by Chris Masterjohn Sandrine Hahn, a Weston A. Price Foundation chapter leader, created a wonderful Thanksgiving illustration, found here. It contains a beautiful quote from Konrad von Gesner: Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song. Gesner was …
Blog
The Sweet Truth About Liver and Egg Yolks — Choline Matters More to Fatty Liver Than Sugar, Alcohol, or Fat
In a recent post, I pointed out that perhaps as many as 100 million Americans have some degree of fatty liver disease. Why? Alcohol has been blamed since the 1800s, but we currently have an epidemic of nonalcoholic fatty liver. Some researchers, such as Dr. Robert Lustig, are making the case against fructose. Naturally, the nutritional establishment …
Is the “Receptor for AGEs (RAGE)” Really a Receptor for AGEs?
RAGE. It sounds pretty mad. Angry. And it’s out to get you. How? By punishing you for eating overcooked food, igniting your tissues with the hellfire of inflammation and oxidative stress. Or not. Maybe it’s just there to make your brain grow. Welcome to the controversies of science department snack rooms and rarely published critical …
Is Insulin Resistance Really Making Us Fat?
Disclaimer: I love and respect many low-carbers and low-carb researchers, and think low-carb diets are very appropriate and perhaps necessary for many people. Many in the low-carb field seem to think that insulin resistance is what is making us fat and even that insulin resistance is caused by… insulin. Too much carb makes too much …
In Favor of Neolithic Role Playing and Reenactment
This post is a tribute to John Durant, Melissa McEwen, and Stephan Guyenet, each of whom brought a whopping pile of curiosity, friendship, and comradery to the 2010 Wise Traditions conference. Stephan also brought a whopping pile of genius, which he injected into his excellent presentation on traditional diets in the Pacific islands, showing that …
They Did the Same Thing to the Lab Rats That They Did to Us
Once upon a time, sucrose was the main ingredient in the diet of lab rats, but now starch is used. The government thought it knew what type of nutrition rats needed, so it recommended purified diets for the sake of science. Then, the rats started getting diseases, so they started tweaking the purified diets. Sound …
Is Butter High in AGEs?
A butter-loving reader posed the following question to me: Thanks for all the work you do. Any chance you could post something on the AGE content of butter? Does it make a difference if AGEs are endogenously or exogenously produced? Thank in advance. Suffice it to say he liked my answer. I’ll repeat it here, …
High-Fructose Corn Syrup is Sweet Poison, Honey Is Yummy — Against “Pulling a Campbell”
I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials. A spiffy salesman walks on screen, smiles, and says “Hi, I’m from the Corn Refiners Association, and I’m here to sell you the new American Dream. You can have all the degenerative diseases of modern civilization in a package deal so cheap it’s practically free. All you have to pay …
Fermentation Does Not Neutrailize the Goitrogenic Effect of Soy — It Makes It Worse!
Sarah Pope of The Healthy Home Economist alerted me to the fact that Dr. Mercola has been spreading the myth that fermentation destroys the goitrogens in soy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The isoflavones of soy, predominantly genistein and daidzein, are the estrogenic and goitrogenic toxins we are concerned about, and they exist …
Does Your Liver Look Like an Eskimo’s Dinner? Fatty Liver is a Silent Epidemic
Does your liver look like this? All those white bubbles are fat droplets. I’m busier than a bumblebee right now, so unfortunately the high-fructose corn syrup post is going to have to wait till Tuesday. Today I’ll make a quick post about fatty liver disease. Someone on the Facebook version of this blog posed the …