now, this doesn’t show units sold. So it could be that they sold fewer units for more money per unit. Still, it shows at the very least that $$$ aren’t shrinking.
    2. The New Book Titles report here shows an increase in the number of titles: http://www.bowker.com/index.php/book-industry-statistics — 80% increase from 2002 to 2009.
    3. Reading rates are actually on the rise: http://johndbrown.com/2009/03/literary-reading-rates-on-the-rise/
    4. Finally, I contacted Bookscan for their numbers for an ALA conference I did last summer. This is just juvenile fiction, but the numbers are in units. Now, I don’t know if they added more sources to their database and so that caused a rise, but I explained to them what I was trying to do—see trends over time—and this is the data they provided. According to their numbers, more juvenile books are being sold now than in 2004. Click on the graphic below. This means we have more and more readers rising up through the ranks! One author asked how much of that was Rowling and Meyer. During that period books by those authors accounted for an average of 7-10% of all juvenile fiction. Bookscan categorizes “juvenile” as everything for kids. That means from Go, Dog Go up through what we consider Young Adult. R&M accounted for an average of 33-36% of what Bookscan categorizes as science fiction, fantasy, or magic within the juvenile mega-category. What all that means is the growth is across the whole category, not just with their books.

    So I’m very sanguine about the book industry’s prospects. Today’s youth seem to be able to play computer games AND read in great quantities.

    ***

    Finally, one last bit of news. Robinson Wells was the one of the main ones to start the Whitney Academy and the Whitney Awards. Well, he just got some fabulous news. Here’s the announcement from Publishers Marketplace: “Robison Wells’ YA debut dystopian thriller VARIANT, a modern-day LORD OF THE FLIES, set at a boarding school where not everything is as it seems and every day is a fight for survival, in a significant deal, in a three-book deal, to Erica Sussman at Harper Children’s.”

    For those of you who don’t know, here are the PM deal categories.

    • “nice deal” $1 – $49,000
    • “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000
    • “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000
    • “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000
    • “major deal” $500,000 and up

    Oh, baby. Someday. Someday. Of course, I’m nothing but happy for Mr. Wells!

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  • Two Jillian Workouts & Gottman’s Seven Marriage Principles

    ByJohn Brown

    Jillian Michaels is, in the words of my brother-in-law, “the woman who chases the fat people around.” And indeed, as one of the main trainers on the TV series Biggest Loser, she gets those folks moving. But I didn’t know anything about her or the show earlier this year when a friend recommended her 30-Day Shred DVD workout (thank you, Mr. Dayton).

    I’m a cave dweller. I sit in my little basement office and do my thing. And I have to make sure I get some type of exercise lest I turn into a great jelly. So I’m always on the lookout for a good workout. But it’s got to meet certain standards. I don’t want anything that’s Mickey Mouse. And I don’t want any froo-froo.

    So I asked this friend if these workouts featured a bunch of women dancing around in fruity outfits, because I can tell you right now, as open to new experiences as I am, I wasn’t going to buy a leotard and tip toe through the tulips with them. My friend assured me it was froo-froo free. And boy was he right.

    Jillian shows up with two other gals, gives you a two-minute warm up, and then proceeds to bust your hiney with three circuits of strength, aerobic calisthenics, and ab exercises. The strength exercises include things like push-ups and squats with dumbbell military presses or curls. The aerobic segments have you doing jumping jacks and jump rope. The ab portions run you through all manner of crunches and lower ab exercises. The three circuits take twenty minutes to complete. And there are three different levels of workouts on the DVD.

    I walk or hike three miles a day four days a week, and so I thought I was in reasonably okay condition. Jillian disabused me of that silly notion. I couldn’t keep up. Heck, the first dozen times through the workout I think I spent half the time either catching my breath or trying not to faint.

    But I kept with it and got stronger. And then I found Jillian’s No More Trouble Zones. This is a forty-minute workout. And I defy any of you he-men out there to try it and tell me you can keep up with this broad in this DVD. I still pant like a dog and have to take breaks when I do the workout. My only consolation is that Jillian and her two smiling evil pals work out with three-pound dumbbells while I work out with seven, fifteen, and twenty-five pounders.

