Sourdough

Starter

  • Select a container. A wide-mouthed glass jar is best. Metallic containers are a bad idea; some of them are reactive and can ruin your starter (for the same reason, avoid using metal utensils to stir your starter).
  • Blend a cup of warm water and a cup of flour, and pour it into the jar.
  • Every 24 Hours, Feed the Starter. You should keep the starter in a warm place; 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit is perfect. This allows the yeast already present in the flour (and in the air) to grow rapidly. Temperatures hotter than 100 degrees or so will kill it. You can take comfort from the fact that almost nothing else will do so. The way you feed the starter is to (A) throw away half of it and then (B) add a half-cup of flour and a half-cup of water. Do this every 24 hours. Within three or four days (it can take longer, a week or more, and it can happen more quickly) you should start getting lots of bubbles throughout, and a pleasant sour or beery smell.
  • Refrigerate the Starter. Keep the starter in your fridge, with a lid on it. Allow a little breathing space in the lid. If you’re using a mayo or pickle jar, punch a hole in the lid with a nail, that kind of thing. Once the starter is chilled, it needs to be fed only once a week.

Proofing

  • Take your starter out of the fridge.
  • Pour it into a large glass or plastic bowl.
  • Add a cup of warm water and a cup of flour to the bowl.
  • Stir well, and set it in a warm place for several hours.
  • Watch for Froth and and Sniff. When your sponge is bubbly and has a white froth, and it smells a little sour, it is ready. The longer you let the sponge sit, the more sour flavor you will get.

The proofing-time varies. Some starters can proof up to frothiness in an hour or two. Some take 6-8 hours,

Basic Recipe

  • 2 Cups of sponge (proofed starter)
  • 3 Cups of unbleached flour
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil or softened margarine
  • 4 teaspoons of sugar
  • 2 teaspoons of salt

To the sponge, add the sugar, salt, and oil (the oil is optional – you can use softened butter instead, or no oil at all). Mix well, then knead in the flour a half-cup at a time. Knead in enough flour to make a good, flexible bread dough.
Keep in mind that flour amounts are approximate; flour varies in absorbency, and your sponge can vary in wetness. Let the dough rise in a warm place, in a bowl covered loosely with a towel (if you’re using a bread machine’s dough cycle, let it rise in the machine). Note that sourdough rises more slowly than yeast bread; my starter takes about an hour or so, but some starters take much longer. Let the dough double in bulk. Punch the dough down and knead it a little more. Make a loaf and place it on a baking sheet (lightly greased or sprinkled with cornmeal). Slit the top if you like, and cover the loaf with a paper towel and place it in a warm place to rise again, until doubled in bulk.
Place the pan with the loaf in your oven, and then turn your oven to 350o Fahrenheit and bake the bread for 30-45 minutes. Do not preheat the oven. The loaf is done when the crust is brown and the bottom sounds hollow when thumped with a wooden spoon. Turn the loaf out onto a cooling rack or a towel and let it cool for an hour before slicing.

Reference

Sourdough Baking- How to Begin – by S. John Ross

people sick more often from imported foods

People in the United States are getting sick more often from imported foods in recent years, and seafoods and spices from Asia are the most common culprits, US health authorities said Wednesday.

After reviewing cases of reported outbreaks from 2005 to 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 2,348 illnesses were linked to imported foods, with half of the cases occurring in 2009 and 2010.

Fish-linked outbreaks were the most common source and nearly 45 percent of all imported foods causing sickness came from Asia, said the CDC report, presented at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Georgia.

Fish caused 17 of the 39 outbreaks, and spices were the next most common with six outbreaks, including five linked to fresh or dried peppers.

“As our food supply becomes more global, people are eating foods from all over the world, potentially exposing them to germs from all corners of the world, too,” said lead author Hannah Gould, an epidemiologist in CDC’s division of foodborne, waterborne and environmental diseases.

“We saw an increased number of outbreaks due to imported foods during recent years, and more types of foods from more countries causing outbreaks.”

US food imports have grown from $41 billion annually in 1998 to $78 billion in 2007, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Up to 16 percent of all food eaten — and 85 percent of all seafood — in the United States is imported.

However, officials suspect that there are more food-linked outbreaks than reported because often people are unaware of what has made them ill.

“We need better — and more — information about what foods are causing outbreaks and where those foods are coming from,” Gould said in a statement.

“Knowing more about what is making people sick, will help focus prevention efforts on those foods that pose a higher risk of causing illness.”

Some 48 million illnesses from food strike the United States each year, with the stomach-ailment causing norovirus being the most common followed by salmonella.

According to the latest data for 2008, there were a total of 23,152 sicknesses that year and 22 deaths.
The CDC defines a foodborne disease outbreak as two or more similar illnesses resulting from the same type of food.

Insalata Greca

Ease of preparation: easy
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Servings: 7-9
Wine pairing: White

Ingredients

1 box BARILLA PLUS Elbows
1-1/2 cup Feta cheese, crumbled
3 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
2 small cucumbers
1 medium red onion
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
4 leaves fresh basil

Cook pasta in salted water; drain one minute prior the lower recommended cooking time. Drizzle with one tablespoon of olive oil, place flat on a sheet tray to cool down as quick as possible.
PEEL and slice cucumbers thinly. Cut the onion and basil julienne.
COMBINE pasta n a bowl with all remaining ingredients. Allow to rest 30 minutes before serving

colesterol

POR: DR. DWIGHT LUNDELL *

Un cirujano reconocido mundialmente expone la verdadera causa de las
enfermedades coronarias

Dr. Dwight Lundell

Nosotros, los médicos, con toda nuestra formación, los conocimientos y
la autoridad que uno va adquiriendo, tendemos a aumentar nuestro ego y
difícilmente admitimos que nos hemos equivocado. Y sin embargo, tengo
que confesar que me he equivocado. Como cirujano del corazón, con 25
años de experiencia, con más de 5000 cirugías realizadas de corazón
abierto, hoy ha llegado el momento de reparar el daño mediante los
hechos médicos y científicos.

