My dad just posted this to Facebook. Yep, a touch of wettish snow last night, mostly gone now.

The Cabin

Anyway, I'm eating my mom's chicken pate with celery, drinking whiskey & soda, and Food, Inc. is downloaded to the Apple TV for viewing after dinner -- which will be low & slow tri-tip, a sauce reduction, kohlrabi and salad. Maybe I'll snap some pictures.

But this post is about entertainment; when I began streaming my iTunes to the Bose earlier, first song up just made me want to share. I'm not much of a metal enthusiast, and this song isn't really metal, but the band is.

Here's Metallica, Nothing Else Matters. Oh, and excuse the advert in the video. But, it was the best version.

Related posts:

1. Low & Slow Tri-Tip Roast au jus & Potato Purée
2. I Guess It’s Gonna Be a Fast
3. Simple Meals
4. Cooking and More Cooking
5. Huge Filets, Grilled, with Browned Butter and Beefsteak Tomato Salad with Blue Cheese Vinaigrette

Climate sceptics claim leaked emails are evidence of collusion among scientists - Hundreds of emails and documents exchanged between world's leading climate scientists stolen by hackers and leaked online.

Yes, I've always been a "global warming denier," at least in the sense of it being anthropogenic (man made). I've always thought it the height of being Fooled by Randomness.

...That, and now, good evidence that grant whores and other self-serving lying criminal deadbeats willing to sacrifice their fellow man for their personal advancement really do exist.

A couple of choice quotes.

In one email, dated November 1999, one scientist wrote: "I've just completed Mike's Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Of course, everyone "declines to comment." Well, Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann does, and he's really concerned about the truth.

Professor Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Centre and a regular contributor to the popular climate science blog Real Climate, features in many of the email exchanges. He said: "I'm not going to comment on the content of illegally obtained emails. However, I will say this: both their theft and, I believe, any reproduction of the emails that were obtained on public websites, etc, constitutes serious criminal activity. I'm hoping the perpetrators and their facilitators will be tracked down and prosecuted to the fullest extent the law allows."

What this demonstrates, to me, is not wide conspiracy but a reflection of what happens when whole livelihoods are staked on a particular hypothesis being correct, something we see all the time in the Cholesterol Con.

I'm closing comments on this one. It's an aside and the last thing we need is a huge comment thread arguing AGW. I'm well aware that many in the paleo and evfit community clearly see what's driving bad dietary advice but seemingly don't see the same principles and dynamics at work elsewhere in the various "disasters" and "epidemics" engineered to scare the crap out of the general populace.

Related posts:

1. Gene Expression: Super Mike
2. Reader Real Results
3. Cholesterol Con: Call for Help
4. Admin Note – For Frequent Commenters
5. Did Neanderthals Hunt & Rape Homo Sapiens?

In this installment it is my intention to establish a foundation from which we can build. I find it particularly odd that so many of the studies I look at appear to have been done in a vacuum, with no reference to guiding principles; like, human evolution. When epidemiological associations suggest that some variable may be at the root of causing some problem, we ought to be highly suspicious of such associations when they contradict what we would infer from our evolutionary past. While that past is certainly not fully known and we'll probably be gaining knowledge about it for many decades, even centuries or millennia to come, what has been established is sufficient to constitute solid, established knowledge about how we evolved and what we ate that drove our evolution forward.

Against All Odds

Before we proceed, let's keep something in mind, which is this: we are talking about a species of hominid -- Homo sapiens -- that is the last and sole survivor of a long line of bi-pedal hominids going back six million years. As early as 50,000 years ago, there were still three species of humans (erectus, neanderthalensis, sapiens), living concurrently on Earth. Yet, we alone survived, and we did so without a shred of our modern medicine and conveniences. It was the logic of natural selection, chance, environmental upheavals such as floods, droughts, fires, ice ages and perhaps even predation that drove us forward -- that from three angles of varying degrees of niche exploitation (and many before that; evolutionary dead ends) to more generalist, one species came out on top in spite of huge odds against it.

Genetic analysis has now established that at one point the entire world population of our species was only 600 individuals. That is to say, the entire human genome comes from no more than 600 individuals, and this was after the great migration out of Africa, so at one point there must have been many thousands of H. sapiens. And yet, against all those odds, here we are, numbering in the billions.

And given all that, saturated fat -- the fat that makes up a large percentage of our own body fat and that of the animals -- the sort of fat your body will manufacture from excess carbohydrate in your body -- is, in the words of Dr. Jackson, "pure, natural poison?" Does that make any sense? Would that not be about the most surprising thing ever if it were even questionably true?

Imagining The Ridiculous

Suppose some zoologist were to claim that the natural, wild diet of some species of animal is killing them off early. Imagine an omnivorous animal like a bear, for instance. What if some researcher claimed that the super high-fat diet of salmon bellies and fatty skin was detrimental to their health?

What would you think about that? If you have any sense, you'd have to think it absurd. Catching those salmon that run upstream annually in the fall is how bears survive & thrive, packing on the mass they need for winter hibernation. They evolved as the prime animal to exploit that food resource.

But let's stop and think about animals in zoos, where they may be fed some combination of natural food and specially designed chow or other concoction. If you Google for "zoo diets," "animal nutrition," or similar terms, you quickly come to the realization that it's highly varied; lots goes into it and, guess what?

Every Species is Different

And just how do they know this? Well, obviously they have some knowledge about what these animals eat in the wild -- what they evolved to eat -- from observing them. It's not hard. Moreover, they observe their animals in captivity for signs that they're not thriving. And when they don't thrive, what's the first thing you think they'd consider? Would the zookeeper wonder if that saturated fat in the rump steak he's feeding the lions is the culprit, or, would he more likely think something essential was missing from the diet or in the captive environment? As we know, predators typically go for the rich, nutritionally dense organs first, then the meat -- probably the fattiest meat.

Is this difficult? Do you read about zoo animal epidemiology? How about long-term intervention studies employing diets of differing lion chow macro-nutrient composition to compare differences in thriving, disease, mortality? Would you expect to find zoos seeking grants and attempting to study the implications of the meat and fat consumption of a bengal tiger's sustenance and to affirm that the tiger's dry chow is heart healthy over his natural diet in his natural environment? No?

Lifespan! Lifespan!

But wait: zoo animals typically live far longer than their wild counterparts. A male lion in the wild only lives to about 10, but can exceed 20 years of age in a zoo. Perhaps wild ones aren't living long enough to die from all that meat & fat? Does that sound familiar? Well, it should, because that's one of the chief counter-arguments I see against an evolutionary or paleo human diet, even where there is agreement on dietary composition. What they're claiming is that paleolithic hunter-gatherers didn't live long enough to encounter those collection of diseases we tend to call "diseases of civilization."

It's a difficult argument to deal with because there is at least some surface logic to it; and, because it's true that H-Gs and animals in the wild live average shorter lives than those in the zoo of civilization or the zoos we erect for non-human animals. But in the end, we understand that when you remove most of the risks of living in the wild -- like newborn mortality, injury accidents, pathogens, predation, and so on -- that you increase greatly the chances of survival to ripe old ages. Zoos -- for both human and non-human animals -- have been very successful in that. They have been successful in increasing average lifespans. This is not the same as increasing absolute lifespans, and there exists plenty of documentation that hunter-gatherers lucky enough to escape all that brutal nature throws at them, when able to obtain adequate nutrition from a natural diet, are able to rival the advanced ages we find in the human and animal zoos.

Meat & Fat in the Diet

When you run the numbers, there's no other way we could have evolved our huge brains and small guts without a significant quantity of meat & fat in the evolutionary diet. Kleiber's Law dictates that virtually all animals possess a metabolic rate that scales to the ¾ power of the animal's mass. What this means is that animals of different species that weigh the same have the same overall metabolic rate.

You have the same metabolic rate as a chimpanzee that weighs the same as you. Moreover, your heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and so on (major energy expensive tissue) will have comparable metabolic rates. But, your brain will have 4-5 times the metabolic rate of the chimp, and his gut will have 4-5 times the metabolic rate as yours. There's the difference. Why?

Conclusions

There are really only two necessary.

1. We evolved from primates.
2. Accomplishing (1) required at first the scavenging of animal-derived protein and fat, which in-turn allowed the shrinking of guts and expanding of brains over six million years.

And, so, the battlefield lines have been drawn. Dr. Jackson asserts that saturated fat is a poison and the chief culprit that underlies heart disease, "the single biggest killer in the western world."

I'm saying that a food so critical and essential to our very unlikely evolution -- against all odds and against all other hominids -- is logically most likely to be extremely healthful. And even if it were not particularly healthful in relation to other nutrition -- no more and no less -- it would be quite illogically odd if it were actually bad for us a priori, which is to say on its face, in any context, even a natural diet of real whole foods.

In Part III I want to attempt to look at what Dr. Jackson and people like him might regard as the best evidence and science out there implicating saturated fat in the diet. If anyone can steer me to some studies they believe are thusly touted by the authorities, I would greatly appreciate it.

11/20/09 Addendum: Prior to publishing this post I was able to have a draft copy reviewed by Dr. Monica Hughes and Dr. Stephan Guyenet, both PhD biologists. Monica helped correct a few errors in my descriptions of our ancestors and Stephan signaled a quibble with the shrinking gut hypothesis, described as follows.

It doesn't specifically imply that we ate more animal foods, but simply that we ate more easily digestible, calorie-dense foods. That could also include cooked starchy tubers. In my opinion, increased animal foods, cooking and starchy tubers probably all contributed to the gut shrinkage. The degree to which each contributed is debatable.

Yes, I'd agree with that, though we would have had to be cooking first, as meat, marrow, brain and other fat can be consumed raw while starchy tubers cannot. And, as it turns out there is some controversy just now over when the advent of cooking actually happened. At any rate, even if you use the advent of H. erectus 1.8 million years ago, you'd still have to conclude that we got near that point through raw animal food for several million years, and which was sufficient to get us large enough brains to invent cooking.

Related posts:

1. Do The Math, Dr. T. Colin Campbell
2. Saturated Fat and Coronary Heart Disease, Part I: Introducing Professor Rod Jackson
3. Drilling Down: Saturated Fat Epidemiology
4. “David, you’re not stupid, by any chance?”
5. Onglet de Boeuf Frites (Hanger Steak & Fries)

To top it off, a comment from reader Ian.

Richard, your blog is great and the effort you put into photographing your paleo lifestyle including recipes and cooking techniques is invaluable, as are your regular updates containing links to articles with new relevant information for those pursuing or curious about pursuing this lifestyle.

I’ve been reading it pretty frequently, sometimes multiple times per day just to flip through the old posts and drool over your delicious looking creations and soak up your thoughtful advice.

However, when it comes to your advocacy for the paleo diet, you’re doing yourself and others who are interested in it, and are ignorant of it, a great disservice. Arguing from a position of unchallengeable authority, or even just arrogance peppered with accusations and attempts at mockery is not only unpersuasive but totally alienating to anyone who doesn’t already share your point of view.

In other words, you sound like a shithead. Based on the rest of your blog, i think it’s pretty unlikely you actually are one, but at first glance at one of your forum posts, who would know?

Getting as close as possible to the truth on any subject that falls under scientific scrutiny is difficult, it requires dispassionately analyzing the evidence available and trying to come to the best objective conclusion, then sharing your analysis of the evidence and having it sanity-checked by others.

It’s not a rap battle or a comedy central roast. Calling a guy who has spent a decent portion of his life trying to educate people on nutrition and bring them away from processed foods and to whole natural foods a liar (”inconsistent, bordering on dishonest”) because he hasn’t been persuaded to your point of view on meats and fats yet is pretty uncalled for.

People who believe differently from you are not your enemy to be destroyed, but your ally to be persuaded, this is the only way meaningful knowledge can advance. Making an argument to someone requires having a sensitivity to their point of view, ie understanding what it is and how they established it if possible, and then building on it with a combination of persuasive rhetoric and dispassionate presentations of the evidence you feel supports your position.

Quips like “do the math” and “the religion of plant based dieting” do not serve this cause well. It also sets the tone for the participants and readers of your blog, the first comment was someone making a point about the perceived ecological impact of the meat industry to which someone responded just to call them a “lower case troll”. What the hell is a lower case troll? We’re really going to attack peoples conversational internet grammar because they have an environmental concern? That’s where unnecessary vitriol inevitably leads.

But don’t take my word for it, here’s an excellent and highly amusing video of Neil Tyson making a similar argument to Richard Dawkins.

Though my response didn't mention this (I thought about it later), Ian makes one point I have a certain sensitivity to: "It also sets the tone for the participants and readers of your blog." Yep, that's the risk and I must say that I generally don't like commenters slinging shit (either direction). That's my job. Call it inconsistent, or whatever, but the post is designed to -- as I've often said -- hit & run or slash & burn, then let's hammer it out in comments. Anyway, that's my goal: to use the posting to draw in the traffic, then let's have a decent discussion. And, yes, I don't always live up to that ideal myself.

