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Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Older Bolder Links, Reads, Recipes, and More 8 July 2020

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Fitness and Healthy Lifestyle Roundup for the Week

Interesting read on escaping the NFL’s 5,000 calorie lunch routine.

How to train for your fastest mile.

If you’re resistance training, 1.6 gm/Kg of protein might reshape your protein intake goals.

Kids who roughhouse with their fathers have better emotional control.

The health miracle in Ft. Worth.

US population growth has been driven primarily by minorities.

A Couple of Interesting Reads on Lipids and Health

Ironically, and interestingly, this study shows that low LDL is not associated with lower CV mortality, but it is associated with higher all cause mortality.

PCSK9 inhibitors appear to be bad news: The opinion. The study it’s based on.

The Obligatory COVID-19 Coverage: Stuff You Might Not Have Seen

There’s more and more discussion about pre-existing T-cell immunity, this for example. Wonder why this isn’t getting more coverage?…

COVID-19 was in Brazil in November. I’ve just chatted with a researcher this week who is soon to publish data about a North Texas outbreak in November (perhaps even late October) as well.

Nudists in the era of COVID.

Food, Glorious Food

Our family “original recipe” grilled chicken.

In praise of pandemic gardening.

To Travel or Not to Travel: July 2020 Update

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Many of the questions that seems to be popping up with consistency from clients, friends, and family these days are related to traveling during these most interesting days, days that some in the media are now labeling as the “summer of COVID-19”.

My lovely wife and I happen to be soon to embark on a trip back home to Montana to see family and tend a couple of business issues, a trip that we actually have now rescheduled twice due to travel restrictions that were in place earlier this year.

Friends and readers that have been following along with us might remember that I had to take an unexpected trip to the Pacific Northwest back in mid-May; I wrote about my somewhat unusual travel experiences on that little jaunt here.

Things (related to travel restrictions) have changed quite a bit since mid-May on the ground in most states, though as always there are a few common sense guiding principles to consider before venturing out of the house for an adventure these days.

Of course it goes without saying if you’ve had a recent exposure to a proven COVID-19 case or are ill with typical symptoms yourself (confirmed per testing or not), you shouldn’t be venturing out of the house until an appropriate interval of time has passed and / or you’ve recovered and are feeling well. (Typically I’d leave this to our collective common sense, though I’ve had two people – one client, one family member – argue this past weekend that they shouldn’t be restricted in public despite test-confirmed, minimally symptomatic infections.)

That said, the evidence available clearly suggests that, with appropriate precautions duly noted, interstate travel doesn’t pose undue risks as of today, with several precautionary points noted below. My lovely wife and I have weighed the data, reviewed the pros and cons, and are soon to be on the road this week.

Once again, it goes without saying that it’s worth considering if your plans might potentially expose you to very high risk areas, such as Florida today, or the Texas counties along the border with Mexico (though that is a hornet’s nest of problems for a host of reasons). Your planned activities in a particular location have a tremendous bearing on your risks; consider the difference between traveling to Miami today for a week on the beach versus caring for an elderly parent in their Miami condo for the week. I’d still go to Miami to care for Mom, not for the nightlife on South Beach this week.

Your lowest risk mode of travel at this point in time remains your private vehicle; once again common sense comes to bear here, given your control of those with whom you’re sequestered in tight spaces for prolonged periods of time. The CDC and mass media have recently raised concerns about air travel in particular; see the most recent CDC commentary on air travel here, and here’s a nice summary from the WSJ on the 4th of July covering travel issues.

We’re comfortable enough with flying to consider flying ourselves on this upcoming trip, though have business related stops in Utah and Wyoming scheduled, and couldn’t make flights work, so we’re driving.

When I traveled back in May there were reports of limited fueling opportunities in some parts of the Northern Rockies, though I didn’t find that to be an issue then, and certainly there are not reports of any consistent issues even now during the traditionally peak summer travel window.

As we’ve shared before, we’re preferentially in nutritional ketosis as much as not, and are very comfortable with intermittent fasting, particularly on the road. We’ll be bringing along our favorite road travel foods (here and here), plenty of cold brewed coffee in the cooler, and do plan to dine out with family and friends at restaurants we know and trust to practice all reasonable precautions along the way, though will also plan to cook at homes we’re visiting a bit more than a typical trip as well.

The other challenge to solve on the road is to do everything possible to minimize your risk in over night lodging; it’s fairly easy to search out whether or not your favorite hotelier is using a comprehensive and current set of precautions these days, and don’t be shy about calling and asking questions. The CDC has a set of guidelines published here which are useful, and we will again disinfect all room surfaces we’re likely to touch repeatedly ourselves when in hotels this next week.

Get out there and have some fun this summer, get some sun and breathe the fresh air, all the while respecting the paradigm we find ourselves in (for a while longer). This too shall pass.

Today, More Than Ever, Enjoy Your 4th

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Today, more than ever, our team hopes that you’ll spend time with family and friends, savoring all that high summer can bring, and celebrating the 4th of July, pausing at some moment to consider many of the wonderful things that our Nation has brought forth and shared with the world. Of course there are faults to be noted in American history, and while it’s very much not politically correct to say, the good far, far outweighs the bad.

The 4th for our family, for my wife and I growing up in Texas and later raising our own kids in Montana and Utah, most often meant rodeos, either as a spectator or participant, barbecue, and fireworks under the Big Sky.

The image above is courtesy of our photojournalist daughter, taken at the Gardiner, MT rodeo a few summers back. See more of her work here.

Enjoy today and be safe out there.

the Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: The Family “Original Recipe” Grilled Chicken

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Like many of you, we’ve grilled a truckload of chicken on the back porch grill over the years, maybe even a couple of truckloads, and have a handful of favorite recipes we reach for time and time again when doing so.

This recipe, what we’ve come to call The Family “Original Recipe” Grilled Chicken is one that I unwittingly cobbled together back when I was in high school grilling now and again for the family.

The idea first came from a family friend named Butch who ran a family ranch along the breaks of the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle, a ranch eventually buried beneath the waters of the then in development Lake Meredith.

We attended several big parties out on the ranch way back in the day, and even as a youngster I watched the men cooking over the open fire slather chicken with a baste made principally of grass-fed, ranch-churned butter and Worcestershire sauce. Even as a kid I learned that complimenting the cook and asking reasonable questions is a great way to learn all sorts of useful things, including some time-tested delicious recipes.

Over the decades since we’ve fiddled with all sorts of additions and modifications to the recipe and approach to cooking, settling on a pre-grill dusting of paprika and garlic powder (or granulated garlic), followed by a frequent turn and baste cook – with the simple basting sauce we’ve closely guarded until now – until the chicken is a golden-mahogany brown and ever so flavorful.

The time and turns needed to get a great crust on the chicken always precipitated a balancing act requiring a watchful eye – the fats in the baste will burn if applied too early, wait too long to start basting and the chicken could end up overdone, dry, and under-flavored.

Lately we’ve been adding a nifty par-cook using a sous vide technique, and it’s clearly producing the best Original Recipe Chicken we’ve ever done, and I mean ever. The point of using a sous-vide par cook is to gently precook the chicken, with a light application of spice, at 140 degrees (for about an hour and half for those interested), then go right to the grill and layer on the flavor via a series of baste and turns. This guarantees you won’t overcook the chicken – it’s incredibly moist and tender, and packs all the flavor of the traditional all-grill-cooked approach.

Either way, this is one fine recipe, and makes the best damned chicken salad or cold chicken sandwiches you’ll eat this summer. And by the way, it’s awesome with the Gochujang Curry Peanut Sauce recipe I’m posting next week (last image below).

2-4 pounds chicken breasts, thighs, leg pieces (see above)
Garlic powder
Paprika

4 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp grass fed butter
2 tbsp avocado oil
1 tbsp chile powder of choice (optional)
1-2 tsp molasses (optional)

Sous Vide + Grill Method
After dusting your chicken pieces with a light sprinkle of paprika and garlic powder (or granulated garlic), seal in the BPA-free sous vide bags of your choice.

Now sous vide at 140 degrees F for 1.5 hours, then remove and pat dry.

While the chicken is in the sous vide bath, combine the 5 sauce ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat and cook until simmering, stirring occasionally. Turn off the heat and let cool in place.

Fire the grill during the last 15 minutes of sous vide time.

Dust the par-cooked chicken pieces again with a light sprinkle of paprika and garlic powder, then grill for 2 minutes per side. After the first turn, begin basting the chicken pieces with the prepared basting sauce, turning every 2-3 minutes until a deep, rich, mahogany-colored glaze and crust develops on the chicken.

Pull and rest for 5-6 minutes, then go to it.

Grill Only Method
Prepare the sauce as per above while you’re firing the grill.

Dust the chicken pieces again with a light sprinkle of paprika and garlic powder, then grill for 4 to 5 minutes per side, you’re not looking to cook the pieces through, but to set the spices and partially cook the chicken. .

After the first turn, begin basting the chicken pieces with the prepared basting sauce, turning every 2-3 minutes until a deep, rich, mahogany-colored glaze and crust develops on the chicken. If using a gas grill, you’ll want to turn down your grill to medium-low during the basting phase of the cook.

Pull and rest for 5-6 minutes, then go to it.

Enjoy.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Older Bolder Links, Reads, Podcasts, Recipes, and More 1 July 2020

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As much as we’d like to vanquish the COVID-19 epoch to the annals of history, we’re far from finished with the pesky invader, and there’s a bevy of interesting information that’s come to the fore this week…

Higher cortisol levels at admission portend higher COVID-19 mortality rates.

From the CDC – COVID comorbidities portend worse outcomes by up to a factor of 12.

Does metformin lower COVID death risk in women? (Free Medscape account required)

More data on vitamin D’s probable role in COVID-19 outcomes.

Relying on antibody testing to determine immunity is missing a vital principle.

The experts are opining infection counts are off by a factor of 10.

A brutally accurate analysis of what that means (the concept in the line above).

The number of excess cancer deaths due to COVID-induced care interruption is staggering.

Other News You Can Use from the Week

Need better stress tolerance? Try yoga.

Driving pickups is better than sex? Really?

Slumping is bad for more than your posture.

Podcast of the Week

Dr. Shawn Baker on the carnivore diet.

Food, Glorious Food

The best damn potato salad on the planet – Clay’s, proving once again everything is better with bacon.

Three Quick Thoughts for a Busy Monday

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Lately we’ve had several “all hands on deck” issues arise that have eaten up some of my writing time, so here are three quick thoughts for a busy Monday…

A tip of the hat to those courageously committing to marriage these days. We had the opportunity to attend the wedding of a family member yesterday in a suburb of Ft. Worth, masking and social distancing precautions observed throughout, with the families involved handling the atypical yet joyous occasion masterfully.

If you listen to the mainstream media today, you’ll hear marriage rates are falling and the traditional family generally disparaged, yet the traditional family unit appears to continue to be associated with happiest and most satisfied partners and the most engaged children who grow into productive adults. There are always outliers, but the data remains impressively supportive of the family.

The day before, my lovely wife and I celebrated 39 years of marriage together, and the thoughts on marriage I penned roughly a year ago still ring true for us today.

And there’s an interesting video going around espousing the healing and transformative power of wild water swimming; we have several friends who routinely swim the great freestone rivers of the Northern Rockies, and weather (and water temperature!) permitting, we plan to join them in Montana in a few weeks.

The Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: Clay’s Potato Salad

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For the first time in over four years as we’ve traveled the low carb and nutritional ketosis roads, and for several reasons, we’ve dug out an old family favorite recipe for the best damn potato salad we’ve ever tasted – Clay’s Potato Salad.

Quite frankly, we’ve not eaten potatoes of the non-sweet potato variety in years, and sweet potatoes rarely when the need for a carb-refeed arose, so this indeed is a departure for us.

For those eating along classic Primal or Paleo paths, and pending both your activity levels and carb tolerance, dabbling now and again with potatoes certainly isn’t verboten, though your neighborhood keto police might disagree.

We’ve dug this recipe out (and cleaned it up) mainly because it tastes so damn good, and has been part of our family food lexicon for years and years. It’s probably so delicious in part due to the inclusion of bacon and even incorporating a bit of the bacon drippings into the salad (trust me on this, it’s magical).

I’m also back into training for Masters level track and field events now that the COVID-19 embargo on events is nearing the end, and find myself lagging from a performance standpoint a bit on my leanest carb days. Finally, cooked and cooled potatoes are a great source of resistant starch, which we’ve been experimenting with a bit around our camp of late, and appear to be the form my wife best tolerates.

