Saturday, February 09, 2008

What do I eat (2) recipes

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had some typical recipes on my hard drive, well here they are. I've tidied them up a bit and put a rough analysis on the end of each one. Salt and pepper can be added as preferred, It strikes me that none of them are special, this is just the sort of meals I've always cooked, but now we eat the meat portion, often with enough veg to keep carb intake reasonable and no bulk carbs. Obviously anyone needing bulk calories can simply add more butter to any recipe. Muscle building might need a little extra protein. You can improve the flavour by browning the onions and meat first if you like. I also cook a fair few Ken Hom wok recipes too, replace conservative vegetable oil with bulk butter or coconut oil and be careful to keep the fat...


So here are some typical main meal recipes. Some we eat with a vegetable, some not. Depends on the rest of the day...

Bolognese sauce.

1 lb 21% fat beef.
1 rasher bacon, chopped.
1 small can Sainsbury's chopped black olives (about 0.5 cupful), drained.
Butter 50g
Olive oil 1 tablespoon (20ml)
Tin tomatoes.
1 medium onion chopped.
1 sweet green pepper de seeded and chopped.
30 ml Pesto sauce (olive oil, not sunflower based).
2 cloves garlic crushed.
Splash red wine.

Place all ingredients in a saucepan, boil, stir, simmer for an hour, reduce to a thick sauce. Cheddar or parmesan grated on top to serve. You need a spoon for the fat.

This probably serves three. Eating half is a challenge. More than half is a fat overload. I've tried, don't go there.

Total estimated food in the pan: 2300kcal, Fat 193g, carbs 38g, protein 99g.



African beef stew, serves 2, maybe 3...

1 lb diced beef
Tin tomatoes.
Medium carrot, sliced.
Medium onion, chopped.
50-75g butter, depends on how fatty the meat is.
50g peanut butter.
Bayleaf.
About 200ml water, to just cover meat.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Fresh root ginger, however much you like.
3 cloves garlic, crushed
Pinch Cayenne pepper
Pinch ground cloves
Tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice.

Place all ingredients in a casserole, bring to boil, stir well, cover, place in oven at gas mark four for 2-3 hours until meat melts in the mouth. Stir every half hour.

Can be cooked very slowly on top of the cooker.

Total estimated casserole: 1600-2000kcal (extra butter), fat >125g, carbs 33g, protein 100g



Goulash. Serves 2.

1 lb diced pork or beef.
medium onion, chopped
sweet red pepper, deseeded and chopped.
Butter 70g
Tin tomatoes.
Full packet (20g?) paprika.
5fl oz soured cream.

Place all ingredients except soured cream in a casserole. Bring to boil, stir well, place in oven around gas mark 4 for 2-3 hours until meat melts in the mouth. Just before serving add soured cream.

Total in casserole 2100kcal, fat 170g, carbs 35g, protein 100g




Chili Mix - serves 2

450g economy mince. Can use pork mince.
1 medium onion, chopped.
1 red pepper, de seeded and chopped.
2 cloves of garlic, crushed.
400g tin tomatoes.
Splash red wine.
50g butter, more if your economy beef is now reduced fat.
1 fresh red chili pepper, finely chopped or 1/2 teaspoon chili powder or both.
1 tablespoon ground cumin
cayenne pepper to taste (not essential)

Preparation:
Prepare ingredients and place all in saucepan. Bring to boil, simmer for 40 mintues, stirring occasionally. Reduce to a thick sauce. Serve with grated cheese on top.

Very aprox per casserole : 1600kcal, 130g fat, 30g carbs, 90g protein

Any cook book will provide a host of recipes. Nourishing Traditions is good too, I just avoid grains and increase fat.

Oh, never forget the ice cream!

Six egg yolks, 1 pint double cream, 20g glucose (can use sucrose), 10g honey, capful of vanilla extract. Blend and freeze.

Enjoy.

Peter

12 comments:

Unknown said...

thought you might like this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/health/07diabetes.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

titled "diabetes study partially halted after deaths"
would like to see you "fisk" this.
if you cant access it from abroad i can send you the whole article.
liza

Peter said...

Hi liza,

Thanks for the link, it works fine. Yes, this one has been all over the net recently and I don't really feel I can improve on either Dr Eades or Regina Wilshire's interpretations. If you're going to feed people on a diet which is essentially 70% sugar then drug their blood glucose levels in to a faint semblance of normality they'll die of drug associated problems. Once you start mixing a statin with clofibrate with pioglitazone with insulin you would expect an excess of cardiac deaths. If nothing else, these people will have had deliberately induced LDL cholesterol deficiency. Their reduced blood glucose is probably the only thing in their favour, which fails to do adequate good in the face of the pharmaceutical input likely to have been used to achieve it, and the cholesterol tinkering which will normally accompany it. Still a very interesting view in to the minds of the researchers.

Peter

Anonymous said...

That was interesting. My first thought was "how did they lower blood sugar?" ...and kept waiting to see how intermittent fasting could have killed them...

