Dana's blog

I should have done this days ago! I recently had an article about summer fruit published on CarbSmart.

In fact, I'll start posting here whenever I have an article go up on CarbSmart, for you folks who just can't get enough of me. ;-D

What about high-carb vegetables? The list is far shorter. Unfortunately, three of America's most popular vegetables are on it.

Corn, peas, and potatoes are all high carb. They also have something else in common: They're only kinda-sorta vegetables. Corn is really a grain, bred for high sugar content and harvested before it's ripe. (When corn ripens the sugar turns into starch.) Peas are a legume, just like all the dried beans -- again, they're eaten before they're fully ripened. And potatoes, while a root vegetable, really fall into the starch category -- ask any chef.

This came this morning in my Google News Alert. Great article: 4 weight-loss myths that are holding you back right now.

My only quibble would be that I do, indeed, believe that moderate drinking is good for you.

Hi Dana

I bought your book in South Africa where we live and I happened to stumble across your blog today.

I appreciate your menu plans but I don't see much in the way of veggies and fruit? Is it because you normally eat them but don't add to the menu plan or don't you eat them at all? I am not a huge fruit fan but do enjoy fruit now and again but I am a vegetable fanatic and just LOVE veggies. Can one eat them with your meals (excluding the potato)?

Keep well and I shall keep checking your blog for info.

Thanks
M

Hey, M --

I've made it clear how I feel about Dr. Perkins calling his not-very-low-carb vegan diet "Eco-Atkins." Now comes this:

Subject: Dixie Diners' Club: Exclusive Home of Eco-AtkinsR

>From the beginning, Dixie was the leading
supplier to Atkins Nutritionals of lower-fat low
carb products. We were proud to have been their
largest third-party vendor. Most of the original
products were developed by Dixie for Atkins, and
continue to be manufactured and sold by Dixie
today. But it didn't stop there. Dixie continues
to develop better low carb products. Eco-friendly

Heck, he's on a freakin' rotisserie! Will the slanders and misuses of my hero's name ever stop? First it was all those people claiming to be "doing Atkins" when they hadn't read word one of the book and were just making it up as they went along. At the same time we had all the "journalists" who criticized the diet without bothering to read it either. (You could tell because they'd always claim that "The Atkins diet only allows 20 grams of carbohydrate a day!" as if Induction were the whole diet. Either that, or they'd call it a "no-carb" diet, or an "all-meat" diet.)

Several weeks back, a reader named Sally asked:

I have two unrelated questions for you. First, what would you order at a Chinese restaurant? My family loves to go out for Chinese but so far everything I've tried to order seems to make me puffy and moody the next day (never mind the extra 3 or 4 lbs.). Of course I skip the rice, and sweet sauces, but I think there is corn starch in most everything else. Any ideas?

Another smoothie! This one has a caramel-butterscotch flavor. Yummy!

Caramel-Vanilla Smoothie

3/4 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar-free caramel or dulce de leche coffee flavoring syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 ice cubes

Throw everything but the ice in your blender. Run till it's very smooth and frothy. Then drop in the ice cubes, one at a time, and run the blender till they stop making noise. Pour into a tall glass and enjoy.

I have long felt badly about my Low-Carb Smoothies book. Why? Because the recipes rely heavily on Carb Countdown carb-reduced milk, which has since become unavailable in much of the country. (If you live near Hood dairy, on the East coast, you may be able to find it under the name Calorie Countdown. Same stuff.)

But just this weekend I tried a new way of making a smoothie -- after all, summer is here, and a cool and yummy smoothie sounds like a perfect breakfast -- and it worked out better than I dreamed. What did I use? Cottage cheese.

Just when I thought nothing could be worse than KFC's "Famous Bowls" (bowls of mashed potatoes with every other gloppy, carb-y thing they serve piled on top), Domino's invents --
Bread Bowl Pasta. That's right, pasta served in a bowl made of bread. White flour served on white flour! Mmmmm.

They want $5.99 for this. I'm guessing that it contains roughly 15c worth of flour, plus, of course, some cheap nasty shortening, and oh, a teeny bit of animal protein and/or a smidgen of vegetables in the sauce if you choose the right variety.

In the interests of full disclosure, it should be stated up front that I take supplements. A lot of supplements. A whole big darned pile of supplements. I have also been known to sell supplements, having spent much of my 20s in the health food biz. I am manifestly not unbiased on the subject. On the other hand, being wildly opinionated has served me well so far in my writing career, so why should today be any different?

Exciting news! As of today, I am a featured staff writer for CarbSmart, the biggest, best, and oldest low carb etailer. Andrew DiMino, the founder and owner, and I have been pals for a decade now, and I'm jazzed about this collaboration, which will let me reach a new audience. I'll be writing a couple of new articles a month, and also reprinting past articles on the Carb Smart site.

Cool stuff!

The verdict is in: The new KFC grilled chicken is quite good. I got a drumstick -- I vastly prefer dark meat to light -- and it was juicy, tender, and flavorful. And according to the KFC website nutrition chart, it has 0 carbs. If you're looking for the convenience of a bucket of chicken, I say go for it!

KFC was my favorite fast food place for a while. Their Tender Roast Chicken was quite good, and a couple of pieces with green beans on the side made a great fast low carb lunch. Then they discontinued the Tender Roast, and I haven't darkened their doorstep since.

I roasted a huge honkin' leg of lamb just for That Nice Boy I Married and me. Accordingly, I am up to my armpits in leftover lamb! I had a Leftover Lamblet for breakfast -- the recipe is in 500 Low-Carb Recipes, though I pretty much winged it: