printI’m off this week. Return to Reason, my weekly WorldNetDaily column, will, well, return next week.
Any interesting New Year resolutions out there? Mine is to consume more wine, and to adopt, and tenaciously stick to (against all odds), the infinitely civilized habit of taking a nightcap. (Hint: there is nothing sartorial about this habit, pun intended.)
I began drinking wine in the last year. My family–Jews of Russian extract all–is seriously disposed to heart disease. Despite being a trim runner with exceptionally healthy (and distinctly un-American) eating habits, I recently discovered I have inherited high cholesterol from my people. This is frustrating since the margin of change achievable in an already optimal life-style is small.
What am I to do? Begin the day with a bowl of ten different fruits rather than the eight I already consume every morning? Eat four, instead of the three vegetable servings that accompany the little meat, chicken or fish I eat at dinnertime? I’m big on pure chocolate, not baked goods. And chocolate is a very fine food. I’ve been consuming it by the pound for decades–well before Oprah’s gurus gave the nation the go-ahead.
Having grown up in the Middle East and South Africa, before American, fake, sugary foods became the rage there, I like and eat good food. I’ve never paid any attention to diet news because reason and common sense tell me that Sean and I eat–and have always eaten–extremely well. (Although we tend to eat too much of a good thing; but the resolve to cut quantities consumed will have to wait until next year. You’ll agree that I have already taken on enough of a challenge).
The cake recipes our American friends have shared with us have four times the sugar and butter my grandmother and mother’s recipes have. My mother’s frosting (icing we call it) has about one tablespoon of sugar; an American cake has about one to two cups of the stuff. To me, it tastes simply dreadful. With incredulity, I’ve noticed most of our friends pour the same sweet goop from a bottle on their salads. Why oh why would you want to eat salad with sugar?
A guest once wanted to know what I put on the salad she and her guy scoffed down with barbecued steaks. It didn’t taste at all like the bottled stuff she purchased. Olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. Sometimes a dollop of Dijon mustard for fun.
Sure, a very spicy meal may call for a sweeter salad. Then I use a bunch of halved grapes to sweeten the salad. Combine them with pink onion, celery, avocado, and toss it all in virgin olive oil and vinegar and you have a tart and tasty complement to a spicy meal.
Missing in my culinary routine has been red wine. Now that I’ve acquired the habit, I think I’m ready for the challenge of a nightcap. What do you think?
Please share. If you’ve decided to take up less arduous commitments than mine, like irritating more Greens and liberals (and unlike the formulaic Ann Coulter, this includes Republicans), joining a secessionist movement, arming yourself to the teeth, homeschooling, or reading more Mercer–do share.
Have fun,
ILANA
Update (Dec. 28): It’s not always easy sticking to a New Year’s resolution, but so far, I’m persevering with mine. I stop working on my tome and turn off the PC between 12:00 and 12:30 at night. Sean then pours me a stiff one and I sip the thing in front of the telly. (Usually watching Fraser, or a rental).
I can’t say it’s improved my fractious sleep, but at least I feel I’m being pro-active.
What is it with men that they’re always keen to ply women with alcohol? It must be a biological instinct to try and get us intoxicated. Just kidding; I’m not one for biological reductionism. For whatever the reason, the husband is being very supportive. Come midnight, and he’s ready with my brandy.
Go through all my belongings, one by one, and put everything I don’t really want any more on ebay. Guess it will take up a good part of my free time all through 2009.
Ilana, from what I have read, the whole hysterical anti-cholesterol, anti-fat hypothesis doesn’t seem to have much basis in fact (a lot like global warming). Animal fats (steak, butter, whole milk, good cheese, duck and goose fat, even lard) are all much healthier than vegetable oils.
Here’s a book I’m still in the process of slogging my way through; it goes into a lot of this stuff: “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taubes.
Also see “Protein Power” by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades.
There never was a total “consensus” on the anti-cholesterol hypothesis to begin with; there have always been dissenters.
It’s true that sugar and white flour have turned out to be scourges on mankind–tasty and addictive ones–but scourges nonetheless.
Also see the classic Weston Price book, “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.”
My number-one project for 2009 is mainly to get enough bills paid off, and to save up enough, to permanently escape Kalifornia with my significant other. I’m anticipating a depression. I’m just hoping that if we both keep our jobs (well, technically I’m an independent contractor), we’ll come out on the other side okay. We’ve got a small town in mind in Northern Arizona… half the rent and half the utilities we’re paying now. It’s a no-brainer to me. I’d leave next week if I had enough saved up to do it. We may end up raising some of our own food if we get to rent a place with some land around it.
I’m not sure I even _can_ irritate more Greens and Liberals, Ilana. I could water down the message and get more, perhaps, but then would annoy them less, individually. Kind of a wash, don’t you see? Alternatively, I know it annoys those few who even know I exist that they can’t seem to get what I write censored.
I think I’ll have to content myself with that.
[A wise strategy.–IM]
Actually, it might be easy to annoy them.
