Here is a wonderful story about Drew Carey and his dramatic weight loss (80 lbs since January!) eating a low-carbohydrate diet. He was diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes, which prompted him to go on the diet.

The issue I take with the post though is these lines:

He used to have type II diabetes but no longer. “I’m not diabetic anymore. No medication needed,”

To Huffington, and Drew – You can’t “cure” diabetes by eating low carb.

It is not a matter of opinion. The pancreas does not heal itself, and Diabetes has no cure. I have an A1C of 6.1% – almost the same as a normal person that is not Diabetic.

I have a great healthy lifestyle, and I exercise. Does that mean I have no Diabetes? NO! If Drew decided to have a few slices of chocolate cake, his blood sugar will spike just like any other Diabetic.

Tight control is NOT a cure. Diabetes is a chronic health condition, with NO cure. It is degenerative – with time, he will more than likely need medication, and/or insulin as well. Tight control is designed to preserve the beta cell function.

That Diabetes can be cured is a huge scam by people who want to sell you their “remedy”. There is no science that indicates the “cure”, just evidence that you can keep your numbers in check. I challenge Drew to drink a full glass of orange juice, then we will see if he is truly cured.

Congratulations on keeping those numbers in normal ranges, but Drew Carey, please remember that you are a Diabetic. For your health.

A friend writes:

I’ll drive an electric car if it means my child can grow up in a world breathing clean air! Clothing can be made from hemp, plant fibres and animal hide from the meat we eat…time for us all to sacrifice a little to give back some of what Earth has given us. Stop spending money on space exploration, destroying one planet is enough. Let’s fix on our existing planet, and saving our existing resources.

This is a response:

Course, if you wanted to be a true tree-hugger, you know you’d have to stop eating meat of all sorts too, right? Especially pork and beef (but everything else, too…) Cause meat – production and consumption is bad for the environment too, according to vegan theory. (Seriously, most vegans believe the mere consumption of beef pollutes the environment)

I do love the world … don’t get me wrong…But I also learned years ago that there isn’t much that I personally can do to make any real difference. Only the extremely wealthy can afford hybrids or electric vehicles, big cities, which is where the worst pollution comes from, will continue to get -bigger- and not smaller, and about the only way that the biggest steps toward progress can be made, is by literally sacrificing the poor parts of the earth’s population.

I love the vegan theory myself. I never have gotten the straight answer though for this question:

If meat and saturated fats sate you so you do not eat as much, do you realize you need to triple or even quadruple your consumption of vegetables, fruit AND carbohydrates to make up the difference?

Then you need to raze forests to plant all that wheat, veggies, and fruits. You need to pollute to produce the supplies for the inevitable diabetes plague that will hit the world by this method of eating.

Electric cars, etc: Remember that the energy has to come from somewhere. One could argue that “clean” energy such as hydro is not clean at all. Ask a native who lost their land to supply energy needs for countries. Perhaps wind mills might do, if you don’t mind shit loads of windmills (and the dangers of losing your head.)

I think the answer is consume less. You can do it right from your home. Consume stuff that is in your area as much as possible, or that has a least amount of impact. Eat local, sustainable, or better yet, grow your own if you can. Stop eating cucumbers that are not pickled in January. Those little bits will help more than ever.

Finally, lay off the grains! Might not be popular, but think on this. It takes a shitload of land to grow corn to use for sweeteners. (You know, in those pops we all like to drink.) That land is not used for any other value.

Now, to focus on showing you all how.

Perhaps the crafty spam comments come from the spam mobile?

I love getting comments. I love to read them. I also like to interact.

I even get a chuckle out of the spammy comments. For those of you who blog, you might recognise some. There are also those craft ones that try to get you to hit the submit button so they can get a foot hold into your domain and sell millions of shitty widgets.

Here are a two crafty spam comments, with my responses:

job at home writes:

I like design of your website What is the name of template ?

Oh, I would like to help you on that, I really would. Can you fix your punctuation in those sentences though? You can’t end a sentance and start another just by capitilizing the word.

