Pain, Pain, Go Away!

If you're planning to travel by plane and you want to keep enjoying the benefits of l. reuteri yogurt, you might have gotten sticker shock from the price of l. reuteri probiotics. MyReuteri * costs $46 to $83 for 30 capsules, depending on the CFUs (colony-forming units, or the number of viable microorganisms). If you're thinking about economizing by putting some yogurt in a sturdy container and taking it with you, you can do that. I'll break down the pros and cons and look at some alternatives.  Photo from Unsplash . Cost Yogurt might be less expensive than probiotics, but it isn't free. A half-cup serving costs about 70¢ to make if you start with a previous batch. It contains about 90 billion CFUs if fermented for 36 hours.  This is a lot less than $5.56 for two capsules of 50 billion CFU MyReuteri, but for a one-week vacation, you'd only save $34 by eating yogurt instead. (You can freeze any unused capsules for later.)  Furthermore, the yogurt would have to go in ...

If you'd rather read a printed recipe than watch a video, here are my recent recipes for Better than Grandma's Pumpkin Pie and Probiotic Cranberry-Apple Relish.  Hat tip to Dana Carpender, whose pumpkin pie recipe inspired this one. The cranberry-apple ferment is entirely my own creation.  Pumpkin Pie--no grains, sugar or emulsifiers Crust 2 cups shelled raw pecans 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon monk fruit powder* (or 3 tablespoons sugar substitute) 4 tablespoons butter, melted 2 tablespoons water Pumpkin Pie Filling 1 pie pumpkin 1-1/2 cups half and half (with no thickeners) 3 eggs 3-4 teaspoons monk fruit powder* (or 3/4 cup sugar substitute) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice Preheat the oven to 350F. Stab the top of the pumpkin all the way through the flesh in a few places at the top. Place the pumpkin on a cookie sheet and bake for 1 hour. Let cool. While the pumpkin is baking, put the pecans in a food processor with the S blade and run until they are finely...

Here's an update on the classic Dana Carpender recipe for pumpkin pie--this one has no emulsifiers and it's made with fresh, roasted pumpkin. Each one-eighth serving has 10g net carb. The original recipe is here . 

 Could your yogurt maker be the cause of failed yogurt batches? Here's my take:

Can you have too much l. reuteri or SIBO yogurt? Yes--more than 1/2 cup of yogurt a day can raise your insulin or, in some people, cause sinus congestion or an upset stomach. Luckily, there are other foods you can ferment.  One of my favorites is apples, cranberries and celery fermented with BiotiQuest Ideal Immunity probiotics. This recipe is slightly different from the one I posted before--I've left out the brown sugar and maple syrup since the apples provide plenty of sugar.  Here's my four-minute video showing how to make it: You can buy the seedling mat here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IDQD32Y/ref=dp_iou_view_item?ie=UTF8&th=1

No inulin? No problem! Use coconut flour instead--it's half the price and available at the grocery store. Here's my video showing how:

Imagine looking in the mirror one morning and finding the side of your head black and your ear twice its normal size. That's what happened to Brad Burnam, who caught a deadly superbug at the hospital where he worked. Sometime after having emergency surgery--one of 21 surgeries over the next five years--he set out to cure himself.  The result he created was a fusion of PHMB, an antibiotic common in Europe but little known in the US, in a petroleum jelly base (like Vaseline), held together with a stabilizer/emulsifier. It sticks to wounds, keeps them moist, and provides a barrier. It cured his antibiotic resistant superbug. After getting FDA clearance, he formed Turn Therapeutics, and Hexagen is now available by prescription.  Screen shot from https://turntherapeutics.com/about/ Millions of Americans suffer from open wounds--chronic issues like diabetic foot ulcers. Readers probably have their blood sugar under control and avoid this condition, but might have parents, partners o...

The right cooking utensils could help reduce your risk of stroke. A few weeks ago, Dr. Davis discussed risk factors for stroke, and mentioned a study of people with 70% or worse carotid blockage, atherosclerosis, having far more inflammation in their plaque if they had more micro- and nano-plastics. The people with more microplastics also had less collagen in their carotid arteries. Collagen helps keep you supple.  Of course we can't avoid our food touching plastic--pretty much everything is packaged in plastic. But we can avoid heating plastic, which causes it to break down and release micro- and nanoplastics a lot faster.  With that in mind, I replaced my plastic ladle and spatula with metal ones. I also looked at my 30-year-old aluminum pressure cooker, chipped and stained on the inside, and wondered if it was time retire it. Brave AI said it should be replaced immediately: "Black chips or flakes inside the cooker indicate that the internal surface has deteriorated, which ...

In time for Halloween, here's a recipe for no-carb "cider" to sip while you watch scary (or mildly spooky) videos. Photo from Pixabay . Ingredients: Hot water Constant Comment tea Doctor's Best magnesium powder in sweet peach flavor Steep a bag of Constant Comment tea in hot water for a few minutes and remove the bag. Add one scoop of magnesium powder (sweet peach flavor). The combination tastes surprisingly like hot apple cider, but with zero carbs. Only have one, or at most two, cups at a time--too much magnesium at once will have you running to the bathroom. Constant Comment tea tastes good on its own if you've maxed out your magnesium dose for the day. You can find both the tea and the magnesium powder at Vitacost.com. Kroger and other grocery stores carry Constant Comment tea, but I've never seen the magnesium powder at a grocery store. With a hot cup of ersatz cider, enjoy a video in the spirit of the season. The Amazing Mr. Blunden Family friendly; mild...

If you love Italian food, vegetables are a great substitute for pasta. If you miss lasagne, you can make eggplant parmesan instead. Spaghetti? Have some zucchini. No need to contort it into noodles--just slice and sauté it.  Vegetables are even better when they're home-grown. The flavors are better than store-bought--smoky peppers; crisp, nutty zucchini; and tomatoes that don't taste like teddy bear stuffing. Skins, like the one on eggplant, are thin enough to eat. Anytime you want herbs, you can step out the door and snip what you need.   All of the herbs and vegetables pictured are low-carb. Parsley is high in potassium and peppers are high in vitamin C. Fall harvest from my garden. Not sold in stores. If you have a sunny spot to grow a garden, mark your calendar now: it's not hard to grow vegetables, and especially herbs, but it takes planning. You can find your last average frost date online and work backwards on a calendar, or just ask an AI app to figure it out for ...

Jennifer Picone isn't the most abusive gym influencer--far from it--but she may be the most annoying. In a video she posted that went viral, she was working out in a gym when another member appeared in the background by the free weights. The member was minding her own business, not looking in Picone's direction, when Picone got up and told her to move. After filming, Picone edited the video with a note about "Gym etiquette lesson #47" and accused the other gym member of "[doing] that 💩 on purpose."  Shaming other gym members has gotten to be such a big genre that Joey Swoll has a YouTube channel, with half a million subscribers, dedicated to calling out these content creators. Just for Picone, he took a break from his vacation to tell her to mind her own business. This may be the first time that Joey Swoll has taken one of his followers to task. The fact that she follows him and still doesn't know better than to treat the gym like her personal studio sh...

If there's ever a lunatic outside your vehicle, do not engage. Stay in your vehicle. Drive away or call the police. Drive over the curb, lawn or median if necessary; just avoid putting innocent bystanders at risk.*  Save yourself from lunatics like a boss. Screen grab from video by Fredrik Sørlie on Youtube . That advice might have saved a 69-year-old delivery driver from being attacked by former NFL player Mark Sanchez, who for unknown reasons was in an alley after midnight in downtown Indianapolis and decided to pick a fight over a parking space. I say might have because I haven't seen any video of the attack. But other incidents over the years bear out the safety of staying in your car. A neighbor was assaulted and robbed after she got out of her car after someone followed her home and blocked her driveway. And remember Reginald Denny from the LA riots? The victim maced and stabbed Sanchez, but suffered a bad cut to his face and tongue and looks like he was badly beaten. Bo...

It's the sort of thing that sounds like quackery: a pad with tiny red LED lights and a few buttons that's supposed to help you heal, just $30 on ebay. I never would have bought it, but Dr. Davis gave a presentation on infrared light late in 2024. Since I was still suffering from achilles tendonitis after being floxxed , I decided to try it.  I wrapped it around my ankle and turned it on the lowest setting for five minutes. Nothing seemed to happen, but the next day, I wrote,  My tendonitis is GONE after one 5-minute treatment! I didn’t feel it doing anything, I didn’t think it was going to do anything (at least not that quickly), but for the first time in several months, I’ve gotten out of bed and started walking normally and didn’t have any pain reaching with my left arm. I'd been shuffling around like an 80-year-old woman after getting out of bed in the morning. The tendonitis returned, but it was improved. I eventually had physical therapy for it, and now, apart from a l...

It's pretty bad when even conventional medicine thinks your blood sugar is high. I had lab tests done last week, as I do every year, and saw things were going in the wrong direction. Photo from Pixabay . Uh-oh.  Ideal blood sugar is about 70-90. Your blood sugar can be high because you're stressed or ill, but I felt OK. I can't blame it on cortisol, which was smack in the middle of the normal range. And my A1c, which reflects blood sugar over the past few months, shows that whatever is going on has been happening for a while. My insulin is more than double what it should be. Oddly, my triglycerides, which typically indicate carb consumption, were good.  I don't have an explanation for the triglycerides. I should have suspected something was wrong, though. I've felt very tired and a little sad for the past few months. Unlike many people with higher than ideal blood sugar and insulin, I had only gained about three pounds.  Regardless of my good weight and triglyceride...

Google, which owns YouTube, is inviting back creators it kicked off the platform for content about politics, elections, and COVID. Google says the Biden administration pressured them to censor this content, and now Europe is trying to force them to censor lawful content. Jim Jordan, Representative from Ohio, explains on X. Thread here .  Created with AI on ImageFX.  YouTube creators banned or suspended for COVID content (source: Grok). Click to enlarge. Rep. Jim Jordan @Jim_Jordan 2h • 15 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X 🚨BREAKING: Due to our oversight efforts, GOOGLE commits to offer ALL creators previously kicked off YouTube due to political speech violations to return to the platform. BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. Thread: YouTube also: -Admits the Biden Admin censorship pressure was “unacceptable and wrong” -Confirms that the Biden Admin wanted Americans censored for speech that did not violate YouTube’s policies -Details when YouTube began rolling back its censorship policies on p...

Mark L. Cannon, DDS, MS joins Bret Weinstein of the Darkhorse Podcast for a discussion about the oral microbiome and its downstream effects on everything from acne to Alzheimer’s. Dr. Cannon is a pediatric dentist and professor of otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat medicine). It's an hour and 44 minutes, but well worth your time. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjkOgCXiMeE

Dana Carpender, who's written several recipe books and other works on low-carb, has a podcast and is still writing articles at carbsmart.com. She's a terrific writer and amateur researcher (otherwise known as reading , as Jimmy Dore jokes ). I use her book 500 Low-Carb Recipes all the time and I'm looking forward to hearing more from her. I've embedded her podcast on my blog (click on the three lines at the top right if you don't see it, or go to Spotify or other podcast source if you're getting this by email). Carbsmart.com doesn't seem to have a blog feed, so if you want to see the latest posts there, you can sign up for notifications at their site. Dr. Davis has been putting a lot more videos on YouTube, so I've added his channel to the lineup. Click on the three lines on my blog if you don't see it, or go to his channel here .  * * * * * Primal Kitchen is having a Labor Day sale-- 20% off everything. They sell high quality collagen powder, con...

After Dr. Davis said the other night that  L. plantarum  may reduce some of the effects of the herbicide glyphosate (which is everywhere), I'm re-running my recipe for fermented bread and butter pickles. Pickling cucumbers naturally have  L. plantarum  bacteria on them, and fermenting them with some brown sugar multiplies these bacteria. (Just don't use chlorinated water to wash them.) And if you're growing your own cucumbers, avoid spraying the fruits with  Bacillus thuringiensis , or Bt (leaves and vines are OK). It's unclear what effect a big dose of Bt would have on humans. Another benefit of DIY pickles: no emulsifiers like polysorbate 80, which is a common ingredient in pickles. If you have GI problems, it could be from emulsifiers. These sweet-and-sour pickles are the tastiest I've ever made. There's just a little added sugar (some of which the bacteria will consume) and turmeric that gives the pickles their bright color.  Special equipment Quar...

