Pain, Pain, Go Away!

With some help from my frugal Internet friend Galina, I've figured out how to live within a $29-per-week grocery budget, which is what some people get as part of SNAP:   calories price $/100 calories 12 eggs            852   $     3.00   $              0.35 2 chickens, whole         4,280   $     8.40   $              0.20 head romaine lettuce            106   $     0.99   $              0.93 pound butter         3,240   $     5.00   $              0.15 head cabbage            218   $     1.62   $              0.74 avocado            227   $     0.88   $              0.39 can salmon            536   $     2.48   $              0.46 3 pounds pork         4,272   $     4.50   $              0.11 salad dressing          2,176   $     1.49   $              0.07         15,907

Here's what $33.58 will buy--that's pretty close to the $29 a week challenge some people have taken lately in sympathy with people on the SNAP program. (The maximum amount you can get on SNAP is $194 per month according to the USDA, which comes out to $44.77 per week.) The grass-fed angus was inexpensive ($3.90 per pound) because I buy it in bulk--and it's an odd cut (cheek meat). There are a lot more calories here than in the rice, beans, tortillas and vegetation others have bought on the challenge. Nevertheless, what you see here amounts to only 5,397 calories, or 771 calories a day. calories price $/100 calorie 12 eggs 852 $3.00 $0.35 4.75# beef 3,629 $18.53 $0.51 2 cans sardines 400 $6.98 $1.75 head cabbage 218 $1.62 $0.74 avocado 227 $0.88 $0.39 red bell pepper 37 $0.88 $2.38 English cucumber 34 $1.69 $4.97 Total 5,397 $33.58 $0.62 To eat such a diet for a week on 1,500 calories per day would cost $65. You might get more calories for less mone

A recent study from Spain finds "In comparison with people that did not eat yogurt, those who ate this dairy product regularly did not display any significant improvement in their score on the physical component of quality of life, and although there was a slight improvement mentally, this was not statistically significant," states López-García. Most yogurt is pretty much pudding with a little bacteria . Pudding is a sugar bomb. Hard to believe the stuff doesn't improve health outcomes, isn't it? But as usual, researchers are calling for...more research. "For future research more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food."

Jim said he didn't want no more damned adventures. - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Getting a shot of epinephrine once again made me feel tired and gave me palpitations. At least this time I knew to pop magnesium pills (good ones ending in -ate) like candy. I now carry three magnesium pills with me in case of emergency--they don't have any at hospitals. The second part of my root canal was Wednesday. Thursday was a major deadline at work, and when a code enforcement officer called me about some overgrown weeds in my front yard, I was all out of nice. Between the mostly cold weather, a dental infection and shots of the dreaded epinephrine, I hadn't felt up to anything but going to work and being bothered by a bureaucrat over some weeds was too much. But by Saturday, I felt well enough to weed the front yard, prune the tree there and clean the house. Today (Sunday), I found I felt better if I moved around--I spaded up part of the back yard to plant mo

Some years ago, I wrote a blog post on fibromyalgia relief. I don't suffer from it myself, but hoped a friend could benefit from it. The post referenced a book by Dr. Jean Seignalet, who recommended a mostly raw, mostly paleo diet. Really--don't knock s teak tartar and a salad on a hot summer day until you've tried it. Anyway, Dr. Seignalet's book has been translated into English and it's available on Kindle for only $2.99. The description says you can prevent and reverse 100 diseases "the French way." I haven't read it, but will get it to see if I can avoid ENT infections. (If anything like the Spanish flu ever made a comeback, I'm sure it would kill me. Three dollars and a few hours seems like a reasonable investment to avoid that outcome.)

Over at the Wheat Belly blog, Dr. Davis posted a "before and after" set of pictures of "Jacek" from Poland , who claimed to have lost 20kg (44 pounds). A few readers commented that things didn't look right: the lighting, clothing and facial expression were all very different in what looked like a photo studio setting, where these could have easily been kept about the same. And Jacek really didn't look that much lighter. I added my opinion as a former professional photographer: the camera angle, lighting and setting looked professionally done, that the lighting in the "before" photo was coming from both sides, emphasizing texture (like wrinkles), lighting both sides of the face, making it look wider. Side lighting typically isn't used in portraits for these reasons. Jacek was wearing frumpy clothes and had stubble and gray hair in the before photo, things known to make people look ten years older. In the "after" photo, he was cl

Dieticians might recommend plenty of healthy whole grains and low-fat products (maybe even "good fats" from plants if they're progressive), but my dog, Molly, knows better. Like me, she follows a low-carb diet of mostly meat, eggs and fibrous vegetables, along with vitamins. At her vet visit this weekend, she was down three pounds (though still a little chubby) and had clean, healthy teeth. The vet said she sees a lot of slimy teeth--but not on Molly. Molly's wisdom: Vegetables are fine for a snack, but meat and eggs are best for a meal. Food is supposed to be enjoyed! Brush your teeth and avoid sweet and starchy foods. I'm looking at you, paleo bro. Have a weekly treat.  Get some exercise, but don't strain yourself. Get off the treadmill when you're tired of it. Sleep when you're tired. The right vitamins will make you feel good. Ignore yappy little dogs.  Eat real food, mostly animals, but not too much.

Five years ago, I started this blog with the purpose of helping myself and others relieve pain. I've come to relieve my pain so well that I don't always know when I'm sick. I had an abscessed tooth then and I had another one a few days ago. I was in the worst pain of my life back then; this time, I couldn't quite figure out what was going on. (An important difference: the nerve in the tooth was dead this time. The tooth was knocked out of place in an accident a few years ago, and my dentist said it would probably need a root canal someday.) Still, all I had this time were signs here and there that something was wrong. After seeing my oral surgeon last Friday when my face was swollen (one of those odd signs), he referred me to an endodontist (a dentist specializing in root canals) and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. I said no thanks to pain medicine--nothing against it if you need it, but I didn't. The antibiotics perked me up so much that I did a lot of

"Rational ignorance," says Wikipedia , "occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide." Rational ignorance is not letting experts do your thinking for you because they're smart and you'd rather fiddle around on Facebook than educate yourself. That's intellectual laziness. Laziness isn't always a bad thing, but let's see where it can lead. For one Ph.D. in physics at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, it lead to an embarrassing moment. He saw someone do a telekinesis trick, and, convinced it was real, called James Randi, a professional magician and skeptic. For several years, Randi has offered a $1 million reward for anyone who can perform paranormal phenomena under controlled conditions. Watch him do (and explain) the telekinesis trick that fooled a Ph.D. in physics: It's not just one physics Ph.D. who could be fooled. As a former engineer, I met colleagu

There's a lot of talk now about how factors besides genes and current diet affect health and weight: the health of your mother when you were a fetus, your diet as a child, stress, and environment. Another is wear and tear. A few years ago when I fell off my bike and broke a tooth and knocked two others out of place, my dentist said that the two knocked out of place would likely need a root canal someday because of the injury. It could be two weeks, it could be two years, he said. Now, nearly three years later, the canine that was injured is abscessed.  Between being lethargic (doing nothing but watching Netflix when I got home), wearing my winter coat when everyone else was in shirtsleeves, and having an odd appetite (I've been living mostly on Quest bars this past month), I should have known I was sick. But I have a high threshold of pain. Finally, my face swelled up Friday morning and I made an appointment with my oral surgeon--the one who did my dental implant and g

If you're having trouble feeling well on a low-carb diet, read a book like The New Atkins for a New You or The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living to do some troubleshooting. Eat some fat and salt, avoid polyunsaturated fat, and take a magnesium pill in the meantime. If you're having trouble finding low-carb food, stock your home with it, take it with you for lunch, and don't leave the house hungry unless you know for a fact that there's low carb food where you're going. If you don't know how to prepare low-carb food, get a recipe book by Dana Carpender. But if it's just too yummy or if everybody else is eating it or you deserve a treat or it reminds you of happier times or all the experts still don't agree... You can make all the excuses you want, but you're the one who decided how to live your life. -Mugen, Samurai Champloo There's something sexy about defiant people who face reality with courage and skill instead of del

Cauliflower is the usual low-carb substitute for starchy foods, but celery stands in surprisingly well for potato in soup. 1/2 can coconut milk (~1 cup) 1 carton chicken stock (1 quart) 1 packet gelatin 15 oz canned salmon 1 T lemon juice 1/2 t ginger 1 carrot, sliced into coins 4 stalks celery, sliced 1/2 t basil 1 t curry powder 1/4 t cayenne pepper salt and pepper to taste Pour the coconut milk and stock into a sauce pan and bring to a simmer. While that's happening, pour the gelatin onto the liquid, let sit for a minute, then stir in. Add salmon, ginger, carrots, and celery and simmer. Stir in curry, ginger, cayenne pepper and salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes. Puree in batches and add lemon juice.

The only real disagreement is whether supply [of STEM* workers] is two or three times larger than the demand. - USA Today Between mostly poor pay, variable benefits, instability (six layoffs in seven years) and lack of opportunities in engineering, and then living in a land of milk and honey in public accounting--where the Great Recession barely got my attention--I knew the "shortage of engineers" was a load of horse shit. Or as someone else described it, STEM was a lottery with a very expensive ticket. Perhaps I'm not alone here: a lot of low-carbers are scientific, analytical people who might have had trouble finding work in their fields.  Heaven knows I've had plenty of clues that there was a glut of engineers: taking a year to find an engineering job out of college, making less than the cashiers at King Soopers when I was temping as a mechanical engineer at Bechtel, and seeing few advertisements for positions. Changing industries and learning more about bu

My posts on fibromyalgia relief (which propose trying a paleo diet) have been getting a lot of traffic lately. I'm curious how it's been working out for people. Your results?

My refrigerator: Ox cheek and homemade mushroom soup in the containers. Bacon and liver sausage in the meat drawer.  My freezer: Black angus beef. My pantry: Note the coffee, jalapeno peppers and full-fat coconut milk--so-called "trigger foods" for acid reflux, which I had until I started a low-carb diet.  My medicine cabinet: All the medicine I own, aside from some Neosporin. I just threw out a bunch of decongestants and Pepto Bismal that expired years ago. The aspirin shown expired nearly two years ago. The toothpaste is for a cavity that started forming last year when I was stressed out and wasn't taking extra-good care of myself. 

It looks like Reason magazine has been reading about my diet...or maybe just studies showing no associations between red meat and mortality, saturated fat and heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease, or salt consumption and disease. Summarizing published research from the past few years, the article calls the government's dietary advice of the past forty years a fiasco of misinformation,  even noting there's a positive association between a low-sodium diet and death. It adds that the US government's Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has dropped their long crusade against cholesterol. The article explains, Observational studies [which the government relied on] may be good at developing hypotheses, but they are mostly not a good basis for making behavioral recommendations and imposing regulations. It's refreshing for the mainstream media to recognize that mainstream dietary advice hasn't been working instead of parroting the same misinformation. T

There might be nine inches of snow at my house, but yesterday was time to start gardening. Plants are expensive and it pays to start your own from seed. I've heard of people who spend an absurd amount of money to grow a garden . This isn't one of those guides. If you have some basic gardening equipment and a place outside to grow plants, you can start growing herbs and vegetables from seed for well under $100. You can re-use the most expensive equipment (a hanging fluorescent light). Before you buy anything, though, assess your situation and make a plan. If you have a sunny porch or yard and you're willing and able to frequently tend to some plants, you can make this happen. If this is the case, first, look up your average last frost date and length of growing season (click here if you're in the US). When I plug in my location, it tells me my average last frost date is May 17 and my growing season is 132 days long. With that information, I can see what I can grow he