Mark's Daily Apple

How to Make the Ultimate Homemade Tomato Sauce

The following is a recipe for a truly sensational tomato sauce (with meat!). Now, before everyone loses their minds and thinks that tomato sauce is only good atop a mound of carbohydrate-laden pasta, we’d like to remind you of its multiple uses.

This tomato sauce, for example, makes a great addition to eggplant for a variation on eggplant parmesan (with or without the actual parmesan). I personally like it on any number of different vegetables or even on a grilled steak. Another great use for this type of sauce? An Italian-inspired filling for omelets (just limit the amount to two or three spoonfuls or you’ll make a royal mess!)

Posted By: Worker Bee

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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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Primal Energy Bar Redux: Making a Better Bar

When you talk, we listen. You loved the Primal Energy Bar recipe we featured in September, but the comment section lit up with suggestions about how to modify and improve the recipe.

Specifically, you guys wanted to up the protein ante, with commenter Paul recommending adding a few scoops of protein powder, and Anna offering some great suggestions for firming up what was originally a pretty fragile bar (because, lets face it, eating your protein bar with a spoon kind of defeats the purpose!)

Posted By: Worker Bee

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Aflatoxins, or Another Reason to Shun Peanuts

We already tend to steer clear of peanuts for some obvious (to our readers) reasons: the fact that they’re legumes, rather than actual nuts; the potentially dangerous, “anti-nutrient” lectins found in them; and their prominent spot in the upper echelons of the “Most Common Food Allergens” list. But there’s another reason to steer clear of peanuts, something we’ve touched on briefly in the past but never expounded upon. Peanuts, along with a couple other crops we tend to avoid, like corn and cereals, are especially susceptible to a mold that produces a mycotoxin called aflatoxin.

Aflatoxin is a carcinogen that has been shown to cause liver cancer in rats (and, presumably, in humans). The amounts given to the rats in the study were highly concentrated, of course, with the express intent to study the effects of acute aflatoxicosis. You won’t be getting a couple grams of aflatoxin with every bag of peanuts or anything, so acute aflatoxicosis isn’t a big issue for people – at least in the US.

Posted By: Worker Bee

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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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