    Like the shred workout, this forty-minute workout is comprised of circuits. But in the trouble zones workout there is no jumping about. It all double-whammy exercises that have you working both your upper and lower body at the same time or doing some killer ab maneuver. You’ll do pushups, squats, curls, a vicious plank circuit, and a dozen other exercises. You’ll work your triceps, biceps, shoulders, back, abs, and legs multiple times. This workout is no joke. 

    If you’re looking for an intense workout that doesn’t waste your time, I think you’ll enjoy either of these Jillian DVDs. All you need are a few dumbbells, a mat if you’re working on a hard surface, and prayer beads for those moments when you suspect you’re about to give up the ghost in a muscle-burning cardiac arrest.

    *

    Back in April of this year, Dr. Liz Hale, a licensed clinical psychologist, started her remarks to a local audience of more than 100 mental health professionals by saying, “Dear fellow colleagues, you are in danger of having an affair.”

    Her point was that every marriage, even those of the marriage gurus, is vulnerable to infidelity–be it sexual or emotional. Individuals have to actively curb all the subtle and often innocent beginnings that lead to unfaithfulness.

    “We make the mistake of thinking (marital) vows will keep us safe; and they don’t,” she said. She went on to say that couples cannot depend on love or similarities to keep their marriage intact. It’s not enough.

    Emotional or sexual infidelity isn’t as rare as we might think. But even if we don’t stray into some type of unfaithfulness, that doesn’t mean a marriage will stay together. Like anything worth having, a good relationship takes work.

    But what kind of work? What are the key principles for making a marriage last?

    For many years the prescriptions of marriage gurus were based on anecdotal evidence and rules of thumb—on opinion. Because the opinions weren’t tested, they led to all sorts of errors. For example, many yet believe that the road to marital bliss is through communication, specifically through successful conflict resolution. According to this idea, happy couples are those that have learned to resolve all their conflicts in a nice manner. The problem is that when conflict resolution was put to the test, the studies showed it didn’t work. Marriage therapies based on conflict resolution share a very low success rate—over the long haul they only work about 20% of the time.

    So what does work?

    John Gottman is a marriage counselor who took a different approach and started to collect rigorous scientific evidence on over 650 couples, tracking the fate of their marriages for up to fourteen years. The results of his work are startling.

    He uncovered a number of relationship myths, including the one about communication. He found that happy marriages were never perfect unions. These satisfied couples often had differences in temperament, interests, and family values. They argued over money, kids, and housekeeping, just like unhappy couples did. They had problems and faced issues. However, all these satisfied couples also practiced seven principles, even if they didn’t know it, which helped them navigate their way through all the difficulties and keep their marriages happy and stable.

    And it’s not just opinion. The success rate for the type of marital therapy based on his research is 80%. He knows what makes marriages work and has written it up in a fabulous book called The Seven Principles For Making A Marriage Work.

    Every marriage is vulnerable to failure. It takes work to enjoy a satisfying relationship with a spouse. But it’s so much easier to improve and maintain a relationship when you’re working on the things that actually make a difference. If you want to improve your marriage, give Gottman’s book a read.

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  • Good Stuff: For All Eternity

    ByJohn Brown

    This year I was introduced to a little gem of a book that has had a significant and pleasant impact on Nellie’s and my marriage.

    We heard about it from my newlywed daughter and her husband. Now you’d think that two people who, in just a few months, will have been married for twenty-nine years would know all the ropes of this marriage thing. You’d think they wouldn’t come across any real new ideas. But this little book proved that idea wrong.

    This book is For All Eternity by Dr. John L. Lund. At the time of its writing Lund had over forty years of experience as a counselor, college professor, and marriage educator. His focus is in interpersonal communication, and part of his background was working with John Gottman, one of the best marriage researchers of the last few decades.

    In this book, Lund shares what he’s learned with lots of humor and stories. Some of it will be familiar to you, but some of it will be refreshing and new. For example, one belief we frequently cherish is the idea that if someone really loves us, they will know our wants and needs. Their love will somehow endow them with superpowers so that we will never have to communicate our wants. Our loving spouses, if they have any love in them, will be able to discern our wants from the most subtle signs. A nod, a sigh, the wiggle of a nose. And if that doesn’t do it, then surely we will never need to drop more than the merest hint.

    Yeah, wrong.

