Category: Food & Wine

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Want to be ‘Dead Sexy?’ ……Watch what you eat!

I'm dead sexy....

 An interesting study was done to see if men who do or do not eat red meat are more attractive to women….  here’s a brief ‘top line’:

“… showed that the odor of donors when on the nonmeat diet was judged as significantly more attractive, more pleasant, and less intense.”

Now that our man on the left is on a carbo or the zone diet and off red meat… I guess this means he’s now more attractive to women? I guess… he probably smells great!

There’s a tale that before soldiers would go into the jungle… they would go off meat or fish for a couple of days to avoid being ‘detectable.’ That’s the only thing I have ever heard remotely connected to this study.

So, what do you think?

Now, from where I sit, this doesn’t mean becoming a vegetarian… and what we really don’t know is whether eating or not eating red meat is all that important in the grand scheme of things. My guess is that there are far greater issues that influence attraction.

But I do wonder sometimes…. when my wife leans over and says,’ you smell really nice.’ I never can remember what I did? What kind of soap did I use? It leaves me totally confused and searching for answers… but then, maybe that’s the plan….

Roger Freberg

Here’s a few blogs on what women like or don’t:

ITALIAN MEN
LonelyGirl15FanClub
ParisHiltonPUNKED
With DixieChicks on her mind (viva T.K.)

 

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ASPARTAME? There has to be a PRIZE for playing this game!

Are you the WOMAN enough? Feelin' frisky are ye?

Some of you know that I am a diabetic… and that I lost a great deal of weight  by changing my diet and my life style some 6 years ago. However, one of the things I realized from the beginning was the need to continue to make changes along the way… or I might find myself in the same spot I was when this sleigh ride all began.

I used to rely on “diet Soda’ to not only introduce a jolt of caffeine but a measure of sweetness in an already fatless, skinless almost tasteless diet. I do ‘spice it up’ with various seasonings… but I’ll get into this later.

Back to ASPARTAME. I guess it all depends on how healthy your immune system is to start with…. most diabetics have a compromised immune system and it doesn’t take much to bring on ‘neuropathy’ and some of the other fun stuff. 6 years ago, I actually read that aspartane was GOOD for diabetics! We know more now.

Here’s a couple of articles WITH EXERPTS to think about:

DIABETES AND ASPARTAME

“Unfortunately, many patients in my practice, and others seen in consultation, developed serious metabolic, neurologic and other complications that could be specifically attributed to using aspartame products.”

A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

“The author traces the nonscientific basis and political machinations that led to FDA’s unwise approval of aspartame, The sweetener now permeates many processed foods and beverages, and is used by two-thirds of the American population.”

ASPARTAME CONSUMPTION

“Potentially more worrisome is the 10 percent of aspartame that is absorbed into the bloodstream as methanol (wood alcohol). The Environmental Protection Agency defines safe consumption as no more than 7.8 milligrams per day of this dangerous substance. A one-liter beverage, sweetened with aspartame, contains about 56 milligrams of wood alcohol, or eight times the EPA limit!”

HAVE I SCARED YOU TO DEATH, YET?

Well, needless to say… I have substituted more coffee and V-8 Juice ( has some sugar) for the unreasonable amount of diet cola I was consuming… it appeared to be affectnig Laura’s eyes… but when she got off the aspartane wagon… her vision recovered. Coincidence? Probably not… and it is amazing how my recurring neuropathy has retreated.

So what else have I learned in the 6 years of being needle/drug free? Obviously, I can still control much of my diabetic issues with diet. Although I have made some modifications… I have toned down the amount of vegetables I eat ( although I consume most of the broccoli from Greenfield, California myself).. I no longer measure the consumption by the trailer.

I have also added some of the so-called ‘good fats’…. like… avocado! For lunch I will sometimes have and toasted open faced seasoned avocado sandwich with a ‘dolup’ of sour cream!

At dinner, I will usually have more chicken that I did in the past…. but the rest is fairly much the same.

So, the key in any diet conscious person’s mind has to be… to stay flexible and alter your behavior to reflect the new realities.

Here’s a BLOG on Diabetic diets:

Diabete’s info Blog

DiabetesBeaten.com

 

Roger Freberg

 

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…. It pays to read!

Batboy Says the day!One of the favorite things my wife Laura and I enjoy reading could be best classified along the lines of  ‘news of the weird’. It doesn’t matter if it is the ‘true tales’ of Bat Boy or a diddy about the potent antifungal and antibacterial properties of Garlic…. it is all so much  fun to pour over!

Now, I know most of you probably don’t read ‘New Scientist’ , it’s really only a light version of science and it’s more on the line of ‘Psychology Today’. It’s more sizzle than substance, but nevertheless , it has some redeeming features… like it’s own version of ‘news of the weird’. Here are a few from the latest issue:

1) Why do the preformed hamburgers you buy in stores change from a circle to an oval when cooked? The answer we are told is simple, the fibers are stretched in the direction of the conveyor belt in which they travel and revert after cooking (anisotropic). Hand made hamburger patties are not so stretched and maintain their basic configuration ( they are isotropic). I can see it all now… you stand over the neighbor’s grill and smirk over his store bought patties and say, “hmmmm. I prefer the isotropic properties of my cooked hamburgers… yours are unfortunately anisotropic.”

Garlic is a gift from God2) Why do we have garlic breath when other substances are more beniegn? It has to do with the ‘potent’ antibacterial and antifungal properties of Garlic. Garlic produces Allicin which is not very stable and converts to a bunch of smelly sulfur compounds that eventually makes its way back through your lungs and then out to your breath. Aaaaaah, but I am never giving up garlic!

 

 

3) Companies that produce music speakers have an interesting challenge. The cabinet of the speaker must be constructed in such a manner that vibration is minimized. This is often accomplished by using the hardest wood available. It was discovered that whisky soaked wood was incredibly hard, even breaking off several drill bits in the evalution phase. What the scientists discovered by accident was soaking the left over shavings produces a wonderful whiskey all it’s own!

whiskey shavings and add hot water ... produces whiskey!This isn’t really all that new, enterprising folks on ‘ebay’ are already marketing barrell shavings for your enjoyment! In fact there is quite a selection!

So I thought from now and again I would post dsome of the real … but fascinating stuff… that is out there… if all we do is take some time to read!

Roger Freberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Making Life…. Beer-able!

AAAaaaAAaah Beer!

“may I live upon the bread of barley white, my ale made of grain red”
— Ancient Egyptian Prayer

This is not a tribute to drinking, getting drunk or partying… this is a tribute to the one unmistakeable contribution to civilization — beer — brought down to us over 6000 years ago by the Chinese, Sumarians, Babylonians, the Ancient Egyptians and most recently the Germans and Japanese! Of course, we can’t forget the contributions of Milwaukee! Gan bei ! (Chinese – Mandarin)

Some of the advice on the internet is a bit self-serving to people who like beer already. If you look hard enough , you can find an article somewhere that beer cures almost every ailment. I sometimes wonder if I should be winking when I read things like, “Why drinking beer is good for the planet”. The gist of this article in New Scientist is that certain beer by-products will absorb hazardous organic compounds including benzene and trichloroethylene from chemical and industrial wastewater. Good stuff to know. Don’t you feel better now that you can do something good for mother earth? Prosit! (German)

Another facinating bit of beer glorification dates back to the ancient egyptians. When scientist studied the bones of the ancient Nubians ( they once ruled Egypt) they found:

“The bones, the researchers say, contain traces of the antibiotic tetracycline. Today tetracycline is used to treat ailments ranging from acne flare-ups to urinary-tract infections. But the antibiotic only came into commercial use half a century ago. So how did tetracycline get into the Nubian bones? Armelagos and his team say they found an answer in ancient beer.”

As you can see, it pays to read National Geographic. Na zdorov’ya (Ukraine)

Continue reading “Making Life…. Beer-able!”

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Who’s Cookin’ at Home? ………. If you don’t learn, you’ll never enjoy this great Seafood Gumbo!

ZEE Best Seafood Gumbo!!!

All too often today, busy and scattered families don’t sit down to 1 meal a day together, let alone 2 or 3. This is unfortunate, since usually the only conversation that takes place in the family is at the main meals.

What complicates mealtime is that fewer and fewer people know how to really cook. Being able to press the popcorn button on the microwave does not constitute enough knowledge to get you around a major meal. If more and more young men and women are abandoning cooking in favor of fast food or microwavable dinners, it spells disaster for future generations who have little understanding of nutrition or balance.

In our little group, we made it a fun activity to learn how to prepare everyday simple meals as well as those that might impress. Besides the feminine arts of weightlifting, martial arts, hunting and fishing… I wanted my daughters to learn how to cook. They do this very well!

So, back to food!

Here is my favorite recipe for seafood Gumbo! We developed it after a lot of helpful conversations from a variety of great folks. I hope you enjoy! By the way, one of the great things about extra gumbo is that you can freeze it into about 8 two serving portions!

So Here it is CLICK here for my recipe! Bon Appetit! Make it for someone you love!

 

Roger Freberg