Low-Carb Stuff That's Caught My Eye Lately

Sometimes there's just so much "stuff" out there about livin' la vida low-carb that I want to tell you about, it's hard to get it all into individual blog posts. That's why on occasion I will compile all these little tidbits of information for you together in one big blog post because they're all worthy of being mentioned since I haven't had time to get to them yet. WELL NOW I'M MAKING TIME! :D

So, here goes on the low-carb stuff that's caught my eye lately:

GROCERY STUDY SHOWS HIGH-CARB FOOD SALES SHRINKING

One of my readers who works at a trade association that serves the supermarket industry shared a very interesting tidbit of information with me from a September 2007 Grocery SuperStudy from Willard Bishop. And it's quite interesting news for those of us who have dedicated ourselves to low-carb living: while "low-carb" (as a marketing label) is for all intents and purposes dead within the mainstream food industry right now (not surprising since most of the crap they put out a few years back as "low-carb" was anything but), there's another new victim that nobody is talking about--the "center store" foods.

You know what that is--high-carb, packaged, processed foods that appear in the center aisles. In other words, everywhere that people who are livin' la vida low-carb DON'T shop! HA! How about that?! According to this survey, this area of supermarkets is shrinking rapidly which makes the hottest new trend in grocery markets for 2008 the up-and-coming Tesco's Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores which don't have hardly anything in their center store. Although they are based mainly in the Southwest, they have created the template for the next wave in grocery shopping for healthy living.

Here's an interesting quote from the Willard Bishop analysis:

"Center store generates 72% of total store sales and all of the true profit contribution (because the perimeter nets out at a loss). But, 29% of the center store categories lose money today (retailer activity-based costs are greater than gross profits collected including trade spending). And, 58% of the SKUs in the center store generate 95% of the sales.

This means that the final 5% of sales comes from 42% of the 60,000-plus SKUs. More than 40% of center store SKUs sell fewer than three units per store per week. Even though food retailers are challenged to earn a positive true profit contribution on the perimeter, it's an area of the store that they'll continue to focus on to differentiate and elevate their overall value proposition."

Did you get all that? The take-home message is that the vast majority of that stuff you see in the center aisles AIN'T SELLING more than 3 units a week. So if there are 48 packages of some favorite high-carb junk food sitting there the next time you go grocery shopping, keep in mind it may take FOUR MONTHS for that to sell through. Now you know why the food manufacturers load all that stuff up with preservatives. EWWW!

FEDERAL LAWMAKERS WANT TO BAN JUNK FOOD IN SCHOOLS

What we see in this New York Times column where members of the United States Senate are proposing a national ban on selling candy, sugary soda and other junk foods in schools is nothing new. Last year I blogged about former President Bill Clinton and the American Heart Association suggesting schools voluntarily implement such bans and this study show that sugar-free schools can actually reduce obesity rates. But why am I opposed to such measures that would make school lunches "healthier?" Two things.

First, what is gonna be the definition of the word "healthy?" If by healthy they mean they're gonna cut out the excess sugar, starchy carbohydrates and other such junk foods and replace them with fresh low-glycemic fruits and green leafy vegetables instead, then I'm all for it. But likely these meals will be low in fat and sodium while still including lots of sugar (which is fat-free!) and other such carbs which for all intents and purposes will defeat the purpose of banning the junk food.

Second, what business is it of the federal government to dictate to local school districts what they should be serving children for lunches? While too often national lawmakers just like to throw our money at a problem and hope it goes away, the real solutions are never even considered. If the school lunches at a local school are horrendous, then the parents of the kids attending that school should complain to the school and/or school board to demand better choices. And the worst case scenario, parents should pack their children a healthy lunch if the school refuses to offer better choices.

This is not an area where the federal government has any busy sticking its nose into. However, I do see it as rather hypocritical of these lawmakers to still allow the sale of Girl Scout cookies in schools even if this ban were to go into effect. And we wonder why our kids keep getting fatter and fatter while getting confused about what is good for them? Sheeeez!

FRED THOMPSON: GOVERNMENT IS NOT YOUR NUTRITIONIST

Speaking of government, I couldn't help but notice this CNN.com article about something one of the presidential candidates said while he was here in my hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina recently. Although I still don't have ANY idea whatsoever about who I am going to vote for in next month's primary election, it was quite refreshing to hear that former Sen. Fred Thompson wants good nutrition and healthy living to happen within the family unit and not from the government.