He estado formando durante muchos años a otros médicos, de esos a los
que luego se etiqueta como “formadores de opinión”. Asediados por la
literatura científica, asistiendo de forma continua a seminarios, los
creadores de opinión han insistido en que las enfermedades coronarias
son el resultado del simple hecho de tener unos niveles de colesterol
muy elevados en sangre.

La única terapia aceptada ha sido la de prescribir medicamentos para
bajar el colesterol y una dieta muy restringida en grasas. Un menor
consumo de grasas traería consigo una disminución en la cantidad de
colesterol y se reducían las enfermedades coronarias. Cualquier
desviación de estas recomendaciones se consideraba una herejía y daba
lugar a la realización de malas prácticas médicas.

¡Pero no está funcionado!

Estas recomendaciones no son ni científicamente ni moralmente
defendibles. El descubrimiento hace unos años de que es la inflamación
en la pared arterial la causa real de la enfermedad cardíaca, es lo
que poco a poco está dando lugar a un cambio de paradigma en la forma
en que son tratadas las enfermedades cardíacas y otras dolencias
crónicas.

Las recomendaciones dietéticas establecidas desde hace mucho tiempo
han provocado epidemias de obesidad y de diabetes, consecuencias que
empequeñecen cualquier otra plaga histórica en términos de mortalidad,
sufrimiento humano y de graves consecuencias económicas.

A pesar de que el 25% de la población toma costosos medicamentos a
base de estatinas, y a pesar del hecho de que hemos reducido la
cantidad de grasa presente en nuestra dieta, cada vez mueren más
personas por enfermedades que afectan al corazón.

Las estadísticas de la American Heart Association indican que 75
millones de estadounidenses sufren enfermedades cardíacas, que 20
millones padecen diabetes y 57 millones pre-diabetes. Estos trastornos
afectan cada vez a personas más jóvenes, en mayor número cada año.

En pocas palabras, sin la inflamación corporal no es posible que se
acumule el colesterol en las paredes de los vasos sanguíneos y se
causen de este modo enfermedades cardíacas y apoplejías. Sin
inflamación, el colesterol se mueve libremente por todo el cuerpo; es
la inflamación lo que hace que el colesterol quede atrapado.

La inflamación no es un proceso complejo, se trata simplemente de una
reacción natural del cuerpo ante invasores extraños, tales como
bacterias, toxinas o virus. El ciclo inflamatorio es una forma de
proteger al cuerpo ante invasores bacterianos y virales. Sin embargo,
si se expone de forma crónica a nuestro organismo a toxinas o
alimentos que el cuerpo humano no está preparado para procesar, se
produce entonces una inflamación crónica. La inflamación crónica es
tan dañina como beneficiosa una inflamación aguda.

¿Qué persona sensata se expondría de forma intencionada en repetidas
ocasiones a alimentos u otras sustancias que sabe le causan daño
corporal? Bueno, quizás los fumadores, pero al menos se trata de una
decisión voluntaria.

El resto nos limitamos a seguir la dieta recomendada, baja en grasas y
alta en grasas poliinsaturadas y carbohidratos, sin saber que estamos
causando repetidas agresiones a nuestros vasos sanguíneos. Esta
agresión repetida produce una inflamación crónica que conduce a la
enfermedad cardíaca, a los accidentes cerebro vasculares, a la
diabetes y la obesidad.

Permítanme que se lo repita: la lesión e inflamación de nuestros vasos
sanguíneos está causada por una dieta baja en grasas, algo recomendado
durante años por la medicina convencional.

¿Cuáles son los mayores culpables de la inflamación crónica? En pocas
palabras, la sobrecarga de hidratos de carbono simples y alimentos muy
procesados (azúcar, harina y todos los productos derivados) y un
exceso de consumo de aceites vegetales con omega-6, tales como aceites
de soja, maíz y girasol, que se encuentran presentes en muchos
alimentos procesados.

Visualice lo siguiente: un cepillo duro que repetidamente se frota
sobre la piel hasta que ésta enrojece y sangra, esto durante varias
veces al día, así diariamente durante 5 años. Si se tolerase este
cepillado, se produciría sangrado, hinchazón de la zona afectada, que
cada vez sería peor a medida que repite la agresión. Esta es una buena
forma de visualizar el proceso inflamatorio, y es lo que podría estar
pasando en su cuerpo ahora mismo.

Independiente de dónde se produzca el proceso inflamatorio, bien
interna o externamente, es lo mismo. He observado el interior de miles
y miles de arterias. Una arteria enferma se ve como si alguien hubiese
cogido un cepillo y lo hubiese frotado varias veces contra las
paredes. Varias veces al día, todos los días, los alimentos que
comemos producen pequeñas lesiones, sobre las que se producen otras,
de modo que es la causa de que nuestro cuerpo responda de forma
continua con inflamación.

A pesar de que resulta tentador saborear los dulces, nuestros cuerpos
responden de forma alarmante, como si un invasor extraño nos declarase
la guerra. Los alimentos están cargados de azúcar, carbohidratos
simples, o procesados con omega-6, uno de los pilares de la dieta
norteamericana durante varias décadas. Estos alimentos nos envenenan
lentamente a todos.