I just though of something fairly interesting to me; pretend that you are one of them, having been ‘converted’ by their arguments. Then, give a watered down green/liberal, pro-freedom message and pretend to be confused when they say you are not acting like a green or liberal.
They have done it true liberals like us for the better part of 40 years; I guess I could return the favor in a small way.
In all seriousness, my new years resolutions have really little to do with politics – I got enough of that crap last semester in school.
I’m currently trying and planning to date our company’s phone representative. Older than me – but quite pretty and educated – it will be a real challenge.
I figure I can impress her with my impressive library of metal, jazz, and fusion.
Just kidding. Or not. Heck I don’t know – this is a first time for me. (^_^)
Actually, I am not confusing fat and cholesterol. The medical authorities have made a fad out of bashing fats and cholesterol. As for vegetable oils, too much of the wrong kind (especially things like corn, soybean, cottonseed, and other vegetable oils, etc.) actually promotes degenerative disease, especially cancer (which has taken its toll on both sides of my family).
When President Eisenhower had a heart attack, they announced that they had found cholesterol in the arteries. But they never asked *how* or *why* it ended up there. They also proceeded to demonize animal fats in the diet.
Cholesterol does *not* just jump off your scrambled eggs or steak and onto your arterial walls. In fact, cholesterol is needed by every cell in the body, and the body makes it whether or not one eats it. And your brain is made up largely of fat, so it’s important to eat good fats.
A lot of the current trendy dietary recommendations are crap. And just because someone is thin doesn’t mean they’re healthy, although people usually look better thin.
My mom was one of those who got buffaloed by some of the diet recommendations of her time… she recalled that people used to use lard to make baked goods (still about the best fat for making pastry, I’ve read). She herself used to use things like Crisco to fry chicken and make baked goods. I shudder to think how much of that crap I ate growing up.
Also: I don’t drink much of any kind of liquor, but I have found that using wine instead of vinegar to make meat and bone soups is fabulous in terms of the taste. I recently got some inexpensive South American wine at the 99 Cents Store… it was a little too acidic to drink straight, but it really made the soup taste great. So far I’ve used it in making chicken and turkey broth/soup.
I’m going to make soup more often (hah–so-called Jewish penicillin) because this is a cold winter and I want us to stay healthy.
(Yeah, great tip. As frugal is using cabbage, barley, and carrots to beef-up the traditional Jewish Chicken Soup. My WASP loves it. If one of us is sick, the other makes the stuff. But it is a good meal always. Just wash barley well, so it doesn’t occlude the broth. The chicken can cost as little as 2-3 dollars for good pieces. Make broth first, of course, remove chicken and add veg. But you knew that. Garlic is a must. I also add some lemon juice to lighten the chicken taste.–IM)
Just a couple things I’ve run across that might be of interest.
A book I picked up once and glanced through – so long ago I can’t remember the title or author, advanced the theory that the arterial plaque associated with fatty diets is not a “natural” phenomenon, but a genetic defect common to European-descended peoples.
I.e. it’s the white folks’ sickle cell anemia or the gentiles’ Tay Sachs disease. And we don’t see it because, of course, our sort don’t get those things.
It is of course, strict academic orthodoxy to ascribe all social ills to “unconsious racism” but this might actually be something like that.
Not my area of expertise, so I can’t take a position on it. It’s intriguing though, and I’d add that my sister is a vegetarian and competition marathoner – and has high cholesterol.
Secondly, some years back doctors in Italy found a man whose blood was swimming in fat – that never plaqued. He had arteries like a baby.
Further investigation found a lot of relatives had the characteristic as well. Apparently their body manufactured a hormone that prevented plaquing.
The gene responsible was identified, and traced to an ancestor who lived in the 1600s in Milan.
The hormone has been synthesized, and preliminary tests indicate it not only prevents further plaquing, but actually dissoves arterial plaque already present.
If it lives up to its promise, no more visits to Mr. Balloon Man via the coronary bypass.
Last I heard, approval is wending its way at the customary snails’ pace through the Foof and Drug Administration.
I have also inherited high cholesterol from my folks. And you’re right, the marginal improvement from diet and exercise is just that, marginal. In my case, I admit to taking cholesterol-lowering medication, which has worked quite well.
I resolve to attend more regularly the Friday Night fight night at the dojang where I study Tae Soo Do (undergraduate form of a martial art known as Hwa Rang Do). There are no words to adequately describe how exhilarating, exhausting, and FUN the sparring is. If you haven’t done it, give it a try. OK, I admit it, the one time I broke my toe it wasn’t so much fun, but that’s the price you have to pay sometimes. Sparring is real living as far as I’m concerned: absorbing, time-flying fun.
Thanks for your blog, Ilana. Even when I disagree (rare), I always get something to think about.
[Have you investigated vitamin B for lowering cholesterol? I haven’t yet, but intend to. My mother had awful side-effects from the statins.–IM]
Best wishes on the night cap, I’ve been trying to establish that habit for five years without success. My wish for this year is that you will succeed.