    Lund explains why the whole notion of “If you have to ask, it doesn’t count” is not only unrealistic, it’s damaging. And that’s just one insight. There are many more. I will let you discover them. But I can tell you that I have found this book so useful and delightful that it will now be one of the two standard books I buy and give as gifts to those who are newly married. I wish I’d had these insights right from the beginning, but better late than never. I’m so happy to have them now.

    A little note. For those who are not members of the Mormon church, Lund is directing his teaching at that crowd. So you will find a sprinkling of quotes in here from church leaders that support what he’s learned in his practice and research. Don’t let that stop you. Mormon or non-Mormon, if you want to improve your marriage, you don’t want to miss this book.

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  • Good Stuff! Brown Bananas, Peerless, and Cinderella

    ByJohn Brown

    BrownBanansI’ve solved the banana bane.

    The banana bane is this. You buy bananas, and the next day they’ve got freckles. Nobody likes freckled bananas, so everyone leaves them on the counter, thinking that someone else in the family must be a freckled banana fan. But nobody is a freckled banana fan, which means a few days after that, they’re brown. Then black. Then you toss them into the garbage and go to the store and start it all over.

    I’m going to tell you how to stop the madness. I’m going to tell you what you do with brown bananas. The Brown family discovered this last week. (Yes, the Brown family discovered the solution to brown bananas, strange, isn’t it…)

    I know some of you are thinking, oh, banana bread.

    Are you kidding? Banana bread is cake in bread form. It’s nice once in a while. But who wants to make four loaves of cake every week and gain five million pounds?

    I’m not talking about a sumo weight-gain program that involves cake.

    And I’m not talking about taking them over to Joan and Cardon Willis’s place and feeding them to their pigs. They have a very nice sow who, Joan reports, loves bananas. The sow’s little piglets do whatever she does. She scratches her bum on a post; they scratch their bums. She grunts; they grunt. So I assume since mumma loves bananas, the little piggies love bananas too. But I’m not talking about turning your bananas into someone else’s bacon.

    No.

    I’m talking about extending their useful life by days.

    I’m talking about consuming them yourself.

    I’m talking about making something delicious, sweet, and healthy with them.

    What is this magnificent discovery?

    Smoothies.

    With brown bananas.

    What?

    Yes. Look, we were out of fruit. We had milk, freckled bananas sliding towards completely toasty tan, and a little bit of chocolate powder. We were desperate.

    Desperate people try desperate things. Some do not work out. Like the one time I tried asparagus in eggs. Think green sticks for breakfast. But sometimes they do.

    Case in point: John’s Chocolate Banana Whip.

    • 1 brown or freckled banana
    • 1 cup of milk (use almond milk if you don’t like the cow variety)
    • 1 tablespoon Nesquick (no, you don’t need the 3 tablespoons they recommend)

    Throw it all in the blender and frappe until smooth.

    It’s heaven. Especially good after a nice hike-jog in the middle of the day.

    BTW, frappe is one of those words that makes you think I know what I’m talking about. Can you feel my chef aura radiating off the page?

    But Nesquick, John. That’s so white-trash unhealthy.

    Fine, you don’t want the added sugar? No problem. Try this one.

    Ellianna’s Strawberry Surprise

    • 1 brown or freckled banana
    • 1 cup of milk
    • 1 cup frozen strawberries

    Frappe until you’re happy.

    You can do this with frozen blueberries. You can add Greek yogurt–and let me tell you the Great Value plain Greek yogurt made with whole milk is delicious. You can add more fruit. Less fruit. Add ice. Whatever you like.

    The bottom line is that brown bananas are delicious in smoothies. And they should be—bananas are at their sweetest when they’re brown.

    It’s summer. It’s hot. Time for smoothies with sweet brown bananas.

    *****

    I like a clean van. But I live in the country, and I don’t have a pickup. This means the minivan has to haul stuff. It’s hauled hay, plants, dirt, kids—you name it.

    We vacuum, but there are things a vacuum can’t touch. And if we want our van carpet and upholstery shampooed, we have to drive an hour to Logan, then leave the car at the shop for a full day.

    A full day.

    They want you to drop it off in the morning, pick it up in the afternoon. So what am I  going to do all day? Bring my bicycle and ride around with Brent, the happy dude with horns and flags on his bike that pedals up and down main street, waving to everyone?

