Wednesday, 6 April 2011
How Hard Is it to Dissolve a Body?
During the Sicilian Mafia wars of the early 1980s, residents of Palermo feared the ?white shotgun? or lupara bianca?a murder where the body disappears. If one offended the Corleonesi (a cartel from Corelone, a real place made famous by the fictional Godfather movies), hit man Filippo Marchese would lure the offender to the chamber of [...]
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.
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
Source: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2010/12/gluten-free-january.html
Gluten-Free Crab Cake Review: Handy GF Crab Cakes
After thinking about it, I realized I had not enjoyed a crab cake since I first went gluten-free quite a few years ago. In previous times, I enjoyed good crab cakes at restaurants (never made them myself), and once I had to give up gluten in my diet, I gave up crabcakes too since I figured I would not find a satisfactory gluten-free option ever again. Thankfully, times have changed, and I am pleased to have found an excellent option: Handy (brand) Gluten-Free Crab Cakes.
You have probably seen the Handy brand before (they are well known and in many stores), but the certified gluten-free variety of their crab cakes is a new addition to their product line, and a very delicious one at that! These new gluten-free crabcakes were brought to market by Handy International in December 2010 as what they claim to be the first gluten-free and certified-GF (GFCO; i.e., less than 10ppm gluten) crabcake on the market. I welcome the gluten-free product, and its certified status is certainly a nice product feature that I wish more companies would get on board with for Celiac-friendly options.
You have probably seen the Handy brand before (they are well known and in many stores), but the certified gluten-free variety of their crab cakes is a new addition to their product line, and a very delicious one at that! These new gluten-free crabcakes were brought to market by Handy International in December 2010 as what they claim to be the first gluten-free and certified-GF (GFCO; i.e., less than 10ppm gluten) crabcake on the market. I welcome the gluten-free product, and its certified status is certainly a nice product feature that I wish more companies would get on board with for Celiac-friendly options.
The Product: Packaging and Ingredients
These lovely gluten-free crabcakes come in a 6-pack format with each individual crab cake being a 3-ounce cake (for 18 ounces total). So, you get over a pound of high-quality crabcakes per package. And, upon further examination, those 6 crabcakes are packaged within the box as 3 sleeves of 2 crab cakes, which I thought was a wonderful detail -- you can take out a package of 2 frozen crabcakes without breaking the seal to the remaining ones. This is very "handy" indeed! :)
I pasted the following nutritional information here from Handy's website:
The formula for their gluten-free crab cakes recipe looks pretty much like what you'd expect if you were making your own crabcakes. The formula is quite simple and what appears to be quality ingredients. And, just by looking at the cakes, you can immediately discern nice chunks of crab meat - which is the most important part of course (and, crab meat shows as the first ingredient; a good sign!) I have heard that, since posting this ingredient-list on their website, that the product has been made dairy-free too... but, you may want to check into that on the actual package you purchase.
Preparation & Cooking (Frying or Baking)
The first thing I must say is that baking these things could not be much simpler: just thaw the gluten-free crabcakes you plan to bake, then follow the instructions on the box for frying, baking, or whatever. We placed ours into a cast-iron pan and baked them in the oven (the whole process takes less than 1/2 hour). Here is a picture of them shortly after we got underway with the baking process...
The end result was quite nice, though we made ours on a cloudy day and with artificial lighting I was unable to get a picture that I really liked, so.... here is a picture that Handy had on their website, and I do think it accurately represents the results you can achieve baking or frying your own. This IS what they look like, and they have a lovely texture with lots of crab meat throughout:
Taste, Texture, and Satisfaction Evaluation
WOW! These really are quite wonderful!
Those chunks of sweet white crab are delicious, and the remaining ingredients in the crabcake are just enough to beautifully complement the crab meat. If I had these crab cakes at a restaurant, I would be quite pleased - they are top notch and reminded me of some crab cakes I had years ago. I have tried both baking and frying these crab cakes. Each method works just fine and delivers a pleasing result. I was able to get a delightfully crispy surface by frying them, but that of course introduces extra calories from the oil used in the pay.
I enjoyed the subtle seasonings they used, and my *only* complaint is that I find them slightly salty by the time I have finished an entire crab cake (we rarely add salt to anything, so commercial / restaurant foods are generally salty to me).
My wife and I found the 3-ounce portion to be ideal. I think these would make a great appetizer item for both home and restaurant settings. I can see them coming in quite handy (nice brand name it turns out) for parties and gatherings where you want to serve something rather impressive without the fuss of making it from scratch. These crab cakes are almost certain to be a hit with anyone that enjoys crab - I have to believe that caterers with Celiac or gluten-free clients in mind will find these to be a great service option.
