Today's Beautiful Thing

Working in beautiful Half Moon Bay, CA gives me the opportunity to buy flowers for very low prices. This is my attempt at floral design. The whole bunch cost me $12. The orchids were only $3.

Menu - Friday, July 31, 2009

Pork Steaks

Scalloped Rutabagas

B: Blood Sausage

L: Chicken salad sandwich on revolution roll

D: Pork steaks with mushrooms and bourbon sauce

Scalloped Rutabagas

Glass of white wine

I've decided to include pics as often as possible.

Menu - Thursday, July 30, 2009

B: 1 Blood Sauage, broiled

L: No lunch today

D: 10 oz. Hamburger, lean meat 93/7

2 oz Sauteed onion

2 oz Irish Cheddar

3 olives

Very small field green salad with blue cheese dressing

1 glass red wine

S: 3-4 oz Macadamia nuts

2 large Vodka martinis

Menu's and Recipes

OK, I've decided to start taking the time to post my menus and recipes. I get a lot of requests for recipes and although I don't really use "recipes" I can always write up what I cook. There are some things I cook all the time and I can relay the technique and list the ingredients without posting it as a formal recipe.

So that's what you'll see most of the time. I will be posting each days menus the afternoon or morning after. I'll start with yesterdays menu later today.

There will always be things that I eat that will not be on the menus. That would be the food that I taste as I cook at work. They really are tastes, but some dishes require a number of tastes as I cook and they can add up to almost a small serving. Most of these dishes have more carbs than I would normally eat. This may even account for the stall I've been experiencing. So, if I've had quite a lot of something I'm cooking I will post it.

Zero Carb Part 3

I began investigating the Zero Carb lifestyle more out of interest in using it short term to lose weight quickly or in case of a long stall. I was thinking that going ZC made some sense because if Low Carb is good Zero must be better. That's always been my mentality unfortunately. If one pill is good 2 must be better, etc. At least I felt it would be harmless in the short term no matter what people say about the need for plant matter in our diet as a source of nutrition. And of course, fiber.

There are some who claim that there are superior health benefits to eating ZC as opposed to a Very Low Carb (VLC) diet. They believe that eating carbs in any form is the root cause of all diseases of civilization. While it's clear to me that eating refined carbs, grains, and some fruit cultivars is responsible for the diseases of civilization and the symptom of obesity, it's really not necessary to avoid vegetables and fruit completely to achieve optimal health. Hunter-gatherer societies of the past and present included some forms of carbohydrates other than those found in meat. The exception seems to be the people of the far north where no plants were available. Otherwise, these people ate from plant sources, as well as the very lean meat available in the wild. Granted, most of these people ate one or just a few wild staples from the plant world. And no cultivated fruits and vegetables at all.

In conclusion to this little series on ZC, there seems to be only one reason, and one only that I can see, for eating ZC. It eliminates cravings for a lot of people. I've never had a problem with craving carbs or any food in particular. Those that do, might want to look to ZC for an answer if the cravings are unmanageable. But in the long run I doubt that it would be a sustainable diet for life. Boredom has always been the bane of weight loss diets that rely on one or two foods only. A few folks will be able to remain ZC for a long period of time. But most of us need more than just meat and water to keep our spirits up as well as our waistlines down.

Today's Beautiful Thing

My Aunt Josephine, my mother Ann, and my Aunt Agnes.

Zero Carb: Part Two

The following quote from Charles Washington says it all for me.

This is the most frustrating aspect for me trying to run this type of forum. So many people think that the answers lie in Science and perhaps it does. However, we know that science and the results can be easily manipulated in such a way that every conclusion is ambiguous. ZC is all about experiencing it on the individual level. We are our own control group so you can't come in here and tell us how it doesn't work or what science says based on some results concocted in a laboratory or some metabolic ward. We are science, we are evidence and we are history. Our experiences mean everything. We've done it (or are doing it) and that is the most important factor.