For your problem on what my template is called, there is just one solution – you can solve the problem yourself by looking at the footer down there. It says plainly what template I am using.

bingo uk writes:

Interesting post i totally agree with the other comments. Keep us posting

Well, I would if I could. See, I have no control over how often you post, or whether you can use a comment to separate your thoughts. Perhaps you mean for me to keep us posted?

Do you get rediculous crafty spam? I would love to hear about it in the comments.

image courtesy of Mulad of Flickr under CC by Attribution 2.0

I received an interesting comment today from a ms_ash_henderson:

you took what they wrote in the study and then generalized that all grains are bad. Basically the study said that high blood sugar levels are bad (which, btw someone with undiagnosed diabetes would have pretty much no matter what they eat, as by definition they lack insulin to take the sugar from their blood and into their muscles, so it would build up). Whole grains are encased in fiber which causes them to break down slowly, thus not causing a spike in blood sugar. Encouraging people to eat animal fat, which will most definitely clog your arteries is a bad recommendation. I notice that you are not an RD or MD, so perhaps you should abstain from giving nutritional advice – as you are clearly not qualified – and stick to showing people how to cook.

Interesting comment. It was in regards to a post I did on a cool Primal Breakfast.

First, doctors – MD’s know little about nutrition. They are there to treat symptoms. In fact, if they need information for a patient for nutritional purposes, they send them to a dietitian.
I just had a dietitian tell me a couple weeks back that I had to eat more grains, so my insulin would not affect me as much. Sure. So I will eat more grains, which will make me even more insulin resistant, so I need to take more, then crash and burn.
Honestly, you are right, I do not have an MD or a RD by my name. I do have diabetes though. I know how grains affect me. My meter can attest to that.

I can read though. I read a lot. I have done a LOT of reading regarding food.
Whole grains are encased in fiber, which delay the breakdown into glucose. They do break down though, only after a longer time. That does not matter in the end, because even though it happens at a later time, you will still have a blood sugar hike, just not immediately. That is why the GI is flawed for a diabetic, a lot of that list that is “good” for you will spike you after 4 hours. Don’t believe me? Test 3 to 4 hours after eating pasta and you will see what I mean.
Diabetics that are undiagnosed have blood sugars that are out of control, exacerbated by fructose. Believe me, protein does not spike me. I know this because my blood glucose meter tells me, not some doctor or a “RD”.
Finally, since you seem to like challenge, put your money where your mouth is. I am not a doctor, but Dr. Bernstein is. He is also a type 1 diabetic that dropped everything he was doing, and went into the medical field to challenge the standard diet for diabetics. Read his book “The Diabetes Solution” for real data from someone who is infinitely more qualified than I am. (Link goes to my Amazon Store)
If that is not enough for you, try Gary Taube’s book “Good Calories Bad Calories“. IT will challenge the fool notion that saturated fats are so bad for you. (Link goes to my Amazon Store)
Finally, it is my blog. Thanks for your suggestion to stick to what I know. I hope you understand that I will not follow it though – I am better because I push myself every day.

Perhaps you need to get out of your comfort zone, to learn more about what you are eating, and how it affects you.

A name is a funny thing. Well Done Chef.

Imagine my surprise, after tracking my stats for a couple of months, that the most popular piece that I have wrote on this site has to do with a rant against Gordon Ramsey and his stance on how a steak was cooked?

I still get about 60 hits  a day on that post, which is pretty surprising. (Notice I did not specify HOW it was, as I do not want to skew SEO results towards that.)

Controversy creates news, but that is a post that I would not like to be assosicated with any more. You see, this site focuses on getting you behind the stove, cooking with nature and love, not on how some rock star chef likes his stupid steak. Or how it is wrong to order it, or how to cook a steak like that.

Don’t mistake me, I think Gordon Ramsey is the shit. He deserves to be up there, as high as he is. He had his share of troubles, but that is what one gets when they are up on a pedestal. People love to knock you down.

I am removing the post because the whole point of the day was – it does not matter how a person orders a steak. They paid for it. I don’t have to agree with it, but I do have to cook it.

Gordon made the same point in the video, but got caught up in the moment, and rightly took off. There was not an intelligent conversation to be had there. Continuing the discussion is not conducive to an intelligent site.

