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As a couple of adventurous backpackers with no savings and a strict time limit imposed by U.S. Immigration, my now-husband and I catered our own wedding out of necessity. My Irishman and I met on a fruit-picking farm in Australia where, amongst the plague of flies, sweat, and 30 other backpackers, we found love.

An international betrothal meant a lot of paperwork and a lot of waiting. Eight months of waiting, to be exact, during which we had no indication if or when his visa would be approved. Much to my dismay, planning a wedding in any detail wasn’t possible. We didn’t know much, but we did know that once the visa was approved and the Irishman landed on American soil, we would have 90 days to get married. Oh, and that we were pathetically poor.

Here’s how we catered our wedding — and what we would have done differently.

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Whether you’re growing your own garden or just got overzealous at the farmers market, summertime often brings an abundance of herbs. If you find yourself with a few too many, that’s okay! You could simply preserve the herbs in olive oil and use them later, or you could (easily) use them to clean and freshen up your home. If you’re interested in the second option, there are actually a few ways to use those extras.

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I thought once I’d finally had my baby, once pregnancy was over and I was no longer building a human being from scratch, I would perhaps stop eating like it was an Olympic event.

It’s cute when people think those things pre-kid, right?

Between the lack of sleep, fluctuating hormones, and learning to take care of this tiny being who needed me for survival, I was a beast — constantly ravenous, yet also very picky. Plus, I wanted to eat a variety of foods so the baby could taste it through my breastmilk and I could hopefully introduce flavors ASAP. I was a difficult diner for my poor husband and family who were also all sleep-deprived and riding the incredible emotional roller coaster that is “OMG, we have a baby.”

Although we lived it up big time ordering in, after a week I was positively craving homemade food. Here are some foods that would really have satisfied so many of my cravings (or at least one at a time), while sustaining me through 17 million nighttime wakings.

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Last week, I wrote about my 16 favorite fats. You had questions. For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’ll answer some of them. First, I explain why my keto salad recipe didn’t include any dense protein. Second, I explain a few options for steaming heavy cream. Third, I tell where I get my mac nuts. Fourth, I discuss whether you should worry about dioxins in pastured eggs. And fifth, I address the question of dietary fat and fatty liver.

Let’s go:

JUST CURIOUS – LOVELY SALAD – BUT NO OTHER PROTEIN SOURCE IS INCLUDED???

—Frances

Yep. I intentionally left it out of the recipe. About half the time I’ll throw in some hardboiled eggs, a can of sardines or tuna, or some leftover meat, fish, or fowl from the night before, but not always. As I mentioned in the Definitive Guide, dietary protein, along with glucose, is a source of oxaloacetate. It’s the absence of oxaloacetate that inhibits ATP generation via Krebs’ cycle and necessitates ketone production. Too much protein can inhibit ketone production.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t eat protein. Protein can really help curb appetite, retain lean mass during weight loss, and improve physical performance. In fact, most people eating standard diets probably need more. And certain populations, like seniors and the ill and infirm, require more protein than the general population for the same effect.

But people seeking deep ketosis, whether for health reasons or simple curiosity, will often need to eat less protein. That’s what I’m interested in, at least for the time being. Hence the somewhat lower protein intake.

I just learned about Steamed Heavy Cream. Any tips from anyone on the proper way to do that?

—Nikko

If you have an espresso machine, that’s the best way to steam it. Few have one at home.

Heat the cream on the stove, then whisk it furiously. Incorporate as much air as you desire and pour into coffee.

Heat the cream on the stove, then blend. Stick blenders and stand-up blenders both work.

Get a cheap milk frother. Froth away.

Get a better milk frother. Froth even more.

Heavy cream won’t foam up like milk or half-and-half. The bubbles are smaller, denser, and more velvety.

Mark, where do you buy macadamia nuts and what brand are they?

—RFB

I have a few sources.

Trader Joe’s carries a nice dry-roasted, salted mac nut from Australia. If I’m there, I’ll grab a few bags.

These are good from Thrive.

Hawaii Costcos carry an incredible 2-pound (or so) bag of mac nuts. The brand escapes me, but it’s definitely not Mauna Loa or Kirkland. They’re the sweetest ones I’ve ever had. Not sure if they’re roasted or not. Whenever I’m on Maui or Kauai, I make sure to grab at least 5 bags to take home.

I don’t worry much about organic. Mac nuts are a low pesticide nut. Their shells are quite hardy, and most producers are able to grow them without using additional chemicals.

I do stick to raw or dry-roasted mac nuts. Just plain “roasted” usually means “fried in substandard vegetable oil” (that goes for any nut).

I am wondering, I eat quite a lot of eggs every day for my weight (woman, 55 kilograms). I eat about 4 eggs a day (local, pastured), but many sources say that mainly those eggs contain a lot of dioxin because chickens pick the polluted ground. What about the potential negative effects of higher dioxin in your pasture raised (also meats) food? Or is this effect negligible?