Here's what he said:

"We shouldn’t be looking at the federal government in Washington first and working our way down, it ought to be just the other way around. With that, or whether you're talking about education, there's some things the federal government can't do."

Amen to that, brother! With our government telling us through the USDA and FDA over the past few decades that fat and cholesterol is gonna kill us while we should eat a diet consisting primarily of carbohydrates to be healthy, it's about time somebody on the national level is saying enough is enough. It is each the responsibility of each of us to take care of our own families and to get the government out of our refrigerators!

DR. JOHN BRIFFA CALLS OUT RESEARCHERS ON CHOLESTEROL

Three months ago, I had the privilege of interviewing a bona fide health expert from the UK named Dr. John Briffa. As an unapologetic supporter of solid nutritional science, Dr. Briffa has been disappointed by the obvious omission of data supporting livin' la vida low-carb over the past few years by researchers. And he let them know it in this blog post about the very latest studies showing the cholesterol hypothesis is a load of crap!

There's so much common sense in what Dr. Briffa wrote in this piece that I urge you to read it for yourself. He makes some excellent points about statin drugs, why cholesterol-lowering drug treatments work to possibly produce a lowered risk of a cardiac event, who the researchers are conducting these so-called studies, and what role the pharmaceutical industry plays in disease treatment. DON'T MISS THIS COLUMN!

EATING SATURATED FAT WILL GIVE YOU DIABETES?

One of the more preposterous statements I have seen in the nearly three years I have been blogging about diet and health has got to be what I read in this Diet Detective column by my fellow contributing writer Dr. Judith Wurtman, PhD, author of The Serotonin Power Diet (which I will be reviewing here soon). She claims that a study published in the October 2007 issue of Nature Medicine found that eating too much fat causes it to store in the liver which then creates a chemical that causes insulin resistance--a precursor to diabetes.

I looked for this study Dr. Wurtman cited and couldn't find it, so I wrote to her asking for the link. She responded back that she would locate it for me, but I never heard from her again. The whole concept that the consumption of saturated fat could even remotely lead to insulin resistance and then diabetes doesn't even make sense to me. Excessive carbohydrate consumption is documented to be most responsible for the development of insulin resistance, not saturated fat.

Since I had my doubts and wanted to see what some medical professionals had to say about this theory put forth by Dr. Wurtman, I sent a link of this column to several of my low-carb research friends for assistance. All of them were perplexed by what she had written and had never heard of any such research supporting this. But Dr. Mary C. Vernon summarized what she thought about this in her typical fashion:

This is actually a fairly widespread misunderstanding, that is, many people believe the data says that fat causes insulin resistance. Three thoughts come to mind:

1) This mis-interpretation occurs, I think, because the research is misleading in that carbohydrate is rarely analyzed or decreased enough.

2) Because the close relationship between available fuel sources (fats, carbohydrate and amino acids) makes it difficult to define a starting point. In modern-day vernacular--which came first, the chicken or the egg?

3) Clearly, each individual is born with a certain level of "insulin resistance." Some of this may actually be influenced by the intrauterine environment as well as by the gene set. I think one can actually see this, in a simplistic way, as the amount of insuln secretion generated by a carbohydrate load.

Add the long-term outcome of high insulin spikes to fat accumulation and "bulked up" fat cells, and insulin resistance increases. The dietary carbohydrate pushes the insulin levels up, but the fat cells' semipermeable membrane now has increased intracellular fat content and "leaks." (Dr. Sam Kline says fat cells don't like to be bigger than one micron).

Now the fat stores have entered the metabolic conversation and the blood sugar swings (pre and post prandially) get wider and wider. With high insulin levels chronically, fat transports into the mitochondria is damped down (via malonyl CoA's feedback on CPT) and fat burning decreases. All of this is interpreted clinically as "increasing insulin resistance."

IF YOU DON"T DROP THE INSULIN LEVELS LOW ENOUGH BY HOLDING DIETARY CARBOHYDRATE DOWN, THEN YOU WILL NEVER SEE THE PROCESS STOP. Even though this is a logarithmic relationship, it behaves in patients as if it were an off-on switch. Even as few as 5 grams of carbohydrate can change some individuals with vigorous insulin response from fat-burning to fat storing.

