Gotcha! Must have glazed over that.

–Jimmy

As an example, there’s a passage about French fries in restaurants and how they used to be fried in beef fat. When beef fat was thought to be bad, restaurants went to vegetable oils, and when those were found to be bad, a new no-cholesterol, trans-fat-free oil was developed. (Yuck.) The passage was all about how restaurant chains turned down the new product because it had the taint of having been made or derived from beef. Nowhere was there a word that we shouldn’t be eating French fries to begin with or that it might actually be the potato that is making us fat.

He seems to think that industrial, processed food might really be just fine, if only we could find a way to develop and sucessfully sell products that don’t have so much fat or sugar in them. But I tend to agree with Nina Planck, who thinks that any food that has been messed with, taken apart, reconfigured, and repackaged is no longer a real food and should be avoided.

The book did have information about how product placement affects what we buy, but I knew most of that already from a previous book I thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend, called “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping,” by Paco Underhill, which looks at shopping and buying habits in general, not just those involving food. It’s quite interesting. — Anne

Patience, Anne. I’m still writing the reviews and will get to Hank’s book soon. I interviewed him for my podcast show after reading Dr. Mike Eades’ post about this book. Yes, I’m aware he is not a low-carb fan, but the information in his book is excellent. I too have read Underhill’s book and it was fabulous. This book is simply a continuation of that same theme. My review is coming soon! THANKS for reading!

–Jimmy

Planck’s not that sympathetic to low-carbing, but if you eat the way she suggests, you’re going to have less carbohydrate in your diet by default than you would if you continued eating Standard American.

Nourishing Traditions is fabulous. If you’re low-carbing on a plan that doesn’t allow a lot of dairy because of lactose, there are recipes in that book that will be a huge help. Kefir, in particular, is best when homemade and it’s incredibly good for you. I also learned how to make bread in a way that makes the gluten less toxic, and I discovered I could do it without buying store-bought yeast and without getting a starter from someone else. I baked a loaf with wild-caught starter and you would not believe how long it went before going moldy. I later discovered that wild-caught sourdough contains bacteria that destroy a specific peptide in the wheat protein (gluten) that is THE primary trigger for celiac symptoms. That peptide survives human digestion–only bacteria can break it up. So for those of you who can occasionally have regular bread, that’s a fabulous way to make it. It’s cheaper than buying Ezekiel bread, which is my other choice that I occasionally buy for my daughter.

Mary Enig was sounding the alarm about trans fats decades before the mainstream dietetic establishment sounded alarms about them. Dietary fats have been her area of expertise since at least the 1950s. If it has anything to do with fat at all, I look to this woman for advice first.