Every taste is an acquired taste. If you’ve just recently gone low-carb, say as a New Year’s resolution, you may be overwhelmed by the sheer difference from your old diet. I encourage you to do so rather than using low-carb breads and such to make your low-carb diet resemble your old diet. Those can be useful. Bridge foods helping you to find a new normal, but not only are they, yes, processed foods often overpriced and sometimes deceptively labeled.

The idea for these came from my childhood – my mother used to make Cocoa-Peanut Logs, a recipe on the back of the Kellogg’s Cocoa Krispies box. I had been using sugar-free chocolate chips to make chocolate chip cookies, of course. I don’t recall how the idea of using them this way came to me. I do remember that the first time I tried this, I thought, "Dana, you have gone right 'round the bend, making pork rind cookies." Hah. They're fantastic. I have gotten more glowing feedback on this recipe than on almost any other. Try them. Really.

If your nutritional program is so good, why do you still take drugs? There's no question that good nutrition improves our health. Heck, many type 2 diabetics do away with all need for medication by eating low-carb. But can proper nutrition prevent all illness and do away with all need for drugs? - CarbSmart Podcast Episode 26 with Dana Carpender.

My sister and brother-in-law introduced me to a San Diego bistro where a dish very much like this is a standard on the menu. We ate two batches.

Isn't It Important to Eat a Balanced Diet?. Well, maybe. The big question is, "What the heck is a 'balanced diet'?" The phrase doesn't seem to have any concrete meaning. CarbSmart Podcast 25 by Dana Carpender.

CarbSmart Podcast Episode 24: Learn the many benefits of the Low-Carb lifestyle. Hosted by Dana Carpender. Dana's guide to starting the Low-Carb Lifestyle. The CarbSmart Podcast is available on YouTube and your favorite Podcast apps.

CarbSmart Podcast Episode 23: Refusing Holiday Food and Staying Low-Carb can be tough at first but you can do it to avoid the Food Pushers. The holidays are straight ahead, and with them piles and piles of carby junk, and worse, people nagging you to eat the stuff. Why so many people think that saying things like "But you have to eat it! It's traditional!" and "I worked all afternoon making it just for you" constitutes an expression of holiday goodwill, I have no idea, but sadly this behavior is all too common. You need to think ahead about how to respond to this sort of thing.

Autumn. The cool, crisp air. The brilliant leaves. The cozy sweaters. And the advent of cold and flu season. What does this have to do with our low-carb diets? More than you might think at first glance. Between cough syrup and cough drops, multi symptom cold relievers. And the oft recommended tea with honey and chicken noodle soup, there are pitfalls here.

Recently, on a website I frequent, there was a discussion of Halloween plans. There I first encountered the concept of "trunk-or-treat," a Halloween event that is apparently gaining popularity across the country. People dress their kids up in costumes, pack candy in their cars, and go to a predesignated parking lot. There the children run from car to car, collecting candy.

In today's three question interview from CarbSmart. Dana Carpender interviews Fred Hahn, owner of Slow Burn Fitness and author of The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution and also Strong Kids, Healthy Kids. He's also a long time low-carber. Let's hear what Fred has to say about low-carb nutrition and fitness.

I have, over the past many years in general, taken some heat for not being a low-carb purist. Not pure enough, or restrictive enough, or something enough about the diet I eat and the ingredients I use in my recipes.

Salt is an essential nutrient - our body needs sodium. The take-home message here is that despite the demonizing of sodium, it is an essential nutrient; without it we die. Low carbohydrate diets both normalize the body's ability to excrete excess sodium and dramatically reduce our intake of processed foods, baked goods, chips, and other "snack foods," the biggest sources of sodium in the modern American diet. So pay attention. Be aware, too, that having elevated blood pressure does not necessarily mean you need a low sodium diet.