Friday, August 1, 2025

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Board Certified Psychiatric Pharmacist with a PharmD not an MD says gluten might make some people crazy, cites unsubstantiated leaky gut syndrome

Not enough bread can make you crazy, too.

Mobile Alabama bread riot of 1863

 

Why this scientist believes bread is making us sad: If you’re feeling depressed or run down it might be time to avoid gluten

... “I would have been sceptical if you’d told me I’d end up studying this connection,” says Kelly. “My line of thinking was therapy and medications; I didn’t know food and diet could actually be good medicine.” ...

“It’s challenging for someone to be diagnosed with non coeliac gluten sensitivity,” says Kelly.

Gluten was only introduced into our diets about 6,000 years ago. “The idea of breaking it down is really challenging for our bodies and it never breaks down completely,” says Kelly.

When a person with gluten sensitivity eats something with gluten in it – even “healthy” brown pasta or bread – their body produces antibodies to fight against the gluten.

While two types of protein join to make gluten, gliadin and glutenin, it is the former that induces an immune response. This can cause inflammation and contribute to damage in the gut, which leads to the development of “leaky gut”.

The weakened gut wall allows the antibodies to gliadin to leak from the intestine into the general bloodstream. “When it gets across the stomach lining, the body sees it as a foreign substance for some people,” says Kelly.

Consequently inflammation may occur in other parts of the body, including a person’s brain. When the antibodies’ fight gets to the brain, symptoms that develop may include not only foggy thinking, and lack of energy, but also poor emotional control, anxiety, mood changes, hallucinations and/ or seizures, that are often resistant to treatment with medications.

“There’s a specific peptide sequence called 33-mer [found in wheat] that is highly associated with an immune response,” says Deanna. “If you look at the structure of that, it’s very similar to one of the structures of the GRINA receptor, a receptor in the brain. So our bodies potentially can’t tell the difference.”

It is one of Kelly’s theories that in some people their immune system might be attacking some of the tissue in the brain because it looks like gluten.

“We have a paper showing that these antibodies to the receptors to the brain are higher in people who have the antigliadin antibodies.” ... 

Of course, not everyone with psychiatric and neurological issues is gluten sensitive. ...

Friday, July 18, 2025

Gluten-free lasagna


 

 A medical diagnosis of celiac disease is no barrier to making lasagna in my experience. These gluten-free pasta sheets by Chickapea, made from chickpeas and lentils, fit the bill perfectly.

Make your tomato sauce from whole peeled tomatoes and fresh carrot, celery, onion and extra virgin olive oil, and your ragu from ground meat without fillers.

Grate your parmigiano reggiano cheese from wedges, and use fresh mozzarella if that's in your recipe. 

Substitute a seasoned whole milk ricotta sauce with nutmeg for the béchamel normally made with wheat flour and butter, and you are good to go. I save salted pasta water left over from making other shapes of Chickapea pasta for other dinners to dilute the ricotta.

Your gluten-free family member will thank you for the effort. 

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Happiness is ice in July


 
 Yonder the harvest of cold months laid up,
Gives a fresh coolness to the royal cup;
There ice, like crystal, firm and never lost,
Tempers hot July with December's frost. 
 
-- Edmund Waller 

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

YouTube is awash in cooking channels, one hardly knows where to begin

 But it's nothing new:

Ev'ry one to cookery pretends.

-- William King, The Art of Cookery, 1708 

 


 

 

Friday, June 6, 2025

Don't believe the haters, seed oils are safe, and canola oil is especially good for you


 

The Forgotten History (and Slippery Science) of Canola Oil  
 
... Twilley: In other words, cutting out seed oils is not going to help boost your omega-3 levels. For that, you have to eat more omega-3s. And, outside of oily fish, which are delicious but which most Americans consume very little of — and outside of tofu and chia seeds and flaxseed, which are also pretty underrepresented in the standard Western diet — canola is actually a bit of a omega-3 superstar. ...
 