So, let’s move forward, and talk about what really matters. Doing something right, cooking the WDC way, with love, and loving every moment of it.

You have it "here" but not "there".

You’ll never be a chef.

I heard those words February 18th, 1999.

I was taking Patisserie II, at the Southern Albertan Institute for Technology. I had just aced yet another written theory exam, then totally bombed the practical part.

Frickin chocolate mousse. Frickin crème brulée. Frickin macadamia cookie crisps.

No matter what I did, I just could not get it down. The mousse refused to set. I splashed water on the crème brulée while putting them in the oven. I burnt the macadamia cookie crisps.

The pastry chef, (whose name I forget) was a woman high up in the hierarchy of the culinary profession in Alberta. She was on the board of advisory for the red seal examination. In all, she was what stood between me and my diploma of cooking.

I remember her telling me that I should have gone into engineering, or accounting. I had the smarts enough to listen in class, and ace the theory exams. Hell, I didn’t even study. I rarely took notes, except when the chef told us something was going to be on the exam, or on the government exam.

As soon as I touched the practical part, it all turned to poo.

She pointed a finger at her head, told me I had it “there”, then pointed to her hands, and told me I didn’t have it “there”.

Well lady, screw you.

I became a chef. I made it when everyone else in my class failed later on. I made it because I wanted to. Nothing stopped me from my goal.

Oh, I messed a lot of things along the way. I also learned from my mistakes, and never repeated them. I learned what it was like to really screw up something, then took the lesson to heart.

I apply this theory in all aspects of life. I learned the French language the same way. I screwed it up a lot, but I learned.

I think that we give up too easy in this society. We are simply told that we are not capable, so we should just give up.

You have diabetes? Poor you. You should just accept the fact that you are probably never going to control your blood sugar, then lose your toes, legs and life in the end. You won’t be able to see, have a heart attack, and boy, your life sucks.

See, it is too hard to maintain control. You need to follow what we say, it’s easier that way. The other way takes too much work. Besides, you aren’t smart enough.

Bullshit.

You are smart enough, and tough enough. You have grit, and you can do it.

Decide what you want, take control over whatever it is, and just FUCKING do it. Don’t listen to the naysayers. That is too easy. Nothing worth anything in life is easily gained. Resistance breeds strength.

Here is to you chef patisserie. You were partially right. I did only have it in my head once, but I learned, and now I am good BOTH with my hands and head. A dangerous combination.

Photo courtesy of maccun934 of Flickr under CC by Attribution 2.0

Oh the horror!

This one is a short one. Have you ever noticed that at your supermarket deli, you need to tell them to slice your salami or prosciutto thin?

Seriously, are you kidding me?

While nothing says love to food like a prosciutto steak, or a grinding wheel of salami, but who are we kidding? I bet that the people behind that counter have never actually had to eat their mishaps, or they would know what an insane amount of chewing goes into trying to choke back a sinewy piece of leather.

Don’t they teach people before they get behind the counter anymore?

Have you ever had to deal with thickly sliced deli meats? How was it? What did you do?

image courtesy of keepwadding1 of Flickr under Creative Commons by Attribution

Why do we act like zombies when it comes to our food and health?

I would like to link to a great book review over at Macheesmo. Nick has taken the time to review a book called “Eating Animals”. I started to make a comment on his site, and found that it really progressed into something I would like to share with you all:

I will state one thing: I do not believe that just eating less meat will fix the global problem. The broken system comes down to one thing: cost vs bottom line.

The demand might be there for cheaper meat, but I think that the quality control is to blame here. If you have been following the ground beef scandal lately, you will notice that there are a LOT of players in the food politics. Unfortunately, a lot of these players could give a shit less about our health and welfare. They care more about the profits. You cannot blame them, they are just doing their job.

This is why you find “chipped” beef in ground meat. That is – rendered fat, meat and other bits sold in compressed blocks that go into the grinding mix for pre-made hamburger meat. The solution to all the cross contamination is to “zap” the meat with ammonia to kill all the pathogens. (E Coli and Salmonella respectively.) Read that again. The E Coli and Salmonella are present in the beef – but the solution after the fact is to gas it. Seriously.