¿Cómo un simple dulce produce una cascada de inflamaciones que hace
que el cuerpo enferme?
Imagínese que rocía el teclado con miel; esto es una representación
visual de lo que ocurre dentro de la célula. Cuando consumimos
hidratos de carbono simples, tales como el azúcar, los niveles de
azúcar en la sangre se elevan rápidamente. Como respuesta, el páncreas
segrega insulina, cuya misión principal es que el azúcar llegue a
todas las células donde se almacena la energía. Pero si la célula está
llena, si no necesita más glucosa, se rechaza el exceso para evitar
una disfunción de los procesos que se llevan a cabo en su interior.
Cuando las células rechazan el exceso de glucosa, se elevan los
niveles de azúcar en sangre, aumentando la producción de insulina, y
se almacena en forma de grasa.
¿Qué tiene que ver todo esto con la inflamación? La cantidad de azúcar
en sangre se controla entre unos valores máximos y mínimos muy
estrechos. Las moléculas de azúcar se unen a una amplia variedad de
proteínas, que lesionan las paredes de los vasos sanguíneos. Esta
lesión repetida de las paredes de los vasos sanguíneos desencadena la
inflamación. Cuando sube el nivel de azúcar en sangre varias veces al
día, todos los días, es como frotar con papel de lija el delicado
interior de los vasos sanguíneos.
Si bien no puede observarlo, puede estar seguro de que ocurre así. Lo
he visto en más de 5000 pacientes sometidos a cirugía durante los 25
años que llevo ejerciendo. Todos ellos tenían un denominador común: la
inflamación de las arterias.
Volvamos al asunto de los dulces. Bajo su inocente aspecto, no sólo
contienen azúcar, sino que también estás elaborados con ácidos grasos
omega-6, tales como los provenientes de la soja. Las patatas fritas se
fríen con aceite de soja, muchos alimentos procesados se fabrican con
ácidos grasos omega-6, para que así tengan más larga duración.
Mientras que las grasas omega-6 son esenciales al formar parte de la
membrana celular, y así controlar lo que entra y sale de la célula,
deben estar en un equilibrio adecuado con los omega-3.
Si este equilibrio se rompe por el consumo excesivo de ácidos grasos
omega-6, la membrana de la célula produce unas sustancias químicas
denominadas citoquinas, que causan directamente inflamación.

Hoy en día, la dieta suele producir un desequilibrio muy grande entre
estos dos tipos de ácidos grasos. La relación de desequilibrio puede
estar en torno de 15:1, o incluso de 30:1 en favor de los ácidos
grasos omega-6. Esto produce una enorme cantidad de citoquinas que
causan la inflamación. Lo ideal sería una proporción de 3:1 para que
fuese saludable.

Para empeorar aún más las cosas, el sobrepeso produce una sobrecarga
de células grasas que vierten grandes cantidades de productos químicos
pro-inflamatorios, lo que se suma a las lesiones causadas por los
altos niveles de azúcar en sangre. El proceso que comenzó consumiendo
productos dulces se convierte en un círculo vicioso que con el tiempo
genera una enfermedad cardíaca, elevada presión arterial, diabetes, y
por último, Alzheimer, si el proceso inflamatorio no disminuye.

No se puede olvidar el hecho de que cuanto más se consumen alimentos
procesados, más se dispara la inflamación, un poco cada día. El cuerpo
humano no puede procesar, ni fue diseñado para consumir, los alimentos
envasados con azúcar y preparados con ácidos grasos omega-6.

No hay otra solución para disminuir la inflamación que consumir los
alimentos lo más cercano posible a su estado natural.

Para reconstruir un músculo, se deben consumir más proteínas. Para
energìa elija carbohidratos complejos, tales como los presentes en
frutas, verduras y granos integrales.

Reduzca o elimine el consumo de los ácidos grasos omega-6, tales como
el aceite de maíz y soja, y los alimentos procesados que se han
elaborado con estos aceites.

Una cucharada de aceite de maíz contiene 7,280 mg de ácidos grasos
omega-6; la soja 6,949 mg. En su lugar, utilice aceite de oliva o
mantequilla, procedente de animales alimentados con pasto.

Las grasas animales contienen menos del 20% de omega-6 y son mucho
menos propensas a producir inflamación que los aceites
poliinsaturados, de los que se dicen que son supuestamente saludables.
No es cierto que las grasas saturadas produzcan enfermedades
cardíacas. Tampoco aumentan en exceso los niveles de colesterol en la
sangre. Ahora sabemos que el colesterol no es la causa de la
enfermedad cardíaca, así que la preocupación por las grasas saturadas
resulta absurda hoy en día.

La teoría del colesterol llevó a recomendar alimentos sin grasa, con
pocas calorías, lo que trajo consigo el consumo de otros alimentos que
han causado esta epidemia de inflamaciones.

La medicina convencional cometió un tremendo error cuando aconsejó a
la gente que evitara las grasas saturadas en favor de los alimentos
ricos en ácidos grasos omega-6. Ahora tenemos una epidemia de
inflamación de las arterias, que conduce a enfermedad cardíaca y otras
muertes silenciosas.

Lo que usted puede hacer es consumir alimentos integrales, de los que
su abuela sabía, y no esta moda de consumir tantos alimentos
procesados. Eliminando los alimentos que producen inflamación y
añadiendo los nutrientes esenciales presentes en los alimentos frescos
no elaborados, se revertirían los daños en las arterias y en todo su
cuerpo.

* El Dr. Dwight Lundell es jefe del Servicio de Cirugía Coronaria en
el hospital Banner Heart Hospital , Mesa , AZ. Recientemente dejó la
cirugía para centrarse en el tratamiento nutricional de las
enfermedades cardíacas. Es el fundador de Healthy Humans Foundation,
que promueve la salud humana mediante un enfoque que ayude a las
Corporaciones a promover la salud. Es también autor de “The Cure for
Heart Disease” and “The Great Cholesterol Lie.”

Southern Buttermilk Biscuits

Buttermilk biscuits are not so much a recipe, as they are a mythology. Secret knowledge passed down from generation to generation, mother to child, blogger to people like you.

This deceptively simple recipe can come out a million different ways with some very minor variations on the ingredients and amounts.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into thin slices, chilled in freezer
3/4 cup cold buttermilk


I tried to make biscuits with some leftover plain yogurt and they would have been perfect but I used too much baking soda. Therefore, nothing is critical in this recipe but there are limits and the cook’s hand will show.


2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour , plus more for dusting the board (if you can get White Lily flour, your biscuits will be even better)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder (use one without aluminum)
1 teaspoon kosher salt or 1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter , very cold
1 cup buttermilk (approx)

Directions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 450°F.
  2. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, or in the bowl of a food processor.
  3. Cut the butter into chunks and cut into the flour until it resembles course meal.
  4. If using a food processor, just pulse a few times until this consistency is achieved.
  5. Add the buttermilk and mix JUST until combined.
  6. If it appears on the dry side, add a bit more buttermilk. It should be very wet.
  7. Turn the dough out onto a floured board.
  8. Gently, gently PAT (do NOT roll with a rolling pin) the dough out until it’s about 1/2″ thick. Fold the dough about 5 times, gently press the dough down to a 1 inch thick.
  9. Use a round cutter to cut into rounds.
  10. You can gently knead the scraps together and make a few more, but they will not be anywhere near as good as the first ones.
  11. Place the biscuits on a cookie sheet- if you like soft sides, put them touching each other.
  12. If you like”crusty” sides, put them about 1 inch apart- these will not rise as high as the biscuits put close together.
  13. Bake for about 10-12 minutes- the biscuits will be a beautiful light golden brown on top and bottom.
  14. Do not overbake.
  15. Note: The key to real biscuits is not in the ingredients, but in the handling of the dough.
  16. The dough must be handled as little as possible or you will have tough biscuits.
  17. I have found that a food processor produces superior biscuits, because the ingredients stay colder and there’s less chance of overmixing.
  18. You also must pat the dough out with your hands, lightly.
  19. Rolling with a rolling pin is a guaranteed way to overstimulate the gluten, resulting in a tougher biscuit.
  20. Note 2: You can make these biscuits, cut them, put them on cookie sheets and freeze them for up to a month.
  21. When you want fresh biscuits, simply place them frozen on the cookie sheet and bake at 450°F for about 20 minutes.

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/southern-buttermilk-biscuits-26110#ixzz1gX1dWGN3


fat again

The Fat Trap,   By TARA PARKER-POPE
December 28, 2011

For 15 years, Joseph Proietto has been helping people lose weight. When these obese patients arrive at his weight-loss clinic in Australia, they are determined to slim down. And most of the time, he says, they do just that, sticking to the clinic’s program and dropping excess pounds. But then, almost without exception, the weight begins to creep back. In a matter of months or years, the entire effort has come undone, and the patient is fat again. “It has always seemed strange to me,” says Proietto, who is a physician at the University of Melbourne. “These are people who are very motivated to lose weight, who achieve weight loss most of the time without too much trouble and yet, inevitably, gradually, they regain the weight.”

Anyone who has ever dieted knows that lost pounds often return, and most of us assume the reason is a lack of discipline or a failure of willpower. But Proietto suspected that there was more to it, and he decided to take a closer look at the biological state of the body after weight loss.

Beginning in 2009, he and his team recruited 50 obese men and women. The men weighed an average of 233 pounds; the women weighed about 200 pounds. Although some people dropped out of the study, most of the patients stuck with the extreme low-calorie diet, which consisted of special shakes called Optifast and two cups of low-starch vegetables, totaling just 500 to 550 calories a day for eight weeks. Ten weeks in, the dieters lost an average of 30 pounds.

At that point, the 34 patients who remained stopped dieting and began working to maintain the new lower weight. Nutritionists counseled them in person and by phone, promoting regular exercise and urging them to eat more vegetables and less fat. But despite the effort, they slowly began to put on weight. After a year, the patients already had regained an average of 11 of the pounds they struggled so hard to lose. They also reported feeling far more hungry and preoccupied with food than before they lost the weight.

While researchers have known for decades that the body undergoes various metabolic and hormonal changes while it’s losing weight, the Australian team detected something new. A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost. For instance, a gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected. A cocktail of other hormones associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place.

“What we see here is a coordinated defense mechanism with multiple components all directed toward making us put on weight,” Proietto says. “This, I think, explains the high failure rate in obesity treatment.”

While the findings from Proietto and colleagues, published this fall in The New England Journal of Medicine, are not conclusive — the study was small and the findings need to be replicated — the research has nonetheless caused a stir in the weight-loss community, adding to a growing body of evidence that challenges conventional thinking about obesity, weight loss and willpower. For years, the advice to the overweight and obese has been that we simply need to eat less and exercise more. While there is truth to this guidance, it fails to take into account that the human body continues to fight against weight loss long after dieting has stopped. This translates into a sobering reality: once we become fat, most of us, despite our best efforts, will probably stay fat.

I have always felt perplexed about my inability to keep weight off. I know the medical benefits of weight loss, and I don’t drink sugary sodas or eat fast food. I exercise regularly — a few years ago, I even completed a marathon. Yet during the 23 years since graduating from college, I’ve lost 10 or 20 pounds at a time, maintained it for a little while and then gained it all back and more, to the point where I am now easily 60 pounds overweight.

