Instant Pot Electronic Pressure Cooker: Two Years Later

I've had several people tell me that the Whole Health Source post that changed their lives the most was one I published in 2012-- about a pressure cooker.

In 2012, I first reviewed the Instant Pot-- a "pressure cooker for the 21st century" that also doubles as a slow cooker and rice cooker (1).  Since then, we've used it more than 400 times, and it has saved us countless hours of kitchen drudgery.  It's indispensable for my current cooking style, and a major time saver for anyone who leads a busy life but still wants to cook wholesome food at home.  It's extremely satisfying to be able to put your ingredients into the Instant Pot, push a couple of buttons, do something else until it beeps, and then eat a healthy, inexpensive, and delicious meal.

Pressure cookers are one of the most time- and energy-efficient cooking tools, but electronic versions are even more efficient than traditional stovetop pressure cookers.  They're more time-efficient because you don't have to fiddle with them-- for example, adjusting the heat.  They're more energy-efficient because 1) they stop heating when the interior has reached the appropriate pressure, meaning that they're only using energy for part of the cooking process and they hardly vent any energy-wasting steam, and 2) they're insulated well enough that the sides never get hot.

I've used my Instant Pot for a wide variety of cooking tasks, and this is what it does best:

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Snacktime in My Kitchen

Here is a photo of all visible food in my kitchen:

 

 

Along the back wall, we have glass containers of raw nuts, unsalted roasted nuts, grains, and legumes.  It's easy and attractive to organize your dry foods using inexpensive 2 quart Ball jars.  They also have the advantage of being moth-proof.  On the left, we have fresh fruit and a few onions.  On the far left in the background is our hand-cranked conical burr grinder, for occasional coffee (Skerton).

 

If I walk into my kitchen between meals, the only food available to eat without doing any cooking or reheating is unsalted nuts and fresh fruit.  There is no other snack food in the kitchen.  No chips, cookies, bars, popcorn, snack mix, candy, or anything else that's tempting and easy to grab and devour. 

 

When it's mealtime, we eat good home-cooked food.  When it isn't mealtime, we don't have anything available that we would eat without feeling genuinely hungry.  If we do feel genuinely hungry, fresh fruit and unsalted nuts make a satisfying snack.

This is the way of my people. 

What's the point?  Eliminating tempting food cues from our surroundings and creating small barriers to food consumption decreases the quantity of food we eat while increasing the quality.  Engineering a food environment that discourages eating for reasons other than hunger helps match food intake to the body's true energy needs, favoring leanness and health.

 

Free e-Book and Ideal Weight Program 2.0 Announcement

I'm happy to announce that we're releasing a free e-book titled Why do We Gain Fat, and How do We Lose it? An Introduction to the Science of Body Fat, by Dan Pardi and myself. This is a slimmed-down version of the longer, fully referenced e-book we offer as part of the Ideal Weight Program. In it, we provide a succinct overview of the science of body fat gain and loss, and the evidence base for our program.  It also contains a schematic that ties together the various concepts in visual form. You can download it from the Dan’s Plan site by following this link to our program overview page.

Ideal Weight Program 2.0 Upgrades

Over the last year, Dan and I have been working hard to improve the Ideal Weight Program, both in response to user feedback and our own ideas for development.  Here are some of the new features we offer in 2014:

1. Four-week meal plans and shopping lists for the FLASH diet and the Simple Food Diet, as requested by Ideal Weight Program users.  This is in addition to the recipes and cooking guides we already provide.  
2. The Protein Unit system.  Research suggests there's an optimal amount of protein for appetite control and fat loss, depending on your height, weight, gender, and physical activity level.  Our fat loss diets are high in protein, but how do you know you're getting the right amount?  We've created a calculator that does it for you automatically, and explains how to apply your personalized Protein Unit value easily and intuitively using real food. 
3. Diet plates.  These are visual guides to following our diets, based loosely on the intuitive USDA MyPlate design.  
4. Cheat sheets.  Put these on your fridge to remind yourself of your diet and lifestyle guidelines, and daily protein unit goal.
5. Updated guidance.  We've refined a few things in the diet guidance documents. 