Anyway, the day gets better. I headed off to the gym shortly after the above & had a really great workout. And then I get back from the gym and, low-&-behold, I've got another comment, this time from John.

Ian, you are absolutely correct about Richard. Having read this blog since before Richard started bowing to Art DeVany, I have noted that Richard’s personality at its core is that of a know-all asshole whose primary mission is to win a fight/argument, not necessarily find or promote truth. In other words, whatever Richard believes today is the Truth. The point of the blog is to satisfy Richard’s congenital need to express his rectitude. He is always “immovable”.

Like a blind pig, Richard’ has latched onto the Paleo thing. For the most part, I find his writing entertaining and often informative (I focus primarily on his cooking explorations), but always subject to scrutiny.

His and Jimmy Moore’s ilk consistently react to criticism the same way their targets do: name-calling and instant dismissal, with a dash of unsubstantiated counter-claim. The echo chamber is an easy/comfortable box in which to live. But that is part of the entertainment of the blog. It can be helpful to read things that often annoy me and keep me questioning and investigating, such as Richard’s comically authoritative perspective. It requires more than what Richard’s intellect possesses to argue his perspective dispassionately.

If you prefer more consistently moderate and accurate reading, read Art. Art’s writing reflects a deep and long-running interest in what makes for healthful living. Art also is an actual prototype for long-term health (as opposed to Richard’s born-again evangelism). Art’s ego is satisfied with considered thoughts and a focus on his own health and on sharing his experiences and observations without shrill ridicule.

If you primarily want entertainment, read Richard. But don’t expect any less lyprocrisy or hyperbole from him than from the people he ridicules.

So, there you have it. Right out in the open. Just taking one in the chin for Team Echo-Chamber.

I've always said -- ask my wife -- that I enjoy being loved & hated just about equally. It's far, far better than indifference, so I've got to give a warm thanks out to both Ian and John for helping to make it a great & effective day.

I think I'm right on track. For those who care to wonder why I engage in the style I do, it's really the only way I could. Entertainment? Yep, that's primarily it, for me -- the lifestyle has its own rewards and I don't need to be doing this to get all the rewards such lifestyle offers. Part of that entertainment is the inputs, i.e., the posts, all of the posts. The other part is the results we get to read about and the help other readers are more than willing to give.

It takes what it takes. But I'm sure both Ian and John spend far more time and effort promoting paleo in their own ways than I do, and I'm sure they've convinced a lot more people than I that a paleo path is a good one. Possibly -- I'd have to look -- but perhaps Ian & John are really the ones responsible for this.

Free the Animal Stats

We're on a rate to exceed 70,000 visits and 120,000 page views in November.

Thanks Ian & John for all the hard work.

Related posts:

1. World Paleo Domination – Part 2
2. More Reader Success
3. “Darwin, Evolution and the Paleo Life”
4. World Paleo Domination – Update
5. Jay’s Rapid Progress

Primal Chicken Pot Pie

So, I used the original crust recipe almost exactly. However, now I have a food processor and so was able to really make the cauliflower into a mush. To the cup of cauliflower, cup of mozzarella cheese and an egg, I added about a tbsp each of almond meal and coconut flour.

As for the filling, I followed Kat's recipe with the following modifications:

• Skinless boneless thighs instead of breasts
• About a cup of organic free range chicken broth which I reduced to almost nothing
• Organic heavy cream instead of whole milk
• No flour for thickening (because of the cream)

The Pie Filling

So, as with the pizza crust where you have to cook it first, I greased the pie tins  with butter and then coated the insides with dough and popped 'em in the oven at 350. Oops. Within a few minutes, all the "dough" was sitting at the bottom of the tins. Cranked up the oven to 400 and let them cook a bit more to release moisture. Next time, I'm going to roll up my cauliflower mash in paper towels to get rid of moisture. Also, more almond meal, coconut flour and maybe some butter or lard will help. Another thing I could do is stack another tin on top to keep the dough in place while it sets up.

At any rate, I took them out after a few more minutes, the dough was still pliable, and so I added a few dashes of coconut flour and was able to get the dough to adhere to the sides of the tins using a fork. Then I added the filling and covered with the remaining raw dough, and then into the oven again at 350, probably 10 minutes or so.