I wasn’t overweight as a child, but I can’t remember a time when my mother, whose weight probably fluctuated between 150 and 250 pounds, wasn’t either on a diet or, in her words, cheating on her diet. Sometimes we ate healthful, balanced meals; on other days dinner consisted of a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. As a high-school cross-country runner, I never worried about weight, but in college, when my regular training runs were squeezed out by studying and socializing, the numbers on the scale slowly began to move up. As adults, my three sisters and I all struggle with weight, as do many members of my extended family. My mother died of esophageal cancer six years ago. It was her great regret that in the days before she died, the closest medical school turned down her offer to donate her body because she was obese.

It’s possible that the biological cards were stacked against me from the start. Researchers know that obesity tends to run in families, and recent science suggests that even the desire to eat higher-calorie foods may be influenced by heredity. But untangling how much is genetic and how much is learned through family eating habits is difficult. What is clear is that some people appear to be prone to accumulating extra fat while others seem to be protected against it.

In a seminal series of experiments published in the 1990s, the Canadian researchers Claude Bouchard and Angelo Tremblay studied 31 pairs of male twins ranging in age from 17 to 29, who were sometimes overfed and sometimes put on diets. (None of the twin pairs were at risk for obesity based on their body mass or their family history.) In one study, 12 sets of the twins were put under 24-hour supervision in a college dormitory. Six days a week they ate 1,000 extra calories a day, and one day they were allowed to eat normally. They could read, play video games, play cards and watch television, but exercise was limited to one 30-minute daily walk. Over the course of the 120-day study, the twins consumed 84,000 extra calories beyond their basic needs.

That experimental binge should have translated into a weight gain of roughly 24 pounds (based on 3,500 calories to a pound). But some gained less than 10 pounds, while others gained as much as 29 pounds. The amount of weight gained and how the fat was distributed around the body closely matched among brothers, but varied considerably among the different sets of twins. Some brothers gained three times as much fat around their abdomens as others, for instance. When the researchers conducted similar exercise studies with the twins, they saw the patterns in reverse, with some twin sets losing more pounds than others on the same exercise regimen. The findings, the researchers wrote, suggest a form of “biological determinism” that can make a person susceptible to weight gain or loss.

But while there is widespread agreement that at least some risk for obesity is inherited, identifying a specific genetic cause has been a challenge. In October 2010, the journal Nature Genetics reported that researchers have so far confirmed 32 distinct genetic variations associated with obesity or body-mass index. One of the most common of these variations was identified in April 2007 by a British team studying the genetics of Type 2 diabetes. According to Timothy Frayling at the Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Science at the University of Exeter, people who carried a variant known as FTO faced a much higher risk of obesity — 30 percent higher if they had one copy of the variant; 60 percent if they had two.

This FTO variant is surprisingly common; about 65 percent of people of European or African descent and an estimated 27 to 44 percent of Asians are believed to carry at least one copy of it. Scientists don’t understand how the FTO variation influences weight gain, but studies in children suggest the trait plays a role in eating habits. In one 2008 study led by Colin Palmer of the University of Dundee in Scotland, Scottish schoolchildren were given snacks of orange drinks and muffins and then allowed to graze on a buffet of grapes, celery, potato chips and chocolate buttons. All the food was carefully monitored so the researchers knew exactly what was consumed. Although all the children ate about the same amount of food, as weighed in grams, children with the FTO variant were more likely to eat foods with higher fat and calorie content. They weren’t gorging themselves, but they consumed, on average, about 100 calories more than children who didn’t carry the gene. Those who had the gene variant had about four pounds more body fat than noncarriers.

I have been tempted to send in my own saliva sample for a DNA test to find out if my family carries a genetic predisposition for obesity. But even if the test came back negative, it would only mean that my family doesn’t carry a known, testable genetic risk for obesity. Recently the British television show “ Embarrassing Fat Bodies” asked Frayling’s lab to test for fat-promoting genes, and the results showed one very overweight family had a lower-than-average risk for obesity.

A positive result, telling people they are genetically inclined to stay fat, might be self-fulfilling. In February, The New England Journal of Medicine published a report on how genetic testing for a variety of diseases affected a person’s mood and health habits. Over all, the researchers found no effect from disease-risk testing, but there was a suggestion, though it didn’t reach statistical significance, that after testing positive for fat-promoting genes, some people were more likely to eat fatty foods, presumably because they thought being fat was their genetic destiny and saw no sense in fighting it.