Darriush Mozaffarian, Tufts University: This is, you know, one of the great Internet myths that’s out there, that seed oils are harmful. Canola oil has been studied in well over a hundred randomized control trials and overwhelmingly been shown to improve every risk factor that has been looked at, and never been shown to be pro inflammatory, which is kind of the theory. We have all the science. Like, we don’t need any more studies on canola oil. This is one of the most well established areas of science there is, is the health effects of plant oils. ...

Saturday, May 31, 2025

Happiness is a cauldron of fat beef


 
 A caldron of fat beef, and stoop of ale,
On the huzzaing mob shall more prevail,
Than if you give them, with the nicest art,
Ragousts of peacocks brains, or filbert tart.
 
-- William King, The Art of Cookery (London, 1708),  p. 107
 

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Happiness is Hodge, Samuel Johnson's cat


 
Who, by his master when caressed,
warmly his gratitude expressed,
and never failed his thanks to purr,
whene'er he stroked his sable furr.

-- Percival Stockdale, 1778

Sunday, May 11, 2025

The comedy of maternal love is that its seismic intensity is expressed, most of the time, in totally mundane drudgery

 Elizabeth Bruenig for The Atlantic, here:

... My mother used to pick me up from day care in paisley dresses or broomstick skirts with slouchy boots, hair hot-rolled and blown out, with the lived-in scent of faded perfume: full glam for an eight-hour workday with a 45-minute commute on either end and then a second shift at home, cooking any number of demanding meals—fried chicken, smothered pork chops, breakfast for dinner with biscuits and gravy—and then helping me and my brother with our homework and loading up the dishwasher, all before she took her makeup off. I used to sit beside her and talk with her while she took her evening bath, watching while she rinsed her mascara off and finally breathed. ...

Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Friday, May 2, 2025

Decades worth of research concludes that happiness is the good mood you get from social interaction

How Nearly a Century of Happiness Research Led to One Big Finding: Decades of wellness studies have identified a formula for happiness, but you won’t figure it out alone

Which is fine if you're an extrovert.

But in former times happiness at its root was simply thought of as good fortune, or as escaping misfortune and accidents, which seems to me a more inclusive definition.

25% of a given population, after all, is composed of introverts, who feel drained by social interaction, not enriched. But they are just as happy to have escaped being hit by a car as any one else.

The field of psychology still seems biased toward the extroverts. 

 


 


 

Monday, April 7, 2025

Happiness is Benny Bell's McCarthy and McGinnis

 


McCarthy is dead, McGinnis don't know it McGinnis is dead, McCarthy don't know it They both lay dead on the very same bed But neither one knows that the other is dead.

Before he died, this fellow McCarthy One Saturday night got drunk at a party He took a swing at Officer King The next day he carried his head in a sling.

McCarthy was always good to his wife He had to be so, or I pity his life Although she was only half his size She'd jump on a table and scratch out his eyes.

On Saint Patrick's Day he was there A shine on his shoes and oil on his hair He wore a green jacket and really looked swell With a genuine shamrock in his lapel.

One day he was taking his wife to a dance A dog took a chance and snapped at his pants McCarthy got angry and started to sneer Then lifted the mongrel and bit off its ear.

He drank like a fish, he ate like a savage His favourite dish was corned beef and cabbage He fought like a tiger, he hit like a mule And boy could he knock off a good game of pool.

McCarthy and Mister McGinnis next door Could never agree, they were always at war Said he to McGinnis, "The day when you die I'll buy everybody a strawberry pie."

Said Mister McGinnis to Mister McCarthy "You may be tough, and healthy and hearty But if you don't shut up and behave You'll soon be asleep in a seven foot grave."

One stormy night, they met in the hall To settle their argument once and for all Now one used a shovel and one used a rock And both were in heaven at seven o'clock.

So McCarthy is dead but McGinnis don't know it McGinnis is dead and McCarthy don't know it They both lay dead on the very same bed But neither one knows that the other is dead.




Sunday, March 30, 2025

Trump tariffs make even middling Italian-sourced extra virgin olive oil out of reach for average Americans

 I ran out of this olive oil a few weeks ago. I had shepherded my three liter can over the winter to make it last. I paid $40 for it, now it's $55.

Fuhgeddaboutit.

 


 

Friday, March 21, 2025

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Saturday, March 1, 2025

Happiness is a succinct visualization of the enduring attraction of liberalism

 A liberal suddenly becomes a conservative after getting mugged on the street. Why is there no law and order, he wonders. We need to hire more cops.

But the mugged conservative gets arrested for his own mugging by mistake, and becomes a libertarian in self defense, wondering how the law could be so incompetent as to deprive the victim of his freedom!

Then, however, the arrested libertarian loses his job because his employer finds out about the arrest, and so he becomes a liberal again because of his boss' ignorant prejudice.

But wait, there's more!

At this point the liberal hits on a novel solution. I'll start my own business, he says, that'll show 'em! I'll be the master of my own destiny!

But once faced with all the insane regulations and restraints on his business activities, the liberal, longing to be free of them, becomes a libertarian again.

He's very successful despite all the problems, and eventually marries and has a bunch of kids, who promptly turn him into a conservative again because he wants children who will behave themselves.

Unfortunately they don't, getting into one scrape after another. The medical bills start rolling in and the conservative realizes he needs help paying them or he's not going to turn a profit!

He decides to ask the government to help him with all of those bills. It's unfair, he tells himself, when he has to pay them all by himself when he pays more in taxes than most people do, at which point the conservative has become a liberal again.

 


Monday, February 24, 2025

Happiness is Roberta Flack, may she rest in peace

 “I always say that ‘love is a song’ — meaning that music reaches beyond age, race, nationality and religion to touch our hearts”.

Quoted here



Thursday, February 20, 2025

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

And I woke up humming this for some reason today

 Happy landings on a chocolate bar!

(don't let the sickos in the comments ruin it for you)


 

Monday, January 20, 2025

Friday, January 17, 2025

Monday, January 6, 2025

Christmas is finally over

 


Saturday, December 28, 2024

"Stitch by stitch" by Jesse Welles is the best thing I've heard in a long while

 


 baby come quick i poured us two fresh doses it occurred to me yesterday evenin this could jus be yer psychosis drownin me drownin you baby what's a soul sailor to do you were always a poet you jus didn't know it the whole worlds a boat i'm gonna row it plant yer cool seed watchin it grow and believe in me cus i need ya to know it life has a line i'm gonna toe it the truth is a horn we all gotta blow it there's a river of joy I'm gonna float it there's a hole in my soul i'm gonna sew it baby stitch by stitch

 moses come quick i found another tablet god don't teach he jus stays out of reach and gets annoyed when i try to grab em drownin me drownin you Moses what's a soul sailor to do you were always a poet you jus didn't know it the whole worlds a boat i'm gonna row it plant yer cool seed watchin it grow and believe in me cus i need ya to know it life has a line i'm gonna toe it the truth is a horn we all gotta blow it there's a river of joy I'm gonna float it there's a hole in my soul i'm gonna sew it Moses stitch by stitch

 ahab come quick I got a funny notion it's a hell of a whale but I wish this fish would jus stay down in the ocean cause it's drownin me drownin you captain what's a soul sailor to do you were always a poet you jus didn't know it the whole worlds a boat i'm gonna row it plant yer cool seed watchin it grow and believe in me cus i need ya to know it life has a line i'm gonna toe it the truth is a horn we all gotta blow it there's a river of joy I'm gonna float it there's a hole in my soul i'm gonna sew it baby stitch by stitch

Thursday, December 26, 2024

I made this salmon with spinach creme sauce for Christmas Eve and it was a big hit

 Also very easy to make. I will do it again.