Where to Purchase + Price / Cost Discussion
Please, read this section entirely if you are interested in these. The Handy gluten-free crab cake price varies CONSIDERABLY based on where you obtain them - they range from moderately priced to extremely and ridiculously expensive depending where you get them.
The EXPENSIVE way to get these...
Handy Gluten-Free Crab Cakes are available online at the company's dedicated GF crab cake website, but I suggest you check your local store first. The reason I say to check your local grocery store(s) first is quite simply that the price the are asking at Handy's online-orders website (glutenfreecrabcake.com) is just simply ridiculous and exorbitant and out of range of the average consumer. To be fair, their online prices *include* FedEx 2-day shipping (and dry-ice packing no doubt), but still, OH MY! Handy seems aware of how prohibitive this pricing is, and they too encourage you to shop locally for the product if possible (they have a web page listing stores where available - click the "buy locally" tab at the top of their site for list).
If you have no other option, perhaps... and, here are the online options Handy offers:
- $69.99 for a package of 6 crabcakes : far too high of a price on a per-crab-cake basis (i.e., a cost of $11.66 each) for most people to ever consider them;
- $99.99 for a package of 12 crab cakes : at a price of $8.33/each, this is still high;
- $119.99 for an 18-pack (i.e., $6.60/each);
- and, finally...$139.99 for a 24-pack which starts to enter the upper realm of reasonably-priced on a per-crabcake basis (at $5.83 each).
The more reasonably AFFORDABLE way to get these...
See if your local grocery store has them! In the Houston, TX area, I quickly checked at the local H.E.B. store and found these Handy Gluten-Free crab cakes, but only in a *2-pack*. HEB offered the box of 2 gluten-free crab cakes for $7.99 - or, essentially $4.00/crabcake, which to me sounded reasonable compared to the cost of a crab cake at a restaurant or such. And, because they are high quality cakes full of tasty crab meat, this did not sound too out of line with the price of just purchasing crab meat on its own.
But, here is my problem with the Gluten-Free (version) pricing: why are these crab cakes so much more than Handy's own "normal" (non-gluten-free) version of the same crabcakes? Each contains the same crab meat (the most expensive part), coupled with a bit of other binder-ingredients and seasonings. So, why can CostCo offer the 6-pack of *regular* (i.e., with-gluten) Handy Crabcakes for only $13.89 (i.e., $2.48 per crab cake?) Volume?
If I could buy the Handy gluten-free crabcakes at CostCo for the same price of the "regular" (gluten-containing version), it'd be a "no-brainer" for me, and I'd have them much more often. But, the cheapest option I have seen for the gluten-free version is a full 60% more. That seems like a substantial premium for just swapping out some breadcrumbs with a gluten-free variety. Though, I guess there is the cost of certification (GF) and the lesser volume production, right? Handy's web site shows Costco carrying the gluten-free varieties, but ONLY in Hawaii and some California locations (hopefully that changes to include more locations). I will purchase these, for now, at our local HEB store on occasion, as the $4/crab-cake price is not TOO bad, and they are quite tasty.
Conclusion
If you are lucky enough to live near a local store that carries the Handy Gluten-Free crabcakes, they are most definitely worth trying if you enjoy crab meat. This product has given me back a once-favored restaurant menu item, now in the form of a crab cake that is safe for my gluten-free diet, and in a form I can prepare quickly and enjoy whenever I want.
I wish the product was made in the USA, but I am not going to over-analyze the offshore production of this product (they are made in Thailand). The fact is, I regularly use super-fine Asian flours (tapioca, white rice and sweet rice especially) sourced from Thailand in my Gluten-Free Desserts baking - I get those at local Asian markets. Seafood is a different thing altogether perhaps (since water quality issues come into play), but if that is where the fresh Blue Crab meat (used in these crabcakes) is available in sufficient quantities for producing these items, so be it. When I queried Handy International's contact about the overseas-sourcing and any concerns with the quality, this is what they respond with:
"We subject ourselves to independent testing by Silliker, a top inspection firm used by Whole foods and Costco. Handy?s plants have received Silliker?s gold certificate ? an achievement only the top 10% of inspected companies achieve. Handy is also a founding member of the National Fisheries Institute?s Crab Council, a groundbreaking group focused on creating a more sustainable seafood offering, and works diligently to provide the most consistent high quality products the crab community has to offer.?
I am personally OK with this representation of quality testing, and I will continue to consume their product.