Remove, melt butter on top, and fire under the broiler until well browned.

Chicken Pot Pie

This was very exceedingly delicious. Definitely something I will do again and attempt to improve.

Related posts:

1. Another Go at Cauliflower Crust Pizza — La Reine
2. Coconut Milk Chicken Mole Revisited
3. Making Cauliflower-Crust Pizza
4. Thai Masaman Beef Curry
5. Yummy Cauliflower Dish

It was over a week ago that I reported to you that Dr. T. Colin Campbell, author of best-selling The China Study was participating in a low-carb discussion forum. While he has been away for a while, he suddenly popped back in this weekend.

Mind numbing, to say the least. I just can't see how a person can reach such stature and still be so ignorant about so many things. While he expresses interest in the many good results that have been reported by those who've implemented low-carb and paleo eating practices, he just can't seem to bring himself to the obvious conclusion that when one eats mostly real food -- including animal meat and fat, or not -- that good things are likely to happen in comparison to a modern diet of industrially processed crap.

So, while many including myself are more than willing to acknowledge that his "plant-based diet of all natural foods" is better than a standard crap diet and will provide comparative benefit for many, he is simply stuck in the belief that his results are primarily from eliminating animals and their fat, not in spite of it, and that those who obtain similar or better results on paleo are simply obtaining temporary benefits. "They'll pay later" is implied in virtually all of his acknowledgements.

So, here's some examples of what I'm dealing with.

Richard Nikoley,

Who says we evolved on a high fat, high meat diet, as you imply?

My response.

~~~

Well Dr. Campbell, when you become willing to set aside the religion of plant-based dieting and accept the reality of our evolution, there's no other possibility. In addition to reams of archeological evidence supporting the fact that we were early stone tool makers and scavengers of carcasses, particularly high-fat bone marrow and brain, there's also the numbers.

Do the math. With our hugely energy-demanding brains, combined with our small guts, there is no possibility other than that we were not only meat & fat eaters, we were ENORMOUS meat & fat eaters.

I suggest you do some reading up on the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis, particularly in how it relates to Kleiber's Law. Here's a primer by Dr. Michael Eades, MD:

According to Kleiber’s law, an australopithecine weighing 80 pounds would have the same metabolic rate as a human weighing 80 pounds despite the disparity in brain size between the two. The much larger brain of the human would have 4-5 times the metabolic rate of the brain of the australopithecine, yet would have the same overall metabolic rate. What gives? [...]

Aiello and Wheeler examined the data on the metabolic rates and sizes of the various expensive tissues and learned that for a 65 kg primate, the heart, the kidneys, and the liver were approximately the same size as those of a 65 kg (143 lb) human. The greater metabolic rate of the large human brain was compensated for by a GI tract significantly decreased in size. It turns out that the GI tract of a 65 kg human is just a little over half the size of the GI tract of a similar sized primate. [...]

A considerable problem for the early hominids would have been to provide themselves, as large-bodied species, with sufficient quantities of high-quality food to permit the necessary reduction of the gut. The obvious solution would have been to include increasingly large amounts of animal-derived food in the diet.

Increasing the amount of easily-digested food of animal origin allowed us to shrink our guts while expanding our brains [Keep in mind: this was over millions of years. -ED] . Had we remained on a diet high in vegetation, we would no doubt not have been able to expand our brains irrespective of how much more thinking those brains would have needed to do. It just wouldn’t have been possible to do so without violating Kleiber’s law.

Take the gorilla, for example, almost pure vegetarians that spend their entire ‘working’ day foraging and eating, which they have to do to get enough calories to maintain their enormous bulk. They have large guts and pay for it by having small brains. Even smaller than that of our most primitive ancestors, the australophthecines.

Gorilla has one of the lowest levels of encephalization of any haplorhine primate, and the much higher level of encephalization of all the australopithecines suggests a diet of significantly higher quality than that of this genus.

Which makes sense when you consider that carbon 13 isotope analysis has shown that Australopithecus africanus (the species that came right after Lucy) consumed meat. As you go up the lineage from Australopithecus and through Homo, you find that more and more meat was consumed the higher up the tree you go.

You need to start facing reality, Dr. Campbell.

