Dana Carpender

CarbSmart Is Reporting From the Low Carb Cruise 2012. The Low Carb Cruise 2012 starts on Sunday, May 6, 2012 and Dana Carpender, Amy Dungan and I will be there.

Folks, I'm sorry I've been so spotty about posting to CarbSmart recently. I'm on deadline for this paleo cookbook (Pre-order at Amazon.com: 500 Paleo Recipes), and I'm cooking and writing like a maniac. Quite honestly, Its hard to think about anything else. However, in an attempt to make it up to you, I will now tell you how to save a pile of money.

Paleo refers to the idea that we can take cues from the hunter-gatherer diets of our pre-agricultural ancestors to determine the best - dare I say the evolutionary - diet of human kind. It is nearly impossible to achieve a truly paleo diet; you'd have to eat only local wild foods in season; one piece of cultivated fruit or pinch of a spice from another part of the world and you're no longer truly authentic.

One of the criticisms frequently thrown at low carbing is "Oh, you just gain back all the weight when you go off that diet." Not to put too fine a point on it, er-DUH! You think that happens with any kind of diet? Maybe? You think the problem is that people go on a diet with the idea already in the back of their minds that they're going to lose their weight and then go off the diet? Of course they do. This is why the regain rate for weight lost is well over 90%.

Back in the day, there was a "tonic" called Hadacol. It was hyped as vitamin elixir, a dietary supplement, a source of vitamins B1 (thiamin), B2 (riboflavin), and B3(niacin), plus iron. Hadacol was advertised as something you would take for your health, that would relieve the root cause of many ailments, from heartburn to nervous disorders.

First of all, the Atkins Diet is far, far from impossible, as thousands, if not millions, of happy long-term Atkins dieters can attest. Your problem apparently is that you haven't read Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, but rather are sort of making up a version of what you think Atkins is - all meat and eggs - from anecdotal reports and popular press articles. The Atkins Diet does not, does not, DOES NOT ban fruits and vegetables. Am I clear here? Really, it doesn't. Never did.

Dana Carpender's CarbSmart Espresso Chocolate Chip Brownies

If you look back through the Ask Dana archives, you'll see I have written, in the past, about pork rinds, the fact that they are not, as some assume, egregious junk food, but actually the most nutritious thing in the snack aisle. In that article, I mentioned that once, years ago, an outraged online detractor of low carb diets threw in my cyberface the accusation that I ate pork rind cake. That accusation is now true.

So what did you do last Saturday? I had several dozen low carbers in my backyard! The Second Annual Low Carb Meet & Greet was a smashing success, or at least I thought it was.

Chances are you've seen the news already: Fructose can cause cancer. Specifically, this study looked at pancreatic cancer, a particularly deadly and intractable form of cancer, and one that has been increasing in frequency. I was unable to find the full text of this article, but gleaned that it demonstrated that cancer cells are particularly able to use fructose to reproduce, fueling tumor growth.

My nephew Henry and niece Halliday came to stay with That Nice Boy I Married and I this past week. We had a super-great time with them, as we always do - went to the county fair, did a little geocaching, watched a few movies, and just generally hung out.

Dana Carpender's Peanut Butter-Coconut-Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe