Study Questions Fat and Heart Disease Link - NYTimes.com

Study Questions Fat and Heart Disease Link - NYTimes.com: "Many of us have long been told that saturated fat, the type found in meat, butter and cheese, causes heart disease. But a large and exhaustive new analysis by a team of international scientists found no evidence that eating saturated fat increased heart attacks and other cardiac events."

So, another long-standing medical axiom seems to have bitten the dust.



I have always maintained that reasonably healthy people who eat a balanced diet will remain reasonably healthy. Given the diversity in the genetic makeup of our bodies, a one-rule-fits-all formulaic approach can only be relevant to average people. Of course, none of us is 'average.' We are all unique.



I believe we will eventually learn what foods are best for each of us based on our genome. We are getting closer to that goal as research gallops ahead.



'via Blog this'

Corned beef and cabbage

Today's Amici luncheon of the VT Italian Club was held at the Rotisserie restaurant in South Burlington. They were quite busy but the corned beef and cabbage was not as good as last year's. It was a bit on the salty side.
Nevertheless, a dozen of us enjoyed the camaraderie reminding ourselves that St. Patrick had Italian parents.

Questions About Organic Produce and Sustainability - NYTimes.com

The 'organic' fad may not be sustainable as demand for products year-round seems to be creating an environmental strain in those areas where factory-scale organic farms supply U.S. supermarkets.

I think 'organic' foods have not been demonstrated to provide health benefits that justify their high prices. Instead, 'organic' serves mostly as emotional comfort food for those who can afford it.

Buying local, however, makes more sense whether organic or not because the purchase provides direct support for local farmers who work hard to make ends meet.

"...But even as more Americans buy foods with the organic label, the products are increasingly removed from the traditional organic ideal: produce that is not only free of chemicals and pesticides but also grown locally on small farms in a way that protects the environment.
The explosive growth in the commercial cultivation of organic tomatoes here [Mexico's Baja Peninsula], for example, is putting stress on the water table. In some areas, wells have run dry this year, meaning that small subsistence farmers cannot grow crops. And the organic tomatoes end up in an energy-intensive global distribution chain that takes them as far as New York and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, producing significant emissions that contribute to global warming..."

The Minimalist Chooses 25 of His Favorites - NYTimes.com

Saving this list of 25 recipes for future reference. I enjoy Mark Bittman's recipes immensely. Will try several of these. One is for variations of Pasta from the Pantry which he obtained from Arthur Schwartz. These are fast pasta recipes with simple ingredients. And I love pasta!

Arthur, who we had an opportunity to meet and visit with on a warm Vermont afternoon last summer, has frequently visited in Campania and has written several books on Neapolitan cooking.

It really is a small world, as we have stayed at the same agriturismo where Schwartz is friends with the owner and learned much of his Campania cooking skills.

Middlebury College Orchestra Performance - March 11, 2010

On March 11 Carol and I enjoyed a very tasty lamb risotto diner with our son, Mark, and Caroline in Shoreham followed by a very strong performance of the Middlebury College Orchestra in the Concert Hall at Mahaney Center for the Arts at Middlebury College.

Mark's youngest son, Gawain playing the viola, practices and performs with this orchestra. On Thursday we were treated to performances by Possini (Overture: The Italian Girl in Algiers), Mozart (Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor, K.466) and Brahms (Symphony No. 3 in F major Op.90).

The Mozart piece featured a piano solo by a Middlebury freshman, Richard Chen. He is an astounding artist! I know little about music but thoroughly enjoyed his superb piano performance. He is a gifted musician and as you can see from his awards below, has excelled from an early age.

I expect we will hear more about Richard!

Richard Chen (from the concert program):

"Richard P. Chen was born in Taiwan and began his piano studies with his aunt at the age of four. He came to the United States when he was ten years old and attended the Fessenden School, a junior boarding school in Boston, where he began to study with Dr. Nilly Epstein Shilo. Since then, he has won numerous musical awards, including First Place in Massachusetts Music Teachers Association Piano Competition (2007, 2005, 2004, 2002), First place in Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Competition (2008, 2006, 2005, 2004) and First place in New England Piano Teachers Association (NEPT A) High­ School Competition as a high school freshman in 2006. He has also been presented in major concert venues in the United States, including Carnegie Hall in New York by the American Fine Arts Festival in 2007 and Steinert's Hall in Boston. He is a student of Diana Fanning and has also studied with Dr. Ivan Citera at the Conservatorio de Zaragoza, Spain. Ricky is currently a freshman at Middlebury College in Vermont and is interested in Arabic, History, Geography and Middle Eastern Studies.

Richard is the winner of the 2010 Alan and Joyce Beucher Concerto Competition that took place in January, 2010. This competition was established by a gift from Susan Beucher Cady and George L. Cady '72, P '08, ' II, in honor of Susan's parents. Alan and Joyce Beucher both had careers in music: Alan was the Master of Ceremonies for Radio City Music Hall where he sang and introduced the Rockettes for more than 20,000 performances and Joyce taught elementary school music and performed choral works on Long Island."