—Laura

They used to think that grass-fed beef had more dioxins due to the cows ingesting more polluted soil. It turns out that the cows they tested were eating out of dioxin-contaminated troughs and had industrial waste mixed in with their feed. The same has been shown to happen with pastured-raised chickens and their eggs—living in contaminated hen houses spikes dioxin levels. Soil dioxin levels matter, but they’re not the only source of dioxins in eggs.

Besides: eggs and other animal foods that may be higher in dioxins possess more of the nutrients that reduce dioxin toxicity.

Vitamin A has been shown to protect against dioxin toxicity; pastured eggs are higher in vitamin A than other eggs.

Dioxins exert damage through lipid peroxidation; people who eat pastured eggs show less lipid peroxidation than people who eat normal eggs.

I don’t think it’s a big deal, but I’m also not one to worry too much about things you can’t really control. What’s the alternative—eating battery-farmed eggs and missing out on higher levels of vitamin E, omega-3s, vitamin A?

No thanks.

Mark, what is your take on what Art De Vany said on the Tim Ferriss in that interview you linked to a couple weeks back? He said paleo folks are eating too much fat, leading directly to fatty liver. He also wondered why they need all that energy. I was surprised to hear that after all the good things I’ve heard about fat from you and others.

—Fittsdawg

Excess fat—fat that exceeds caloric requirements—does increase the chance of fatty liver. But it’s not the fat, specifically. It’s the excess. A recent study out of China found that the best predictors of non-alcoholic fatty liver were diets “higher in energy, protein, fat, saturated fatty acid (SFA), and polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA).” After adjusting for BMI and age, the best predictor was high “total energy intake.” In other words, people who ate a ton of just about everything were more likely to have fatty livers. 

It can’t be the fat alone. De novo lipogenesis—the process by which carbs are converted into fat—plays an important and causative role in the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. 

And most significantly, the studies are quite clear that the best way to lose liver fat is to go low-carb, high-fat. You don’t have to do it that way. It’s just the way that the most people seem to find the most tolerable and sustainable.

A pilot study using the ketogenic diet helped non-alcoholic fatty liver disease patients lose weight and drastically improve liver health markers.

A Spanish ketogenic diet (keto with wine, basically) cured people of the metabolic syndrome and improved health markers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, with over 92% of subjects improving their liver health and 21% resolving it entirely.

Note that just because these were “high-fat” diets doesn’t mean they were eating “loads” of fat. Seeing as how they lost weight, they were most likely reducing calories overall. That’s just how low-carb, high-fat, ketogenic diets pan out. You inadvertently eat less. It’s how they work.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading.

The post Dear Mark: Fat Roundup appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know about Amazon’s Dash buttons — those little clicking buttons that automatically reorder paper towels, cleaning products, or any number of items. Reviews for the original buttons were decidedly mixed, but Amazon’s newest button iteration is a little more magical.

Maybe that’s why they’re calling this one a wand.

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A recent poll of our food team revealed something surprising: Every single one of them has a Cuisinart ice cream maker. And almost everyone else we know has one of these things, too. This might not seem all that shocking, until you realize that an Amazon search for “ice cream makers” reveals 921 results made by several dozen brands. Plus, you guys, KitchenAid makes an ice cream attachment for its stand mixers.

What is so great about Cuisinart’s ice cream makers? How have they managed to churn their way to the top? Here’s what some of our staffers had to say.

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Food allergies can be tough to live with: People who suffer from them have to monitor their dietary intake and be ready to take action when something slips through. But a new study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, by investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), has found that food allergies aren’t as common as you might think.

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(Image credit: Christine Han)

There are many things I prefer to do solo: grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning. It’s faster and more efficient, yes, but it also offers a sort of meditative break from my regular job, which involves sitting at a desk all day long. One might argue there is a good reason I’m single!

But there are limitations to my single status. From recipes (almost always designed to serve four to six) to loaves of bread (why are they so big?), I inevitably end up eating the same thing until I’m bored to tears, sticking it in the freezer and forgetting about it, or feeding it to my dog.

This is especially true when it comes to meat. That family pack of chicken thighs? Great if you are feeding a family; not so great if you are feeding one. Until recently, I was basically an at-home vegetarian. Until recently, I had definitely never cooked a steak for myself.

And then I discovered Greensbury Market, an online meat delivery company based in New York.

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Ah, summer — it finally arrives this week! While you may picture a whole season of grilling out, your kitchen will still end up working just as hard as usual — maybe even harder.

Before you change your cooking habits for the next few months, give your kitchen a once-over to keep it performing at its best. Here’s a quick checklist of what you should do.

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