While knowing my genetic risk might satisfy my curiosity, I also know that heredity, at best, would explain only part of why I became overweight. I’m much more interested in figuring out what I can do about it now.
The National Weight Control Registry tracks 10,000 people who have lost weight and have kept it off. “We set it up in response to comments that nobody ever succeeds at weight loss,” says Rena Wing, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School, who helped create the registry with James O. Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado at Denver. “We had two goals: to prove there were people who did, and to try to learn from them about what they do to achieve this long-term weight loss.” Anyone who has lost 30 pounds and kept it off for at least a year is eligible to join the study, though the average member has lost 70 pounds and remained at that weight for six years.
Wing says that she agrees that physiological changes probably do occur that make permanent weight loss difficult, but she says the larger problem is environmental, and that people struggle to keep weight off because they are surrounded by food, inundated with food messages and constantly presented with opportunities to eat. “We live in an environment with food cues all the time,” Wing says. “We’ve taught ourselves over the years that one of the ways to reward yourself is with food. It’s hard to change the environment and the behavior.”
There is no consistent pattern to how people in the registry lost weight — some did it on Weight Watchers, others with Jenny Craig, some by cutting carbs on the Atkins diet and a very small number lost weight through surgery. But their eating and exercise habits appear to reflect what researchers find in the lab: to lose weight and keep it off, a person must eat fewer calories and exercise far more than a person who maintains the same weight naturally. Registry members exercise about an hour or more each day — the average weight-loser puts in the equivalent of a four-mile daily walk, seven days a week. They get on a scale every day in order to keep their weight within a narrow range. They eat breakfast regularly. Most watch less than half as much television as the overall population. They eat the same foods and in the same patterns consistently each day and don’t “cheat” on weekends or holidays. They also appear to eat less than most people, with estimates ranging from 50 to 300 fewer daily calories.
Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, says that while the 10,000 people tracked in the registry are a useful resource, they also represent a tiny percentage of the tens of millions of people who have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight. “All it means is that there are rare individuals who do manage to keep it off,” Brownell says. “You find these people are incredibly vigilant about maintaining their weight. Years later they are paying attention to every calorie, spending an hour a day on exercise. They never don’t think about their weight.”
Janice Bridge, a registry member who has successfully maintained a 135-pound weight loss for about five years, is a perfect example. “It’s one of the hardest things there is,” she says. “It’s something that has to be focused on every minute. I’m not always thinking about food, but I am always aware of food.”
Bridge, who is 66 and lives in Davis, Calif., was overweight as a child and remembers going on her first diet of 1,400 calories a day at 14. At the time, her slow pace of weight loss prompted her doctor to accuse her of cheating. Friends told her she must not be paying attention to what she was eating. “No one would believe me that I was doing everything I was told,” she says. “You can imagine how tremendously depressing it was and what a feeling of rebellion and anger was building up.”
After peaking at 330 pounds in 2004, she tried again to lose weight. She managed to drop 30 pounds, but then her weight loss stalled. In 2006, at age 60, she joined a medically supervised weight-loss program with her husband, Adam, who weighed 310 pounds. After nine months on an 800-calorie diet, she slimmed down to 165 pounds. Adam lost about 110 pounds and now weighs about 200.
During the first years after her weight loss, Bridge tried to test the limits of how much she could eat. She used exercise to justify eating more. The death of her mother in 2009 consumed her attention; she lost focus and slowly regained 30 pounds. She has decided to try to maintain this higher weight of 195, which is still 135 pounds fewer than her heaviest weight.
“It doesn’t take a lot of variance from my current maintenance for me to pop on another two or three pounds,” she says. “It’s been a real struggle to stay at this weight, but it’s worth it, it’s good for me, it makes me feel better. But my body would put on weight almost instantaneously if I ever let up.”
So she never lets up. Since October 2006 she has weighed herself every morning and recorded the result in a weight diary. She even carries a scale with her when she travels. In the past six years, she made only one exception to this routine: a two-week, no-weigh vacation in Hawaii.
She also weighs everything in the kitchen. She knows that lettuce is about 5 calories a cup, while flour is about 400. If she goes out to dinner, she conducts a Web search first to look at the menu and calculate calories to help her decide what to order. She avoids anything with sugar or white flour, which she calls her “gateway drugs” for cravings and overeating. She has also found that drinking copious amounts of water seems to help; she carries a 20-ounce water bottle and fills it five times a day. She writes down everything she eats. At night, she transfers all the information to an electronic record. Adam also keeps track but prefers to keep his record with pencil and paper.
“That transfer process is really important; it’s my accountability,” she says. “It comes up with the total number of calories I’ve eaten today and the amount of protein. I do a little bit of self-analysis every night.”
Bridge and her husband each sought the help of therapists, and in her sessions, Janice learned that she had a tendency to eat when she was bored or stressed. “We are very much aware of how our culture taught us to use food for all kinds of reasons that aren’t related to its nutritive value,” Bridge says.
Bridge supports her careful diet with an equally rigorous regimen of physical activity. She exercises from 100 to 120 minutes a day, six or seven days a week, often by riding her bicycle to the gym, where she takes a water-aerobics class. She also works out on an elliptical trainer at home and uses a recumbent bike to “walk” the dog, who loves to run alongside the low, three-wheeled machine. She enjoys gardening as a hobby but allows herself to count it as exercise on only those occasions when she needs to “garden vigorously.” Adam is also a committed exerciser, riding his bike at least two hours a day, five days a week.
Janice Bridge has used years of her exercise and diet data to calculate her own personal fuel efficiency. She knows that her body burns about three calories a minute during gardening, about four calories a minute on the recumbent bike and during water aerobics and about five a minute when she zips around town on her regular bike.
