For months, I've been working to perfect my low-carb blueberry pancake recipe. I'm finally there. What makes these the perfect pancakes? Well, they're easy to make -- just five ingredients. And they're high in fat, low in net carbohydrates, and the recipe makes just enough for one person to eat on a weekend morning when he or she is hungry for a treat. Oh, and the blueberries add a lot to the experience! I suppose a person could share the pancakes with another person if that other person would get out of bed at a reasonable time of the morning. But she never does, unless we are traveling, in which case I would not be cooking breakfast, nor eating pancakes because I have yet to discover a restaurant that makes low-carb pancakes. Of course, if I were to share the pancakes with another … [Read more ...]
Great foods for a low-carb diet (part 2): seeds
Maybe it's a stretch to call seeds "great food." Also, a reader new to low-carbing might get the impression that low-carb is a diet for the birds. That impression would be wrong unless we're talking about birds of prey! Seeds are at least a useful food, packing plenty of nutrition into a tiny space, and I have added a couple of seed products to my diet since going low-carb: sunflower kernels and flax seed meal. As you can see from the above, neither photographs well. Roasted sunflower kernels taste better than they look; flax seed meal, not so much. (Update -- also see "Chia: yet … [Read more ...]
No-filler salmon patties
Before I started eating low-carb, salmon was a minor part of my diet. If I ate salmon at all, it was in the form of a grilled or broiled salmon steak, usually in a restaurant. I never purchased or prepared canned salmon. But that has changed. Now I look for sales on canned salmon, and try to always have a few cans in the pantry. Canned salmon is usually wild-caught fish, which has a better reputation for purity than farm-raised fish. It's typically sold in 14.75 ounce cans, each of which provide 630 calories, 84 grams of protein, and significant calcium and Omega-3 fat. Salmon is … [Read more ...]
What is a low carb diet?
When I say that I follow a low carbohydrate way of eating, what do I mean? When you say it, what do you mean? I suspect we might all mean something a little different -- or even a lot different -- if we were to get down to specific foods we include or avoid, or to the number of grams of carbs we consume per day. The title of my blog -- "Life After Carbs" -- implies that I don't eat any carbs at all, but of course that's not true. The title ought to be interpreted as meaning, "Life after over-coming my craving for carbohydrates and eliminating most carbs from my diet." However, that's a … [Read more ...]
Cooking top sirloin on the grill
Summer is a great time to be low-carbing. Nothing says low-carb like a big hunk of red meat on an open grill. That's what we ate for dinner last night, and here's how I prepared it. 1. Get yourself a good fire going. The one pictured here was started 15 minutes before; it wouldn't hurt to wait another ten minutes, but I rarely have that much patience. 2. Plunk down a couple juicy steaks. This is top sirloin, about a pound and a half, nicely marbled. The cow it came from wasn't grass-fed, though, which is something to consider when eating large amounts of meat. … [Read more ...]
Intermittency in diet (LCN 65)
Intermittency: a dietary change-of-pace Low Carb Nugget 65 When it comes to diet, "intermittency" means making frequent, significant changes in how much you eat. You need to throw your body a dietary change up, and not let it adjust to a single continuous level of intake. (Programming note: I won't be releasing an episode of this podcast on Saturday, October 7th. Just two nuggets this week.) … [Read more ...]
Mice live longer, healthier on ketogenic diet, studies claim
A couple new studies find that a ketogenic diet promotes a longer, healthier lifespan. That's great, but the results have only been confirmed for lab mice. I've written about mouse-based dietary studies a few times over the years. None have impressed me much. Some have seemed quite odd. For instance, way back in 2011, I wrote a post entitled "Eating fish makes mice fat, study claims." Scientists fed some little rodents farmed raised salmon, and some the same diet without salmon, and found the fish-eating mice suffered more insulin resistance, visceral obesity, and glucose intolerance. As the … [Read more ...]
A typical day in my life after carbs
Following up on my post "What is a low carb diet?" I'm presenting here a typical day of low carbing. The day was a Saturday. Breakfast (6:30 a.m.) Most days, I'm an early riser. The sun comes up, and I'm right there with it. no-filler salmon patty (leftover) two eggs scrambled with butter two mugs of coffee, each with two teaspoons of half-and-half one multi-vitamin for men Morning Snack (10:00 a.m.) Having this mid-morning snack was a-typical. Often I make it to lunch without a snack. I ate this one because Anita and I were planning an expedition to Costco, and … [Read more ...]
Super simple low-carb pancakes
The need for super simple low-carb pancakes People new to the LCHF diet and life-style often miss their customary carb-laden comfort food. Personally, I think the best approach is to move on, embrace your new way of eating, and not try to recreate in low-carb form all the breads, pastas, and baked goods you used to enjoy. But a few exceptions may be good for your morale, and not hurt your carb count much or at all. … [Read more ...]
Fiber makes Brussels sprouts low-carb
Brussels sprouts, those cute little mini-cabbages named after a Belgium city, are one of the higher carb vegetables that I regularly eat. One cup of plain cooked Brussels sprouts will set you back about 11 grams of carbohydrates, and 4 grams of protein. All that, and you only get 55 or 56 calories of energy. That means a lot of us will be inclined to eat more than a cup. I probably eat between a cup-and-a-half and two cups at a time. As with other green vegetables, there is little fat naturally present in Brussels sprouts, just eight-tenths of a gram of fat in the one-cup portion. … [Read more ...]
Berries in heavy cream
For dinner one summer night, I ate a chunk of slow-cooked roast-beef, some raw veggies, and as a treat, a bowl of halved fresh strawberries, whole fresh blueberries, and two table-spoons of heavy whipping cream. Berries are the only kind of fruit I eat anymore. (I count the avocado as a berry, one that brings its own creamy fat.) I calculate that the berry bowl contained 137 calories, 9 grams carbs, 2 grams fiber, and 10 grams fat. All of the fat and the majority of the calories came from the heavy cream. … [Read more ...]