Dana Carpender

Our panel of speakers this year started with Tom Naughton, a comedian. A comedian? You bet. Tom is both seriously funny and seriously smart, and his documentary Fathead is now the number one documentary at Hulu. Tom's presentation was called Science for Smart People, and was aimed at helping everyone understand the scientific double talk that too often lets biased researchers bamboozle people.

Call me a tightwad, but I just love a bargain. So I was thrilled to pick up chuck steaks this week at under two dollars a pound. That's almost as cheap as ground beef! Now to fire up my grill. I've mentioned before that a grilled steak with sliced tomatoes and a salad is my idea of Summer Food Nirvana.

Hello Dana, I am a big fan of your cookbooks, but I have a question, can your substitute coconut flour for pumpkin seed meal and almond meal?

Many of us agree. Salt is easily the most popular seasoning. There's a good reason for this: Salt is an essential nutrient; without it we'll die. But just as Americans "know" that fat is bad for them, they "know" that salt is bad for them. The standard wisdom, parroted over and over again, is that limiting fat and salt intake will lower blood pressure, prevent heart disease, and improve health in general.

Today, Low-Carbist Extraordinaire Dana Carpender unveiled her witty, clever, educational and FUN new podcast at www.DanasLowCarbForLife.com - The Dana Carpender Show! Dana's new show features a magazine-style format with a few features, the occasional interview and, of course, recipes, too.

Thanksgiving was Thursday. Maybe you took an Indulgence Day, maybe - like a growing (or, more accurately, shrinking) group of low carbers, you kept on low carbing right through the feast. I heard from a lot of people who had fauxtatoes and sugar-free pumpkin pie. Regardless, you probably have some leftovers kicking around. You're not going to be eating turkey sandwiches, or at least I hope you're not. So what to do with your leftover bird?

Here's another in my off-and-on series about specific vitamins and minerals. Since I last covered vitamin B1, aka thiamin, the next logical subject is vitamin B2, called riboflavin.

It wasn't vitamin C. Although it was known for centuries that a lack of fresh food would cause scurvy, and that certain foods, especially citrus fruits, cabbage, and sauerkraut, could prevent it, the factor responsible wasn't identified until a few years after our front-runner.

Autumn is leaf season, deer season, Halloween season, and - Brussels sprouts season! However, Brussels sprouts are one of those vegetables that are often invoked as evidence that vegetables in general are loathsome, nowhere near as tasty as some other categories of foods. I, too, once disliked Brussels sprouts, yet I have come not only to like them, but to love them, and so has my formerly Brussels-sprout-phobic husband.

Let's talk a little about vitamin A. Vitamin A is important stuff, but it's a bit complex. Vitamin A is essential for your health, but because it's a fat soluble vitamin and can be stored in your body, it's possible to get too much. It also comes in a couple of forms, both with their virtues and their drawbacks.

A whole cup of fresh basil leaves has just 11 calories, and about 5 million metric boatloads of flavor. You'll get 2 grams of carbohydrate, but it's virtually all in the form of fiber. And you'll get one gram of protein, but who eats herbs for the protein? You'll also get 33% of your vitamin A, 13% of your vitamin C, 7% each of your folacin, calcium, and iron, 6% of your potassium, and 2% of your niacin and zinc.

Years ago, some furious online detractor of low carb diets threw at me the accusation that I ate "pork rind cake." This is not true. I have never eaten a cake made from pork rinds, and had never heard of such a thing till the accusation was made. And though she subsequently posted a link to a recipe, that is the only time I have ever heard of pork rind cake in my near-decade on a low carb diet.