“Practically anyone will tell you someone biking is going to burn 11 calories a minute,” she says. “That’s not my body. I know it because of the statistics I’ve kept.”
Based on metabolism data she collected from the weight-loss clinic and her own calculations, she has discovered that to keep her current weight of 195 pounds, she can eat 2,000 calories a day as long as she burns 500 calories in exercise. She avoids junk food, bread and pasta and many dairy products and tries to make sure nearly a third of her calories come from protein. The Bridges will occasionally share a dessert, or eat an individual portion of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, so they know exactly how many calories they are ingesting. Because she knows errors can creep in, either because a rainy day cuts exercise short or a mismeasured snack portion adds hidden calories, she allows herself only 1,800 daily calories of food. (The average estimate for a similarly active woman of her age and size is about 2,300 calories.)
Just talking to Bridge about the effort required to maintain her weight is exhausting. I find her story inspiring, but it also makes me wonder whether I have what it takes to be thin. I have tried on several occasions (and as recently as a couple weeks ago) to keep a daily diary of my eating and exercise habits, but it’s easy to let it slide. I can’t quite imagine how I would ever make time to weigh and measure food when some days it’s all I can do to get dinner on the table between finishing my work and carting my daughter to dance class or volleyball practice. And while I enjoy exercising for 30- or 40-minute stretches, I also learned from six months of marathon training that devoting one to two hours a day to exercise takes an impossible toll on my family life.
Bridge concedes that having grown children and being retired make it easier to focus on her weight. “I don’t know if I could have done this when I had three kids living at home,” she says. “We know how unusual we are. It’s pretty easy to get angry with the amount of work and dedication it takes to keep this weight off. But the alternative is to not keep the weight off. ”
“I think many people who are anxious to lose weight don’t fully understand what the consequences are going to be, nor does the medical community fully explain this to people,” Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia University in New York, says. “We don’t want to make them feel hopeless, but we do want to make them understand that they are trying to buck a biological system that is going to try to make it hard for them.”
Leibel and his colleague Michael Rosenbaum have pioneered much of what we know about the body’s response to weight loss. For 25 years, they have meticulously tracked about 130 individuals for six months or longer at a stretch. The subjects reside at their research clinic where every aspect of their bodies is measured. Body fat is determined by bone-scan machines. A special hood monitors oxygen consumption and carbon-dioxide output to precisely measure metabolism. Calories burned during digestion are tracked. Exercise tests measure maximum heart rate, while blood tests measure hormones and brain chemicals. Muscle biopsies are taken to analyze their metabolic efficiency. (Early in the research, even stool samples were collected and tested to make sure no calories went unaccounted for.) For their trouble, participants are paid $5,000 to $8,000.
Eventually, the Columbia subjects are placed on liquid diets of 800 calories a day until they lose 10 percent of their body weight. Once they reach the goal, they are subjected to another round of intensive testing as they try to maintain the new weight. The data generated by these experiments suggest that once a person loses about 10 percent of body weight, he or she is metabolically different than a similar-size person who is naturally the same weight.
The research shows that the changes that occur after weight loss translate to a huge caloric disadvantage of about 250 to 400 calories. For instance, one woman who entered the Columbia studies at 230 pounds was eating about 3,000 calories to maintain that weight. Once she dropped to 190 pounds, losing 17 percent of her body weight, metabolic studies determined that she needed about 2,300 daily calories to maintain the new lower weight. That may sound like plenty, but the typical 30-year-old 190-pound woman can consume about 2,600 calories to maintain her weight — 300 more calories than the woman who dieted to get there.
Scientists are still learning why a weight-reduced body behaves so differently from a similar-size body that has not dieted. Muscle biopsies taken before, during and after weight loss show that once a person drops weight, their muscle fibers undergo a transformation, making them more like highly efficient “slow twitch” muscle fibers. A result is that after losing weight, your muscles burn 20 to 25 percent fewer calories during everyday activity and moderate aerobic exercise than those of a person who is naturally at the same weight. That means a dieter who thinks she is burning 200 calories during a brisk half-hour walk is probably using closer to 150 to 160 calories.
Another way that the body seems to fight weight loss is by altering the way the brain responds to food. Rosenbaum and his colleague Joy Hirsch, a neuroscientist also at Columbia, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to track the brain patterns of people before and after weight loss while they looked at objects like grapes, Gummi Bears, chocolate, broccoli, cellphones and yo-yos. After weight loss, when the dieter looked at food, the scans showed a bigger response in the parts of the brain associated with reward and a lower response in the areas associated with control. This suggests that the body, in order to get back to its pre-diet weight, induces cravings by making the person feel more excited about food and giving him or her less willpower to resist a high-calorie treat.
“After you’ve lost weight, your brain has a greater emotional response to food,” Rosenbaum says. “You want it more, but the areas of the brain involved in restraint are less active.” Combine that with a body that is now burning fewer calories than expected, he says, “and you’ve created the perfect storm for weight regain.” How long this state lasts isn’t known, but preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected. The problem could persist indefinitely. (The same phenomenon occurs when a thin person tries to drop about 10 percent of his or her body weight — the body defends the higher weight.) This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to lose weight and keep it off; it just means it’s really, really difficult.
Lynn Haraldson, a 48-year-old woman who lives in Pittsburgh, reached 300 pounds in 2000. She joined Weight Watchers and managed to take her 5-foot-5 body down to 125 pounds for a brief time. Today, she’s a member of the National Weight Control Registry and maintains about 140 pounds by devoting her life to weight maintenance. She became a vegetarian, writes down what she eats every day, exercises at least five days a week and blogs about the challenges of weight maintenance. A former journalist and antiques dealer, she returned to school for a two-year program on nutrition and health; she plans to become a dietary counselor. She has also come to accept that she can never stop being “hypervigilant” about what she eats. 