Worse, this food is going to the lunch programs for kids, and inmates.

Eating less meat is akin to just ignoring the problem. To me, it is sort of like denying that the holocaust happened. Thousands of millions of animals have been slaughtered in inhumane fashion inside “finishing lots”, farmers have been bought out by the gigantic corporations, and we have systematically destroyed our entire traditions of farming. For what?

In most cases, a few cents off the cost of production. Shareholders get rich, we get sick.

Even vegetarians are not off the hook here. While animals might be the most obvious problem to the worldwide raping of the land, plants are right up there too. If you are a vegan and are drinking soy milk or eating tofu, you are indirectly contributing to the problem. What am I talking about?

If a vegan eats tofu, well – the byproducts of that soy go to feed the animals. Tofu is made up of the juices extracted from the beans. Did anyone ever ask what happens to the husk of the soy?

Vegans also have their lot in the destruction of our land’s resources. They are quick to point the finger at the meat eating population, while happily chowing down on a strawberry-soy milk oatmeal concoction in the middle of January.

No, they are not exempt from the shame of this, as their ecological footprint is just as large with the “Air Miles” their food has logged.

We have Roundup ready soy. Corn grown for feed and for syrup production. Almost everything we eat now is sweetened with subsidized corn.

What is the solution then?

I go back to the previously posted 7 laws. Notably, the first law is the most important. “Pay attention.” Know where your food comes from. Eating locally is the answer.

I realize that a lot of people do not have that luxury. As I write this, it is -22°C (-8°F for those of you still using it.) There is a big pile of snow in the front of your driveway, and it is hard to get out there.

Why then, do we buy strawberries and asparagus at this time? Demand. Stop demanding this shit.

The way to fix the conditions at the slaughter house, the conditions at the field, the conditions at the inspection sites – write to your politicians.

Yes, you heard me. Write them, and do something to counter the self-feeding lobby groups. This is the only way.

If we just stop eating meat, the problem will not go away. Indeed, it will still remain. Greed is the problem we need to eradicate here. Here is why:

If some company wants to shave off 2 cents a pound from ground beef to make a quick buck by gassing it with ammonia to counter the cross-contamination – they will do it regardless if YOU stop eating the meat.

They will happily serve that shit to people who don’t have a voice: your children, inmates, elderly folks, hospitalized folks. See, that is where they make their money – though huge contracts with institutions complete with kickbacks. I see you have doubt in your eyes.

I used to work for a corporation where I was told what to order, based on the “Purchasing Power of our Company.” Translation: No, you are not allowed to make mac and cheese, but you have to buy the premade stuff.

Say no to premade burgers and burger chains. Where do you think that demand comes from?

Say no to soy milk that is grown with roundup-ready soy beans. Even if you are a smug vegan, you cannot ignore where the byproducts of your veganism goes – straight to the animals. Maybe you eat a salad at a place like McDicks, where they serve burgers. You are still supporting them.

Our whole food system is interconnected. Whether you are vegan, carnivore, omnivore – you are the ones feeding and partaking in that system.

Some would have us believe that we vote with our dollars. Okay, maybe to a small extent.

Better yet though, actual votes are what counts. If enough people get together and let their politician know that they think it is bullshit that he accepted a deal to look the other way for a company that wanted to circumvent HACCP controls. (You know, for things like E Coli in various beef trimmings in order to save 2 cents off the dollar for ground beef.)

He will respond in kind. See, he wants to protect his ass in that chair. The thing is though, You need to make him feel like his job is on the line, otherwise he will happily listen to the lobby groups that are backing him through various deals. (Sure, that does not happen in politics, right?)

Humans are like that. They don’t give a shit about something until it directly affects them. (Even if it is only emotionally.)

Eat local, I cannot stress this enough. Get to know someone at the farmer’s market. Participate. Stop buying the shit and cook REAL FOOD.

This is the way to solve the food crisis.

I’m out.

Photo courtesy of azrainman under Creative Commons by Attribution 2.0

Muffins are awesome to eat. Apparently, they are also too hard for you to make on your own.

Here are the ingredients of this “Convenience” product:

Wheat flour – Okay, good. You definitely need this.

Cane Sugar – I guess it is good to establish what kind of sugar we are talking about. Sure.

Wheat Bran – Excellent! It has wheat bran. So far so good.

Dehydrated Banana – Makes sense, the product is dry on the shelf after all.

Soybean Oil – Why soybean? Of course! Cheaper! Also, are you sure you want to eat Roundup ready soybeans?

Whey Powder (milk) – This is a byproduct of cheese making. They are not allowed to throw it away, so why not use it as a food additive?

Emulsifier Blend-Propolyne Glycol Mono fatty acid Esters-monoglycerides soy sodium stearoyl 2 lactylate – Okay, so this is off the hook in terms of what is inside. I just do not want to go there. If you Google it, you will see the major restaurants are using it too. McDicks, PizzaSlut, etc.

Salt – Sure, a pinch of salt is always good.

Sodium Bicarbonate – No need to get excited here, it’s just baking soda. You do need this for it to rise.

Monocalcium Phosphate- This is another leavening agent. It also acts as an inhibitor for microbiotic activity.

Natural Flavors – Well, there are a lot of things that can be natural flavors. Garbage, poop, insects.

Soy Protien Isolate – Used as an emulsifier, and a texturizer. Yum! Even more fun when you think of the “toxin furan in soy protein isolate and other foods”.

Soy Lecithin – Used as an emulsifier, and to keep ingredients from separating. Fun times.

Those ingredients all make a “convenience” product. See, those manufacturers want you to believe that you are too stupid to make the mixture, so they provide you with their “easy to use” product. Follow me; I will show you that with the basic method of muffin making, you can go even further than what these convenience products offer you, and at a fraction of the cost.

DING DING! My Recipe VS Franken Muffin

We re going to start off with the basic muffin, and then you will be able to customize to your heart’s content! At first glance, it is not going to look like much, but get the technique down, and you will never need to rely on old Franken to get your day started!

Here we have the Mise en Place for the ingredients. Of course, you will not have this set up at home. The same thing applies to your home kitchen. The key is that everything is in its place before you start.

FOR THE DRY INGREDIENTS:

Measure flour into a bowl that is tared on a scale. In this case, you will need 250 grams.

Tare and add 20 grams baking powder.

Tare and add 2 grams kosher salt.

Tare and add 25 grams of sugar.

Make a well in the center of your flour mixture. See, the ingredients are not that hard to measure right now!

FOR THE WET INGREDIENTS:

Grab another bowl; measure 245 grams of milk. (Why not use a cup measure? *245 grams=1 cup*) Well, the answer is to demonstrate to you that while you are using a scale, you can use the weight of ingredients. You will then be more accurate. Now you could scale this recipe up to 20 dozen if you wanted to – and not have to worry about messy conversions.

Tare and add 100 grams of slightly beaten eggs. Notice that it is 107 grams here. Well, we are looking for 2 eggs, and 1 large egg is usually 50 grams. So, we are looking at 2 eggs here. Hey, we're not building a bomb here, so as long as it is within a couple of grams, we will be fine.

Tare and melt the butter. See, I can tare a frying pan to get the accurate measure of butter. Take that you volumetric heathens!

Tare the wet bowl, and add the melted butter into the mix.

FOR THE ASSEMBLY:

Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Remember that well you made? Comes in handy here, huh?

Start to stir.

Mix until just combined, about 15 to 20 strokes. DO NOT OVERMIX. Your mixture will look like this.

Spoon batter into greased muffin molds; fill at least two-thirds full.

Bake in 200°C (400°F) preheated oven.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.

Test with a toothpick in the center of the muffin. If the pick comes out clean, then the muffin is done.

So, there is the base. Well, what good is that? With the basics under you, it is easy to make muffins that the mixes cannot give you. An example of this is the raspberry muffin, and the chocolate chip pecan muffin. Both are made by taking the base recipe, folding in the ingredients the last minute, and baking.

For those of you into the recipes, here it is:

Basic Muffin

Adapted from 500 Best Muffins by Esther Brody

You will need 12 greased muffin tin or molds for this recipe.

