Ignoring the Experts on Thanksgiving

Expert advice for Thanksgiving was to stay home. But I've been ignoring most experts' health advice for ten years and enjoyed good health for it; we'll see in a few weeks if this latest decision was sublime or ridiculous. I drove 300 miles to Cleveland. I hugged my cousin and finally met her husband. I ate food I shouldn't have. The three of us went to restaurants and attractions. We didn't do anything ridiculous or illegal--we all wore masks in public places and none of us were sick. Nobody I encountered seemed ill and nobody formed a crowd. I hung out with people for the first time in almost a year, relaxed and slept nine hours a night. It was health food for the soul and I'd do it again.

Sublime? Ridiculous? It can be hard to tell. Photo from Amazon.

The day before I left, I made vegetarian collards from the garden and low-carb pumpkin pie. My cousin is a vegetarian, but she cooks meat for me when I'm there and I bring vegetarian food when I visit. I also whipped my house into shape for the dog sitter. I'm not a slob, but the house gets a better cleaning when company is coming. I wonder how many other houses in 2020 need a good cleaning.

My cousin's mother-in-law stayed home, being in a high-risk category. Meanwhile, the three of us had dinner and went to an Irish pub and a Greek restaurant for lunch Friday and Saturday. We went to the West Side Market, too, where they sell rare foods: chicken feet, rabbit, a hundred Chinese spices and sauces, and fruits I'd never seen. I bought some gyro meat.

We went sightseeing. The Ohio State Reformatory was partly refurbished, remarkably beautiful for a prison, and awfully sunny for a building that's supposed to be haunted. The Flats on the Cuyahoga River were nearly finished, and the aquarium nearby at the old power house was a marvelous place to be mesmerized by fish, stingrays and other animals. The Christmas Story gift shop sold me some postcards with the infamous leg lamp. I skipped the tour--I live in a vintagey old house and didn't need to see another one.

We stopped at a gas station where some Amish people went inside. I asked my cousin and her husband if Amish people normally stopped for gas. No, they said, but enough of them got rides that someone they knew was a full-time Yoder toter.

I got a view of Ohio I didn't see on a leafy Memorial Day weekend when it looked like a big golf course. Late fall revealed enormous wonders of civil engineering in Cleveland, lots of smaller unfinished works (I assume they're not digging up patches of dirt for fun), houses in close quarters with a lot of decorations and well-worn furniture in the yards, and a lot of beautiful architecture. Ohio will look great when it's done.

My employer, a CPA firm, encouraged us to consider working from home for a few weeks if we did something like visit people we don't live with. My supervisor thought my trip wasn't a concern. I wonder how many experts really think such a trip would be.

Comments

My New Favorite Sweetener

If you're looking for a low-carb sweetener with no aftertaste, no franken-ingredients, and that doesn't upset your stomach, try monk fruit (also known as luo han guo). This is what Quest bars were sweetened with when they first came out. Monk fruit is Dr. Davis approved. You can buy monk fruit in powdered or liquid form; both are super-concentrated. They might seem expensive, but you use the powder by the spoonful (even in baking recipes) and the liquid by the drop. The baking recipes I've made with the powder have turned out well. Available from Amazon . Beware monk fruit sweeteners with erythritol. The package of powdered monk fruit sweetener I bought says, "Use 1/8 teaspoon to create the same sweet taste as 1 teaspoon of sugar." But it's so sweet that I use 1/10 the amount. To replace a cup of sugar, I would use 5 teaspoons of monk fruit sweetener. Tip: hand-stir this in before using the beaters. It's such a fine powder that it flies up and out of the ...

Mince Meat Pie Recipe, low carb

The star of Christmas dinner this year was made of unlikely ingredients. Fruit and beef tongue sound high carb or unpalatable, but mince meat pie was so popular 250 years ago that it was in many cookbooks from the time--and it wasn't just for Christmas. My version cuts the carbs by using tart cooking apples, cranberries, monk fruit sweetener and a nut flour crust. The main flavors are orange and slightly tart fruit; the meat and fat make it filling. Have it for dessert or with coffee or tea for breakfast. Make some soup with the collagen-filled broth and discover how tender and tasty the rest of the beef tongue is. Worth the time and effort. IMPORTANT--start this recipe the day before. Links in the recipe go to hard-to-find ingredients and directly to the cookbook with the recipe for the pie crust. (I made the almond flour variation of the crust.) Recipe 1 beef tongue (I get mine here ; look for farms or ranches in your area that sell directly to consumers) 2 Granny Smith apples 1 ...

Is the NIH Privately Helping Patients with COVID Vax Injuries?

In a recent letter from several attorneys general (AGs) demanding an explanation as to why so few vaccine-injured people have received so little compensation, the AGs asked a curious question: We have been told by constituents that NIH [National Institutes of Health] is privately helping patients across the country with COVID-19 vaccine–related injuries and is even bringing patients to NIH for study and treatment. Is that correct? Why have these activities not been better publicized? What sorts of studies of these patients is NIH currently conducting? What treatments is NIH administering? Photo from Pixabay . Most of the letter focused on compensation for COVID-19 vaccine injuries. As you know, vaccine manufacturers in the US have immunity from lawsuits, but people suffering from vaccine injuries can be compensated by the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). But among the 10,000 COVID vaccine related claims, only 20 claimants have received compensation. "And but for...

Magnesium Tea: Peachy, Minty, Refreshing

Most readers know that magnesium supplementation is important, especially on low-carb diets. Magnesium deficiency is common, and low-carb diets require more magnesium--a mineral that's important for heart, muscle and digestive function and helps regulate blood sugar. Photo from Unsplash . The magnesium powder in this recipe is the best form I've found--I had a lot of trouble with magnesium supplements during the pandemic not working, or giving me diarrhea, or (in the case of all the milk of magnesia) being contaminated with bleach. This magnesium powder doesn't require a carbonation machine, unlike some other powders. The peach flavor is only mildly sweet. Note--limit servings to two per day, preferably spaced out several hours apart. Too much magnesium at once can have a laxative effect. 4-5 mint tea bags filtered water (enough for 1 medium pitcher) Doctor's Best magnesium powder, peach flavor Boil a cup of the water and add tea bags. Let steep for five minutes. Add...

How would Dr. Oz Treat the DTs?

"You let me in your house with a hammer." -"Candy Shop" by Andrew Bird Low-carb proponent Gary Taubes appeared on the Dr. Oz Show March 7. In one entertaining segment, Dr. Oz spent a day eating a low-carb diet and complained of the greasiness of the sausage, feeling tired, constipation and bad breath. That's a drag, but when I stopped drinking Coke in 2007, I felt even worse: stomach ache, headache, tiredness, and mental fog. Should I have gone back to drinking Coke? If you quit a bad alcohol habit and start seeing snakes, do you need a drink? If my legs hurt from working out Monday night for the first time in two months (which they do), maybe I should resume my exercise hiatus indefinitely. I respect Dr. Oz for having Gary Taubes on his show and letting him share his ideas. I'd respect Oz even more if he looked into low-carb diets more carefully. What he didn't seem to consider regarding his one-day low-carb diet was that he spent a day...

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Search This Blog