Older Bolder Life

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the Older Bolder Life Vegetable Wednesday: Butter Sautéed Cherry Tomatoes and Ginger

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This past week I was chatting with a Chef Libby in Austin about different ways to prepare and enjoy the bounty of summer and fall tomatoes coming in these days.

She’d recently catered a dinner where she prepared a big batch of these Butter Sautéed Cherry Tomatoes and Ginger which she spooned over big, juicy rib eyes sizzling hot from the grill. She went on to say how her favorite way to enjoy these was simply as a side, almost like a warm salad, though she admitted she’ll polish the leftovers off cold right from the fridge too, even with the butter set up amongst the tomatoes and juice.

The recipe extends really easily, and works wonders with any fresh tomato you might have on hand, just cut the whole tomatoes up into roughly 1-inch pieces and go to it.

1 cup cherry tomatoes, some sliced in half length-wise
3 green onions, whites and pale green parts finely chopped, dark green thinly sliced
1-inch piece of ginger, peeled, finely chopped
2 tbsp grass-fed butter
2 tbsp tamari or coconut aminos
Good salt to taste

Prep your ingredients; melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat.

Now sauté the ginger and the white parts of the green onions until the ginger is fragrant (it won’t take but a minute or so), then add the tomatoes and sauté, basting with the butter until the tomatoes are warmed through.

Remove from the heat, stir in the tamari / coconut aminos, toss to combine, then season to taste with salt and top with the green onion green slices.

Enjoy.

Question of the Week: Modifying Recipes

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Now and again the same question will pop up over and over again as I interact with clients, friends, and family; over the past ten days or so the question de jour has focused on modifying recipes.

Of note, I’m not a formally trained chef (though at times I wish I’d followed that path), though I do spend a fair amount of time in the kitchen cooking good food, and invest a fair amount of time thinking about food through the lenses of health impact, nutrition, affordability, and availability.

Playing the Recipe Modification Game: The Easy Part

In a nutshell, my pitch to anyone striving to cook (or learn to cook) great tasting, healthy and nutritious food at home is simple when it comes to recipes. Gravitate toward foods and recipes that you know you (and your family) enjoy, dig in and do a bit of research, roll up your sleeves and start cooking.

When my wife and I approach a new recipe that’s caught our eye for whatever reason, we’ll typically cook it through at least once pretty much as written. If we make any substitutions on a first run, it’s typically subbing in a healthier fat or oil, which is almost always a safe bet from a cooking science and flavor standpoint.

Once that first run is done, and if we find the dish tasty and satisfying, for almost all (see below) recipes I like to dial in spices and flavors we enjoy, which typically in our kitchen means big flavors and more spice, often skewed to a Southwestern or Asian-fusion array of flavors.

Most importantly, we come from the school that insists cooking should be fun, intuitive, and yield healthy foods that taste great. Is every dish a home run? Hell no, but you’ll get better over time, and I can almost guarantee you that when shifting toward a more ancestral nutrition plan, you’ll find that flavors are deeper, richer, and more interesting the further along that path you wander.

I’d challenged you to consider most recipes starting points to work from as you develop your own skills, likes, and dislikes; it’s also key to remember what a chef friend reminds me every month or so – overly complex recipes aren’t always better, most often simply prepared, quality foods win the day.

Here’s a great example – a couple of weeks ago I posted this Grilled Sweet Potato, Onion, and Chile Salad recipe, and it’s delicious as written. Talking about that recipe a week or so later (in the context of the week’s menu plan), my wife comment she found the anise flavor notes of the basil a bit overwhelming, so I swapped it out for cilantro the next time around, and we both thought the recipe was exponentially better. Easy peasy, and we’ve now dialed in a great salad that resonates well with our family palate.

Modify away, customize to your hearts content, and share with the rest of us when your recipe tweaks produce a masterpiece. Your changes won’t all produce home runs, but you’ll score big most of the time…

The Exception to the Recipe Modification Game

As with most things in life, there are exceptions to the recipe modification game – that exception deals with baking.

In a nutshell, baking is much more of a science, historically requiring much more careful measurements of key ingredients to achieve the desired result. The centuries of baking history that have accumulated thus far are of course skewed to using traditional grain-based flours that most following an ancestral eating plan eschew today.

Baking using non-traditional, largely gluten-free components is a relative new game compared to the traditional baking world, and let’s face it, the alternative flours simply don’t behave the same way.

Bottom line, the baking game is one where recipes should be followed to the letter; if you’re going to change one up – do it in baby steps (change one component at a time and see how things turn out), and work from there.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Older Bolder Links, Reads, Recipes, and More 7 September 2019

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This one’s been making the rounds over the past week – can a pharmacological cocktail reset a human’s biological clock? Read two lay news reports (here and here), and note the formal report of the very small study is not available online at Aging Cell (via Wiley) as of this morning.