Bottom line: a great new option for my gluten-free diet! Delicious crab cakes anytime I want them :)
Source: http://gluten-free-blog.blogspot.com/2011/01/gluten-free-crab-cake-review-handy-gf.html
Benefits Package is up at InsureBlog
The fledgling Benefits Package blog carnival has left the nest, moving for the first time away from its founder’s See First blog to InsureBlog, where it’s ably hosted by Hank Stern. The carnival is all about health benefits, and you should stop by for a look. Share
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HealthBusinessBlog/~3/b1WDyaZgqII/
Tuesday, 5 April 2011
Health Wonk Review is up at Healthcare Economist
Healthcare Economist hosts the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review blog carnival. Share
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HealthBusinessBlog/~3/oYcIyh9UpdU/
Gluten-free January Participants: Take the Survey!
Matt Lentzner, Janine Jagger and I have designed a survey for participants of Gluten-free January, using the online application StatCrunch. Janine is an epidemiologist who studies healthcare worker safety at the University of Virginia; she has experience designing surveys for data collection so we're glad to have her on board. The survey will allow us to systematically gather and analyze data on the results of Gluten-free January. It will be 100 percent anonymous-- none of your answers will be connected to your identity in any way.
This survey has the potential to be really informative, but it will only work if you respond! The more people who take the survey, the more informative it will be, even if you didn't avoid gluten for a single day. If not very many people respond, it will be highly susceptible to "selection bias", where perhaps the only people who responded are people who improved the most, skewing the results.
Matt will be sending the survey out to everyone on his mailing list. Please complete it, even if you didn't end up avoiding gluten at all! There's no shame in it. The survey has responses built in for people who didn't avoid gluten. Your survey will still be useful!
We have potential data from over 500 people. After we crunch the numbers, I'll share them on the blog.
This survey has the potential to be really informative, but it will only work if you respond! The more people who take the survey, the more informative it will be, even if you didn't avoid gluten for a single day. If not very many people respond, it will be highly susceptible to "selection bias", where perhaps the only people who responded are people who improved the most, skewing the results.
Matt will be sending the survey out to everyone on his mailing list. Please complete it, even if you didn't end up avoiding gluten at all! There's no shame in it. The survey has responses built in for people who didn't avoid gluten. Your survey will still be useful!
We have potential data from over 500 people. After we crunch the numbers, I'll share them on the blog.
Source: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/01/gluten-free-january-participants-take.html
Paleolithic Diet Clinical Trials, Part V
Dr. Staffan Lindeberg's group has published a new paleolithic diet paper in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism, titled "A Paleolithic Diet is More Satiating per Calorie than a Mediterranean-like Diet in Individuals with Ischemic Heart Disease" (1).
The data in this paper are from the same intervention as his group's 2007 paper in Diabetologia (2). To review the results of this paper, 12 weeks of a Paleolithic-style diet caused impressive fat loss and improvement in glucose tolerance, compared to 12 weeks of a Mediterranean-style diet, in volunteers with pre-diabetes or diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Participants who started off with diabetes ended up without it. A Paleolithic diet excludes grains, dairy, legumes and any other category of food that was not a major human food source prior to agriculture. I commented on this study a while back (3, 4).
One of the most intriguing findings in his 2007 study was the low calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. Despite receiving no instruction to reduce calorie intake, the Paleolithic group only ate 1,388 calories per day, compared to 1,823 calories per day for the Mediterranean group*. That's a remarkably low ad libitum calorie intake in the former (and a fairly low intake in the latter as well).
With such a low calorie intake over 12 weeks, you might think the Paleolithic group was starving. Fortunately, the authors had the foresight to measure satiety, or fullness, in both groups during the intervention. They found that satiety was almost identical in the two groups, despite the 24% lower calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. In other words, the Paleolithic group was just as full as the Mediterranean group, despite a considerably lower intake of calories. This implies to me that the body fat "set point" decreased, allowing a reduced calorie intake while body fat stores were burned to make up the calorie deficit. I suspect it also decreased somewhat in the Mediterranean group, although we can't know for sure because we don't have baseline satiety data for comparison.
There are a few possible explanations for this result. The first is that the Paleolithic group was eating more protein, a highly satiating macronutrient. However, given the fact that absolute protein intake was scarcely different between groups, I think this is unlikely to explain the reduced calorie intake.
A second possibility is that certain potentially damaging Neolithic foods (e.g., wheat and refined sugar) interfere with leptin signaling**, and removing them lowers fat mass by allowing leptin to function correctly. Dr. Lindeberg and colleagues authored a hypothesis paper on this topic in 2005 (5).