“Everything has to change,” she says. “I’ve been up and down the scale so many times, always thinking I can go back to ‘normal,’ but I had to establish a new normal. People don’t like hearing that it’s not easy.”

What’s not clear from the research is whether there is a window during which we can gain weight and then lose it without creating biological backlash. Many people experience transient weight gain, putting on a few extra pounds during the holidays or gaining 10 or 20 pounds during the first years of college that they lose again. The actor Robert De Niro lost weight after bulking up for his performance in “Raging Bull.” The filmmaker Morgan Spurlock also lost the weight he gained during the making of “Super Size Me.” Leibel says that whether these temporary pounds became permanent probably depends on a person’s genetic risk for obesity and, perhaps, the length of time a person carried the extra weight before trying to lose it. But researchers don’t know how long it takes for the body to reset itself permanently to a higher weight. The good news is that it doesn’t seem to happen overnight.
“For a mouse, I know the time period is somewhere around eight months,” Leibel says. “Before that time, a fat mouse can come back to being a skinny mouse again without too much adjustment. For a human we don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it’s not measured in months, but in years.”
Nobody wants to be fat. In most modern cultures, even if you are healthy — in my case, my cholesterol and blood pressure are low and I have an extraordinarily healthy heart — to be fat is to be perceived as weak-willed and lazy. It’s also just embarrassing. Once, at a party, I met a well-respected writer who knew my work as a health writer. “You’re not at all what I expected,” she said, eyes widening. The man I was dating, perhaps trying to help, finished the thought. “You thought she’d be thinner, right?” he said. I wanted to disappear, but the woman was gracious. “No,” she said, casting a glare at the man and reaching to warmly shake my hand. “I thought you’d be older.”
If anything, the emerging science of weight loss teaches us that perhaps we should rethink our biases about people who are overweight. It is true that people who are overweight, including myself, get that way because they eat too many calories relative to what their bodies need. But a number of biological and genetic factors can play a role in determining exactly how much food is too much for any given individual. Clearly, weight loss is an intense struggle, one in which we are not fighting simply hunger or cravings for sweets, but our own bodies.
While the public discussion about weight loss tends to come down to which diet works best (Atkins? Jenny Craig? Plant-based? Mediterranean?), those who have tried and failed at all of these diets know there is no simple answer. Fat, sugar and carbohydrates in processed foods may very well be culprits in the nation’s obesity problem. But there is tremendous variation in an individual’s response.
The view of obesity as primarily a biological, rather than psychological, disease could also lead to changes in the way we approach its treatment. Scientists at Columbia have conducted several small studies looking at whether injecting people with leptin, the hormone made by body fat, can override the body’s resistance to weight loss and help maintain a lower weight. In a few small studies, leptin injections appear to trick the body into thinking it’s still fat. After leptin replacement, study subjects burned more calories during activity. And in brain-scan studies, leptin injections appeared to change how the brain responded to food, making it seem less enticing. But such treatments are still years away from commercial development. For now, those of us who want to lose weight and keep it off are on our own.
One question many researchers think about is whether losing weight more slowly would make it more sustainable than the fast weight loss often used in scientific studies. Leibel says the pace of weight loss is unlikely to make a difference, because the body’s warning system is based solely on how much fat a person loses, not how quickly he or she loses it. Even so, Proietto is now conducting a study using a slower weight-loss method and following dieters for three years instead of one.
Given how hard it is to lose weight, it’s clear, from a public-health standpoint, that resources would best be focused on preventing weight gain. The research underscores the urgency of national efforts to get children to exercise and eat healthful foods.
But with a third of the U.S. adult population classified as obese, nobody is saying people who already are very overweight should give up on weight loss. Instead, the solution may be to preach a more realistic goal. Studies suggest that even a 5 percent weight loss can lower a person’s risk for diabetes, heart disease and other health problems associated with obesity. There is also speculation that the body is more willing to accept small amounts of weight loss.
But an obese person who loses just 5 percent of her body weight will still very likely be obese. For a 250-pound woman, a 5 percent weight loss of about 12 pounds probably won’t even change her clothing size. Losing a few pounds may be good for the body, but it does very little for the spirit and is unlikely to change how fat people feel about themselves or how others perceive them.
So where does that leave a person who wants to lose a sizable amount of weight? Weight-loss scientists say they believe that once more people understand the genetic and biological challenges of keeping weight off, doctors and patients will approach weight loss more realistically and more compassionately. At the very least, the science may compel people who are already overweight to work harder to make sure they don’t put on additional pounds. Some people, upon learning how hard permanent weight loss can be, may give up entirely and return to overeating. Others may decide to accept themselves at their current weight and try to boost their fitness and overall health rather than changing the number on the scale.
For me, understanding the science of weight loss has helped make sense of my own struggles to lose weight, as well as my mother’s endless cycle of dieting, weight gain and despair. I wish she were still here so I could persuade her to finally forgive herself for her dieting failures. While I do, ultimately, blame myself for allowing my weight to get out of control, it has been somewhat liberating to learn that there are factors other than my character at work when it comes to gaining and losing weight. And even though all the evidence suggests that it’s going to be very, very difficult for me to reduce my weight permanently, I’m surprisingly optimistic. I may not be ready to fight this battle this month or even this year. But at least I know what I’m up against.
Tara Parker-Pope is the editor of the Well blog at The Times.

scones

Jackie and her scones are the main attraction at Casey’s Cosy Corner Cafe in the Assembly Rooms Lancaster.

In this film Jackie shares her secrets…it’s all in the hands.

Ingredients:
—————–
3lb Plain Flour
10oz Marg
3oz Baking powerder
12oz Caster sugar
9oz Fruit
1 1/2 pts Milk
3 Eggs
Salt

Filmed as part of What’s Cooking Grandmas of Lancaster.

Visit http://www.WhatsCookingGrandma.net for more…

Super Size Me

Super Size Me is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock’s film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003 during which he ate only McDonald’s food. The film documents this lifestyle’s drastic effect on Spurlock’s physical and psychological well-being, and explores the fast food industry’s corporate influence, including how it encourages poornutrition for its own profit.
Spurlock dined at McDonald’s restaurants three times per day, eating every item on the chain’s menu at least once. Spurlock consumed an average of 20.92 megajoules or 5,000 kcal (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment.
As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained 24½ lbs. (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, a cholesterol level of 230, and experienced mood swingssexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation in his liver. It took Spurlock fourteen months to lose the weight gained from his experiment using avegan diet supervised by his future wife, a chef who specializes in gourmet vegan dishes.
The reason for Spurlock’s investigation was the increasing spread of obesity throughout U.S. society, which the Surgeon General has declared “epidemic,” and the corresponding lawsuit brought against McDonald’s on behalf of two overweight girls, who, it was alleged, became obese as a result of eating McDonald’s food [Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp., 237 F. Supp. 2d 512].[3] Spurlock points out that although the lawsuit against McDonald’s failed (and subsequently many state legislatures have legislated against product liability actions against producers and distributors of “fast food”), much of the same criticism leveled against the tobacco companies applies to fast food franchises whose product is both physiologically addictive and physically harmful.[4][5]
The documentary was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.[6]
A comic book related to the movie has been made with Dark Horse as the publisher. It contains stories about various cases of fast food health scares