Irritating Greens and Liberals is relative, The fight for global denomination has been going on for 500 years now, since John Calvin started the Christian/Atheist war in 1534. We libertarians have always been minor irritations to both sides, when we weren’t being burned at the stake that is. There is a price to becoming a major irritation, and I really am as afraid of Mr. O’Riley as I am of Jesse you know. However, as Mr. Kratman implies, it is lots of fun to annoy true believers. May you and your fellows, be blessed with sharp pencils in the coming year.
My cholesterol has always been low… it must be all the red wine I’ve consumed my entire life. God bless my father, his vineyard and the great wines (80/20 red to white) I’ve spent most of my life with.
Can’t think of any resolutions. For the first time in my life all is good. Perhaps eating more EVOO, truffles and pasta.
Ilana:
I am not familiar with the practice of taking vitamin B to reduce cholesterol. However, before starting on the statin, my doctor had me try niacin. Terrible stuff. I took a 50mg tablet and was overcome with a prickly, flushed sensation that was unbearable, and is apparently fairly common. Incredibly, the stuff comes in 500mg tablets as well. I think I’d rather just let my arteries harden than endure that feeling. I have had no adverse side effects from the cholesterol drug I’ve since been on, though I understand it causes muscle cramps and fatigue in some people. Good luck to you.
[Niacin, I believe, is a synthetic form of B; the natural equivalent is Niacinamide; it’s the no-flush version of Niacin, and it’s much safer in high doses. If i tried anything, it would be Niacinamide.–IM]
Another side effect of statin drugs that the doctors won’t tell you about is memory loss (there’s actually a book out there called “Lipitor: Thief of Memory”). I won’t let any doctor give me any kind of an anti-cholesterol drug, thank you very much. Just say no to statins. [My mother did exactly that. She eats moderately, exercises, and is a beautiful (blond and blue-eyed, go figure) seventy.–IM]
I had great success following a diet with Omega-3 supplements, less carbs, more fish like salmon and unsaturated fats. My cholesterol and triglycerides fell into the normal range within 30 days and the doctor didn’t believe me when I told him I was not on any cholesterol drugs.
I love barley in soup, but right now I’ve been avoiding all grains (low-carbing it as much as I can). I buy almost all my chickens and turkeys whole and on sale, then cut them up myself. I sometimes do buy chicken feet for soup, but if I save up the backs, tails, necks, and wings from three or four cut-up chickens, there’s my bones for soup stock! I read “Nourishing Traditions” and used those directions; it calls for boiling the bones along with some vegetables. If I use chicken feet, I have to strain the stuff because of all the little bones. If I use other chicken parts or turkey parts, those bones are big enough to lift out with just the spoons. I also have to watch which veggies I put in the soup… tomatoes spike my blood sugar. Cut down on onions and carrots, use celery. Mushrooms, squash, broccoli, and cabbage are okay, though. Heh!! This is making me hungry!
[Ditto; but i see you do follow some diet. Just teasing.–IM]
Alex, in a somewhat similar vein, I used to amuse myself with the anti-land mine fanatics by posing the question: “When are you people going to stop dilly-dallying and put an end to the manufacture and stockpiling of explosives, detonators, containers – to include soda cans and small jewelry boxes, and – last but not least – hand grenades and thin metal wire or stout string? Don’t you realize that the Ottawa treaty does nothing about those and they can all be used in lieu of or to make anti-personnel mines? It’s for the children!”
Swizzle sticks didn’t know enough about war to actually study or think about the object of their ire.
Cholesterol is odd. In 1987 or so, my battalion commander, a health nut, had all the officers tested for cholesterol. Two of us, myself and another captain named Ridilla were frequently lambasted by the BC for our rotten eating habits (we lived off of junk food and coffee). When the results came back the lowest was me, 87, nicely balanced, followed by Ridilla, and the highest was the BC.
Ten years later mine was 239 and now I’ve a 100% blockage in my right coronary artery. And if anything my eating habits, once I had to eat at home rather than the mess hall, had improved.
Go figure.
[What is your good cholesterol?–IM]
I am tempted to make a corny joke regarding memory loss, but will make a new resolution not to partake in such cheesiness. Alas, in my case, diet and exercise did not work. I’ll take my chances with the statin, but am glad to learn of the niacinamide.
“Just kidding; I’m not one for biological reductionism. For whatever the reason, the husband is being very supportive. Come midnight, and he’s ready with my brandy.”
It’s possible that his reasons are purely selfless… What a good man you have.
Yup, I am trying to diet… low-carbing. Eating mostly meats and veggies, along with soup. Trying not to fall off the wagon too far, seeing which things do and don’t spike the blood sugar! My significant other, however, seems to be bringing more carbs home now that I’m trying to avoid them.
Since I found your site not long ago, it’s been a resolution to keep up with it, as well as reading and comprehending as much as I can (I hate losing track of a website I like). I’ve learned a lot, good and heart-wrenching surprises, like that Lincoln stuff (I’m still a bit disappointed, but guess I was bound to find about it sooner or later). One other solid resolution would be starting a blog and exercise more. Muay Thai, baby!!
[Looking forward to your comments on the blog.–IM]