A low carb (not very actually) diet trial for firefighters made ‘em healthier.
An argument for early day time restricted feeding.

A fairly stunning statin critique from European Scientist.
And thinking about conventional medicine getting their hackles up, how about this low carb community critique via MedScape (free account required).

Living closer to nature makes you happier, and longer-lived.
Speaking of life span, sleep disordered breathing ages you faster. (Free MedScape account required).

Exercise makes sex better.
A decent review a very common cause (and a poorly understood one at that) of mechanical low back pain.

Thought provoking podcast featuring Dr. William Davis.
Is there a higher hemorrhagic stroke risk for vegans? (The study is here.)

Food, Glorious Food

Does music make cheese age better?

One of the most impressively wrong portrayals of healthy eating you’ll read.

1015 Onion Marinated Skirt Steak
Grill Roasted and Marinated Red Peppers

The Older Bolder Life Friday Feast: 1015 Onion Marinated Skirt Steak

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Having had the pleasure of living in several different regions of the country during the past two decades, we’ve witnessed first hand the regional battles to claim the title of the Nation’s (if not the world’s) sweetest sweet onion.

Texas has its 1015’s, Washington the Walla Walla, Georgia and the South tout their Vidalias, New Mexico offers Nu-Mex and Carzalias, California the Sweet Imperial, and even Chilean farms grow the Oso Sweet.

They’re all delicious, and we happen to think the very best one is the one we can grab fresh at at hand; everyone has their favorite, probably driven as much by regional tradition and seasonal availability than anything else…

Onions and other alliums bring so much in terms of taste to the flavor table entire books could be written on the subject, and I’m sure there are “onion experts” roaming the culinary plain today, trying to aid we mere mortals in the kitchen as we strive to up our onion game.

Being good Texicans, we’re fond of skirt steak recipes, and this 1015 Onion Marinated Skirt Steak has become one of our favorites of late. Skirt steak, or its kissing cousin the hanger steak, cooked medium-rare very quickly over high heat then sliced thinly across the grain is a treat that every good carnivore should savor at least once a month.

The sweet onion here, grated into submission and combined with a little acid works miracles to flavor this humble cut of meat; all you need otherwise is some good salt and fresh ground pepper before and after the grill and you’ll be in carnivore heaven.

Lately I’ve been slicing a red jalapeño or Fresno chile into the marinade, and note that some folks feel this prep needs a little additional sweetness – we don’t add any brown sugar or honey to this marinade given the sweetness of the 1015s, but you certainly can. And finally, swapping the vinegar for fresh lime juice (grate some lime zest in too) swings this one a little more toward Tex-Mex and is damned tasty too.

See you at the grill tomorrow.

2 pounds trimmed skirt steak, cut into 4 to 5-inch pieces
1 medium sweet onion, 1015s here in Texas
2 tbsp (scant) distilled white vinegar
2 tbsp (scant) avocado oil
1 tbsp (or more) good salt
1 tbsp (or more) fresh ground pepper

Optional
1 sliced red jalapeño or Fresno chile
1 tbsp brown sugar or honey
Lime zest and fresh lime juice for the vinegar

Grate the onion, then combine with the vinegar, avocado oil, and optional pepper slices and sweetener if using; pour into a large resealable bag or your favorite marinating container.

Season the trimmed skirt steak generously with salt and pepper, then add to the bag and turn/squish around to coat the steak well. Throw in the fridge for at least 2 hours and up to overnight.

When ready to cook, fire the grill (medium-high), drain the meat and pat dry. Grill, turning once, until well-marked and medium rare – note this won’t take long with skirt. Pull the meat, let it rest 8-10 minutes, then thinly slice against the grain.

Serve with a sprinkling of really good salt, a spritz of lime juice, and maybe a few chopped chives chives, parsley, or cilantro.

Enjoy.

Health and Fitness Expectations After 40: Can I Live Absolutely Pain Free?

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During my twenty-five plus years in medicine, most of that focused on the conservative (non-surgical) management of musculoskeletal injuries (roughly 70% spine-focused) and trauma, I had the pleasure of interacting with an astoundingly varied assortment of patients presenting with a host of aches, pains, and pathologies. No day was ever quite the same, and there was (and is) always something new to learn every day.

My principle task was of course helping figure out what the heck was the main problem at hand (diagnosis), because frankly it’s impossible to articulate an effective and cogent treatment plan unless you really understand the underlying issue(s). Only then could an effective treatment plan be customized to optimally fit a patient’s needs; that process typically also involved laying out a list of best choices in terms of treatment options and potential outcomes.

