Reader Carol Ross sends this eye-opening story:

For years I have heard friends and several doctors say:
1. That type 2 diabetes can never be cured, once you have it you have it forever.
2. That Atkins (and before that the Quick weight loss diet, which predated Atkins, but which is essentially the same thing) is bad for you, or that it is only to be used for a short time.

I was keeping a friend company at a local hospital forum about bariatric surgery and they said two very important (to me) things (although they said other important things, too)

We were supposed to announce a winner for the low carb recipe contest on Labor Day, but then I was supposed to start an internet radio show Labor Day, too. Life got in the way. However, we will announce the winner of the contest -- and the mixed case of Zevia -- this coming Friday. Submissions are closed. And if you'd like to register an opinion on one or more recipes, you need to do it in the next few days.

Thanks!

Sesame Noodles

Got a Chinese food jones? Here’s your dish! This serves four as a side dish, but it makes a nice, light supper for two. And there’s no law against halving the recipe if it’s just you – but if you make the whole thing you’ll have leftovers to reheat tomorrow, you know.

2 packages shirataki noodles, spaghetti width
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
4 tablespoons rice vinegar
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark sesame oil
2 tablespoons splenda -- or the equivalent in liquid splenda

“I joke that a big juicy steak is my beauty secret. But seriously, I love red meat. I was a vegan for a long time, and it nearly killed me. I found I was not getting enough nutrition."

-- Angelina Jolie

I confess to being a little surprised that a woman who used to wear a vial of her lover's blood around her neck had ever been a vegan. Still, great quote.

Sneaky buggers, those potatoes.

Here's a stray recipe I had kicking around. I figured it was a fast way to get a blog post up during my race to the deadline, and it's classically delicious. I originally made this with a grass-fed porterhouse I was lucky enough to be given, but it should be good with conventionally raised meat, as well. My steak was a good 1 1/2" thick.

Porterhouse Au Poive with Balsamic Reduction

1 3/4 pounds porterhouse steak
salt
1 tablespoon peppercorns
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons butter -- divided
2 tablespoons minced onion
1 clove garlic -- minced

I'm curious: How do you tell people you're low carb? Under what circumstances? Or do you? Do you wait for someone to ask why you're not eating the potatoes? Do you just order the bunless burger and salad at the fast food joint, and let the counter clerk figure it out? Do you bring it up if someone asks if you want a birthday cake at the office? If someone asks you to a dinner party?

Just a little reminder that we moderate all comments on this website. Spam of any kind will never see the light of day here.

TunaTexas asked:

I noticed that even though you gave the link to the company you're buying your growth hormone stimulating supplements from, you didn't actually name the products. I understand that you may not want to do that for fear of seeming to endorse them. But...if you could share the product names with me, I would like to try them also, and I could share my results with you as well.

Unsurprisingly, my post about my gelatin supplementation and my excitement about it has generated a lot of interest, and raised a lot of questions. Let me address this.

* Although I did wake up four pounds lighter the next morning, as I said I do not believe gelatin made me magically lose four pounds of fat overnight. I have not been dropping weight like crazy, though I've remained a couple of pounds lighter. I do feel like my body is a bit firmer, like the gelatin is doing good things for my muscles. Keep in mind that I'm doing Slow Burn on my Total Gym every 4-6 days or so.

Campbell's is currently advertising that their soup is made with "farm-raised vegetables." Where else, pray, would their vegetables be raised? Are we supposed to assume that the competition uses manufactured vegetables? Or perhaps mistake "farm-raised" for "locally grown" or "organic?" If so, it's not working with me.

Yet more about why Ornish's statements about how the recent study demonstrates -- well, anything about either the Atkins diet or the very low fat vegetarian diet he espouses -- shows he's wrong-wrong-wrongity-McWrong-Wrong.

As you know, we resolutely avoid politics around here, except for food politics. I'm sure my readers run the gamut from liberal to conservative, and that's as it should be; we all have a human physiology. But my liberal readers should know that popular liberal blog, The Huffington Post, has appointed Dr. Dean Ornish as their Senior Medical Editor. Here is the email I sent the HuffPo today:

I started writing this a week ago. Indeed, I wrote quite a lot, and in a white heat. I knew it was coming out jumbled and all-over-the-place, but I was so excited the information was just pouring out. So I'm starting over, and with luck the new version will come out less disjointed, but no less passionate.

I have, for a week, been taking gelatin as a supplement. Just plain gelatin, the stuff you'd find in a box labeled "Knox" at your grocery store.

Since I'm taking the lazy way out and posting links to other people's articles today, I thought I'd include this one, from Tom Naughton's Fat Head Blog. Great stuff about the "low carb" "study". (Sorry about all the quotation marks, but it didn't qualify as much of a study, and it sure didn't involve low carb diets.)