Yes I did
I have seen ghee in the store but it’s a lot more expensive then processing it myself from butter, even if it is a ton of work, lol. We buy butter by the multiple pounds, and it’s used just as fast, we use way too much butter… ^.^;
(We get these large blocks of butter from amish makers locally)
Episode 3 is out:
I have simplified and perfected the technique
How to make clarified butter
- Get two packets of (unpasteurised) butter and put them in a preserving jar (just a glass jar with a top) and then put that on a radiator or a yoghurt maker/heater that isn’t too hot.
- After a good few hours the milk solids will fall to the bottom leaving you with the clarified butter at the top (you’ll spot the difference as the milk at the bottom is white and the top will be translucent gold colour).
- Put in the fridge and as you use it and once you use enough of it, the milk at the bottom can be poured out.
I have tried various ways to make it and this is by far the best
I have made ghee a few times but am not fussed on the taste - tho maybe I was making it wrong as the instructions in your link say it needs to be on a low heat whereas I had simmered it on a low heat. To me ghee (that I’ve made anyway) tastes a bit like butter you’ve cooked with - I much prefer the taste of clarified butter the way I make it above. I highly recommend trying my method
Where are the pics Rainer!?
I wish we had some around here! I am going to look for RAW milk too - unfortunately you can only buy that direct from a farm as it is illegal for supermarkets to sell it! I get this which is the next best thing.
Ooo, not a bad idea at all, wonder how well that removes the burnable solids from it, hmmm…
The point of clarified butter to me has always been about its substantially higher burn/smoke point, where normal butter burns really fast.
And yeah, my area here is full of ranchers, lol.
If you do it for long enough and at the right temp, you are left with the golden translucent fat - most of the methods (like this one) leave you something murky, but my way is much much more translucent. The trick is making sure it’s a very low heat, just above enough to melt it at a consistent rate over a long period.
You have to give it a go
Already since 2020 in the thread you already linked
But ok, here’s something new: I made panettone (Italian christmas cake with sourdough):
It’s super fluffy:
I am going more and more towards a plant-based diet. I’m almost finished reading How Not To Die by Dr. Michael Greger. This book is packed with info. They also developed an app called The Daily Dozen and I’m using that along with the book to get new foods into my routine. It seems to be working.
@AstonJ - I finally got a copy of The Longevity Diet and will let you know later in the year how that is. I will add Lifespan to my wish-list. And now going to listen to episode 1 of the podcast
Meanwhile, here is Sinclair on Rich Roll’s podcast
I am not convinced yet Finner - when David was questioned about it on a podcast in 2019 some of the answers he gave seemed a bit woolly imo, one of his main reasons stating that his daughter is a strict vegetarian and he’s tired of her nagging him and that he thinks it’s better for the planet. He seemed a little annoyed on being pressed on it, but it was a great interview overall and probably the only one I’ve seen where people are actually debating or disagreeing with some of his points.
Here’s the clip:
Worth watching from the beginning
Also this AMA with Saladino is worth watching towards the end (once you’ve watched all of David’s lifespan podcasts and the one above): Ask Me Anything (AMA): Fructose, Fish Oil, Maple Syrup, and more… - YouTube
What is it about Finner? What were your main takeaways from it?
Nice! Let us know how you get on - to I think Lifespan is a little bit outdated now, you could probably get most of it (and updated) through his podcasts
Personally I am continuing my carnivore experiments, but I definitely did pretty well on a paleo diet with plenty of veg too - so for me at least the jury is still out there
The real issue is not whether we are plant-based, vegetarian, vegan or whatever, the real issue is that we are very sick. We eat bad food, do very little exercise, we are unnecessarily over medicated and this combination leads to obesity, heart problems, mental problems, diabetes, cancers and many other illnesses.
And because we do things in the extreme our solutions tend to be extreme. 100% plant based, 100% meat, no gluten, only fish, etc. Those of us interested in making dietary changes know there is something fundamentally wrong with our nutritional intake but we don’t know how to address it. So we try out some of these popular diets. I personally do not care what diet people choose. It is a personal decision. We just need to get better at eating proper food.
Lifestyle changes around food and exercise can help combat illnesses, strengthen our immune systems and make us healthier.
How Not To Die presents the science, in layman’s terms, on the benefits of eating more “whole foods” which are mainly plants. But the key is “whole foods”. We have to reduce, if not eliminate, the industrial processed junk we eat. So the main take-away for me is to have a good balance of proper natural food. If we can cut the junk and processed crap out of our daily lives I believe we would be living in a very different world. We are addicted to salt and sugar. It’s not good. Our industrial food systems are failing us.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good quality burger or pizza and a few strong beers. I’m also a big fan of biscuits. So I know I am addicted to sugar and salt and I’m trying to reduce both. This book is helping me move in that direction.