At a time of year when many people want to shed excess holiday pounds and start down a leaner, healthier path, we offer the Ideal Weight Program 2.0.  The program comes with a 30-day no-questions-asked refund policy so you can try it without risk.  We think you'll love this program, but if it doesn't work for you, we're happy to refund your purchase price. 

Financial disclosure: I receive a portion of the revenue from the sale of the Ideal Weight Program.  I do not receive revenue from the sale of other products associated with Dan's Plan or the Ideal Weight Program (such as the Fitbit, cooking tools, and other programs).

Buckwheat Crepes Revisited

One of my most popular posts of all time was a recipe I published in 2010 for sourdough buckwheat crepes (1).  I developed this recipe to provide an easy, nutritious, and gluten-free alternative to flour-based crepes.  It requires no equipment besides a blender.  It's totally different from the traditional buckwheat crepes that are eaten in Brittany, in part because it's not really a crepe (I don't know what else to call it, maybe a savory pancake?).  I find these very satisfying, and they're incredibly easy to make.  They're especially delicious with fresh goat cheese, or scrambled eggs with vegetables, but they go with almost anything.  Chris Kresser also developed his own version of the recipe, which is fluffier than mine, and more like a traditional pancake (2).

Buckwheat is an exceptionally nutritious pseudograin that's rich in complete protein and minerals.  In contrast to most whole grains, which have low mineral availability due to phytic acid, buckwheat contains a high level of the phytic acid-degrading enzyme phytase.  This makes buckwheat an excellent source of easily absorbed minerals, as long as you prepare it correctly!  Phytase enzyme works best in an acidic environment, which may be part of the reason why so many cultures use sour fermentation to prepare grain foods.  My original recipe included a sour fermentation step.

But there's a problem here.  Buckwheat doesn't ferment very well.  Whether it's because it doesn't contain the right carbohydrates, or the right bacteria, I don't know, but it spoils rapidly if you ferment it more than a little bit (using a strong sourdough starter helps though).  Others have told me the same.  So here's my confession: I stopped fermenting my buckwheat batter about a year ago.  And it tastes better.

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A Late Summer Harvest

It's been a good year for gardening in Seattle, at least in my garden.  Thanks to great new tools* and Steve Solomon's recipe for homemade fertilizer, my house has been swimming in home-grown vegetables all summer.  I'm fortunate that a friend lets me garden a 300 square foot plot behind her house.  Here's a photo of part of today's harvest; various kale/collards, zucchini, tomatoes and the last of the pole beans:

Perfect for the Eocene diet.  

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A Pressure Cooker for the 21st Century

Pressure cookers are an extremely useful kitchen tool.  They greatly speed cooking and reduce energy usage by up to 70 percent.  This is because as pressure increases, so does the boiling point of water, which is the factor that limits cooking speed in water-containing foods (most foods).  If it weren't for my pressure cooker, I'd rarely eat beets or globe artichokes.  Instead of baking, boiling or steaming these for 60-90 minutes, I can have them soft as butter in 30.  But let's face it: most people are intimidated by pressure cookers.  They fear the sounds, the hot steam, and the perceived risk of explosion.  I escaped this because I grew up around them.

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What Causes Insulin Resistance? Part VII

In previous posts, I outlined the factors I'm aware of that can contribute to insulin resistance.  In this post, first I'll list the factors, then I'll provide my opinion of effective strategies for preventing and potentially reversing insulin resistance.

The factors

These are the factors I'm aware of that can contribute to insulin resistance, listed in approximate order of importance.  I could be quite wrong about the order-- this is just my best guess. Many of these factors are intertwined with one another. 
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Dietary Guidelines for Americans, My Way

I just saw this on BoingBoing.  Simple but true. 

This image was created by Adam Fields. 

The people who design government dietary guidelines are gagged by the fact that politics and business are so tightly intertwined in this country.  Their advice will never directly target the primary source of obesity and metabolic dysfunction-- industrially processed food-- because that would hurt corporate profits in one of the country's biggest economic sectors.  You can only squeeze so much profit out of a carrot, so food engineers design "value-added" ultrapalatable/rewarding foods with a larger profit margin.

We don't even have the political will to regulate food advertisements directed at defenseless children, which are systematically training them from an early age to prefer foods that are fattening and unhealthy.  This is supposedly out of a "free market" spirit, but that justification is hollow because processed food manufacturers benefit from tax loopholes and major government subsidies, including programs supporting grain production and the employment of disadvantaged citizens (see Fast Food Nation).

