OT:Good Calories, Bad Calories....

[Samaniego]

Has this bad for cholesterol? Doctor says total goal for me is 200 or lower. Doctor says decision I should make to take low dose pravastatin. I already belong to gym and use three times one hour each week with hard exercise. Diet hard to change because of working long hours. Doctor leaves decision to me about pravastatin. Cost only $4 WalMart.

Should I take it?

Cholesterol 221

Triglyceride 184

HDL Cholesterol 38

Total Chol/HDL Ratio 5.8

VLDL Cholesterol (Calc) 37

LDL Cholesterol (Calc) 155

[Kairosgrammy]

It's how it's ground. My brother explained it to me a long time ago and can't quite remember how. If I buy ground beef at walmart, I buy the cubes. It acts a lot more normal. I generally though, go to the other grocery store for ground beef. I also get the lean or extra lean ground beef so hopefully, that would preclude pink slime. You are all right. That is just plain eeeeeuuuuuwwwww to the umpteenth degree.

Speaking of bad calories....

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/03/19 ... ocers-1-4/

I'll definitely take high fat meat if I can avoid this junk!

Yeah, the whole "Pink Slime" thing is very eww to me as well.

I stopped buying meat and food at Wal-Mart awhile go. The hamburger always seemed to fry up funny to me, maybe this was why.

[Janknitz]

First of all, youtube is not the first place to go to find reliable information based on reliable research.

I wholeheartedly agree with that notion and was not suggesting anybody go to YouTube to do research. If you took the time to look at the videos I suggested:

1. Dr. Westman is a physician who has published many peer reviewed articles in medical journals about low carb diets. He is the president elect of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians. The video cites his research articles which you can read to learn more.

2. Dr. Diamond (PhD) discusses extensively in his video how poorly some studies used to support high carb diets and more importantly the use of statins were conducted, and how even good studies were misused and the contrary information was often ignored. There is a list of his mentors and sources for his claims at 1:03.6. THEIR peer reviewed articles might be a good place to start some research, if you are interested.

3. Tom Naughten just testified before the Office of Research Integrity in Washington, DC (US Dept. of Health and Human Services) about how poorly the studies supporting the USDA guidelines for dietary recommendations were done.

My point was to illustrate that the research that we have been following which makes up the "conventional wisdom" is terribly FLAWED and that there is newer, better research out there refuting it. As far as finding that research, these are some places to start looking, nothing more.

You stated “I tend to go by conventional wisdom until it is scientifically, using good research protocols, proven over multiple studies and by reliable sources.” All I’m trying to say is that it is out there, if you care to look.

[Janknitz]

Has this bad for cholesterol? Doctor says total goal for me is 200 or lower. Doctor says decision I should make to take low dose pravastatin. I already belong to gym and use three times one hour each week with hard exercise. Diet hard to change because of working long hours. Doctor leaves decision to me about pravastatin. Cost only $4 WalMart.

Should I take it?

Nobody here is a doctor and we can't give you medical advice, but you should be sure to you do your own research and talk to your doctor to make sure that you understand a few things:
1. Potential side effects of Prevastatin including muscle pain and dementia-like symptoms. Recent research shows an increase in Diabetes in women who take statins. What does your doctor think of these?
2. Make sure you understand exactly how much you can expect your cholesterol numbers to improve. Is it worth the side effects and risks? Are there other things you can do (ie lifestyle changes) which might be more effective and have less side effects? Are you willing to do those lifestyle changes?
3. Make sure you find out if you have a familial genetic predisposition to high cholesterol (which would be more in favor of taking a statin).
4. Finally, ask your doctor about whether or not you should take supplements if you decide to take the Prvastatin. Most people are not told that taking Co-enzyme Q10 can lessen the bad side effects of the drug. CoQ10 costs a lot more than $4!!!

[-SWS]

First of all, youtube is not the first place to go to find reliable information based on reliable research.

I wholeheartedly agree with that

<sniffle> I must now go drown my sorrows in a heart-healthy steak-and-twinkie casserole---the one I learned to make on youtube.

[Kairosgrammy]

I get a lot of recipes off of youtube. That's how I happenstance on the other stuff.

First of all, youtube is not the first place to go to find reliable information based on reliable research.

I wholeheartedly agree with that

<sniffle> I must now go drown my sorrows in a heart-healthy steak-and-twinkie casserole---the one I learned to make on youtube.

[hades161]

Youtube, New York Times, JAMA, ADA, AHA, FDA, and what ever place you care to name. Can and will post bogus stories or data at some point. They all are questionable sources of info as they are all second or third hand.

The only real way to get reliable research information one way or the other is to do the work yourself and run the tests or the study from beginning to end. The best we can do is review the people making the claims and why they are doing it. Sadly, most of us do not have that skill set and have to rely on these sources of info.