~~~

I might have added that Dr. Campbell doesn't seem to realize that he enjoys the luxury of a modern economy that can make sure he has spinach, even if it has to be shipped to him frozen, from...China! Put that in your "study," Doktor. The fact is that if he and his adherents had to subsist as hunter gatherers, they would quickly learn to hunt, or starve.

Another "jewel" is his response to someone else who asked why he "thought" fat brought bad consequences.

I don't "think" that there are adverse consequences from high-fat. The scientific literature overflows with such evidence.

~~~

Ah, I see; so when it's a typical western diet of lots of processed foods, sugar, "franken-oils," grains and such, then it's always most certainly the animal fat, not the neolithic garbage people consume.

You're inconsistent, Dr., bordering on dishonest. You are very careful to stipulate that your plant-based diet is one derived from natural and not processed foods. I actually agree that's probably a more important factor (variable) than whether or not such natural diet includes meat and animal fat.

You, to your discredit, I believe, fail continually to acknowledge the same distinction with the paleo dietary approach.

~~~

More silliness?

You should know that high fat, like addictive drugs, also is addictive -- it gives a dopamine kick. Like nicotine, caffeine, and other addictive chemicals, it can be very hard for some to kick the habit.

Hysterical. Food, real food, the stuff we evolved to eat over millennia is now an "addictive drug."

The 'addiction to a dopamine high' caused by high fat consumption is supported the fact that when people switch to a low fat diet (no ADDED fat, not no fat), they gradually lose their strong preference for high fat and find it to be greasy and very unpleasant. This may take months in some cases.

The Occam's Razor evolutionary, correct, makes-perfect-sense, assume-the-least explanation is that dopamine exists for an evolutionary reason. If natural, saturated animal fat is so compelling, then it must be critically important for optimal health. We're talking about foods we evolved eating, not drugs.