Food Reward: a Dominant Factor in Obesity, Part VII

Now that I've explained the importance of food reward to obesity, and you're tired of reading about it, it's time to share my ideas on how to prevent and perhaps reverse fat gain.  First, I want to point out that although food reward is important, it's not the only factor.  Heritable factors (genetics and epigenetics), developmental factors (uterine environment, childhood diet), lifestyle factors (exercise, sleep, stress) and dietary factors besides reward also play a role.  That's why I called this series "a dominant factor in obesity", rather than "the dominant factor in obesity".
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Impressions from the Wise Traditions Conference

I spent last weekend at the Weston A. Price Foundation Wise Traditions conference in King of Prussia, PA. Here are some highlights:

Spending time with several people in the diet-health community who I’ve been wanting to meet in person, including Chris Masterjohn, Melissa McEwen and John Durant. John and Melissa are the public face of the New York city paleo movement. The four of us spent most of the weekend together tossing around ideas and making merry. I’ve been corresponding with Chris quite a bit lately and we’ve been thinking through some important diet-health questions together. He is brimming with good ideas. I also got to meet Sally Fallon Morell, the founder and president of the WAPF.

Attending talks. The highlight was Chris Masterjohn’s talk “Heart Disease and Molecular Degeneration: the New Paradigm”, in which he described his compelling theory on oxidative damage and cardiovascular disease, among other things. You can read some of his earlier ideas on the subject here. Another talk I really enjoyed was by Anore Jones, who lived with an isolated Inuit group in Alaska for 23 years and ate a mostly traditional hunter-gatherer diet. The food and preparation techniques they used were really interesting, including various techniques for extracting fats and preserving meats, berries and greens by fermentation. Jones has published books on the subject that I suspect would be very interesting, including Nauriat Niginaqtuat, Plants that We Eat, and Iqaluich Niginaqtuat, Fish that We Eat. The latter is freely available on the web here.

I attended a speech by Joel Salatin, the prolific Virginia farmer, writer and agricultural innovator, which was fun. I enjoyed Sally Fallon Morell’s talk on US school lunches and the politics surrounding them. I also attended a talk on food politics by Judith McGeary, a farmer, attorney and and activist, in which she described the reasons to oppose or modify senate bill 510. The gist is that it will be disproportionately hard on small farmers who are already disfavored by current regulations, making high quality food more difficult to obtain, more expensive or even illegal. It’s designed to improve food safety by targeting sources of food-borne pathogens, but how much are we going to have to cripple national food quality and farmer livelihood to achieve this, and will it even be effective? I don’t remember which speaker said this quote, and I’m paraphrasing, but it stuck with me: “I just want to be able to eat the same food my grandmother ate.” In 2010, that’s already difficult to achieve. Will it be impossible in 2030?

Giving my own talk. I thought it went well, although attendance was not as high as I had hoped. The talk was titled “Kakana Dina: Diet and Health in the Pacific Islands”, and in it I examined the relationship between diet and health in Pacific island cultures with different diets and at various stages of modernization. I’ve covered some of this material on my blog, in my posts on Kitava, Tokelau and sweet potato eating cultures in New Guinea, but other material was new and I went into greater detail on food habits and preparation methods. I also dug up a number of historical photos dating back as far as the 1870s.

The food. All the meat was pasture-raised, organic and locally sourced if possible. There was raw pasture-raised cheese, milk and butter. There was wild-caught fish. There were many fermented foods, including sauerkraut, kombucha and sourdough bread. I was really impressed that they were able to put this together for an entire conference.

The vendors. There was an assortment of wholesome and traditional foods, particularly fermented foods, quality dairy and pastured meats. There was an entire farmer’s market on-site on Saturday, with a number of Mennonite vendors selling traditional foods. I bought a bottle of beet kvass, a traditional Russian drink used for flavor and medicine, which was much better than the beet kvass I’ve made myself in the past. Beets are a remarkable food, in part due to their high nitrate content—beet juice has been shown to reduce high blood pressure substantially, possibly by increasing the important signaling molecule nitric oxide. I got to meet Sandeep Agarwal and his family, owners of the company Pure Indian Foods, which domestically produces top-quality pasture-fed ghee (Indian-style clarified butter). They now make tasty spiced ghee in addition to the plain flavor. Sandeep and family donated ghee for the big dinner on Saturday, which was used to cook delicious wild-caught salmon steaks donated by Vital Choice.

There were some elements of the conference that were not to my taste. But overall I’m glad I was able to go, meet some interesting people, give my talk and learn a thing or two.

Tropical Plant Fats: Coconut Oil, Part I

Traditional Uses for Coconut

Coconut palms are used for a variety of purposes throughout the tropics. Here are a few quotes from the book Polynesia in Early Historic Times:

Most palms begin to produce nuts about five years after germination and continue to yield them for forty to sixty years at a continuous (i.e., nonseasonal) rate, producing about fifty nuts a year. The immature nut contains a tangy liquid that in time transforms into a layer of hard, white flesh on the inner surface of the shell and, somewhat later, a spongy mass of embryo in the nut's cavity. The liquid of the immature nut was often drunk, and the spongy embryo of the mature nut often eaten, raw or cooked, but most nuts used for food were harvested after the meat had been deposited and before the embryo had begun to form...

After the nut had been split, the most common method of extracting its hardened flesh was by scraping it out of the shell with a saw-toothed tool of wood, shell, or stone, usually lashed to a three-footed stand. The shredded meat was then eaten either raw or mixed with some starchy food and then cooked, or had its oily cream extracted, by some form of squeezing, for cooking with other foods or for cosmetic or medical uses...

Those Polynesians fortunate enough to have coconut palms utilized their components not only for drink and food-- in some places the most important, indeed life-supporting food-- but also for building-frames, thatch, screens, caulking material, containers, matting, cordage, weapons, armor, cosmetics, medicine, etc.

Mainstream Ire

Coconut fat is roughly 90 percent saturated, making it one of the most highly saturated fats on the planet. For this reason, it has been the subject of grave pronouncements by health authorities over the course of the last half century, resulting in its near elimination from the industrial food system. If the hypothesis that saturated fat causes heart disease and other health problems is correct, eating coconut oil regularly should tuck us in for a very long nap.

Coconut Eaters

As the Polynesians spread throughout the Eastern Pacific islands, they encountered shallow coral atolls that were not able to sustain their traditional starchy staples, taro, yams and breadfruit. Due to its extreme tolerance for poor, salty soils, the coconut palm was nearly the only food crop that would grow on these islands*. Therefore, their inhabitants lived almost exclusively on coconut and seafood for hundreds of years.

One group of islands that falls into this category is Tokelau, which fortunately for us was the subject of a major epidemiological study that spanned the years 1968 to 1982: the Tokelau Island Migrant Study (1). By this time, Tokelauans had managed to grow some starchy foods such as taro and breadfruit (introduced in the 20th century by Europeans), as well as obtaining some white flour and sugar, but their calories still came predominantly from coconut.

Over the time period in question, Tokelauans obtained roughly half their calories from coconut, placing them among the most extreme consumers of saturated fat in the world. Not only was their blood cholesterol lower than the average Westerner, but their hypertension rate was low, and physicians found no trace of previous heart attacks by ECG (age-adjusted rates: 0.0% in Tokelau vs 3.5% in Tecumseh USA). Migrating to New Zealand and cutting saturated fat intake in half was associated with a rise in ECG signs of heart attack (1.0% age-adjusted) (2, 3).

Diabetes was low in men and average in women by modern Western standards, but increased significantly upon migration to New Zealand and reduction of coconut intake (4). Non-migrant Tokelauans gained body fat at a slower rate than migrants, despite higher physical activity in the latter (5). Together, this evidence seriously challenges the idea that coconut is unhealthy.

The Kitavans also eat an amount of coconut fat that would make Dr. Ancel Keys blush. Dr. Staffan Lindeberg found that they got 21% of their 2,200 calories per day from fat, nearly all of which came from coconut. They were getting 17% of their calories from saturated fat; 55% more than the average American. Dr. Lindeberg's detailed series of studies found no trace of coronary heart disease or stroke, nor any obesity, diabetes or senile dementia even in the very old (6, 7).

Of course, the Tokelauans, Kitavans and other traditional cultures were not eating coconut in the form of refined, hydrogenated coconut oil cake icing. That distinction will be important when I discuss what the biomedical literature has to say in the next post.