A third possibility is that a major dietary change of any kind lowers the body fat setpoint and reduces calorie intake for a certain period of time. In support of this hypothesis, both low-carbohydrate and low-fat diet trials show that overweight people spontaneously eat fewer calories when instructed to modify their diets in either direction (6, 7). More extreme changes may cause a larger decrease in calorie intake and fat mass, as evidenced by the results of low-fat vegan diet trials (8, 9). Chris Voigt's potato diet also falls into this category (10, 11). I think there may be something about changing food-related sensory cues that alters the defended level of fat mass. A similar idea is the basis of Seth Roberts' book The Shangri-La Diet.
If I had to guess, I would think the second and third possibilities contributed to the finding that Paleolithic dieters lost more fat without feeling hungry over the 12 week diet period.
*Intakes were determined using 4-day weighed food records.
**Leptin is a hormone produced by body fat that reduces food intake and increases energy expenditure by acting in the brain. The more fat a person carries, the more leptin they produce, and hypothetically this should keep body fat in a narrow window by this form of "negative feedback". Clearly, that's not the whole story, otherwise obesity wouldn't exist. A leading hypothesis is that resistance to the hormone leptin causes this feedback loop to defend a higher level of fat mass.
The data in this paper are from the same intervention as his group's 2007 paper in Diabetologia (2). To review the results of this paper, 12 weeks of a Paleolithic-style diet caused impressive fat loss and improvement in glucose tolerance, compared to 12 weeks of a Mediterranean-style diet, in volunteers with pre-diabetes or diabetes and ischemic heart disease. Participants who started off with diabetes ended up without it. A Paleolithic diet excludes grains, dairy, legumes and any other category of food that was not a major human food source prior to agriculture. I commented on this study a while back (3, 4).
One of the most intriguing findings in his 2007 study was the low calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. Despite receiving no instruction to reduce calorie intake, the Paleolithic group only ate 1,388 calories per day, compared to 1,823 calories per day for the Mediterranean group*. That's a remarkably low ad libitum calorie intake in the former (and a fairly low intake in the latter as well).
With such a low calorie intake over 12 weeks, you might think the Paleolithic group was starving. Fortunately, the authors had the foresight to measure satiety, or fullness, in both groups during the intervention. They found that satiety was almost identical in the two groups, despite the 24% lower calorie intake of the Paleolithic group. In other words, the Paleolithic group was just as full as the Mediterranean group, despite a considerably lower intake of calories. This implies to me that the body fat "set point" decreased, allowing a reduced calorie intake while body fat stores were burned to make up the calorie deficit. I suspect it also decreased somewhat in the Mediterranean group, although we can't know for sure because we don't have baseline satiety data for comparison.
There are a few possible explanations for this result. The first is that the Paleolithic group was eating more protein, a highly satiating macronutrient. However, given the fact that absolute protein intake was scarcely different between groups, I think this is unlikely to explain the reduced calorie intake.
A second possibility is that certain potentially damaging Neolithic foods (e.g., wheat and refined sugar) interfere with leptin signaling**, and removing them lowers fat mass by allowing leptin to function correctly. Dr. Lindeberg and colleagues authored a hypothesis paper on this topic in 2005 (5).
A third possibility is that a major dietary change of any kind lowers the body fat setpoint and reduces calorie intake for a certain period of time. In support of this hypothesis, both low-carbohydrate and low-fat diet trials show that overweight people spontaneously eat fewer calories when instructed to modify their diets in either direction (6, 7). More extreme changes may cause a larger decrease in calorie intake and fat mass, as evidenced by the results of low-fat vegan diet trials (8, 9). Chris Voigt's potato diet also falls into this category (10, 11). I think there may be something about changing food-related sensory cues that alters the defended level of fat mass. A similar idea is the basis of Seth Roberts' book The Shangri-La Diet.
If I had to guess, I would think the second and third possibilities contributed to the finding that Paleolithic dieters lost more fat without feeling hungry over the 12 week diet period.
*Intakes were determined using 4-day weighed food records.
**Leptin is a hormone produced by body fat that reduces food intake and increases energy expenditure by acting in the brain. The more fat a person carries, the more leptin they produce, and hypothetically this should keep body fat in a narrow window by this form of "negative feedback". Clearly, that's not the whole story, otherwise obesity wouldn't exist. A leading hypothesis is that resistance to the hormone leptin causes this feedback loop to defend a higher level of fat mass.
Source: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/01/paleolithic-diet-clinical-trials-part-v.html
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