Stars: ***

I picked this book up from the library because we’ve recently acquired fish and I wanted to read up on it. Unfortunately I should have read the book BEFORE I got fish, which is what I had planned to do, however hubby is spontaneous and can’t resist spending money for something he wants. Anyways, this is one of the books I picked up.

It’s a book on Freshwater Aquariums only and includes such information as picking a tank and other equipment, the variety of available fish, maintaining a healthy aquatic environment, solving problems and more. It’s an okay book, there are just much better ones out there. The main thing is that this book was published in 1985 so much of it is outdated. Better equipment is available. There are different chemicals and different fish.

I was up north getting a haircut and Dad went along for the ride. He was so enjoying the vineyard scenery that we decided to head up Hwy 12 until we came upon a place for dinner that called to us. As we passed Kenwood, we remembered a casual but good Fish & Chips place that our friend Linda had introduced to us. Betty's Fish & Chips has been a long time family favorite of Linda's, and this was our second visit.

The interior was clean and inviting. It's a casual place, and there were locals with their dogs enjoying a meal on the outside where a few tables have been set up as well.

I sure am glad it's not my job to come up with the best eating plan for all Americans, let alone the world.1 (The World Health Organization has my sympathy.) The choices and defenders of those choices are numerous and polarized.

Regarding carbohydrates, it may be that a low-carbohydrate diet, around 10% of calories, is the best eating plan for overall health for everyone. Alternatively, it may be that a high-carbohydrate diet, above 45% of calories, is. Research has not sufficiently compared and contrasted the two.

This is a follow-up to my post, Dietary Fat Raises Insulin Levels.

Warren asked:"I am curious whether there is any detail provided in these studies regarding the types of fat, or is all fat, i.e., saturated, unsaturated, etc. lumped together?"The type of fat matters. The more saturated the fat, the more often it's associated with reductions in insulin sensitivity. The following study is often cited:

Substituting Dietary Saturated For Monounsaturated Fat Impairs Insulin Sensitivity In Healthy Men And Women: The KANWU Study, Diabetologia, 2001

Marion Nestle is taking some heat on one of her blog posts from a group that calls itself the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF).

Sushi on Sunday. I didn't have any this time, but I had found myself a week or two earlier looking for a Marin location that served sushi at lunch on Sundays. Pacific Catch in Corte Madera is the only place that I could come up with.

Dad and I stopped by here for Valentine's Day lunch after getting Dad's hair cut around the corner. This sweet little nibbling plate is still given you with your menus.

One day I enjoyed a walk over to Fish for lunch. It seems that it matters not when I go, there is always a line outside.

On that sunny day, I tried clam linguine and discovered that not only were the clams abundant, fresh and delicious, but that the pasta is made on site fresh. It was some of the best fresh pasta I've ever eaten. And the big galvanized bucket for the shells was a off-beat touch that added another touch of fun.

Sunny soup. It had been quite some time since I'd dropped in at Thai Terrace, and it beckoned one sunny day. The staff was friendly and welcoming and had me seated in no time short by a sunny window.

Venturing where most do not, I took a chance on a soup that had a 'foreign' sound to it - Fish Ball Soup. It was a wonderful discovery. A light soup base with lots of rice noodles, some cilantro and some pleasantly light balls of fish. Think surimi, but moistened and enriched by a good broth. Light and nourishing, I'll seek this dish out again.

Previously reviewed:

And ...

• Fish raises insulin more than popcorn.
• Cheese raises insulin more than white pasta.

This is not news. These findings appeared 11 years ago:

An Insulin Index Of Foods: The Insulin Demand Generated By 1000-kj Portions Of Common Foods, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1997

Among the foods tested, breakfast cereals as a group (Cornflakes, Special K, Honeysmacks, Sustain, All-Bran, muesli, oatmeal porridge) produced a lower insulin score* than protein-rich foods as a group (beef, white fish, cheese, eggs, lentils, baked beans). Foods of equal caloric content were compared.

* Insulin score was calculated as the area under the 120-minute insulin response curve for 1000 kJ of test food, relative to a reference food (white bread). (1000 kJ is about 240 calories.)

A strong insulin response is not always desirable.

They became unstuck in time a day later.
"So it goes."
- Billy Pilgrim 1________
Photo above: Homegrown, from a couple days ago. It's frozen water in the cut-off bottom of an old gallon jug. I use it as a water feeder for birds. They, however, use it as a bathtub. There's one particular female cardinal that sits in it at night (if it's warm enough) for about 5 minutes. The water comes up to her neck. She occasionally flutters her wings.

In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations published a 400-page report detailing the impact of livestock on the environment:

Livestock's Long Shadow, FAO, 2006 (PDF)

It's been a real eye-opener for me:

Climate Change:"The livestock sector is a major player [in climate change], responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport."The major portion of those emissions comes from gases other than CO2, gases with a greater potential to warm the atmosphere, such as:

• Methane - from enteric fermentation by ruminants
• Nitrous oxide - from manure

Land Use:

Around the time Fred Thompson proclaimed, "I don’t think that it’s the primary responsibility of the federal government to tell you what to eat.", the USDA was issuing a press release describing changes it planned to make to its food assistance program WIC.

Melinda shared these photos of her garden-in-work:"Here are 3 pix of what I brought w/ me from the condo when we moved to the little house w/ big deck. As you see, so far they aren't in the ground, but I did just get the raised bed, so hopefully I'll get it together [soon]."

Ah, the New Year, full of promise and opportunity, until your first McDonald's craving. Don't worry, you are not alone. Just check out the gym this week and a month from now if you want any reassurance.

It appears that Rachael Ray knows that many of us start the new year with a goal of eating healthier. In a recent newsletter sent out by her magazine, the following 30-minute meals were offered as good opportunities to aviod take out and make your own good food:

Tuna Steaks Provençale

Until after the esophagogastroduodenocolonoscopy.1 Well, not all eating. This is tonight's dinner:

And tomorrow's breakfast too. Actually, just 4 Dulcolax. But the whole bottle, 14 complete servings of that MiraLax must be enlisted to perform the unsubtle function.

I had reservations posting this. But, well, what's a blog for? So, if you have any experience with this procedure, your comments are welcome!
________1 A combined esophagogastroduodenoscopy and colonoscopy.
Photo: Homegrown. I wish it wasn't.

Lavender Blue shared these photos of her garden. (Click for larger.)

You may not know about, or you may know and may not agree with, the conclusions drawn by the data presented in the recently released book, The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health. On the other hand, maybe you've already embraced them.

Cultured meat isn't going away anytime soon. The People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals (PETA) are making sure of it.

Yesterday PETA disclosed they'll be offering one million dollars to the first group able to grow palatable chicken meat within the next 4 years:

From PETA: PETA Offers $1 Million Reward to First to Make In Vitro Meat:"PETA is offering a $1 million prize to the contest participant able to make the first in vitro chicken meat and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012. The contestant must do both of the following:

• Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.

Well, how about that. Mark Bittman has a blog. (Thank you, Melinda.)

Bitten: Mark Bittman on Food

It doesn't look like he posts often. Although he did make a few comments yesterday about his recent article that appeared in the New York Times, the one we discussed on my post, Got Vegetables?:

Eating Meat Is Only Human, Bitten, 5 Feb 2008

He lamented (I think he was lamenting), that he "got only two comments [on his original article]: one from a cattle rancher with some smart reasoning, and one from someone who was a little more emotional."

Ruby shared these photos of her garden. (Click for larger.): "Here are some pictures of what I have going on this year.

There was a full moon last night. It will be visible tonight too, and according to NASA, it will be the brightest full moon you'll see for the next 16 years:"That's because it's the highest-riding full moon until the year 2023."

I'm still wondering ... is cultured meat living?

A group of artists from the Tissue Culture and Art Project (TCA) in Australia grew this steak for their exhibition "Disembodied Cuisine".

Click to read captions, and to see some cultured meat up close.

Boy, do I get excited over new foods. Red quinoa! New for me, old for people who live in the Andes Mountains of South America, who, according to the box, have been growing it for more than 5,000 years. I wonder what they served it with. Maybe it's old for lots of you too, but I'm having fun with it!

It's a little more crunchy than the white quinoa I'm used to, if you could call quinoa crunchy at all. Otherwise, it's pretty similar in taste and cooking time.

The rusty red color of the grain blooms to a foggy purple color when cooked. (Click for larger.)

No, really. A comprehensive, online, free!, encyclopedia of every living thing on the planet. One page for each. Millions of pages. And it's a wiki - a collaborative, updatable effort from people all over the world. I can't think of a more ambitious project facing the internet.

And it went live on Tuesday (although it may be slow, it's getting over a million hits per hour):
Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)

Here's what the New York Times had to say:
The Encyclopedia of Life, No Bookshelf Required

Here's its official blog:
Encyclopedia of Life Blog

Here are some sample pages (clicking the image will take you to EOL's demo page):

Yeti Crab

Death Cap Mushroom

The photos below are from photographer Peter Menzel's 2005 book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats.

Menzel traveled to 24 countries, visiting and photographing 30 families for the book. Each photo represents the weekly food intake for the families pictured. (Each family was asked to purchase, at Menzel's expense, a typical week's groceries. The book lists the food items in detail, broken down by food group and cost, along with how the food was raised and prepared.)

I came across Menzel's photos on Amber's Blog (on Gaia), her post from November 27, 2007. She has a few more there, and some interesting comments.

Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide
Food expenditure for one week: $500.07

Ronald's comment reminded me of this.

Libby's Ingredients: Mechanically Separated Chicken, Partially Defatted Cooked Pork Fatty Tissue, Beef Tripe, Partially Defatted Cook Beef Fatty Tissue, Vinegar, Salt, Spices, Sugar, Flavorings, Sodium Erythorbate And Sodium Nitrate.

Paul Krzyzanowski posted this photo of his collection:

The UK Department of Health released its "Health Profile of England 2007". They noticed a trend:

The UK Government Office for Science projected that trend 40 years into the future and determined that a "bold whole system approach is critical":

The sentence above is haunting me.

Doug asked:"I still don't understand why more care isn't necessary to avoid deficiencies of the essential amino acids. Is it the case that these amino acids are present in all fruits and vegetables? (I didn't think this was so, but you mentioned on that other thread that thinking has changed in this regard.) Or is it simply that easy to avoid a deficiency of an essential amino acid by consuming any mixture of fruits and vegetables?"Doug, I would answer "Yes." to your last question. I thought it summed up the facts well.

Plants are capable of manufacturing all 20 amino acids, which include the essential amino acids (EAAs), although amounts vary. I checked a number of foods (potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes, asparagus, corn, rice, oatmeal, beans, and others) and found all EAAs in each of these foods. Even an apple which is listed as having 0 grams of protein has all the EAAs, albeit it small amounts.