As always, Dr. Vernon delivers wisdom that puts things back into the proper perspective. I'm sure Dr. Wurtman means well with her conclusions, but it seems there's a lot of assuming it is the saturated fat that is the culprit and not the carbohydrates. This is a DAILY battle within the realm of low-carb and science.

JONNY BOWDEN LETS THE BEVERAGE ASSOCIATION HAVE IT

Leave it to Dr. Jonny Bowden to cut right to the heart of the matter in a letter to the American Beverage Association who had responded to a column he wrote about sodas and obesity. You'll see a brilliant response on his blog to the claims made by the Senior Vice-President of Science Policy for that group named Maureen L. Storey, PhD. Dr. Storey states there is no link between soda consumption and heart disease and that sugar substitutes like aspartame are completely safe and acceptable for human consumption.

Dr. Bowden took great pleasure in answering each of the points made by Dr. Storey by exposing the error in her analysis of the points she made. There were four major points he made backed up by evidence to prove each one, but I absolutely loved the way Dr. Bowden ended his letter to Dr. Storey:

"I understand your need to put a favorable spin on this, just as the sugar industry puts a favorable spin on sugar. But might I remind you of the words of Upton Sinclair: 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, if his salary depends upon him not understanding it.'"

OUCH! That quote could certainly zing a lot of people involved in the diet and health industry, wouldn't it? :D

MICHIGAN MAN FOLLOWS ATKINS, DOESN'T COUNT CALORIES

I just about flipped when I saw this Grand Rapids Press story about a man named Steve Cormier. It seems 52-year old man was able to lose weight and get healthy by livin' la vida low-carb. And he's STILL doing it to this day by paying attention to his carbohydrate intake and being ever mindful of what he's putting in his mouth. My favorite quote was this:

"I don't care about calories at all."

Now THAT is the sign of someone who is on the Atkins diet by the book. If you are working the plan as the late great Dr. Robert C. Atkins outlined in Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, then you don't have to count calories. I'm coming up on four years of eating this way and I have yet to count the first calorie I put in my mouth. Instead, I keep my carbs reduced to the level I need to keep my weight in check and the calories manage themselves. WAY TO GO, Steve! Keep it up, my friend!

A QUICK & EASY LOW-CARB CHEESECAKE RECIPE

You know how much I enjoy recipes, so I couldn't resist sharing this one from Quad-Cities Online with you. Submitted by Laura Carson from Moline, Illinois, this is a rather simple-to-make low-carb cheesecake that could be an awesome addition to your holiday festivities. Here are the ingredients you will need to make this recipe:

3 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
2/3 cup Splenda
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
Non-stick cooking spray (Pam)

CLICK HERE for the instructions about how to make this cheesecake--livin' la vida low-carb styled, baby!

YOUTUBE VIEWER THINKING TOO MUCH ABOUT WEIGHT LOSS

I've really enjoyed expanding the horizons of the "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" brand to other places on the Internet, not the least of which is YouTube. The "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb On YouTube" segments I do with my wife Christine are a load of fun and it is something we look forward to doing each and every week. One neat thing is it has attracted a new audience of people looking for answers to their dieting questions.

Here's an example of one I recently received:

I know you probably get thousands of messages daily. I always said that I was going to write you asking you some questions that I'm curious about.

The first question is, knowing that fat is equivalent to 9 calories per gram, many of the low carb foods are loaded with calories. That said, I am 6'3" 340lbs (Was 385), and with approximately 30 minutes of working out on a cardio machine, I lose 462 calories. How much of that is 'fat' being burned?

I know that with certain heart rate percentages, you burn fat/carbs, but I'm assuming I'm burning 100% fat, since I probably have very little to no carbs at all.

So if I'm losing 462 calories and 1 gram of fat is 9 calories and 1 pound of fat is 453 grams it would take (9*453 calories) to burn 1 pound of fat. This seems impossible to do. Assuming my BMR is around 4500 calories a day...I probably eat less than that...but still...it just doesn't seem right...Can I get some input?

Hopefully you understand this.

Is your head spinning too? Mine sure did after I read this e-mail about ten times in a row. Finally, I just stepped back, took several deep breaths, and realized EXACTLY what this person needed to hear. This was my response:

Hey there and thanks so much for writing. I'd be delighted to answer your questions:

Just so you know, I don't count calories. Never have since I started livin' la vida low-carb. You don't have to worry about fat having more calories than carbs and protein because it's not about the calories. Your body functions differently when you reduce the carbohydrate in your diet because you are using dietary fat as well as stored fat as fuel for your body.

So, when you workout for 30 minutes and burn 462 calories, it depends on whether you are burning carbs (a low-fat diet) or fat (a low-carb diet) for fuel. It takes about 20 minutes of exercise to burn off all the excess carb stores when you are eating a high-carb, low-fat diet, but you start shedding STORED FAT right away on a high-fat, low-carb diet. WOO HOO! Isn't that cool?

There are obvious benefits to the amount of intensity of your workouts, so having small spurts of all-out, give-it-everything-you-got effort to burn even more calories and, thus, stored fat.

Don't obsess over the calories you put IN your mouth when you are eating low-carb. When I started at 410 pounds, I was eating about 3,000-4,000 calories a day while keeping my carbs down to around 20-30g carbs during my ongoing weight loss. Today, I STILL eat about 2,500-3,000 calories and maintain my weight just fine.

It's unproductive to think about this too much...just eat your fat for fuel, keep carbs to a minimum, ENJOY the foods you get to eat, and simply live your life confident you will shed the pounds and get healthier than you ever have before. It's NOT impossible because I did it. And so can you!

Sometimes we can think so much about all of this that it can frustrate you into overeating carbs to reduce the stress! UGH! I don't waste any brain cells on needless over-analyzing my diet like that. NEVERMORE!

Have you seen something about low-carb in the news that you feel is worthy of my attention? Feel free to e-mail me a link to the story anytime at livinlowcarbman@charter.net. I do a lot of research, but that doesn't mean I see everything. THANKS for your support for the work I do here and keep on livin' la vida low-carb!

Study: Sugar-Free Schools Reduce Obesity Rates

Researcher Claude Marcus looked at impact of sugar-free schools

This Breitbart.com story about a new Swedish study was absolutely encouraging to anyone living a sugar-free lifestyle.

Lead researcher Claude Marcus, professor of Pediatrics at the Stockholm, Sweden-based Karolinska Institute (whose previous research has show the impact of high blood sugar on Alzheimer's disease and sugar's unique role in pancreatic cancer), wanted to see if an across-the-board ban on all sweets, junk food, and sodas in ten area schools would make a difference in the number of overweight children at those schools. These high-carb sugary garbage foods were replaced by high-fiber, lower-fat, low-carb foods.

Over a four-year period, the number of overweight or obese 6-10 year old children in the project called STOPP (Stockholm Obesity Prevention Project) dropped markedly from 22 percent down to 16 percent. WOW! That's a full six percentage points just by simply removing the sugar option from the foods available at school.

So what happened to the control group that changed nothing?

These sugar-eating, high-carb junk food-ingesting children saw the number of overweight or obese children RISE from 18 percent to 21 percent. Not surprising at all to those of us who are livin' la vida low-carb.

The results of Marcus' study were presented at the 15th European Congress on Obesity in Budapest, Hungary on Monday, April 23. STOPP was financed by the Stockholm County Council with contributions from the Swedish Research Council and the Masonic Home for Children in Stockholm.

Interestingly, Marcus said his study showed it is indeed possible to tackle childhood obesity without adding any extra expenditures to the existing school budgets.

"Our results show that programmes to reduce the increasing rate of obesity can be carried out within the schools' existing budgets," he said.

Sweet! So much for the excuse that serving kids healthy alternatives to junk food is too expensive. As long as those "healthy" alternatives have enough fat and protein to make them good for the kids, it shouldn't be a problem economically or nutritionally. That seems to be what this study indicates and the proof is in the astounding results.

There was one positive impact that the example from the sugar-free schools had when the children got home.

"We also interpret the results to mean that clear regulations in schools can help parents to set standards for their children and improve dietary habits at home," the study indicated.

What an excellent point! When parents who want to feed their kids the right kind of foods get reinforcement when their children go to school, then they are better able to effectively bring about improvements in their child's health without the fear of being undercut by the peer influences at school. We need something like this to be implemented in the United States--ASAP!

There is some hope already with kids like this refusing to sell sugary foods as a fundraiser. It's gonna take a lot more efforts like these to bring about the kind of results Marcus saw in his study. So let's get it started, baby!

You can e-mail Claude Marcus about this research at Claude.Marcus@ki.se.

Bill Clinton, AHA Should Stop Their Childhood Obesity Masquerade

Bill Clinton is the consummate politician taking credit for simply trying

Like I have said many times before, I really don't like talking about politics at my health and weight loss blog. Most of the issues that are dealt with in this forum are political only in the diet and nutrition world, but not generally in the realm of governmental politics.

But sometimes these two worlds inevitably collide and that's exactly what this Washington Post story about a new deal to limit junk foods sold in school vending machines does with a vengeance.

It seems five of the top junk food vending machine companies--PepsiCo, Mars Inc., Kraft Foods Inc., Campbell Soup Co. and Dannon Co.--have vowed to take their high-carb, high-fat products out of the schools in favor of "healthier products" (we'll get into what that means in a moment).

The voluntary agreement was made possible by the ever-present elder statesman himself, former President Bill Clinton, along with the American Heart Association (AHA). They wanted to help make the nutritional choices for kids better while they are in school because many blame these foods on the rise in childhood obesity rates (I do not blame the junk food companies, but rather the parents for making poor nutritional choices and for not educating their own children to discern between what is good for them and what is not).

Isn't this agreement quite an ironic twist considering the man involved? Here we have the former leader of the free world who was infamous for eating cheeseburgers and French fries while he was President telling junk food manufacturers what they can and cannot sell in schools to children. Furthermore, he will now go around taking credit for bringing an end to childhood obesity in America because he cared enough to "work hard to TRY" to do something about it. What a freakin' joke!

This is nothing more than political posturing by Clinton to shift attention away from his little temper tantrum with Chris Wallace a couple of weeks ago. The negative publicity that he received from that infamous fiasco undoubtedly led him to go into damage control mode, so a trumped-up positive story like this one where he is seen as helping the children is just what the doctor ordered.

PUH-LEEZE!

What is going to happen as a result of this need I remind you VOLUNTARY agreement Clinton helped bring about? It's VOLUNTARY which means any of the parties involved can most certainly back out at any time and Clinton still can say, "Well, at least I TRIED to tell them this would be good for the American children, but they wouldn't listen to me." Either way, he comes away looking spic-n-span squeaky clean in all of this even if NOTHING changes at all. That's not leadership, that's politics as usual!

Unfortunately, that's politics for you. It's all about who can take credit for non-action that looks like action today. But if Clinton or any other politician is sincerely interested in helping protect kids from the junk food that entices them, then why not get Congress to pass a law to make it mandatory to ban these from schools, hmmm? If they really want these junk foods out of schools, then make it a requirement with a law. That would certainly add more teeth to the argument that you care about improving the health of children if you think the presence of junk food is the culprit.

Gary Ruskin from the non-profit childhood obesity education group Commercial Alert had a rather terse response for Clinton questioning the "healthy alternatives" that will be allegedly offered as well as what's in this deal for the former president.

"Who is Bill Clinton kidding? Baked potato chips and sweetened bars are not substitutes for apples and carrots, beans and greens," Ruskin exclaimed. "Has the Clinton Foundation received any contributions from any of the companies that are a party to this agreement? How about the American Heart Association?"

You can't blame people like Ruskin for having questions like this based on Clinton's past behavior. But it does make you wonder if anything really will change or if this little media fanfare around what Clinton TRIED to do is all that will come of this. Awww, wasn't he so great for trying to help the fat little kiddies get healthy? Awww, he just cares so much for the little ones. Can I BARF now?! It's sentiments like this that make some want to throw more money at childhood obesity, but that is clearly not the answer.

This isn't the first time Clinton and the AHA have come together in a similar arrangement regarding junk food in schools. Earlier this year, they got Coca-Cola Co., Pepsi and Cadbury Schweppes PLC to stop selling non-diet soft drinks in schools since so many kids were chug-a-lugging on sugary sodas during the daytime. Now they will be guzzling sugary pseudo-fruit juices and energy drinks instead. Like I said, where are the MEANINGFUL changes? Hello?