    Needless to say, shampooing was infrequent.

    But then one day a few weeks ago I was talking to Patrick Floyd in Laketown. I was actually talking to him in Suzanne Siddoway’s basement.

    What were two men doing in her basement?

    We were doing what many men do in her basement…

    We were sitting around waiting for her to cut our hair. What else would men be doing in her basement? (You know, it’s Quin’s basement too.)

    And Patrick said that he’d started a new business called Peerless Detailing. He was trained and had the equipment to detail boats, cars, vehicles of all kinds.

    I said, “Do you do just a shampoo?”

    “Whatever you need,” he said.

    I said, “Duuuude!”

    You have to read that with kind of a hope, like a thirsty man seeing an ice cream truck in the middle of the Serengeti.

    He said, “Yeah.”

    I said, “Man.”

    He said, “Yup.”

    I said, “Alright.”

    After that scintillating conversation, I took my van over. Patrick of Peerless did verily clean that carpet and upholstery. And he did it for less money than it would have cost me in Logan! And in less time!

    I got back a new van. It smelled great. Looked great. I felt like rolling around on the carpet in joy, but refrained. Instead, I drove home, and everyone in the house rejoiced. We drove around a little, just to celebrate.

    A week later, we had to haul more crap. I took the seats out. I put them in the garage. This was a dumb thing to do. I’d learned long ago to put them in the house. See, we leave our garage door cracked so our mouse control service can get in and out, the mouse control consisting of five cats.

    Sometimes, other cats figure they can help themselves to whatever’s in the garage. Some of those cats are stray toms. And because I don’t mark my territory with my own scent, which I’m sure would put the fear of whatever cat god is out there into them, they think they can muscle in. Feel like they can claim the place for their own.

    And so they spray.

    I’ve been meaning to get a gun. A paintball gun, if nothing else. I figure a few stings with a paintball ought to learn the dogs and cats and deer. It’s my theory, and I’m going to test it one of these days. So if you one day see various animals walking around with polka dots, you know what’s going on. Anyway, I don’t have a gun, and I’m not going to go around and mark the perimeter of my yard. You know how much water I’d have to drink!

    So this cat came in and sprayed.

    He sprayed one of my newly cleaned captain chairs!

    (Anyone who wants to practice their marksmanship on live targets, just let me know.)

    So what do you do? Well, I’ll tell you this: we didn’t have to set the seat on fire. No. We just called Patrick.

    Patrick did his magic and removed the offending blankity-blank cat spray. And the seat was as good as new.

    Can I tell you how happy I am we now have someone doing this in Laketown?

    I’m ecstatic. I plan to take my vehicles in once or twice a year. Why not?

    If you need your boat or car or van detailed, I think you’ll be pleased with Peerless. You can call Patrick at (435) 535-1493 and set up an appointment. I think he’s mobile to boot and can to it at your residence.

    *****

    Cinderella2015Okay, movie time. I have four daughters. They all wanted to see Cinderella.

    Except, what new thing can you do with Cinderella?

    I mean, how many different ways can you see her leave a glass slipper behind and still reel in shock at the story turn?

    Well, how many Bond movies do we see that follow the same darned plot? And we still love them. It’s very often the details that make the difference. And this new Disney version of Cinderella with live actors included a number of wonderful details.

    Like how Cinderella got in this fix in the first place. And how her position in the household devolves.

    And what’s motivating the stepmother, who is played wonderfully by Cate Blanchette.

    And the relationship between the king and prince, and Cinderella and her father.

    And a little bit of wisdom.

    I enjoyed this film. I think the key thing that lifts this above many remakes is the insight it gives into the key characters and relationships. And the many small surprises along the way.

    If you have daughters, this is a no-brainer for a date. If you liked the original Cinderella, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by this version. If you like romances, this is a classic. Furthermore, you’ll go away with a little something to think and talk about. I gave it a try; I was glad I did.

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  • Good Stuff: Why We Get Fat

    ByJohn Brown

    What if everything you know about fat, cholesterol, and diet is pretty much wrong?

    What if you found out that the science behind the good old food pyramid is, well, not really there?

    We’ve been told that a healthy diet consists of lots of grains, bagels, bread, pasta, cereals, rice, etc. and very little fat. What if it’s actually the reverse?