Let me tell you about the time I stepped on a nail. It was Friday, November 20, 2015. I remember the date because it was the night before moving day, the day I spent making dozens of trips from the house to some Relocubes on an injured foot.  I was walking to Walgreens when there was suddenly such a sharp pain in my foot that I started screaming. There was a thick nail sticking out of the bottom of my tennis shoe. It wouldn't budge. A couple of passers-by (in town for a wedding) came over and, thinking it looked like a screw, didn't want to pull it out. They sat with me for a long time while 911 tried to figure out where the alley between Street A and Street B along Avenue C was. I eventually got to the emergency room where they took an x-ray that showed the nail didn't hit any bones. The doctor offered to either give me anesthetic, cut off my shoe, and extract the nail, or just pull it out. "Yank it out," I said. At least I didn't need a tetanus shot, having ...

Low-carb, grain-free Mexican food is hard to find, but it's easy to make your own at home. This recipe has an authentic ingredient: carne de lengua, or beef tongue. Don't be put off: beef tongue is tender, delicious, and full of collagen. Look for it directly from farmers in your area. To cook it, cut it in 1" to 1-1/2" slices and pressure cook for one hour. Enjoy the delicious broth as a bonus. Ingredients 1 slice cooked beef tongue, peeled and cut into small cubes 1 egg wrap (I use these  from Egglife) 1/4 cup cooked black or pinto beans Chili pepper Oregano Garlic (powdered or minced) Cumin Guacamole (with no emulsifiers) Salsa Shredded cheddar cheese Sour cream or homemade cream cheese  with no emulsifiers  Put the egg wrap on a plate and put the beef and beans down the middle of it. Sprinkle with the herbs and spices. Wrap, turn over and microwave for 1-2 minutes. Spoon salsa over the burrito and sprinkle with cheese. Add guacamole and sour cream or homemade crea...

If you just got an email that I fired my feed service, it's legit. They were sending spammy-looking messages that nobody clicked on (and I wouldn't have clicked on them, either).  Enjoy the 15% off coupon code from Bacillus Bulgaricus and have a wonderful weekend!

Starter culture for the wonderful cream cheese I made is 15% off for the next two weeks (through June 18, 2025). The shop (BacillusBulgaricus.com) also offers rennet and starter for other cheeses, yogurt, kefir, kombucha, sour cream, fermented vegetables, and more. They ship to 118 countries across six continents. The coupon code is LORI_sekd3tkb at bacillusbulgaricus.com .  Photo from Pexels .

How does a skinny guy curl 80 pounds like it's a can of soup? When it's actually 15 pounds.  AI-generated. Picture from Pexels . Fitness influencers might look like they're getting incredible results, but in some cases it's because of cosmetic surgery or drugs--or they might even be using fake weights or Photoshop. Zac has a highlight reel. Link here .

If you love cream cheese but can't find any without emulsifiers, or you wish it was more spreadable, this is the recipe for you. It only takes about 15 minutes' hands-on time and doesn't cost any more than the stuff with freaky ingredients from the store. Plus, it contains live cultures that I find make it easier to digest. Instructions, live cultures and rennet here . 

If I'd had to guess which states would lead the charge to stop SNAP benefits (taxpayer funded supplemental nutrition assistance program) from being used to buy candy and soda, I'd have guessed states with a culture of health and fitness: Hawaii, California and Colorado. California in particular likes regulation.  Photo from Pixabay . But West Virginia, Arkansas and Indiana--t hree of the unhealthiest states in America --came out of nowhere to reform their states' SNAP benefits. West Virginia's governor was first out of the gate when he  requested a waiver to restrict sodas in March, and today, the governors of Arkansas and Indiana requested waivers for not only soda but candy. "Taxpayers should not be subsidizing poor health on the front end and paying for it on the back end with skyrocketing healthcare costs and federal debt," said Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas. Gov. Mike Braun of Indiana said , "More SNAP money is spent on sugary drinks and ...

Physician-researcher Sabine Hazan had 26 yogurts and kefirs tested and found only three had bifidobacteria, despite advertising claims. She further found 16 out of 17 probiotic capsules she tested had bifidobacteria. One yogurt even contained bacillus cereus, a toxin that can cause vomiting. Dr. Sabine Hazan Finds Only 3 of 26 Yogurts Contain Bifidobacteria, Despite Advertising Claims Dr. Sabine Hazan, a top physician-researcher, uncovered a startling truth about yogurt and kefir. After drinking a gallon of kefir daily to boost her bifidobacteria—key for gut… pic.twitter.com/QMHR1mQRs4 — Camus (@newstart_2024) April 4, 2025 A solution? Make your own yogurt. It takes five minutes' hands-on time and three ingredients. 