I believed then, and still do adamantly today, that a caregiver’s most critical tasks are making an accurate assessment of the issues at hand (there’s that diagnosis issue again) AND educating their patient (or client if you will) about a host of things – the problem itself, options to make things better, consequences of not dealing with the problem, and finally – managing expectations about recovery and the future.

Though it took several years to really appreciate all the moving parts in play here, over the long haul one of the more challenging aspects of that entire process was managing expectations patients brought to our relationship – the most challenging of all was the expectation that there was some magic pill, potion, therapy, surgery, or other treatment that could and would make them “pain free”.

The Pain Free Life After 40: Myth or Reality?

No doubt some will disagree, but after spending the better part of four decades studying human physiology, focused both on response to injury and normal degeneration (let’s call it wear and tear), along with ways to mitigate the problem(s) and improve function using a variety of approaches – I’m convinced it’s nigh on impossible to live an active, healthy lifestyle and NOT experience a host of aches and pains along the way, particularly for those of us who have invested four decades or more living our lives.

My rationale is pretty simple, and of course is colored in part by my own personal experience.

First, no matter if you come from the intelligent design or the evolution camp, there’s no question that the human body we see wandering the earth today experiences wear and tear changes along the way. This is of course common sense, something that we see all around us, and feel ourselves, just about every day, and yet several interesting points apply.

The longevity of the human body is critically impacted by how you care for it along the way. There are a host of great examples, but here’s the easiest one – living for years overweight increases joint loading (think hips, knees, ankles/feet, and spine) and accelerates degenerative changes in vital joint structures.

Or how about that combination ACL/MCL tear on the high school sports field or the ski slope (actually pick your major joint here – the other common example I see over and over again is a shoulder/AC joint/rotator cuff problem that starts at a very young age) that almost always leads to accelerated degenerative joint changes down the road.

Even some of the fitness activities that we all laud and encourage – jogging, running, cycling at a high level, hours spent in the pool swimming, some would even include CrossFit here – stress joints and other parts of the musculoskeletal system mechanically and probably do, at some level, indeed accelerate inevitable wear and tear.

We continue to do those fitness activities because the myriad benefits far outweigh the wear and tear we’re inducing, however there’s still a wear and tear component to the process.

Those changes wear and tear changes accumulate over the months and years, and now and again will inflame and generate what we all perceive as aches and pains. Don’t forget that typical age-related muscle and strength losses happen too, impacting joint support and mechanics; throw in a sedentary lifestyle and even worse overall physical conditioning, and joint changes worsen even more – and so do the inflammatory-driven aches and pains.

So Being Absolutely Pain Free After 40 Is Indeed a Myth?

What I suggested to patients for years and now for coaching clients is simply this – I think it’s virtually impossible to be absolutely free of aches and pains after 40 living an active and functional lifestyle.

Perhaps even more importantly, I’d argue that there are some “aches and pains” that are unquestionable a good thing; probably the best example is DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) after a new workout or pushing your game a little.

Wear and tear of the human body (sometimes referred to as the degenerative cascade) just happens; part of your musculoskeletal longevity might be genetically influenced, but the most critical impacts are related to how well you care for yourself over the long haul.

There’s no question whatsoever than you can dramatically influence inflammation levels in your body via diet (we’ll be looking at detail in inflammatory impacts from diet in a several post series shortly). Moving closer to whatever you consider your ideal body weight will have dramatic impacts as well, as will rebuilding (or working hard to maintain) practical levels of functional conditioning – getting into, and staying, in “fighting trim” will itself invoke some soreness and aches along the way.

Your body has amazing recuperative powers.

Is it theoretically possible to live a pain free life? Sure it is, it’s just not very probable.

Instead, embrace the occasional joint tweak, morning stiffness, and sore muscle group – it’s going to happen again and again. And relish those days when everything feels pretty good, modify on the days that it doesn’t, and just keep moving.

the Older Bolder Life Vegetable Wednesday: Grill Roasted and Marinated Red Peppers

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For those who love roasted peppers and much as we do (and choose to utilize peppers in their food plan) here’s a wonderful, and simple, Grill Roasted and Marinated Red Pepper prep to add to your cook next time you fire up the grill.

I like to make a big batch of these, throw some into tuna, chicken, or just big-assed green salads, eat some as a delicious side or just out of hand, and freeze the rest in single-use sized containers to have available at some point down the road.

This prep is ridiculously easy, can be accomplished in simple blocks of time around another meal preparation and kitchen tasking, and offers a blank palate to spice up (add heat, more salt, thyme, basil, or any other herb) and customize to your heart’s content.

There’s really no special trick to this one; get a good char on the peppers while grilling, give them plenty of time to soften and steam, then stem, seed, and peel and you’re ready to season them up.