* Most also had pandanus palms, which are also tolerant of poor soils and whose fruit provided a small amount of starch and sugar.

Real Food XI: Sourdough Buckwheat Crepes

Buckwheat was domesticated in Southeast Asia roughly 6,000 years ago. Due to its unusual tolerance of cool growing conditions, poor soils and high altitudes, it spread throughout the Northern latitudes of Eurasia, becoming the staple crop in many regions. It's used to a lesser extent in countries closer to the equator. It was also a staple in the Northeastern US until it was supplanted by wheat and corn.

Buckwheat isn't a grain: it's a 'pseudograin' that comes from a broad-leaved plant. As such, it's not related to wheat and contains no allergenic gluten. Like quinoa, it has some unusual properties that make it a particularly nutritious food. It's about 16 percent protein by calories, ranking it among the highest protein grains. However, it has an advantage over grains: it contains complete protein, meaning it has a balance of essential amino acids similar to animal foods. Buckwheat is also an exceptional source of magnesium and copper, two important nutrients that may influence the risk of insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease (1, 2).

However, like all seeds (including grains and nuts), buckwheat is rich in phytic acid. Phyic acid complexes with certain minerals, preventing their absorption by the human digestive tract. This is one of the reasons why traditional cultures prepare their grains carefully (3). During soaking, and particularly fermentation of raw batters, an enzyme called phytase goes to work breaking down the phytic acid. Not all seeds are endowed with enough phytase to break down phytic acid in a short period of time. Buckwheat contains a lot of phytase, and consequently fermented buckwheat batters contain very little phytic acid (4, 5). It's also high in astringent tannins, but thorough soaking in a large volume of water removes them.

Buckwheat is fermented in a number of traditional cultures. In Bhutan, it's fermented to make flatbreads and alcoholic drinks (6). In Brittany (Bretagne; Northwestern France), sourdough buckwheat flour pancakes are traditional. Originally a poverty food, it is now considered a delicacy.

The following simple recipe is based on my own experimentation with buckwheat. It isn't traditional as far as I know, however it is based on traditional methods used to produce sourdough flatbreads in a number of cultures. I used the word 'crepe' to describe it, but I typically make something more akin to a savory pancake or uttapam. You can use it to make crepes if you wish, but this recipe is not for traditional French buckwheat crepes.

It's important that the buckwheat be raw and whole for this recipe. Raw buckwheat is light green to light brown (as in the photo above). Kasha is toasted buckwheat, and will not substitute properly. It's also important that the water be dechlorinated and the salt non-iodized, as both will interfere with fermentation.

For a fermentation starter, you can use leftover batter from a previous batch (although it doesn't keep very long), or rice soaking water from this method (7).

Ingredients and Materials

• 2-3 cups raw buckwheat groats
• Dechlorinated water (filtered, boiled, or rested uncovered overnight)
• Non-iodized salt (sea salt, pickling salt or kosher salt), 2/3 tsp per cup of buckwheat
  
• Fermentation starter (optional), 2 tablespoons
  
• Food processor or blender

Recipe

1. Cover buckwheat with a large amount of dechlorinated water and soak for 9-24 hours. Raw buckwheat is astringent due to water-soluble tannins. Soaking in a large volume of water and giving it a stir from time to time will minimize this. The soaking water will also get slimy. This is normal.
   
2. Pour off the soaking water and rinse the buckwheat thoroughly to get rid of the slime and residual tannins.
3. Blend the buckwheat, salt, dechlorinated water and fermentation starter in a food processor or blender. Add enough water so that it reaches the consistency of pancake batter. The smoother you get the batter, the better the final product will be.
4. Ferment for about 12 hours, a bit longer or shorter depending on the temperature and whether or not you used a starter. The batter may rise a little bit as the microorganisms get to work. The smell will mellow out. Refrigerate it after fermentation.
   
5. In a greased or non-stick skillet, cook the batter at whatever thickness and temperature you prefer. I like to cook a thick 'pancake' with the lid on, at very low heat, so that it steams gently.
   

Dig in! Its mild flavor goes with almost anything. Batter will keep for about four days in the fridge.

Thanks to Christaface for the CC licensed photo (Flickr).