My lovely wife and I first tasted this recipe now nearly 40 years ago. We were living in San Antonio as I finished grad school; only during our most affluent weeks did we have two nickels to rub together. We lived in a tiny apartment, survived on a food budget of less than $40/week, tromped all over San Antonio for free entertainment and were happy as could be.

A young couple we knew, fellow paupers in grad school downtown, lucked into house sitting for one of her professors one summer. They had a charming old English tudor at their disposal with a gourmet kitchen and an exquisitely landscaped pool in the backyard.

It was there on a hot summer day that we first tasted this brawny, classic potato salad recipe. Bacon was a splurge for us back then; it was nothing short of ambrosial that afternoon. We stole the leftovers and rationed them out over the next week.

Like all great recipes that foodies hoard, we’ve tweaked this one around the edges and definitely lean toward a tart, spicy, full-of-crunchy-vegetables mix, and have changed out the old for healthier dressing ingredients to align with a primal/paleo palate. That said, the nuts and bolts of the recipe remain the same.

Finally, like all salads of this sort, this recipe is ultimately customizable to suit your family’s tastes and what’s in the fridge and pantry; amounts shown in the ingredient list below are to be considered rough guidelines.

And a word to the wise – don’t skimp on either the mustard or the pickle juice.

2 medium sweet potatoes, cut into 3/4-inch slices
8-10 small to medium new red potatoes, halved if bigger
1 pound thick-sliced bacon in 1-inch pieces, crisped and drained, reserve drippings

1 large sweet onion, small to medium dice (more as desired)
6-8 stalks celery with tender leaves, chopped
1 red bell or Mediterraneo Dulce pepper, seeded and diced
1 cup chopped kosher dill pickles

1 tbsp seasoned salt



1/2 cup avocado oil mayo (see below)
1/2 cup full-fat Greek yogurt (see below)

1/4 to 1/2 cup prepared yellow mustard (see below)
Pickle juice to taste (see below)
Paprika

Optional
4 boiled eggs, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup sliced pickled jalapeños
1/2 cup chopped green onion, white and green parts
1/2 cup sliced green olives
Mustard, whole grain

Boil the scrubbed and trimmed spuds until fork tender, rinse under cool water until you can handle, then dice medium. Place in a large bowl.

If you’ve not already done so, fry the bacon crisp and set aside to drain well. Pour the hot bacon drippings over the spuds and make sure to scrape all the brown, crusty goodness out of the pan. Crumble the bacon when cooled and set aside.

Chop and dice the sweet onion, green onion, celery, bell or other pepper, dill pickles, and other optional goodies from the list to the potato bowl. Add half the crumbled bacon.

Sprinkle the growing mixture with the seasoned salt. Start by stirring in at least 1/2 cup each of the mayonnaise and yogurt and 1/4 cup yellow mustard, knowing full well that it won’t be enough.

At this point we like to stir in the pickle juice (our tradition calls for using quite a bit to add a punchy vinegar bite to the salad), we add a couple of big spoons of whole grain mustard and then add more mustard and mayo/yogurt to get it to the consistency desired. How much you’ll eventually need will depend on personal taste and how soft your spuds are.

Smooth the top, dust liberally with paprika and sprinkle with the remainder of the bacon. Note this potato salad is very good after resting in the fridge for 4 hours and great the next day, you want it good and cold for the best flavor and to set those resistant starches.

Enjoy.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Older Bolder Links, Reads, Podcasts, Recipes, and More 24 June 2020

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Quote of the Week on Saturated Fats from the J. Of the American College of Cardiology

…Whole-fat dairy, unprocessed meat, eggs and dark chocolate are SFA-rich foods with a complex matrix that are not associated with increased risk of CVD. The totality of available evidence does not support further limiting the intake of such foods…

Read the entire piece here.

More Research and News You Can Use This Week

Dropping body fat appears to improve cancer outcomes.

Caffeine drinkers have more red blood cell glutathione (powerful antioxidant).

More good news on Vitamin D and COVID-19.

Speaking of COVID-19, a UK hospital study found lots of viral RNA on surfaces, but very low viral loads.

The younger your blood donor, the shorter your hospital stay?

Ways loneliness changes brain and body.

Can strenuous exercise actually shorten life span? The study the article is based on.

Podcast of the Week

Robert Mack on the tie between happiness and success.

Food, Glorious Food

Zucchini Jalapeño Salad