Tuesday, September 30, 2008

The Terminator

This post is pure fiction. Any semblance to currently living bloggers is probably totally libelous, so you'd better stop reading now.

Here we go. First, let's set the scene. We're looking at the Magdalenian period, 18,000-10,000 years ago, the end of the last ice age. Wiki gives a nice overview here. These HGs are fully developed homo sapiens, a great deal more sophisticated, in all probability, than many of us around today. They're not loaded with omega 6 PUFA for a start.

A few more pieces of fairly hard data come from the UK Archeological Data Service, in particular a paper which is split in to two pdfs, here and here. For those who don't want to slog through the archeology-speak, these quotes give the flavour:

We're talking about reindeer hunting btw.


"In the autumn in particular, the herd [reindeer] is at its nutritional and weight peak, and can supply substantial quantities of a high-quality, fat-rich, storable resource for over-wintering"


"The toothwear for the one and two year old individuals [reindeer] indicates that the [mass] kill took place during the autumn at both sites, within a few weeks and a little later at Verberie than at Pincevent. The large size of the kill and the season point towards a hunt related to the autumn migration (at least at Verberie) (David, in press)"


"The primary use made of reindeer was, of course, nutritional. The autumn hunts indicated by the dental eruption sequences at Pincevent and Verberie would be designed to exploit the prey in its best condition of the entire year. The summer forage would have fattened up the herd to its maximum annual weight, and even more importantly, to its highest fat content. Both meat and marrow are important for the diets of reindeer hunters. Speth and Spielmann’s arguments (1983) about the desirability of fat in the diet are particularly pertinent for cold climate hunter/gatherers in the winter. The fat in marrow can supply twice as many calories per gram as protein can, and can allow efficient metabolism of the protein from meat. There are no whole bones in the faunal assemblages from Pincevent or Verberie. There are abundant impact fractures, systematically placed to open the medullary cavities for the extraction of marrow"


Not sure what Cordain would think of this. I believe we are supposed to eat the skinny ones in the spring, not store the fat ones from autumn. Pesky facts!

Anyway, that's the end of the facts. It might also be useful to know who Fanatic Cook is and to have watched at least one of the Terminator movies (Terminator I does the job nicely and I think it has that chase scene down the dry floodwater channel). Here we go:


The wind is moaning over the autumn landscape of northern France at the tail end of the last ice age. It's October and the snow has been over a foot deep for weeks. The reindeer have fed well through the short subarctic summer and are loaded with fat for the winter. Gatherable foodstuffs are sandwiched between the snow cover and the permafrost. No one is digging. There has been a slaughter of reindeer and the tribe has divided up in to groups to butcher them. There is work for the present and food for the winter in plenty. The sound of shattering bones means marrow fat for all.

Away from the encampment there is a smell of ozone in the air and the Terminator style electric blue globe flickers and crackles to deposit a human form in to the frozen landscape. Luckily for everyone, the new time machine transports clothes as well as Terminators. And a crucial bag of white powder.

The Terminator approaches the butchery site through the heaps of reindeer bones from many previous harvests on this spot. Literally thousands of bones, all shattered to allow removal of the marrow. She approaches the main decision maker of the tribe and his shaman, both busily engaged in extracting the solid saturated fat from around the kidneys of a recently killed reindeer. Small cubes of the still warm delicacy are given to the children who scamper around, these are real treats. The rest will be frozen in a matter of minutes and be available for winter feasting later in the year.

The babel fish in the Terminator's ear does its best.

"ohmygoddon'tyouknowyouwillhardenthearteriesofthatpoor-childwithallofthatsaturatedperirenalfatandshewillget-canceranddiabetesandendherlifeinmiserywithouthospitals-tocareforherandhaven'tyoureadCordainwhereisyourflaxoil-andyoumusttrimallofthefatoffandthrowitaway"

Decision Maker (Chief, if you must), "Who's she?"