Youtube is nothing more the a source for videos and yes some are bogus cause anyone can post there. So you might find a video from Uncle Tom saying Beer is good for you if you drink it by the keg, but at the same time you can find Seminars and Lectures given at Harvard by leaders in their field. Do you discount those too just because they are on Youtube? By that logic we should discount every book, every newspaper, every radio, and every TV presentation.

Name one source of so called reliable, no fail, research information source that you always can believe everything they put out without checking it for yourself, that's never gotten anything wrong, bet you can't unless it just started up or it's part of a religion.

Conventional Wisdom is plenty wrong at times as well, like say Oh, The Earth is Flat, The Stars and Sun revolve around the Earth, bleeding to cure vapors, and other such generally accepted dogma that lasted for years because people were happy to be told this is the way it is and never to question it.

I don't know what's the right answer but I am pretty sure the old Conventional Wisdom for many people is flat out wrong.

[nmevan]

bleeding to cure vapors

oh...thank goodness!
I was wondering what to do about my vapors.

[hades161]

Pardon, I should have said Bloodletting.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/redgold/basics/ ... tting.html

[-SWS]

Pardon, I should have said Bloodletting.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/redgold/basics/ ... tting.html

That reminds me leeches were once in with the conventional-wisdom crowd. Then they were out for the longest time. Now they're making a comeback:
http://arizonaleechtherapy.com/about-pavel/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5319129/ns/ ... l-devices/

So it seems with red meat.

[Kiralynx]

General Mills already has a gluten-free product line: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/magaz ... lobal-home

Gluten free involves gums and starches, which feed bad bacteria.

You couldn't PAY me to eat that junk.

[Kiralynx]

I was disappointed when I looked at the SCD (CSD?) website and found that their definition of "flare" involved the consumption of a forbidden food after a time reviving bad gut bacteria that had gone dormant/spored, which THEN created cravings, rather than the mechanism you described of bad gut bacteria signalling to the brain to create cravings, which is something entirely different.

Another lady from the BTVC-SCD list says, "3 months is the time needed for new species to overgrow. It takes time to balance it all out and most people are not perfect at every moment and overeat legal carbs, which can also set off these new colonies. Also, some can go dormant for long periods of time."

It's SCD, Specific Carbohydrate Diet.

[hades161]

For those missing sandwiches on 'bread,' I came across this today: http://satisfyingeats.blogspot.com/2012 ... -buns.html

Edit: the above recipe is for quite a few buns. If you prefer to try a single bun, I found this one: http://www.freecoconutrecipes.com/index ... burger-bun

Sounds fairly good only thing I was wondering about was the Stevia. I have not looked into the newer (well new to me anyway) sweetener replacements yet, I probably should, anyone have experience or good links that compare sugar replacements and how healthy they are or aren't?

[deltadave]

This kind of goes along with another aspect I've read/heard about - energy efficiency. It has been argued that from an entire cycle standpoint grains deliver the most energy to a human body per Btu of energy used to produce it. Meat is much less energy efficient. I heard a comparison made one time of energy efficiency of bike riding vs. gas guzzler driving. The author of the comment calculated all the energy required to produce a pound of beef steak, and how far the bicyclist could go on the energy derived from that pound of steak. He then compared the amount of energy required to drive an old gas guzzling Buick that same distance. From the standpoint of the entire energy consuming/producing cycle to move that particular distance, the Buick was more efficient!

OK, I think I got it!

If say the Power Company operates at about 40% Thermal Efficiency, and a fuel-efficient automobile operates at about 30% Thermal Efficiency, and a "gas-guzzler" operates at about 20% Thermal Efficiency, and a human being operates at about (depending what he's doing) 10% Thermal Efficiency, and wheat grows at about 2% Thermal Efficiency, then what you're saying is that everybody should take the cow to work?

[deltadave]

This kind of goes along with another aspect I've read/heard about - energy efficiency. It has been argued that from an entire cycle standpoint grains deliver the most energy to a human body per Btu of energy used to produce it. Meat is much less energy efficient. I heard a comparison made one time of energy efficiency of bike riding vs. gas guzzler driving. The author of the comment calculated all the energy required to produce a pound of beef steak, and how far the bicyclist could go on the energy derived from that pound of steak. He then compared the amount of energy required to drive an old gas guzzling Buick that same distance. From the standpoint of the entire energy consuming/producing cycle to move that particular distance, the Buick was more efficient!

OK, I think I got it!

If say the Power Company operates at about 40% Thermal Efficiency, and a fuel-efficient automobile operates at about 30% Thermal Efficiency, and a "gas-guzzler" operates at about 20% Thermal Efficiency, and a human being operates at about (depending what he's doing) 10% Thermal Efficiency, and wheat grows at about 2% Thermal Efficiency, then what you're saying is that everybody should take the cow to work?

No wait!

You need to take the Power Company to work!