I've been eating out a lot lately...bravery sometimes pays off, sometimes doesn't.

I got a nice big salad from a nearby pizza place, and asked them to add hot chicken to it. In the past I've always asked for cold...I will in the future too. There was some major cross-contamination with something the chicken was sauteed with...bread crumbs or something. Ugh. Most of the reaction passed pretty quickly, but my joints still hurt a little and I'm a little grumpy.

On the good side, I had some fresh Mahi Mahi with tropical salsa over sesame rice. It was unlike any Mahi Mahi I've ever had before. It was just heavenly. Not dry or 'squishy' like it can get when it's been frozen. Very tender and meaty, almost like a cross between tuna and salmon. Yummy!

I also tried some Korean food. I was scared! I thought it would be full of soy sauce, and there was a language barrier there, but it was surprisingly simple and had no soy sauce. Seaweed soup with a flavorful but clear broth and beef (the seaweed tasted more like thin noodles than anything else), seaweed salad (it was a bit sweet so probably some avoid in it, but it was also good).

More to come! Thanks for visiting!

I tried the recipe for energy balls from RecipeBase. I made a few adjustments for being a nonnie, 3 oz prunes instead of 2 of prunes and 2 of dates, then cranberries instead of apricots. It's easy to make with a food processor. (This is the first time I've used my new food processor) It will be a good way to get the pumpkin seeds and walnuts that I don't eat enough of. (I don't really like them plain.) Other than using sweetened dried cranberries, the ones I made are compliant for O nonnies. I'll find some unsweetened for next time... it gets plenty of sweetness from the prunes. It was cool how as soon as I added a little water to it, it started sticking together. Perfect for shaping.

I don't really know how to work with recipes in ounces, so I just guessed on that, and used the right proportions of everything.

They're quite good, they remind me of some whole food fruit and nut bars I bought once, but fresher. I don't think I'll be overdosing on them, but they will certainly fill their purposes: a few beneficial nuts and an emergency snack.

G'Night!

Making Jerky wasn’t as hard as I expected. 1 ½ pounds thin sliced flank steak, 2 tsp salt, bunch of fresh ground pepper, garlic powder, then I used Italian seasonings with crushed red pepper. It didn’t take much to season it well. I’m glad I looked at recipes or I would have overdone it. Just rub it all in and put it in a dehydrator. (Or oven with door cracked open – not an option with a toddler) Fresh jerky is the best, not loaded with soy sauce, wheat, sugar or preservatives.

I had some spicy Mahi Mahi with grilled shrimp, veggies and rice at a restaurant. I’m trying to eat more fish. It was quite good. The next step is to learn how to cook it. Trout steamed in a steamer is tasty, and it’s harder to overcook fish in a steamer…I have trouble with overcooking fish. That’s about the only good way I know to cook fish.

I’m soooo tired. The baby is mostly over his stomach flu, but still grumpy. It’s been a long week.

Nutrition Action Healthletter's failure to fairly evaluate the Blood Type Diet

I have to admit that I didn't expect rave reviews of the BTD from Nutrition Action Healthletter, but their treatment of the BTD was still a letdown for me. They said it's not scientific at all, which tells me they didn't research the science citations at all. To say "It's about as scientific as a horoscope" is low. You don't have horoscopes reaching every cell of your body, or on genes close to other genes (linked to) that are involved with disease susceptibility. From their review all I can tell that they read is the foodlists!

Where it really let me down though was that for the other diets they evaluated, they also evaluated the healthiness of each diet. For BTD they just copped out and wrote, "NA, different for every type and ancestry". How hard is it to break it down and evaluate 4 diets? What would they have found? Every type's diet is at least as healthy as, if not much healthier than, the other diets they covered.

The other thing that struck me as incongruous was that they criticized this and many of the diets for claiming that they can improve health. Here cspi works to improve the quality of our food and our health, yet now they say that diet can't improve your health? The next page talked about how omega-3's can reduce inflammation. Get it together guys!

Dr. D'Adamo is one of the few, if not the only, author listed who works for many of the same causes that they do. The only one who tells us to avoid overly processed foods and dangerous additives, to get our food from good sources: organic, free range, free of added antibiotics and hormones... He's not slapping his name on low-quality processed Franken-foods and marketing them to the masses as part of some low-carb (capitalist) revolution.

I just don't get it.

Of course after being diagnosed with celiac disease I've felt left out from mainstream nutrition, and for some time I cancelled my subscription to NAH. This was my first issue after reinstating it. There was this article and an article on which doughnuts are least deadly. Ha ha! What do I care about doughnuts?

Even though I laud and actively support their work, especially when it comes to improved food labeling, food safety testing, and bioengineering, I found this issue to be extremely closed-minded. Of course out of everyone on their editorial board there is not one N.D.; surely they could find one N.D. out there to include in their 'unbiased' reporting. They need someone in there who can mix things up a bit, and get them thinking a little harder.

Gastroenteritis, that is. My 16-mo-old woke up vomiting yesterday and it went downhill from there. How do parents cope? I guess that, like me, we just somehow do. He's doing better today. His fever's down, and he's keeping fluids down. He won't let me out of his sight, and I don't like eating in front of him since he shouldn't eat much yet, so I've skipped a few too many meals, and eaten too much takeout. I'll survive though. I think I'll get a glass of water now :-)