Clover House - Good Food

Earlier this week Terri Hallenbeck wrote a favorable review of the Clover House in Colchester. We have lived in Colchester for 30 years and have never eaten at this establishment. We tried it tonight.

I had the rib eye steak and Carol had the lamb ribs. Both excellent meals! We'll be back there again because of the extensive menu, fair prices and good service.

They had a good crowd both in the bar and the dining room on this Friday night.

Yummmm!

I love chicken wings and, as you can tell, I've discovered Scribd, a very neat document sharing web service. You can go full screen by clicking the button in the top right corner.

101 Chicken Wing Recipes

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Tutorial Do-it-yourself food recipe

Italian Cheese Bailout

This is one of my favorite cheeses. I wish I were a charity. Maybe they would send a wheel of this wonderful cheese my way!

"In an effort to help producers of the cheese commonly grated over spaghetti, fettuccine and other pastas, the Italian government is buying 100,000 wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano and donating them to charity.

Though demand for parmigiano is strong in Italy and abroad, producers have been struggling for years to make money, putting the future of Italy's favorite cheese at risk."

Studies deem biofuels a greenhouse threat | CNET News.com

We seem to have something less than consensus as to whether biofuels are good for the planet. I have always maintained that ethanol from corn (kernels) was and is a boondoggle that has very serious and negative side effects that may not be counter balanced by the reduction in the growth of petroleum usage. It's putting big bucks in farmers' pockets right now, but we're paying for it in food prices.

Here's the NY Times take on the studies.

Negative baggage of corn-based ethanol includes: higher food prices; higher land prices; higher prices for non-corn agricultural products as land is taken for growing corn; collapse in the price of ethanol because production increases are not matched by demand and distribution capacity.

""When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially," said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University. "Previously there's been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis."

These plant-based fuels were originally billed as better than fossil fuels because the carbon released when they were burned was balanced by the carbon absorbed when the plants grew. But even that equation proved overly simplistic because the process of turning plants into fuels causes its own emissions--for refining and transport, for example."

Studies deem biofuels a greenhouse threat | CNET News.com

An Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories - New York Times

Are we faced with the law of unintended consequences as the demand for vegetable oils for fuel confronts the food uses of oil, thus raising prices for both? When the world's thirst for liquid energy sources competes with food uses, we have the makings of a catastrophe.

This is a fascinating analysis of the dilemma faced by poorer countries when prices of, in this instance palm oil, rise very rapidly because of demand for it to make biofuels.

The pressure on poor people will have disastrous consequences, not to mention the trauma to the land as more forests are cleared to plant palm oil trees. Food seems more important than energy, but at what price to we have conflict or starvation?

I expect to hear/read more environmental hand wringing spawned by this situation. The world's insatiable demand for energy is running headlong into an even more basic necessity, food. There are no obvious good solutions here.

Perhaps the world's gurus will have this on their agenda in Davos, Switzerland later this month. I doubt they have a solution.

An Oil Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories - New York Times

If It’s Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener? - New York Times

Nothing is as simple as it seems. The nuances of buying local vs. buying organic vs. buying food from afar in terms of one's carbon footprint is far more complex than it may seem. The efficiencies of scale have a profound effect on carbon generation. Read the article if you really want to digest the complexities of consumer food purchases.

If It’s Fresh and Local, Is It Always Greener? - New York Times

Butcher’s Method Takes Carving Off the Table - New York Times

This link contains absolutely the best advice and method for carving a turkey. I trialed it yesterday at the family Thanksgiving dinner and it works like a charm. Carving in the kitchen using the tools shown (a small knife and your hands) without worrying about juices running on your precious linen tablecloth is the only way.

Note the use of the smallish, curved knife, almost a boning knife, as opposed to the long straight knife that is part of the traditional carving set. This is so much more efficient and friendly to remove the meat from the bones.

Diet and fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus

This column by by John Tierney, published October 9, 2007 in the NYTimes is a 'must read,' not so much for the facts therein about fat and its effect on diet, but the wonderful description of how the 'bandwagon effect' against excess fat in the American diet played out over several decades. Could it be that the same bandwagon effect, or what I refer to as the 'groupthink' phenomenon, is capturing us in the global warming debate?

"When a group of people agree on something, that doesn’t always mean they are right." This is the quote from the article and we should heed it. People are swayed to believe what high-profile people say, and this is reinforced by the barrage of media influence. To believe differently or to be a skeptic often becomes a difficult position to hold. Ideology can quickly overwhelm facts, particularly when science is involved because so few people have an understanding of science.

Yet his warning is as appropriate in science as in any field when the tsunami of the majority overwhelms the minority. We see it at work in the climate change debate played out in the 'energy independence' steamroller that leads to 'consensus' thinking, even fanaticism, about wind power and solar energy sources.

We should be cautious about being swept away by the global warming 'consensus' or any other whirlwind.