Mike Nolan

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  • in reply to: Ketogenic Diets #41812
    Mike Nolan
    Keymaster

      A lot of what's out there tend to ignore or gloss over the science (that's true for most diet trends), but the ketogenic diet can be traced back to the 1920's, when it was developed as a diet for controlling epilepsy, before the drugs that are mostly used today were developed.

      The basic principle is to keep the carbs consumed down while raising the amount of protein and, especially, fat. How low you have to get varies from person to person, generally below 50 carbs/day, though 20-30 is more likely to be successful.

      Once the body uses up its reserves of glycogen (about 3 days worth, stored mostly in the liver and also in muscles), it will start converting fat to glycogen for energy. This is called ketogenesis. The trick is to avoid getting your ketones too high, which can turn the blood acidic, and is called ketoacidosis. It can be fatal. But there's a pretty wide range of ketone numbers where you're in ketogenesis before that happens.

      There are multiple ways to test your ketones, some are better (or at least more accurate) than others.

      Some of the proponents of the keto diet or its offshoots tend to get preachy, telling you to avoid most of the meats and other proteins in stores for reasons that have nothing to do with ketogenisis, eat only organic foods, avoid all gluten, etc.

      A cyclical ketogenic diet should be a bit more flexible, allowing some carbs, even (oh, the shame of it all!) wheat. πŸ™‚

      Because fats are taste bombs, a ketogenic diet can be very tasty and filling. (Fats also fill you up faster and leave you more satisfied than carbs.)

      Tonight, for example, we had a cheese souffle with mushroom sauce, using some almond flour and xanthan gum, cream (watered down), eggs, butter, cheddar cheese and mushrooms. A serving was probably 4-5 carbs (I'm checking it using multiple recipe analysis tools), and it was delicious! By comparison, my traditional souffle recipe (served with canned mushroom soup as a sauce) is more like 30-40 carbs/serving.

      Being an engineer by training, I think I'll read some of the scientific papers on ketogenesis as we get further into this, but I don't claim that I'll fully understand them.

      in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of February 4, 2024? #41803
      Mike Nolan
      Keymaster

        I have a big pot of vegetable beef soup on the stove, that'll be dinner for the next several days plus I expect to freeze over half of it.

        The soup was great, best batch I've made in a long time. It did come out a bit too heavy on the veggie side, so I thinned it down with a quart of tomato juice.

        in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of February 4, 2024? #41797
        Mike Nolan
        Keymaster

          We're planning fish (orange roughy or salmon) and steamed broccoli.

          in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of February 4, 2024? #41783
          Mike Nolan
          Keymaster

            My wife doesn't like lentils, I don't know if that just means she hasn't had them prepared in a way that she'd like them or if that's another lost cause.

            We had takeout fish and chips for supper tonight

            in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of February 4, 2024? #41775
            Mike Nolan
            Keymaster

              We're planning pork tacos again tonight. I've got beef stock thawing for a batch of vegetable beef soup later this week.

              in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of January 28, 2024? #41769
              Mike Nolan
              Keymaster

                I'm looking at recipe with celeriac (celery root). Anybody ever worked with it?

                in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of January 28, 2024? #41763
                Mike Nolan
                Keymaster

                  We had chili from the freezer tonight.

                  in reply to: What are you Baking the Week of January 28, 2024? #41760
                  Mike Nolan
                  Keymaster

                    My wife starts asking that question any time I even THINK of buying something for the kitchen.

                    in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of January 28, 2024? #41758
                    Mike Nolan
                    Keymaster

                      We had tacos made with some of the left over pork roast, very good.

                      in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of January 28, 2024? #41754
                      Mike Nolan
                      Keymaster

                        I think we're having tacos for supper, or something similar.

                        in reply to: Baking for a Food Bank in Canada #41745
                        Mike Nolan
                        Keymaster

                          It worked for me, but I have a WaPo subscription. Great story.

                          I wonder how many food banks have a commercial kitchen, though. I don't think the one in Lincoln does.

                          in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of January 28, 2024? #41742
                          Mike Nolan
                          Keymaster

                            We had a pork roast with a broccoli and cheese casserole.

                            in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of January 28, 2024? #41738
                            Mike Nolan
                            Keymaster

                              We have two Sams stores in town, the closer one only has the part-skim shredded mozzarella these days, I haven't been to the other one recently to know if they've still got the whole milk version.

                              Sams Clubs tend to vary what they have by some unpublished schedule, darned if I know what it is. For several years they didn't have the artichoke hearts, now they've got them again as well as the black diamond cheese spread, but I haven't seen the Five Bean salad there yet, or the shredded 4 cheese blend we liked.

                              I've been using the part-skim one and haven't had any noticeable issues with it. Yeah, a 5 pound bag is huge, and I don't recall if I've seen an expiration date, but it lasts a long time if you don't open it. Once you open it, the clock is ticking and you need to freeze as much of it as you can, or it will go moldy in as little as 2-3 weeks. I freeze it in 6 ounce bags.

                              in reply to: What are you Baking the Week of January 28, 2024? #41728
                              Mike Nolan
                              Keymaster

                                When we make a trifle, we use Jello, Cool Whip and a double batch of my mother-in-law's pastry cream recipe.

                                in reply to: What are you Cooking the Week of January 28, 2024? #41727
                                Mike Nolan
                                Keymaster

                                  We finished off the potato soup for supper tonight.

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