Shaman, "Looks like the angel of death to me. Wonder what the white powder in the bag is"

Terminator, "ifyoueatallofthatfatyouwillbecomeso-insulinresistantyouwillallgetdiabetesIhaveproof-
ofithereinthispowder"

Decision Maker, "What's this diabetes she keeps going on about?"

Shaman, "High blood sugar"

Decision Maker, "Waddayamean, high blood sugar? My blood sugar has been 4.6mmol/l for the last 45 years and I don't see it budging any time soon. Can you change it?"

Shaman, "Watch the powder, it ain't crack or angel dust"

Terminator, "Youmusteat100gramsofthispowderbefore-everymealofsaturatedfatandyouwillendupassickasa-labratonahighfatdietanditwillbethefatwhichisthe-
causeofallofyoursuffering"

Decision Maker, "But I'm already on a high fat diet! I live on not much else every winter and the few leaves we get in the summer give me the gripes. Why do I need to eat her white powder to be on a high fat diet?"

Shaman, "Buggered if I know. Want to humour her? It might be like the Special K that last Terminator brought. Cracking trip, if you're a shaman"

Decision Maker, "I'm no shaman, I might get lost on a trip like that and never find my way back to reality, your call"

The shaman licks his finger, dips it in the powder, touches it to his tongue. The grimace and spitting are extreme. "Dextrose mono bloody hydrate! You lend me your spear mate, I was right about the angel of death!"

The shaman promptly saves mankind from hyperglycaemia for another 10,000 years, minimum. But not for ever. The next Terminator will drop in to Egypt, about 12,000 years later. The ground will be more fertile and whole grains will sow death far more successfully in the now warmer climate. No need for the white powder.

End of fiction. Now you can go read the abstract of the paper cited by Bix here if you feel like it, but please try to apply a little more comprehension than she does. Not difficult.

Peter

29 comments:

ItsTheWooo said...

Lulz were had. Brilliant!

JohnN said...

"... the new time machine transports clothes as well as Terminators. And a crucial bag of white powder."
Ahh, you changed the most crucial part of the plot. I would not have watched T3 if you wrote the script.

Seriously, the most unfortunate part about Cordain, his research on paleolithic diet and, of course, his ignorance of SFA's importance in such diet is how widely quoted his works are. A true physiologist/anthropologist like Jared Diamond would not reach the same conclusion on the same subject.

donny said...

In the FAQ's on Cordain's Paleodiet site, he has a graph of caribou body fat percentages by month. He points out that for seven months of the year, saturated fat makes up eleven percent of the edible calories of the carcass. I just tried adding up the saturated fat percents from the same chart, using the seven fattest months instead of the seven leanest months, and that gave me 22.7 percent saturated fat.
He then goes on to say that eleven percent saturated fat is remarkably close to the ten percent that the AHA recommends, okay, direct quote:

"the American Heart Association recommends that our dietary saturated fat intake should be 10% of our total daily calories--a value remarkably close to what hunter-gatherers could have obtained from eating wild animals on a year round basis!"

But the caribou he uses as his example don't cooperate with this, either; averaging out the twelve months saturated portion of body fat, and you get 17.5 percent right on the dot.

In Farley Mowat's People of the Deer, the biggest caribou hunting opportunity came in the fall, when the caribou migrated south. They didn't chase the herd around, they just knew where the caribou would be when they were at their fattest.

Brad Reid said...

Peter/All,

"leaves give me the gripes..." Hmm?

Is it possible that the bit of leafy material ingested all those years ago was meant to be an irritant to the intestines?

For some people, it is more than a digestive irritant and they suffer dibilating effects from it; for others, the body wants to dispose of it quickly and move it on through and pass it.

One often sees a sick dog eat a bit of green grass, then I guess the ones I have seen do this throw up shortly thereafter; but, did humans develop in a similar manner and use a bit of occasional high fiber carbs as almost a mechanical trigger to hasten elimination?

Brad

Drs. Cynthia and David said...

Nice narrative! Your scenario where the meat is harvested in peak condition and stored frozen over the winter would work in the ice age, but not during more temperate times. But then there's salting and drying and smoking other times of the year. These are certainly not new technologies and may well have been used by HGs. I generally agree that Cordain's treatment of saturated fats as villainous seems kind of comical.

I checked out the Fanatic Cook blog. The way she shut down one of the commenters who disagreed with her reminded me of why I don't bother to read her blog. Despite your dark ironies, at least you make a genuine attempt to understand the science, and it is much appreciated. (And entertaining! Maybe you should write some fiction).

Thanks again.
Cynthia

Drs. Cynthia and David said...

Another thing to consider is that the cell membrane fats are relatively saturated in warm conditions and relatively unsaturated in cold conditions (to maintain optimal cell membrane fluidity at ambient temperatures). I don't know this for a fact, but presumably fats stored as triglycerides would also be maintained at an optimal amount of saturation/unsaturation for the temperatures encountered by the animal. Palmitic acid (16:0) "melts" (i.e., exhibits increased motion and less rigidity in the acyl chains) around body temperature, but below that does not. Stearic acid (18:0) is even higher (~42C if memory serves). So at least for subcutaneous fat stores, which will not be maintained at body temperature since they are at the surface of the body, there will likely be a significant amount of unsaturated fats included, especially in cold conditions. Just speculating. Have you seen any such data?

Cynthia

IFWC said...

Folks,

I just had a cholesterol test and have been told my cholesterol and and LDL are elevated but my protective HDL cholesterol is high as well. My C-Reactive Protein (CRP) test shows 0.86 which means low cardiovascular disease risk. I'm a male in my upper 20s who's been following a high fat low carb diet for a few months now.

I've been told to lower my cholesterol by lowering fats I eat and have to get re-tested in a few months. Any advice is appreciated.

Here are my numbers:

LDL (Direct measure) 261 ml/dL

Lipid panel
Hours fasting 12
Triglycerides 119 mg/dL
Cholesterol 385 mg/dL
HDL 87 mg/dL
Chol/HDL ratio 4.4
LDL (Calc.) 274

CRP 0.86

Anna said...

ifwc

Did you get the LDL tested for numbers of small and large particles? Lots of small, desne particles are a worry for CVD, lots of large, fluffy particles are not. Number and type of particles is what you need to know. Read Dr. Davis's Heat Scan Blog.

My numbers are lower than yours, but the total and LDL numbers are higher than recommended and follow a similar pattern to yours (though my ratio is lower) and I think I have good reason NOT to be concerned about it.

The only thing that would worry me about cholesterol is a) not having enough of it (low total cholesterol has some negative associations, such cancer and dementia, but one hears little about that in the conventional advice), and b) having too many small, dense LDL particles (they result from a high grain/sugar diet).

Bryan - oz4caster said...

LOL! Great post Peter!

And what about the Eskimo culture? How much saturated fat did they eat? And Polynesians eating pig and coconut? It's a wonder they ever survived :)

And more recently Italians eating lots of butter and cream with that pasta. And all the eggs, cream, and butter that the French eat. Certainly this must be very unhealthy - these people are doomed :)

And I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had quite a few comments disappear in the black hole at a certain fanatic blogspot :)

ifwc, be sure to keep the polyunsaturated fat to 4% of total calories or less with that low-carb diet and you should be fine.

Dr. B G said...

Egypt...I'd like a sequel!!

-G

Dr. B G said...

My mom used to make my sisters and I suck the marrow out of all the bones -- pork, chicken, beef, etc.

Can one buy marrow (range-fed, hormone-free)?? Thanks!

-G

Thackray said...

dr. b g

Grass fed beef shank bones here:

http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/

See Jennifer McLagan’s cookbooks “Bones”, “Fat” (Peter – have you seen this one?) and “Cooking on the bone” along with Fergus Henderson’s cookbook “The Whole Beast”. Amazon has them all.

Only a few bones have the edible marrow you seek. The preferred bone is the beef shank bone which connects the elbow to the knee (front leg). I have my butcher cut several beef shank roasts two inches thick. The meat is good for soups or stews and the bones can be roasted for the marrow.

Fergus Henderson prefers calf shanks.

Philip Thackray

Brad Reid said...

I have had good luck ordering grass-fed beef and products from here:

http://www.grasslandbeef.com/Categories.bok?category=Beef+Variety+Meats%3AMarrow+Bones

This particular URL aims at the marrow offerings.

Note, too, that they sell tubs of grass-fed beef tallow, organ meats including hearts, etc.

If you order before a certain deadline on Monday, I think it ships the same or next day. My orders have come in styrofoam cases, frozen with ice packs.

I have no commercial ties at all... just passing along a source.

Brad

Anna said...

Oh, Fergus Henderson's Roasted Marrow with Parsley Salad....lovely. I've had it at his restaurant and made it at home twice (I have his cookbook). As kid I thought marrow was gross, but now, wow. The only thing is, marrow is usually smeared on toast, which creates a problem for us "no-bread" folks. So I haven't made marrow in a while. It is nicer as a spread than straight. Anyone have any suggestions?

I think the Victorians had special tools for extracting marrow from the long bones. I have to get the bones cut short to make removal easier. I made braised lamb shanks the other night and we had to hunt through the cooking tool drawer to find a slender enough tool for my husband to get all the marrow in the bone in his portion. But those bones make the most wonderful sauces, rich and gelatinous. I still have leftover sauce, which will probably become soup base for tonight's dinner.

Peter said...

G, I'm not sure about a sequel, I might have offended Johnn's sensibilities with my butchery of the plotline too much already....

Hehe, didn't realise that the link-back feature would direct people from Bix's blog to here. Followers might not be too comfortable!

Thanks for the titles Philip, already had the heads up from Dave on Fat, the others look Christmasish too. I keep musing about grain free Haggis!

Brad, re the vomiting dogs (and cats). I nowadays assume they all have low grade IBD/reflux/IBS or more generic gut rot from eating grain derived carbs. They're carnivores! The "leaves give me gripes" was just a dig at Healthy Eating.

Cynthia, I've seen this graduation from equator to pole of saturation discussed, I believe Taubes mentions it but it was in one of the most speculative areas of his book, as I recall. No hard data on it...

Hi IFWC,

The numbers look pretty typical of someone in the early stages of high fat eating. I believe Drs Eades and Davis have blogged on transiently elevated trigs during transition, yours are still in the normal range and your HDL looks like you are eating high fat, as does your LDL, which is good. Your HDL makes me humbled, down at 56mg/dl. The CRP is very cool.

Lowering your fat intake is a great way to increase small dense LDL, oxidised LDL and lipoprotein (a). Your doctor is touting for business (but he probably doesn't realise and is probably a nice guy, with your well being at heart, he just doesn't know)... But what should you do, ah, there's a question. Me, I'm reading Dr BG's blog and making sure I get an absolute minimum of six egg yolks a day plus as much long chain saturated fats as I can! Our LDLs are comparable.

Peter

Dr. B G said...

EGG YOLKS!! LUV EM!!

Thackray, Brad -- Thanks for the sources!! Soon, I think my cat is going to be eating better than me!!

Anna -- MMMMhhhhmmmm... that sounds lovely! Maybe on rice toast?? Probably not the same... It's like pate -- hard to enjoy alone w/o something carby-crunchy. Aspic!! My mom used to make that too! Soooo goood!! OMG -- I'd be so grateful if you stole our paleo cafe idea *wink*. My sister and I would consider moving back down to San Diego, and stop cooking/baking and patronize your place everyday!

-G

JohnN said...

Peter,
You should have another go at the script. Yup, T2 should teach Cleopatra how to bake bread. For a nice trilogy T3 can go back to the 1960' to first kill and then impersonate Ancel Keys; this would explain a lot.
On second thought, maybe we both should keep our day job.
John

Dr. B G said...