We love the taste and color of the red bells, but orange and yellow are delicious as well; we’ve also recently done a batch of these using Mediterraneo Dulce peppers which were delicious, and not quite as sweet as red bells.

6 large red bell peppers (yellow and orange are delicious too)
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp good EVOO or avocado oil
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp good kosher salt (more to taste)
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

Optional
1-2 tsp chopped fresh basil
1-2 tsp chopped fresh thyme

Fire a grill for medium-high heat; wash and dry the peppers.

Grill the peppers, turning as needed, until the skins are blackened and blistered pretty much all over. Pending your fire’s heat, this will likely take 15-20 minutes.

Pull from the grill, place in a large bowl and cover (stockpot lid, plate, or plastic wrap), let cool at least 20 minutes.

When cooled, stem, skin, and seed the peppers, then cut or tear into roughly 1.5 to 2-inch strips. Add the pepper strips to a clean bowl along with the oil of choice, vinegar, salt, red pepper flakes, and the optional herbs.

Let marinate at room temperature for an hour, then transfer to an airtight jar and hold in the fridge for up to 5 days, or freeze for future use.

Enjoy.

Big Tech Manipulating Health Data? Say It Ain’t So

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There have been whisperings over the past several months, actually more than just whisperings, that “Big Tech” (most accounts name Google as the principle player given their dominance in search technology) have been manipulating search data results in a way that downgrades “alternative or non-mainstream” health and wellness information.

Mark Sisson actually wrote about it in his weekly missive this past weekend (quoted in part below), and posted the image above borrowed from Robb Wolf’s IG account –

In other words, so-called “alternative” health websites—ones that offer substantive counterpoints to the conventional wisdom regarding diet, health, and wellness—have taken a massive hit on their visibility in Google search, while the ones peddling the conventional lines of advice have seen a huge increase in their visibility. Since Google is the world’s largest search engine by far, so much so that “to google” means to search for something on the Internet, this has inevitably reduced our search (and overall) traffic.

Some of this is due to Google weighting their algorithms toward “expert” advice, toward opinions and articles written by people with MDs and PhDs after their names. I’ve tried to overcome this by changing the way I cite research. I’ve always cited and linked to tons of medical studies, far more than the “experts” like Mayo Clinic and WebMD ever have, but now I’m actually listing a “References” section with those proper citations in the proper academic format. You’ve probably noticed. It’s helped a bit, but the drop-off has been larger than this can account for.

In my opinion, this development just means that people like me and Robb are over the target. We’re a threat, and institutions are worried. We’ve already had a huge effect on the way people eat, live and exercise. Grandmas are going keto. Grandpas are doing CrossFit. Your kid’s school teacher is IFing. Large multinational food corporations are buying boutique avocado oil-based mayo brands for large sums of money. It’s an interesting time. Conventional institutions are feeling the heat, and this might be one way to try to stem the tide.

Does Big Tech Really Manipulate Health Search Data? Say It Ain’t So, Joe

I have to admit, I actually chuckled a bit when I first read Sisson’s weekly email.

Big Tech has been censoring and manipulating search results for years, often targeting groups over political and religious ideology, despite being castigated over and over again for it, and even hauled before Congress on multiple occasions with the requisite harrumphing and handwringing testimony broadcast on C-Span.

If you don’t believe that’s been happening for years now, I have some swamp land in southern Arizona you’d probably be interested in buying.

The bigger question, at least from where I sit as a classically trained physician having fairly recently “defected” to the ancestral health world, is why the push now to filter and downgrade access to what a bank of Google engineers appears to view as “alternative” health information?

While I’m not one prone to run to conspiracy theories to explain strange things observed in today’s world, I’m with Sisson on this one. The alternative health world, driven largely by the evolving science related to ancestrally-oriented nutrition and practically oriented, functionally-driven fitness approaches, is beginning to turn what has been conventional medical wisdom on its collective ear in some areas, and the powers at be are getting itchy – and defensive.

There are a number of issues to consider here, one critical point being this – there are some charlatans and wackadoos peddling nonsense in the ancestral and alternative health worlds (just as there are ensconced in the conventional health provider arena); with a bit of digging, they’re pretty easy to identify, and are most often shrouded in a mist of anecdotal spiels versus anchored to objective science. Big Tech will likely argue they’re “protecting the masses” from these agents by censoring results, though of course they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Good science is going to win the day here, and I’m convinced we’re going to see long-standing thinking about nutrition turned on its collective ear more and more each year; the Virta study is doing that right now in terms of carbohydrates and T2DM, and the lipid wars are picking up impressive steam month by month.

More than ever, caveat emptor in terms of the information you read. Trust, but verify. Read widely, and ask questions – about everything. These are indeed very interesting times…