I made substitutions because I didn't have the exact ingredients: my own tomato sauce for the cherry tomatoes which made the outcome redder, half & half instead of heavy cream, and since the tomato sauce was made with basil I omitted the chopped parsley.

The recipe is very adaptable.

 



Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Friday, December 20, 2024

Happiness is not needing to travel anymore because . . .

 


 Catalina, see what I meana

Dodge City, what a pity


Sunday, December 15, 2024

The president-elect explains the mysterious night-time drone citings over New Jersey

 Chris Christie is just hungry all the time, that's all.

🤣🤣🤣

 


 


Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Sunday, December 1, 2024

Saturday, November 30, 2024

Sunday, November 17, 2024

Friday, November 15, 2024

Olive oil prices expected to nearly halve in coming months as drought ends in southern Europe

The Deoleo brands

 

Extra virgin olive oil prices in Spain’s Andalusia stood at 6 euros ($6.33) per kilogram as of Nov. 6, according to Expana, an agricultural and food-focused market intelligence firm. That’s down around 19% on a monthly basis and nearly 35% off a record high of 9.2 euros in January.

Spain accounts for more than 40% of the world’s olive oil production, making it a global reference for prices. ...

Deoleo said olive oil prices should fall to around 5 euros per liter, a steep drop from highs of 9 to 10 euros, which had become the norm in Spanish supermarkets this year. ...

Kyle Holland, senior market reporter for oilseeds and oils at Expana, said most industry players were “very, very bearish” regarding the price outlook.

“The production numbers are key. For Spain, we’re looking at probably 1.3 million metric tons, compared to last season’s 670,000 to 680,000 metric tons, depending on who you speak to, so not far from double basically.”

More.

Friday, November 8, 2024

The season's trending gift is the women's heated vest with three temperature levels


 

 ✔  cold titty

✔  warm titty

✔  hot titty

Saturday, November 2, 2024

Olive oil prices have surged, so I switched again

I paid $40 for 3 liters from De Cecco. 

That's $13.33 a liter.

The origin codes for the oil in this particular can are ES (Spain) and GR (Greece).

The oil is good to April 2025.

I'm content with it.


Friday, November 1, 2024

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Happiness is washing your bath towels twice

 

 

 One time in baking soda, a second time in white vinegar.

One cup, warm water setting, right in the top-loader with the load. I do a pre-soak and an extra-rinse each time as well.

Works especially well on my white and light color towels instead of detergent in my experience.

At current prices at Sam's Club the cost is about 52-cents for the two loads, about 33-cents for a cup of baking soda for the first load, and 19-cents for a cup of vinegar for the second load.

That's more expensive than using, for example, ALL Free and Clear and CLOROX 2, which are about 13-cents and 21-cents in just one load, respectively, or 34-cents total. And water is money, too, unless you have a well like me.

But I like the results better.

Disclaimers say check to see if your machine is compatible with vinegar.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

Happiness is fair weather for the harvest


 If weather be faire and tidie, thy grain
Make speedilie carriage, for fear of a raine.

-- Thomas Tusser

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Happiness is an old British confection


 Let sugar, wine, and cream together
club,
To make that gentle viand, syllabub.
 
-- William King (1663-1712)

Monday, September 30, 2024

Happiness is an old hat


 The owl, the raven, and the bat,
Clubb'd for a feather to his hat.
 
-- Jonathan Swift

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Saturday, August 31, 2024

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Happiness is Caturday

 


Friday, July 19, 2024

Why do country people lock their car doors at church at this time of year but not in town?


 

 

 

Because their cars will be full of zucchinis if they don't.

Thursday, July 18, 2024

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Thursday, July 4, 2024

Happiness is a country house


 Would I a house for happiness erect,
Nature alone should be the architect;
She'd build it more convenient than great,
And doubtless in the country chuse her seat.

-- Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)