    If it is, then it might explain why the rates of diabetes and obesity began to skyrocket as the nation started to implement a low fat high carb diet.

    I remember having gained about fifteen pounds when I was first married. I decided I would go on a diet. I read up on the low fat high carb diet and followed it strictly. Two weeks later, I had gained ten more pounds. Did I, at the time, look at the diet and think that maybe there was something wrong with it?

    No. That would have been too intelligent.

    Instead, I figured something must be wrong with me and continued to try to “eat healthy.” What’s that definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Call me insane. Or slow. Or too trusting of authority.

    It appears that the science of nutrition got hijacked. Government policy then ran away with it. It’s a fascinating and cautionary tale. Let me recommend three books that explain what really causes us to deposit fat and how we got off track.

    The first is Why We Get Fat by science writer Gary Taubes. In it he reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, why the good science was ignored, what really causes us to store fat, and what to do about it.

    The next is The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung. Fung is a kidney specialist. Obesity and diabetes are the root of many kidney problems. And so he decided to help his patients by strop treating symptoms and get at the root cause. Fung’s gift is clarity. He explains how obesity and diabetes became an epidemic, the errors in how we think about calories and diet, and then he explains in great clarity the new model of what really causes obesity and how to reverse it.

    The last is The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by investigative journalist Nina Teicholz. She spent nine years investigating this, and the book reveals how the misinformation about saturated fats took hold in the scientific community, government, and the public and how recent findings overturn these beliefs. It’s a startling history, a cautionary tale showing how ego, bias, and premature institutional consensus allowed dangerous misrepresentations to become dietary dogma.

    If you’re dealing with obesity, heart disease, or diabetes, I think you’ll find these books very interesting.

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8 Comments

  1. You should check out the instant pot pressure cooker.

    Cooks dry pinto beans in less then an hour. (So much better than canned) plus there are so many great recipes.

    It’s pretty easy 1 pot cooking but I think tastes better then crock pot.

  2. I have the Cuisinart version. Have done beans before. But I do have to say canned are easy and cheap.

  3. LCHF coupled with Intermittent Fasting has allowed me to drop 80 pounds in 8 months, effortlessly. And my blood work is stellar, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose, A1C, fasting insulin, all of them are improved and well into “normal” or even “optimal” range now.

    I went on a two week vacation to Hawaii with my family and actually dropped 5 pounds despite occasionally breaking the LCHF because I kept faithful the intermittent fasting regimen throughout.

    Some will “high fat” is a death sentence but if you look at the science that got us to that declaration, you find that it’s full of bad studies and assumptions that later didn’t pan out in real clinical studies. But yet it’s the conventional wisdom and people’s reputations and careers have been ruined by trying to confront it with new facts. Hmmm, there’s a story in there….

  5. This is interesting! I need to drop some weight (Type 2, A1C is good at 6.6, but some weight loss would be good.)

    I seem to need more specifics on a diet plan. Like a typical week of menus. I’m trying to limit carbs (because of the Type 2), and need to walk more. So a guideline of daily menus is useful to me.

    The results from ‘igglesPhan’ are impressive. I’d like that!

  6. Thanks for the update, John.
    i’ve run across similar articles in the last year re myths about fats and intermittent fasting – but not tested them as yet. I’ll be very interested to follow your updates.

    nice to see the other comments from folks. also. for the record, we also use the instant pot pressure cooker. I made a killer lentil soup. Good stuff.

    again, regards and looking forward to next updates.

    PS – thanks for the info re Extant … been on my “need to watch” list for some time, just not gotten around to it yet.

  7. What’s your recipe for lentil soup? I tried to make one in the pressure cooker and it was awful–hard lentils. Terrible.

  8. Sorry for the late reply… I had hoped to find that recipe since it did turn out so good -lentils were not hard at all. I have not made it since b/c nobody else in my family will eat lentils -go figure! And it made a LOT of soup.

    I found the recipe on some cooking website early in my playing with the pressure cooker (got it 1+ year ago on black friday sale) ,,, just didn’t save site and cannot remember what device i used to find it!

    I guess i am not prepared to ever make it [exactly] again! Yikes. If I ever recreate it, i’ll let you and interested parties know.

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