Mark's Daily Apple

The Truth on Truvia

For better or for worse, we’re hell bent on finding or concocting the “perfect” non-caloric sweetener in this country. Call it the spirit of creative innovation – or capitalist enterprise. Call it incessant perpetuation of Americans’ bad eating habits. Call it a pragmatic step toward at least a more healthful alternative for what people will eat regardless.

First it was the pink packets, then the blue, then the yellow, and now the pleasantly, nature-inspired white and green foliage-designed envelopes. Truvia is a lucrative marketing merger of the “true,” (the essence?, the genuine?, the handy emotional affirmation?) with the herb stevia and all its natural (or novel) associations, depending on your familiarity with the natural foods (er, dietary supplement) arena.

Posted By: Worker Bee

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A Primal Blueprint Sample Menu

Last Wednesday I published The Primal Blueprint Carbohydrate Curve. In it I provided my recommendations for daily carbohydrate consumption. I received a lot of great feedback from readers. A couple readers, namely Patrick and Heather, requested sample menus to give them an idea of what a single day that comes in at around 100 grams of carbs looks like. I’ve done similar posts in the past (2 Minute Salad and My Daily Diet) but I thought I’d offer up something a little different this time. In this variation of eating like Grok in the modern world I’ve included pics that closely approximate what I eat on an average day, followed by FitDay macronutrient breakdowns (Click on the images to see a larger version. You may have to scroll down the page a bit to view the enlarged versions.)

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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The Primal Blueprint Carbohydrate Curve

Yesterday, low-carb blogger Dr. Michael Eades (he of Protein Power) posted a message from his friend and fellow low-carb guru Richard Feinman as sort of a call-to-action in public policy-making for upcoming 2010 USDA guidelines. Dr. Eades and Dr. Feinman have suggested that we ought to quickly find a way to help the USDA arrive at a sensible recommendation for carbohydrate consumption. Feinman asked:

“how can the benefits of carbohydrate restriction that you have experienced personally or in your immediate environment be translated into reasonable recommendations that the USDA could put out?”

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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Low Carb Diets Affect Short Term Memory

A soon-to-be published study in Appetite [2009 Feb;52(1):96-103] (but apparently already published online earlier this summer) done by a group at Tufts seems to have “proven” that when you remove carbohydrates for three weeks from the diet of people who have depended on them for decades, you get some short-term memory loss, fuzzy thinking and/or mood swings. In what appears to me to be yet another colossal waste of time and money, the Tufts researchers concluded that “the brain needs glucose for energy, and diets low in carbohydrates can be detrimental to learning, memory and thinking.” What? They got grant money for this? Most of my Primal Blueprint 30-day challengers could have told you that for free! If you understand the power of gene expression and the ability of the human body to acclimate, this study only “proves” what we’ve known for over 100 years.

Posted By: Mark Sisson

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The Many Uses of Almond Meal

As you might recall from our pie and cracker recipes, and Son of Grok’s pizza recipe we like to use almond flour or almond meal as a foundation for Primal baking. It has a similar consistency to traditional flours (albeit denser and heavier), forms good batter with eggs and other fats, and it gives whatever you’re making a nice nutty quality. Almond meal is also fairly taste-neutral; it has a distinct nutty taste that coincidentally works well with many food combinations. So just what is almond meal (or almond flour, for that matter)?

Posted By: Worker Bee

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