Came across this three part video series that does a really good job in explaining the effects of sugar in the blood stream and how it affects insulin, mood and hunger.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Understanding Blood Sugar, Hunger & Mood
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Category Archives: Nutrition
“I can’t beleive it’s not pizza Fabio!” – recipe
This was going to be called “Use it before you lose it Fricassee” but after the first mouthful I changed my mind (although I reserve the right to keep “Use it before you lose it Fricassee” for another time – no takesies).
How this masterpiece came about.
Dans la pan
I had a few little bits of many things.
A couple slices of prosciutto from when I made the Broiled Prosciutto Asparagus spears, ditto for some asparagus spears. I had a pepperoni stick. I had some sliced mushrooms, chopped onions and green peppers. I have a couple pieces left of No egg cup for you broccoli casserole.
I sauteed the onions and green peppers in about 2 tbsp of aroma free coconut oil until onions were almost translucent.
I added the chopped prosciutto and I sliced the pepperoni stick and sauteed a bit more.
I added the mushrooms and sauteed a little bit longer.
I added the asparagus spears and the cubed slice of the the No Egg cup for you blah blah blah.
I whisked an egg with cream and poured over the whole thing and lowered the heat to about 3 and covered it for a few minutes.
When the egg was almost set, I added some cubed feta cheese ( a 1/4 inch thick by 3 inches by 2 inches piece) and covered again but turned off the heat.
About 5 minutes later…
And OMG! I had that first bite and could have sworn I was eating a pizza! The whole mouth feel was incredible, like a pizza!
Sur l'assiette
What’s for supper tonight? (recipe)
Asparagus stuffed omelet with smoked salmon and gouda.
Whisk 2 eggs with cream.
Pour into 2 tbsp melted butter over medium heat in a frying pan 
When eggs begin to set, layer smoked salmon slices (I used 3) and asparagus (I used 8 stalks cut in half (pre steamed)), sprinkle about 1/4 cup loosely packed shredded cheese (I used Gouda), fold over and lower heat and cover. Leave for a few minutes until cheese melts. I garnished with half an avocado.
Eat!
Your brain is fat!
Did you know that 60% of your brain’s dry weight is fat and cholesterol plays a vital role in neuron signaling and brain structure?
And that 25% of your body’s free cholesterol is found in your nervous system?
Brain signaling is all about membranes, and cell membranes are constructed from fat and depleting the ability of the brain and body to make cholesterol through aggressive cholesterol-lowering medication or diet could cause a change in how the brain works. Synapses, where brain function goes live, must have cholesterol to form. Brain signaling is all about membranes, and cell membranes are constructed from fat.
Cholesterol is also needed for the formation of the synapse, to make myelin, the specialized insulating covering of the nerves, and in various other neurotransmitter signalling processes associated with anxiety, depression, and aggression. (1)
Fat is essential to a healthy body and mind. Not to mention it tastes great. Fat helps the brain feel satiated and thus signals us to stop eating. Fats digest slower than fat free foods and thus we end up eating less food because we fill up sooner and stay full longer.
So do yourself a favour, eat some healthy fat and give your body what it needs. You’ll be happier for it.
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source (1)
No egg cup for you Layered egg and broccoli casserole – recipe
Just in case I was getting to be known as the egg cup lady, I thought I would offer something different, however, this recipe could be made into egg cups if you were so inclined.
Ingredients: 
12 eggs
1/4 cup cream
2 cups chopped broccoli
1/2 cup onions
1/2 cup chopped, sliced or shredded mushrooms
1/4 coconut oil ( I used aroma free – you could butter, olive oil, bacon fat or lard)
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried basil
1 cup shredded cheese (loosely packed)
Himalayan sea salt (a couple of twists)
rectangle baking dish
cooking spray
Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350F.
Whisk together eggs and cream.
Add herbs and mix well.
Sautee onions and mushrooms in your oil of choice. When onions are translucent,
Add half of the egg mixture and reduce to low (3-4) and stir constantly until eggs mixture thickens slightly.
Pour the thickened eggs mixture into a greased baking casserole dish.
Sprinkle the broccoli on top of mixture and add cheese on top of broccoli.
Pour remaining egg mixture over the broccoli/egg mixture and bake in oven for 25 minutes (check at 15 minues and every 5 minutes as ovens vary).
When the middle of the egg casserole is lightly set (no more jiggling), turn off oven and leave in oven for another 10 minutes.
Eat!
*to turn this into egg cups, let the sauteed onions and mushrooms cool before mixing into the egg mixture. Stir all ingredients together including cheese, pour into greased muffin wells and sprinkle a little extra cheese on top. Bake for 15 minutes in 350F oven. Turn oven off and leave in oven for another 10 minutes to allow eggs to set without over baking them.
Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche But They Do Eat Egg Cups (recipe)
It’s safe to assume that my egg cup recipes are actually little quiches made without flour, hence baking them in a muffin tin.
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Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche, by American Bruce Feirstein, is a bestselling tongue-in-cheek book satirizing stereotypes of masculinity, published in 1982 (ISBN 0-671-44831-5). It popularized the term quiche-eater, meaning a man who is a dilettante, a trend-chaser, an over-anxious conformist to fashionable forms of ‘lifestyle’, and socially correct behaviors and opinions, one who eschews (or merely lacks) the traditional masculine virtue of tough self-assurance. A ‘traditional’ male might enjoy egg-and-bacon pie if his wife served it to him; a quiche-eater, or Sensitive New Age Guy would make the dish himself, call it by its French name quiche, and serve it to his female life partner to demonstrate his empathy with the Women’s Movement. He would also wash up afterwards.
The book’s humor derives from the fears and confusion of contemporary middle-class men about how they ought to behave, after a decade of feminist critique on traditional male roles and beliefs.
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So, to call a spade a spade, here is a recipe for mini quiches that men will make, eat and serve to their life partners and then clean up afterwards.
Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche But They Do Eat Egg Cups
Preheat oven to 350F.
Crab egg cup
Ingredients
12 eggs
1/4 cup cream
1 can crab meat (I used chunky style), drained
1/2 cup loosely packed shredded cheese (I used gruyere)
1 tbsp dijon mustard
sea salt (pink Himalayan salt) to taste
ground pepper to taste
1/4 cup each chopped onion, green peppers and mushrooms sauteed in 2 tbsp butter
a large pinch of marjoram
Method
Whisk eggs and cream. Add dijon mustard, cheese, salt and pepper.
Add the contents of the strained crab meat, mix well.
Add sauteed onions, peppers and mushrooms.
Grease your muffin tin. Using a measuring cup (I use a 1/3 cup) pour egg mixture into each well.
Bake for 18 minutes, turn oven off and keep them in oven for another three minutes.
Eat!
It’s safe to say the egg cups are now my most favourite thing like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. They fit perfectly in those 8 oz snack sized containers from Ziplock and each one is one serving of egg.
The Importance of Saturated Fats for Biological Functions (repost)
Written by Mary G. Enig, PhD
July 8 2004
Many people recognize that saturated fats are needed for energy, hormone production, cellular membranes and for organ padding. You may be surprised to learn that certain saturated fatty acids are also needed for important signaling and stabilization processes in the body.
Signaling processes work in the cells at the level of the membrane proteins, many of which are called G-protein receptors. The G-protein receptors become stimulated by different molecules and can be turned off or on in a manner similar to a binary light switch, which remains on for a limited time and then flips itself off until it is stimulated again.
The saturated fatty acids that play important roles in these processes are the 16-carbon palmitic acid, the 14-carbon myristic acid and the 12-carbon lauric acid. These saturated fatty acids are found in certain food fats. Palmitic acid, for example, comprises 45 percent of palm oil and about 25 percent of animal and dairy fats. Furthermore, the body makes palmitic acid out of excess carbohydrates and excess protein.
A biochemical process called palmitoylation, in which the body uses palmitic acid in stabilization processes, although not very well known, is very important to our health.
When these important saturated fatty acids are not readily available, certain growth factors in the cells and organs will not be properly aligned. This is because the various receptors, such as G-protein receptors, need to be coupled with lipids in order to provide localization of function.
The messages that are sent from the outside of the cell to the inner part of the cell control many functions including those activated by, for example, adrenaline in the primitive mammalian fight/flight reactions. When the adrenal gland produces adrenaline and the adrenaline (beta-adrenergic) receptor communicates with the G-protein and its signal cascade, the parts of the body are alerted to the need for action; the heart beats faster, the blood flow to the gut decreases while the blood flow to the muscles increases and the production of glucose is stimulated.
The G-proteins come in different forms; the alpha subunit is covalently linked to myristic acid and the function of this subunit is important for turning on and off the binding to an enzyme called adenylate cyclase and thus the amplification of important hormone signals.
When researchers looked at the fatty acid composition of the phospholipids in the T-cells (white blood cells), from both young and old donors, they found that a loss of saturated fatty acids in the lymphocytes was responsible for age-related declines in white blood cell function. They found that they could correct cellular deficiencies in palmitic acid and myristic acid by adding these saturated fatty acids.
Most Westerners consume very little myristic acid because it is provided by coconut oil and dairy fats, both of which we are told to avoid. But myristic acid is a very important fatty acid, which the body uses to stabilize many different proteins, including proteins used in the immune system and to fight tumors. This function is called myristoylation; it occurs when myristic acid is attached to the protein in a specific position where it functions usefully. For example, the body has the ability to suppress production of tumors from lung cancer cells if a certain genetically determined suppressor gene is available. This gene is called fus1 and is a protein that has been modified with covalent addition of the saturated fatty acid myristic acid. Thus, the loss of myristic acid from the diet can have unfortunate consequences, including cancer and immune system dysfunction.
Lauric acid has several functions. It is an antimicrobial fatty acid on its own and as a monoglyceride. It also has the function of stabilization when it is attached to certain proteins in a similar fashion to myristic acid and palmitic acid.
Stearic acid is the 18-carbon saturated fatty acid. The main sources are animal tallows, which contain about 20-25 percent stearic acid, and chocolate, which contains about 35 percent stearic acid. In other foods it occurs only on levels of 1-2 percent.
How much total saturated do we need? During the 1970s, researchers from Canada found that animals fed rapeseed oil and canola oil developed heart lesions. This problem was corrected when they added saturated fat to the animals diets. On the basis of this and other research, they ultimately determined that the diet should contain at least 25 percent of fat as saturated fat. Among the food fats that they tested, the one found to have the best proportion of saturated fat was lard, the very fat we are told to avoid under all circumstances!
These are some of the complex but vital reasons we need to include palm oil, coconut oil, butter and lard in our diets.
This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Spring 2004.
About the Author
Mary G. Enig, PhD is an expert of international renown in the field of lipid biochemistry. She has headed a number of studies on the content and effects of trans fatty acids in America and Israel, and has successfully challenged government assertions that dietary animal fat causes cancer and heart disease. Recent scientific and media attention on the possible adverse health effects of trans fatty acids has brought increased attention to her work. She is a licensed nutritionist, certified by the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists, a qualified expert witness, nutrition consultant to individuals, industry and state and federal governments, contributing editor to a number of scientific publications, Fellow of the American College of Nutrition and President of the Maryland Nutritionists Association. She is the author of over 60 technical papers and presentations, as well as a popular lecturer. Dr. Enig is currently working on the exploratory development of an adjunct therapy for AIDS using complete medium chain saturated fatty acids from whole foods. She is Vice-President of the Weston A Price Foundation and Scientific Editor of Wise Traditions as well as the author of Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils, and Cholesterol, Bethesda Press, May 2000. She is the mother of three healthy children brought up on whole foods including butter, cream, eggs and meat.
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source: http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/importance-of-saturated-fats-for-biological-functions – reposted from @AnnChildersMD
What’s for brunch today?
A slice of upside down spinach egg pie, a slab of feta cheese and a glass of unsweetened natural almond milk.
Delish!
Inspired by Goss Coaching
“I’m not on a diet. What I am doing is choosing to eat for optimal wellness most of the time.” – Goss Coaching
Last Wednesday I spent some time with my adult son. We were walking after dropping off my car to have my tires changed back to summer tires and since we were going to have a couple of hours wait, we were looking for a place to go sit and have something to pass the time. As we walked, we saw a pub with an outdoor patio and a Dairy Queen. I turned to him and said “Can’t go there because I can’t have beer because it’s made of grains, can’t have wine because of the sugar content. Can’t go to Dairy Queen either”.
He says to me “Feeling deprived on that gluten thing again?” And I honestly did not. Which is strange. He has seen me start many diets and end many diets.
I turned to him and said “No diet, I have decided to reduce or eliminate some foods so that I can eat more of the healthier ones that will nourish my body and there is no feeling of deprivation.” And every word I said rang true. I wasn’t “trying” to convince myself or him that my “diet” was honky-dory and that I was really just craving an excuse to eat food that I know would set me back and derail me. Because I am not on a diet. What I am doing is choosing to eat for optimal wellness.
We walked further up the street and ended up at a Tim Horton’s where I had coffee with cream and a splenda (they didn’t have honey) and he had a donut. I don’t even remember thinking I wished I could have had a donut too. Or a beer. Or a glass of wine. Or a hot fudge peanut buster parfait. lol
And today, there are no regrets that I didn’t “indulge”. And no lingering guilt that I did (had I indulged).
The eggkinsdiet ain’t no diet
It’s interesting that as soon as I created my Facebook page (shameless plug), the ads that began appearing were for “diets’. I click the “x” and choose against my views because the eggkinsdiet isn’t a diet.
It is a weight management “life” style, but eggkinsweightmanagementlifestyle would have been to long and hard to remember, so I chose diet.
http://www.dictionary.com gives these descriptors for diet;
1. food and drink considered in terms of its qualities, composition, and its effects on health
2. a particular selection of food, especially as designed or prescribed to improve a person’s physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease
3. such a selection or a limitation on the amount a person eats for reducing weight
4. the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group
5. food or feed habitually eaten or provided
I would say that four out of five descriptors are exactly what eggkins is about, with the exception of number 3, I offer a modified point. By selecting and eating foods (in abundance) that will nourish my body, in a way that will allow me to limit (and eliminate) foods that currently do not provide my body with any real value, and thus resulting in overall weight reduction.
That weight loss will be the end result of following this eating plan and not the sole reason makes this a non diet as far as the diet industry interprets it. How much weight loss experienced, that will be up to my body to decide (we all have a set weight point).
I want to reclaim the word diet and use it in the way that it was intended to be used, and not the deprivation inducing four letter word it has become.
If “diets” (the calorie reducing kind) really worked, there wouldn’t be hundreds of them. And our waistlines wouldn’t be getting bigger. Healthy bodies aren’t a result of reducing the overall amount of food we consume, but the overall amount of the kinds of food we consume while increasing other kinds.