Servings: 12

Oven Temperature: 400°F

Ingredients

• 250 grams all-purpose flour
• 20 grams baking powder
• 2 grams salt, kosher
• 25 grams granulated sugar
• 245 grams 2% milk
• 100 grams eggs, slightly beaten
• 45 grams butter, melted

Directions

DRY INGREDIENTS

1. Measure flour into bowl that is tared on scale.
2. Tare and add baking powder.
3. Tare and add salt.
4. Tare and add sugar.
5. Make a well in the center.

WET INGREDIENTS

1. Measure milk into another bowl.
2. Tare and add beaten eggs.
3. Tare and add melted butter.

ASSEMBLY

1. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
2. Mix until just combined, about 15 to 20 strokes. DO NOT OVERMIX.
3. Spoon batter into prepared muffin molds, filling at least two-thirds full.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 18 minutes.
5. Test with a toothpick in the center of the muffin. If the pick comes out clean, then the muffin is done.

You may also change up the basic recipe by adding in fruit, chocolate chips and nuts, etc. The limit is your imagination!

How did the fight go? Let your comments be the judge!

Is there a FrankenFood you would like me to challenge? Let me know by visiting my Ask the Chef! Page.

Use caution with recipes and copyright, you could get singed!

Recipes and copyright: those words crop up occasionally, usually when someone posts a recipe that was inspired by a book, magazine, T.V. show, or another blog.

If you make a search on Google using the words, “my recipe copyright,” you will be greeted with no more than 20 million entries on this thorny subject. A lot of posts indicate the law states such and such, and there is no other way around it.

The internet is full of “helpful” advice. If you are really worried, then the best advice I can give you is to consult a lawyer that deals in copyright law.

Now, how does this relate to Recipe Standardization? You will need to know some guidelines if you ever plan to post these recipes. My advice? Read on.

Laws differ from country to country, however the main one on focus is the United States of America. A great resource on this topic is their FAQ Site, which specifically spells out the recipe/copyright question:

How do I protect my recipe?
A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection. Note that if you have secret ingredients to a recipe that you do not wish to be revealed, you should not submit your recipe for registration, because applications and deposit copies are public records. See FL 122, Recipes.

A recipe consists of a list of ingredients, with instructions on what to do with the ingredients. The list itself cannot be copyrighted, but the expression of the instructions can. Also, if you take a whole cookbook and copy it, there could be an issue, as indicated in the text.

I see this a lot in blogs and such. People are horrified to find “their” recipe for something like mac and cheese in circulation somewhere. Then they lay claim to the ingredients lists.

People, please.

The text in the header is yours. You know, the blurb. The title? Not so. The list of ingredients? Unless you can prove literary differences, not so.

If a person takes “your” list of ingredients and places their own directions on how to create it, are they cheating you? I don’t think so. In fact, one could say that unless you can prove that you are the one that originally created silk blueberry tarts, then you are guilty of infringement with the above logic. What of the actual person who invented them?

Pictures are copyrighted, end of story. If you find your picture in a magazine without your permission, then you should be all over it.

Let’s get back to the issue of recipes though. In the end, it is up to you, the reader, to decide what is morally right or wrong. One knows internally when they are doing something wrong.

You just copy and paste a list of ingredients, then change the words a little in the instructions. You are walking a fine line between scum and plagiarizer. At the very least you should attribute the recipe to the creator.

If you grab a recipe online, test it in your kitchen, put your own touch to it, then write out the ingredients, header, instructions, all points in your own tongue? As far as fairness goes, you have all rights to that recipe. You *could* choose to attribute that recipe to someone else, but really, you don’t have to. You have done the work to make the recipe your own, so call it your own. Use your own pictures, and write your own text.

If anyone would argue these points, then please comment below and explain why.

What do you all think on this topic?

This post is part of the Recipes and Standardization in the Professional Kitchen Theme.

Resources to Standardize Your Recipes

Ways to Implement a Recipe Standardization Strategy.

Tricks of the Trade: Nailing Down a Recipe and How to Enforce It’s Use

Cookbook Review of Recipe Writer’s Handbook