I remember those snack food machines and the vendors during lunch when I was in high school in the late 1980s and never gave a seond thought about the nutritional value of what I was eating. If it tasted good and I wanted it, then I bought it. Of course, that may explain how I got to be so fat, too. :)

While I like the idea of giving kids a choice of better food options while at school, this agreement does NOT stop kids from going by their local corner convenience store on the way to or on the way home from school. It's like banning the sale of drugs on school grounds. That's all well and good until the students step off of school property and on the streets. At that point, all bets are off and the net result is the same as it was before.

An agreement like this one from Clinton and the AHA is like having a nonsmoking section in a restaurant that allows smokers to puff away without the use of a smoke vent. You can ban smoking all you want in the nonsmoking section, but you and I both know that doesn't keep the smoke from traveling into that section, thus rendering the distinction between the two sections completely irrelevant. The same goes for what Clinton and the AHA have brokered. This deal won't stop childhood obesity. Not by a long shot!

Okay, let's just pretend for a moment that these changes WILL make a difference. What are they asking these companies to alter about their products to make them "healthier?" Here are the new criteria for allowable foods sold at schools under the agreement:

1. Calories from fat limited to 35 percent
2. Calories from saturated fat limited to 10 percent
3. Sugar by weight is limited to 10 percent
4. Sodium is limited to 480mg, except for soup

Again we see the continuing ramifications of how scared people are of fat and even saturated fat. While it is noble they are limiting sugar to 10 percent by weight, that's still not doing anything about the excessive carbohydrates that many of these products contain which then turn into sugar when it is absorbed by the body. Are we so ignorant as a society that we think sugar is the only thing that makes your blood sugar rise? Finally, salt is a non-issue except for those who are salt-sensitive.

Even low-fat diet advocate Dr. Dean Ornish said in my recent interview with him that he doesn't like the influx of low-fat and fat-free snack food products because they are still not healthy choices for people to consume.

"People are going out and eating the Snackwell cookies and the fat-free desserts and cakes that may be very low in fat, but very high in sugar--I've never recommended that which is why I've been more explicit in clarifying that," Ornish said during the interview.

Despite all of this, data will begin being collected by the AHA and the Clinton Foundation to measure the impact of these changes ever other year over the next four years. Again, any changes will be minimal at best until we get a better handle on what is causing obesity--namely the excessive consumption of carbohydrates, including those found in low-fat products like baked potato chips, pretzels, 10% fruit juices, and so much more. Selling these as "healthy" foods is a farce!

Now the junk food companies involved in this agreement are going to begin "taking steps to make snacks more nutritious."

Oh joy, what do we have to look forward to? Hmmm, how about low-fat, whole wheat Twinkies sweetened with aspartame and/or maltitol? Yummy. Or perhaps we'll see, as one of my readers shared with me, vendor sandwiches made with Wonder Bread, anti-bacterial-sprayed bologna slices, and eggless Miracle Whip? Oh, the kiddies will be clamoring for them!

Who are we kidding people? Kids won't go for this stuff unless they are educated better about why they shouldn't eat the junk food. Our education system is eager to tell children about sex and sharing with them information about that, but there's nary a mention of how fat, protein and carbohydrates work to fuel the body and make it work. Now THERE is something meaningful to start teaching kids in schools.

We're stuck in a nutritional abyss nowadays and there doesn't seem to be an easy way out of it. Childhood obesity can be prevented, but that won't happen until some major barriers are torn down for good--namely that eating fat is bad for you, eating excessive carbohydrates is good for you, and that there are no consequences to eating junk food. All of these so-called axioms in our society are WRONG as wrong can be. We must continue to strive to share with others the truth.

10-8-06 UPDATE: You really should check out some of the comments I'm getting to this post over at LowCarbNewsline.com. Many of them think my points are invalid. What say you?

10-8-06 UPDATE: The response to this post continues with the following e-mail I received about it today.

I go to your web site because I am very interested in keeping up my low-carb lifestyle. When I want GOP political BS I can go to FOX news. By the way, you lost 180 pounds and good for you but you did not cure cancer! Maybe you should lose another 180 pounds of ego and your self-importance.

OUCH! LOL! Sigh, I miss stirring up political debate like I did long before I ever thought about livin' la vida low-carb. But, alas, I don't do that on a regular basis anymore. As I said at the very beginning, I don't like to bring up politics in this forum unless it is pertinent to what I discuss here on a regular basis. Today, it was.

By the way, I have a parting question for this person who raked me over the coals--Did Bill Clinton cure cancer?