T3 -- trilogy!!! O-M-G !!!

JohnN -- you're too good... !!Trillions of death and disability from CAD, cancer, autism and neuropsych conditions would be averted. And humans would stop their downward de-evolutionary spiral. (and the apes don't take over...hey another movie?)

Peter said...

"Trillions of death and disability from CAD, cancer, autism and neuropsych conditions would be averted"

You talkin' about statins here????????

There has to be a script in there somewhere. Ah well, back to the day job cuttin' and stitchin' tomorrow....

Dr. B G said...

Wasn't referring to the widespread mitochondrial annihilation (THANXXX AGAIN John N!), heart failure, and cancers by statins yet -- just Ancel Key's low fat/chol damage to recent human generations...

Both could thicken many plots!

IFWC said...

Thanks for the cholesterol comments. I will continue high fat but also keep an eye on my polyunsaturated fat intake. I will also try for my next test to get the sizes of the particles measured. And also explain some of these ideas to my doctor even though he'll probably be baffled by high fat diets.

A second and third question please, and I thank any responses

- What are all of your main food stuffs that you eat on a daily basis?

- What works as a long term fat storage, for example in cans?

emil henry said...

ifwc: another survivalist, eh?

Ghee (clarified butter) is obvious, and will keep for at least 1 year un-refridgerated. Shredded coconut is most excellent, even for feeding chickens. Eggs can be stored for quite some time in a root cellar, or, for even more long term: sodium silicitate ("water glass"). The Chinese store eggs in a brine of tea, salt, lime, ashes, and/or clay. Lard or beef drippings, properly rendered, should keep very long. Also, keep some carbohydrate medium, like white rice or potatoes, which are really cheap.

As for regular foodstuffs: eggs (usually sunny-side up; I eat the almost raw yolk using a spoon), chocolate (85 % cocoa solids; looking for pure cocoa mass), heavy cream (38 % butterfat, often mixed with coffee and dextrose), lots of butter (or ghee), and maybe chai (tea) to make po cha (butter tea, an excellent medium for extra calories!). I tend to eat a lot of Optimal ice cream (see Peter's recipe; I add gelatin as well, for texture, as I lack an ice cream machine).

Meat is usually pollock ($2.27 per lbs), or New Zealand ground lamb. Usually curried in cream/yoghurt and tandori masala spices. Liver, usually chicken (I get arthritis from eating pig) about once or twice every two weeks. No bacon.

My scheme is usually 4-5 eggs, 125-150 grams of meat, 100 grams of butter, 2/3 cup heavy cream, 250 grams of potato. Some fatty cheese sneaks in as well, replacing part of the meat and the cream.

I do well on 160 dollars a month, which is good, as prices here are high (1 gallon of gas = $7.7). Under scarce circumstances, I can live on $80/month, with slightly elevated carbs (80 g/daily).

Anna said...

ifwc,

I like to cook and crave variety, especially with produce and spice flavors. I include influences from all sorts of traditional cuisines. Our diet has a lot of variety in ingredients, but the overall meat & non-starchy veggies pattern is pretty standard: meat/poultry/fish/eggs with non-starchy veggies and generous fats. Occasional slightly higher carb veggies include winter squashes, sweet potatoes, super sweet onions. Legumes are included now and then, but usually as a component, like a small amount of beans in a meat-based chili or as an ingredient in a salad, not as a main source of protein. I also use quinoa now and then in small quantities (a handful), to "thicken up" a watery stew. I substitute for starchy foods like mashed potatoes with mashed or pureed cauliflower or turnips.

Breakfast, is nearly always 2-3 eggs, cooked at low heat (covered) sunny side up in 2+ TBL butter, just enough to set whites but leave yolks soft. I use a smooth French carbon steel pan for eggs now. On weekends I might make bacon/sausage and coconut flour pancakes or low sugar coconut flour coffee cake (coconut flour recipes have a lot of eggs, too).

Lunch varies a lot, sometimes I skip it if breakfast was later or bigger, or I have leftovers from previous night's dinner. Depends on what's in the fridge, sometimes a salad with some protein (leftover meat). Otherwise, I might snack on a cold plate of things I almost always have on hand: cheddar or other cheese, a piece of fruit, nuts, and/or salami, prosciutto, etc.

I also often make a smoothie for my son after school and I might share that with him if I skipped lunch. Common smoothie ingredients I might include are: ripe banana (or any fruit is past the point that my son will consume), a whole peeled orange, frozen or fresh berries, whole milk yogurt, raw milk and/or cream, coconut spread and/or coconut milk and/or coconut oil, egg yolk, and sometimes a touch of honey or maple syrup (I sweeten if my son's friends are here, they are used to sweeter smoothies than I usually make).

Dinner: some kind of animal protein, very often inexpensive "old fashioned" bone-in cuts slow cooked in a homemade broth/sauce (shanks, osso buco), baked chicken legs, pork roast, or a whole roast or simmered chicken, etc., soup or stew from leftovers (I often make extra meat for "planned-over" variations), or fast-cooking meats like grilled steak, tri-tip roast, bison burgers, ground meat skillet dishes (I bought a half bison this year so the stand-alone freezer is well stocked). I almost always prepare chicken whole or in legs, not as boneless chicken breasts. I'm dabbling with offal such as liver, kidney, heart & tongue. Now and then I "clean out the fridge" and make an easy quick frittata (crustless quiche) with leftover veggies, cheese, and/or leftover meat/fish (also great leftover for breakfast/lunch). Frittata is also somthing I can make ahead of time and serve room temp or chilled, which is great if I don't know what time we will eat or my husband is home after dinnertime.

Now and then we will have fish, though I have a harder time sourcing the fish I want (essentially no local fishing industry anymore in SD). Usually I buy wild caught Alaskan salmon, and grill, bake, or pan fry it or I use canned (skin & bones included), made into salmon patties or salmon loaf (no bread crumbs).

If I am "taking it easy" I might make a Salad Niçoise, with canned fish, lettuce, hard-boiled eggs, steamed green beans, pickles, mustard vinaigrette, etc. (no potatoes). Or a salad with sliced, sauteed, grilled, or roasted sausage on top. My "easy" fast meals are often a big complex salad with meat/fish protein on top or salad with egg fritatta.

Dinner always includes a tossed salad of sorts, sometimes very simple, but often complex with various lettuces and cut veggies, crumbled cheese, nuts, and/or fruit (with homemade salad dressing) or other raw "finger" veggies, and usually at least one other side veggie dish, but often two or even three. Cooked veggies (steamed, roasted, sometimes pureed) often are topped with butter and/or grated parmesan cheese. We get a CSA box of produce from a farm, so our produce tends to be seasonal and local and quite varied.

Fats I include pretty generously, either by not trimming off meat or adding butter and/or cream or coconut milk. I tend to sautee and brown meats now with my home-rendered pork "leaf" lard (from the kidney area - frozen in jars for storage, one jar in use stored in fridge), but I also stock organic grassfed ghee, EV coconut oil, palm shortening (for greasing baking pans, the grill, and my carbon steel pans) and red palm oil (still learning to use this) in a cupboard, a small amount of home rendered chicken fat and and strained bacon drippings in the fridge. Oils are EV olive oil, and refined OO (for mayonnaise making), plus sometimes some nut oils for salad dressings (nut oils go in the fridge). I rarely cook with EVOO anymore unless the heat is low, or I combine it with a heat tolerant fat. EVOO is more for uncooked or already cooked use.

We use a *lot* of organic butter, both conventional stick form, and tubs of raw organic butter (I store the raw in the freezer and put out a few day's worth in a container on the counter). We also go through a lot of heavy cream (several pints a week).