Last Thursday, the sidewalk by a step-cracked building lifted up off the ground when the water main under it  broke .  I turned on my faucet and got nothing. All the water was running down the streets a few miles away, waist deep in some places.  Water main break, March 27, 2025. Source: Indianapolis Fire Department .  A man who supervises the building at the corner of the recent water main break in East Indianapolis shared a video with me, capturing the scale of the situation. Coverage on @93wibc pic.twitter.com/mUEkc2P78C — Ryan Hedrick (@suretocover) March 27, 2025 Later that day, after fixing the main, the water company issued a boil-water advisory for the next two days. If you wanted to drink it, cook with it, or wash your dishes in it, it had to be boiled.  As usual, I had a sink full of dirty dishes. No problem, I thought--I'll boil water in my canner. But it takes a long time to bring so much water to boil, then it has to cool down enough to put your h...

There's a push in Washington and ten states to ban soda (and other junk food) from SNAP, a program for low-income people to buy groceries. This seems like a no-brainer: the N in SNAP stands for nutrition, and soda doesn't have nutrients. It's liquid sugar, the last thing we need in a country full of diabetics. People can drink water for virtually nothing and save their SNAP money for actual food. Yet a number of posts from otherwise sensible accounts have opposed this.  Reporter Nick Sorter says that a company called Influenceable has been paying influencers to post these opinions. (Click on the link for the full thread.) 🚨🧵 EXPOSED: “INFLUENCEABLE” — The company cutting Big Checks to “influencers” on behalf of Big Soda Over the past 48 hours, several large supposedly MAGA-aligned “influencers” posted almost identical talking points fed to them, convincing you MAHA was out of line for not… pic.twitter.com/PpPwH9lHGe — Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) March 22, 2025 Sorter adds...

 My latest video on YouTube: Real food is generally cheaper than junk food--the pictures prove it. I took these at Kroger and from their website in March 2025. Prices are either straight from the tags or calculated based on product weight.  Music: On We Go (ClipChamp)  First photo by AS Photography: https://www.pexels.com/photo/vegetables-stall-868110/

A lady recently went off about how little food $115 buys, complaining that the pile of (mostly) junk food she bought wouldn't make a week's worth of lunches and snacks for her children. Sad to say, but this looks like what I see in a lot of grocery carts.  Fat pic.twitter.com/qbM23ydaOq — shellshock (@shellshockkk) March 7, 2025 Coincidentally, I paid almost exactly the same amount today on groceries that would make lots of healthy lunches. It's filling food that won't leave you hungry every few hours for snacks. If we want to make America healthy again, this is the way.  

Heaven knows America needs to be healthier. No citation needed--you can leave your house and see that lean, fit people are the exception. But our new Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, wants to change that. His plan includes (according to GROK, X's AI feature) investigating the root causes of chronic disease, scrutinizing food and water additives, revising the dietary guidelines, tackling environmental toxins, ensuring vaccine schedules are based on sound science, addressing the revolving door from health agencies to big pharma, and banning ultra-processed food from school lunches and SNAP (food stamp) eligibility. Some Americans eat like this every day. Maybe that's a problem. Photo from Pexels . All of these are good things--especially ending the pipeline of regulators who go on to work for the companies they were supposed to be regulating. But it ignores the elephant in the room: 60% of America's diet is ultra-processed food. That's compared to 1...

MAHA may be a great idea, but what you do at your house is more important for your health than what's happening at the White House. Growing your own vegetables provides food that's fresher and tastes better than store-bought and helps you get some fresh air, sunshine and exercise. If you grow enough, you can even can your own sauces and soups that don't have any franken-food ingredients. My first time growing celery from seed.  Here in central Indiana, it's time to plant celery from seed since the average last frost date is 10 weeks away. In a few weeks, it'll be time to plant tomatoes. There are a couple of ways to figure out when to start various seeds where you live: You can find out when it's time to plant things by 1) looking up your average last frost date, 2) getting a seed packet and looking at the instructions for starting the seeds indoors, and 3) counting backwards on a calendar by the number of weeks indicated. You could also ask Grok (X's AI fea...