The book is surprisingly easy to read and packed with so much information. The guy knows a lot! It is worth a read if you are interested in making changes to what you eat.
With regards to Sinclair, I’ve started to listen to his podcast and we’ll chat about his work in a different thread.
Every January I have a “no sugar” challenge with some friends, and it’s really surprisingly hard.
It’s not allowed to use sugar, and when using processed food one should check how much sugar it contains, if it’s more than 5% it’s not allowed. It’s always surprising how much food is over this 5%, even if we see no reason why it should contain sugar.
This year I took a cheat-day (as my mother brought a birthday cake for me), and it felt so overly sweet it was almost difficult to eat, showing how accustomed to sweet taste we usually are.
There are so many diets, I’m keeping it simple for me: Whenever possible avoid highly processed food, instead I’m cooking a lot by myself with fresh ingrediences. This year I want to grow more vegetables by myself, last year I already had zucchini, broccoli, tomatos and some herbs
Bravo @Rainer - you are an inspiration.
Only a few years ago I had an “aha! moment” while browsing in the supermarket (or maybe it was more of an OMG! moment). It was like the scene in The Matrix when Neo can finally see it. All saw in the supermarket was sugar & highly processed foods in most of the aisles. When you take all those products away you are left with very little in a supermarket. It is amazing how obvious the revelation was but we do not see it.
I live in Spain, the Mediterranean diet is almost becoming mythical these days. I’m also taking the same approach as yourself - avoid highly processed foods & cook more at home with fresh ingredients.
More people should try and grow foods at home but it is difficult if you live in a city in a flat. But as the saying goes - baby steps.
How do you feel after a month reducing your sugar intake?
Episode 4 is out:
Moving away from processed foods/frankenfoods is definitely a step in the right direction
There is a lot of contention around plant foods though, plants definitely contain compounds that are harmful, however I am undecided myself whether I fall in the Sinclair camp (where a little bit of harm does you good) or the Saladino camp (why eat plant molecules when they’re harmful and you can get similar benefits from things like exercise, heat/cold therapy, intermittent fasting etc). The latter is probably harder to follow.
Nice! I’d love to myself one day. I’ve also been considering drilling a borehole/water-well for natural water. I don’t drink or cook with tap water but really dislike plastic…
“A little bit of harm does you good”… sooo, that means eating a little bit of cyanide each day is fine, or silver nitrate or whatever it was? It’s perfectly fine because it’s in small amounts and causes you death only after years of that? Or perhaps a little bit organic mercury, which doesn’t really “harm” you either, just makes you slowly go crazy over time as it rips the brains processing paths apart?
Yeah, I am not in the camp of “A little bit of harm does you good”, that’s not the case in really anything. Even in the context of working out muscles it’s not even true because the ripping and such of the fibers is how we evolved, it’s not harm, it’s how are bodies work. Harm is harm.
Yeah, I’m undecided myself atm. On the one hand, we know plant molecules are very powerful (many medicines are derived from them) but on the other we know they can be damaging as well. Bio-hackers are usually in the former group, and the argument for it can be quite compelling.
Speaking of brains, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that human brains have been shrinking as we’ve moved away from a Palaeolithic diet:
Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa — everywhere we look.” If our brain keeps dwindling at that rate over the next 20,000 years, it will start to approach the size of that found in Homo erectus, a relative that lived half a million years ago and had a brain volume of only 1,100 cc.
Don’t forget that most poisons come from plants as well, because the plants specifically make poison to try to keep things away form them. ^>^;
I’ve mostly heard that’s because we’ve evolved to be able to make more efficient connections in the brain, same reason an adults brain shrinks from a child, it’s pruning the useless parts and making more efficient connections stronger.
But it’s happened sharply in the last 20K years, whereas previously the brain was increasing in size. I wonder whether they’ve checked the size of hunter gatherer tribes that still exist today… that would be interesting…
Evolutionary changes do tend to be stagnant for a long while before within a comparatively short period of time some major changes happen. The ‘slooow’ changes over a long period are the significantly more rare ones.
Hmmm … that is an interesting question.
I have The Blue Zones to read yet. There might be something in that. I think those communities are tribal.
Just discovered there is even a bluezones website. And it has lots of information … I need a bigger brain
That’s one of the reasons I’ve looked at going to Costa Rica for a while - one of the blue zones is there It’s very friendly for Digital Nomads where you can get a two year ‘Rentista’ fairly easily so long as you earn a specified amount per month from outside of the country.
There is some debate about the reasons behind longevity of people in the blue zones, but I think it’s interesting and worth exploring nonetheless.
You and me both
Not different, and at the moment anyway not particularly good. Sometimes I have a period where I’ve got a lot of headache, usually in winter. It’s already since I was a child, didn’t find anything I could do about it yet.
I think this is more protein-related than fat-related.