Peter, a question for you...

I have over the last 8-9 months done wonders for myself in lowering my blood pressure, adding lean mass, and losing a lot of fat (20+ lbs, so far) through brief, intense, infrequent workouts, paleo diet (now more fat, less carbs), and intermittent fasting.

The intermittent fasting was the real big piece of the puzzle, because it radically altered my appetite and I found myself essentially only wanting to eat meat, animal fat, and minimal veggies or fruit.

The changes have been so radical so quick, that people around me are beginning to notice. Some of them have mild type 2 diabetes. Is there anything around that addresses potential health concerns in using intermittent fasting (say, 2- 24-30 hour fasts per week) to control or reverse type II? Offhand, it seems intuitive that one would want to go off or reduce the insulin supplementation while fasting.

Thanks for any info you can point out.

Peter said...

Hi Richard,

I've never personally really used IF as a technique to break insulin resistance. Probably the best bet is to look here on Dr Bernstein's forum where there is an 18 page thread by diabetics who are actually doing this.

With Metformin (glucophage) there is no problem, a person won't hypo on this drug. Obviously sulpha drugs and insulin are a different matter. If anyone is using basal insulin at genuine basal levels it shouldn't need to stop, but meal covering doses would obviously have to stop. It seems very complex if people are using insulin badly or sulpha drugs at all. Bernstein's site is the place to go, and his book is the diabetes bible.

I don't think many diabetic people actually use Dr Bernstein's techniques and it is very problematic to see how the standard ADA disaster protocol could be adapted to intermittent fasting...

Peter

Manda said...

hi peter,

do you mind if i ask if your wife ate LC during her pregnancy? did she eat like you do or did she find she needed more protein and/or carbs? did she happen to drink a lot of milk? i have heard it's important to drink at least a quart of whole milk, but i wonder if that was substituted with mostly cream if it would be okay or even better.

there is also the emphasis for pregnant women on getting dark green and bright colored veg like peppers--any opinion as to whether this is a necessity especially if one is doing LC?

also, any opinion on true fermented veg like sauerkraut? i happen to love the stuff!

thank you!
amanda

Peter said...

Hi amanda,

She ate around 100g/d carbs during pregnancy. She also always eats more protein than I do anyway so we had no concern on that front. No problems with pre eclampsia, I think she did get her blood pressure up to about 105/65, which is higher than her normal value (95/45!!!). She did have problems with hyperemesis so we had her on a multivitamin, she doesn't like offal much and eating "tubes" when you feel sick was not appealing. She just ate normal background green veggies, we grow spinach and kale in the garden. Folate comes from liver in very high amounts (if she could have faced eating it). The other big plus on liver is that women are advised by the NHS to avoid too much of it during pregnancy, so it can't be all bad!

Milk was just in tea, cream was everywhere.

I like sauekraut too, don't ever seem to get round to making it nowadays though, more's the pity.

Anonymous said...

95/45 BP is way too low IMO. I have been as low as 93/62 to 94/63, with high-intensity exercise and lots of saturated fat. I don't think any Dr (low-carb or otherwise) would claim that below 90/60 BP was safe, under any condition. 105/65 is normal, if she's doing high-intensity exercise perhaps. Otherwise, it may indicate sluggish thyroid or other problems. I've always heard that 90/60 is the lower limit for OK blood pressure.

Peter said...

Hi Bruce,

That's the number. She's always had a low BP and heart rate too. Back in high carb days she could count a heart rate of 40 during a double poultry feeding lecture. There are a number of markers for thyroid deficiency which are notably absent from her metabolism, it's unlikely with a normal bodyweight, excellent exercise tolerance (aerobic and pilates), normal GI function, good cold tolerance and normal (by Cordain's standards) total cholesterol. My own BP is usually 110-115/70mmHg but when I was seriously exercising late last summer it dropped to high 90s over 60.

I think there is way too little information about long term LC eating to say, at this stage, what is normal and what is not in terms of BP. This particularly applies to people such as my wife and I who are LC from choice or as an extension of gluten avoidance, rather than using LC as a treatment for fully established metabolic syndrome, where hypertension is your "normal" starting point...

Peter

Anonymous said...

Peter: I have never seen a low-carb advocate say that below 90/60 BP is normal/healthy. Do you know whether any hunter gatherers had low levels like that? Maybe there's nothing to worry about, but I'd like to see an article by a low-carb proponent who says that such a level is normal. I think there is a tendency to ignore problems and say, "Oh, I don't have to worry, because I eat low-carb or whatever." Maybe, maybe not, IMO.

merryweather said...

So how many carbs do you and your wife eat per day to avoid ketosis?

My personal range is 70-120g per day.

amanda

Peter said...

Hi Amanda,

Hard to say and I don't always succeed! I generally eat in a way that used to give about 50g/d and this is probably enough to keep me out of deep ketosis unless I climb a mountain...

Peter

merryweather said...

Thanks for the info!

amanda