You need to begin looking at this stuff in the light of evolution.

~~~

My, oh my.

Later: "it gives a dopamine kick." Not a shove, nudge push,or slight influence? No? It's a"kick." Oh wow!

Related posts:

1. Saturated Fat and Coronary Heart Disease, Part II: The Paleo Principle
2. Downtown Campbell Farmers’ Market
3. Blood Glucose and Cognitive Function
4. Is It The Meat, or Cooking The Meat?
5. “David, you’re not stupid, by any chance?”

New study links vitamin D deficiency to cardiovascular disease and death

Study finds inadequate levels of Vitamin D may significantly increase risk of stroke, heart disease and death

For more than a year, the Intermountain Medical Center research team followed 27,686 patients who were 50 years of age or older with no prior history of cardiovascular disease. The participants had their blood Vitamin D levels tested during routine clinical care. The patients were divided into three groups based on their Vitamin D levels – normal (over 30 nanograms per milliliter), low (15-30 ng/ml), or very low (less than 15 ng/ml). The patients were then followed to see if they developed some form of heart disease.

Researchers found that patients with very low levels of Vitamin D were 77 percent more likely to die, 45 percent more likely to develop coronary artery disease, and 78 percent were more likely to have a stroke than patients with normal levels. Patients with very low levels of Vitamin D were also twice as likely to develop heart failure than those with normal Vitamin D levels. [emphasis added]

[...]

A wealth of research has already shown that Vitamin D is involved in the body's regulation of calcium, which strengthens bones — and as a result, its deficiency is associated with musculoskeletal disorders. Recently, studies have also linked Vitamin D to the regulation of many other bodily functions including blood pressure, glucose control, and inflammation, all of which are important risk factors related to heart disease. From these results, scientists have postulated that Vitamin D deficiency may also be linked to heart disease itself.

[...]

"We concluded that among patients 50 years of age or older, even a moderate deficiency of Vitamin D levels was associated with developing coronary artery disease, heart failure, stroke, and death," she says. "This is important because Vitamin D deficiency is easily treated. If increasing levels of Vitamin D can decrease some risk associated with these cardiovascular diseases, it could have a significant public health impact. When you consider that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in America, you understand how this research can help improve the length and quality of people's lives."

Now for the bad news.

Vytorin trial shows little or no benefit against heart disease

For the second time in as many years, a large clinical trial has found that the key ingredient in the heavily advertised drug Vytorin provides little or no benefit in preventing heart disease compared to a competing product. The ingredient is ezetemibe, which blocks the absorption of cholesterol in the intestines. It is sold alone under the brand name Zetia or in combination with the cholesterol-lowering drug simvastatin under the brand name Vytorin. The combination of drugs has been shown to reduce cholesterol more than simvastatin alone, but that apparently does not translate into a lower risk of heart disease.

In the original trial, reported last year in January, Vytorin was compared with generic simvastatin in a group of 720 patients with a genetic disorder called heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, in which unusually high levels of low-density lipoproteins, commonly known as LDL or "bad" cholesterol, accumulate in the blood, increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease. Vytorin reduced the level of LDL in the blood of the patients by 58%, compared with a 41% reduction produced by simvastatin, which blocks production of cholesterol in the liver. But to determine how the drugs affected the risk of heart disease, researchers looked at the thickness of plaque in the carotid and other arteries. Thicker plaque increases the risk of plaque breaking off and producing clots that lead to heart attacks. The researchers found that plaque actually grew slightly more in the patients taking Vytorin than it did in those taking only simvastatin. Since then, prescriptions for Zetia have fallen from nearly 16.5 million in 2007 to less than 13 million in 2008, while those for Vytorin fell from 22 million to 16.5 million. The new results could lead to further declines.

And that's not even the whole story. Turns out niacin (vitamin B3, nicotenic acid) is actually more effective than statins in improving an LDL particle profile, raising HDL, and improving cartoid artery intima thickness (arterial plaques actually increased in size under statin therapy alone).

Both Dr. Driffa and Dr. Eades have posts about this. And by the way, while the statins are a multi-billion-dollar annual fraud and scam, both vitamin D and niacin can be had for a few dollars per month.

Related posts:

1. Vitamin D and All-Cause Mortality
2. Vitamin D and Muscle Power
3. “Millions of Needless Deaths”
4. More on Vitamin K2
5. Links & Quick Hits

But I wasted no time in securing some. I was due to make another order to La Cense, and so I got four of them. Tonight was the first.

Bavette or Flap Steak

It's just seasoned with some salt, pepper and garlic powder, then onto the grill on high. In the meantime, sweet potato fries in coconut oil & lard and a reduction of some fresh bone stock which I now have plenty of.

Bavette and Sweet Potato Fries

I must say that if you are considering going grassfed, this is a particularly nice cut, as is hanger and flank steak. Really great flavor, fast to cook, versatile (think fajitas) and tender.

Well, almost finished with part II of my saturated fat series. That should go up within hours.

Related posts:

1. Steak Ftites
2. Onglet de Boeuf Frites (Hanger Steak & Fries)
3. Low & Slow Tri-Tip Roast au jus & Potato Purée
4. Grassfed Beef Meals
5. Making Beef Bone Stock

Primal Taco

So, while I cooked leftover grassfed ground beef on low in the skillet, I took a nice large ripe avocado, mashed it up, and added about 1 level tsp of sea salt. Do that to taste, however. I think one of the biggest deficiencies in most guacs I taste is not enough salt; I like it a bit on the salty side as I find it really brings out the flavor.

Beyond that, it's about 1/3-1/2 cup chopped cilantro, 1/2 small to medium jalapeno pepper chopped fine (with seeds), about 1/3-1/2 yellow onion chopped fine, and 1/2 medium vine ripened tomato, chopped (with juice).

Cook the ground beef on low so as to not scorch the fat, don't drain, then add in your taco seasoning powder to taste and to soak up all the nutritious tallow. Served on a leaf of green lettuce, garnished with fresh tomato and coarsely chopped cilantro.

That was breakfast, served up at 11am, which is Bea's and my typical first meal time.

Related posts:

1. Venison Chili
2. Tenderloin Filet of Beef Soup
3. Two Meals – Alaskan Cod and Taco Frittata
4. Chili Verde
5. Weekend Cooking

Hamburger Buns

I did about 2/3:1/3 of almond meal to coconut flour. Still too dense & heavy. But, still pleasing to eat with a nice thick, juicy grassfed gourmet burger.

Juicy Grassfed Burger with Cheddar

Next time I'm going to use more coconut flour and I'm also going to try separating the eggs and beating the whites with some cream of tartar and folding the rest of the ingredients in.

Related posts:

1. Grassfed Beef Meals
2. A Sunday Brunch
3. Another Crustless Quiche
4. Almost Paleo Country “Biscuits” & Gravy
5. Paleo Days of Fall