Desserts: not every night. Often simply a bit of very dark chocolate (70-88%). Sometimes I make ice cream with lots of cream, small amount of sugar, and eggs (raw). I also bake custard fairly frequently for dessert, breakfast, & afterschool snacks for my son. Less often I make low sugar cheesecake with nut crust, sometimes with homemade ricotta cheese (otherwise with commercial ricotta or full fat cream cheese). My son really likes frozen berries stirred with heavy cream, which creates an icy fruit bowl. But plain fruit slices with a dusting of cinnamon and dousing with cream is good, too.

By the way, my 10 yo son is 50% percentile in weight for height (about 60-70% percentile in height for his age), despite all the fat he eats. And while he eats more carbs than we do (sprouted 7 grain bread several times a week primarily (stored in the freezer to retain freshness), plus whatever junk food his friends share with him away from home), his carb and grain intake is far lower than his peers. He hasn't had any cavities yet (despite what I consider really slack dental hygiene habits - so he gets three hygienist cleanings a year and I stopped fluoride toothpaste and treatments a few years ago). He has has *plenty* of energy for play, skateboarding, and soccer.

I bake low sugar coconut butter cookies and other things now and then from LC coconut flour (lots of eggs). For special occasions, I make dark chocolate truffles - heavy cream, butter, and 55-58% chocolate, rolled in cocoa or chopped nuts.

We also go through a lot of soaked & dried nuts. I also like to garnish foods with creme fraiche (commercial or home-cultured), homemade sauerkraut, sprinkles of dried kelp instead of parsley, sea salt flakes, grated parmesan, home-made mustard & mayo (or sauces made with them), etc. Now and then I get into a "sprouting routine" when I sprout seeds and add them to salads, etc.

Some of this might seem a bit strange, but usually, unless I say something, no one sitting at my table would necessarily know I make many of my ingredients from scratch (lard, sauerkraut, mustard, mayo-based sauces & dressings, etc.). But people do comment on how full my fridge is (the two produce drawers are very inadequate on my CSA box pickup day) and how empty my cupboards are of boxed, canned, and bottled non-perishables like cereal, crackers, pasta, rice, and mixes. In the kitchen cupboards I mostly store the cookware, tools, dishes, and appliances I use frequently, plus various teas, dried herb & spices, and shelf-stable fats, and a few baking ingredients. I store flours and nut meals in the freezer.

LPrice said...

some of you may find this useful

http://www.eatwild.com/products/index.html

Anna said...

www.localharvest.org is a good resource, too (in the US). I sponsored my son's recreational soccer team and got Local Harvest's permission to print their URL on the back of the team jerseys. Always looking for a way to promote real, local, seasonal food ;-)

Roger said...

Hi Anna

Can I ask how you make mayo with saturated fat?

Thanks

Roger

Anna said...

Roger,

I sometimes make "baconnaise" with bacon fat instead of the olive oil I usually use, warmed just enough to liquify it. The leftover mayonnaise does become quite stiff after refrigeration, so I let it sit out at room temperature for a few minutes to soften.

I prepare bacon slowly in the oven on a rack & sheet pan instead of frying it in a pan (usually about 250°F for 30-50 minutes). That way the meaty and fatty parts of the bacon cook very evenly and remain flat. The clear liquid fat is easy to strain off without a lot of brown maillard bits, too.

Hollandaise sauce is another good saturated fat sauce (quite similar to mayonnaise, actually, but made with butter and served while still warm).

A hand held "stick" blender (of sufficient power) is excellent for quickly and easily making mayonnaise and hollandaise sauce (& creamy salad dressings). Blenders are also goo, but more bother. A whisk is quiet, but a good arm, coordination, and some patience are required. I opt for the hand held blender most of the of time. Done in 5 minutes or less, including hunting for an ingredient. I make a fresh half pint or pint of regular mayonnaise nearly every week, sometimes more often.

Roger said...

Anna, the thought of baconaisse has got me salivating - thanks :)

Anna said...

Roger, it's great with egg salad ;-). I first saw the idea in Jennifer McLaren's excellent book Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, but there are variations on the theme all over the internet. Enjoy!