Healthy Spirits Clement Street: new arrivals for your weekend departures!

Nevermind the 2pacs, here's the Newpacs:
** JUST IN ** Anchor Saison 6packs $9.99
-Anderson Valley Keebarlin' 100% Columbus hopped Session Pale Ale 6pack $9.99
-Avery New World Porter 6pack $10.99
-Boulevard mixed 4pack (Tank 7, Sixth Glass, Dark Truth, Double-Wide) with glass $13.99

The bombs:
-El Segundo Citra Pale Ale (bottled 3.16.14!) 22oz $7.99
-Heretic Torment Dark Belgian-style Ale 22oz $9.99

Dealin' in import/export:
-St. Sylvestre Gavroche French Red Ale 750ml $10.99
-Blanche de Bruxelles Belgian Witbier 750ml $8.99 AND 4pack $9.99
-Franziskaner Hefeweisse and Dunkelweisse 500ml $2.99
-St. Stefanus Blonde 750ml $11.99

Stoutin' 4 life:
-Clown Shoes Luchador En Fuego Mexican-style boubron-barrel aged Chocolate Stout 22oz $15.99
-Clown Shoes Undead Party Crasher (formerly Vampire Slayer) American Imperial Stout 22oz $9.99
-Anderson Valley Huge Arker Imperial Stout aged 6 months in Wild Turkey Bourbon Barrels 22oz $16.99
-Stone Imperial Russian Stout 2014 (2013 still in stock!) 22oz $8.99
-101 North Naughty Aud Imperial Stout 22oz $7.99
-Allagash Odyssey Belgian-style Dark Ale aged in oak barrels 750ml $23.99

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Corrections to the New Review Paper on Dietary Fat and Cardiovascular Risk

The meta-analysis by Chowdhury et al. raised quite a furor from certain segments of researchers and the popular media.  I find this reaction interesting.  I usually write about obesity, which is a topic of great interest to people, but my post about the review paper received more than twice my usual traffic.  People whose findings or opinions are questioned by the paper are aggressively denouncing it in the media, even calling for retraction (1).  This resembles what happens every time a high-profile review paper is published that doesn't support the conventional stance on fatty acids and health (e.g., Siri-Tarino et al. [2], which despite much gnashing of teeth is still standing*).  I'm not sure why this issue in particular arouses such excitement, but I find it amusing and disturbing at the same time.  This kind of reaction would be totally out of place in most other fields of science, where aggressive public media outbursts by researchers are usually frowned upon.

As it turns out, the critics have a point this time.  Significant errors were uncovered in the original version of the meta-analysis, which have been corrected in the current version (3).  These include the following two errors, one of which alters the conclusion somewhat:

• The outcome of one observational study on omega-3 fatty acids was reported as slightly negative, when it was actually strongly positive.  This changes the conclusion of the meta-analysis, making it somewhat more favorable to omega-3 consumption for cardiovascular protection.
• The authors left out two studies on omega-6 fatty acids.  These didn't change the overall conclusions on omega-6.

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Book Review: Your Personal Paleo Code

Chris Kresser has been a major figure in the ancestral health community for some time now.  It's funny to recall that I was actually one of his first readers, back in the early days of his blog when it was called The Healthy Skeptic and the audience was small.  Chris's readership rapidly eclipsed mine, and now he's in high demand for his ability to convey ideas clearly and offer practical solutions to important health concerns.

He recently published a book titled Your Personal Paleo Code, which also happens to be a New York Times bestseller.  The primary goal of the book is to help you develop a diet and lifestyle that support health and well-being by starting from a generally healthy template and personalizing it to your needs.  Let's have a look.

Introduction

Kresser opens with the poignant story of his own health problems, which began with an infectious illness in Indonesia and several courses of antibiotic therapy.  After years of struggling with the resulting symptoms, trying a variety of diets, and finally accepting his condition, he was unexpectedly able to recover his health by adopting a personalized Paleo-like diet that included bone broth and fermented foods.

Why Paleo?

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New Review Paper on Dietary Fat and Heart Disease Risk

A new review paper on dietary fatty acids and heart disease risk was just published by Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury and colleagues in the Annals of Internal Medicine-- one of the top medical journals (1).  The goal of the paper is to comprehensively review the studies evaluating the effect of dietary fatty acids on heart (coronary) disease.  The review covers observational and intervention studies pertaining to saturated, monounsaturated, trans, omega-6 polyunsaturated, and omega-3 polyunsaturated fats.  The paper is notable for its comprehensiveness (inclusion criteria were very lax).

Here is a summary of the results:

• In observational studies that measured diet, only trans fat was related to cardiovascular risk.  Saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fats were unrelated to risk.
• In observational studies that measured circulating concentrations of fatty acids, long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (DHA, DPA, EPA, AA) were associated with lower risk.  The dairy-fat-derived margaric acid (17:0) was also associated with lower risk.  No other fatty acids were related to risk, including trans fatty acids.
• In controlled trials, supplementation with omega-3 or omega-6 fatty acids did not alter risk.

The authors conclude:

In conclusion, the pattern of findings from this analysis did not yield clearly supportive evidence for current cardiovascular guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of saturated fats.  Nutritional guidelines on fatty acids and cardiovascular guidelines may require reappraisal to reflect the current evidence.

My view

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Food Reward Friday

This week's lucky "winner"...  the Taco Bell waffle taco!!

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Healthy World Cafe will be open for lunch Wednesday, March 26!

We've had a great month of announcements, donations and support from the York area community -- thank you! If you missed us in the York Dispatch or the York Daily Record/Sunday News, check out the stories on our big news: We signed a lease at 24 S. George St. in downtown York!

Curious to what you'll find when we open several days a week the summer? Join us this month for lunch, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 26, at First Moravian Church, 41 N. Duke St., York, where we'll be serving up delicious, locally sourced eats.

We're working on signature dishes for the cafe, including
a hummus! (Photo courtesy of Flickr user Robert Judge)

Menu:
-- White Chicken Chili
-- Carrot Ginger Soup
-- Greek Picnic Torte
-- Roasted Butternut Squash Hummus with Chapati
-- Garlic Tapenade with Chapati
-- Moroccan Carrot Salad
-- Mediterranean Couscous Salad
-- Premixed Winter Green Salad

-- Cardamom Lime Rice Pudding
-- Signature Dried Fruit and Oatmeal Cookies with Cider Glaze
Of course, our menu is always based on what's available from our farmer friends, so check back for updates.

At Healthy World Cafe, we always feature our "eat what you want, pay how you can" philosophy. The ability to pay should never be a barrier to accessing delicious, unprocessed, healthy food.

Housekeeping items worth noting:
-- PARKING: When coming to the cafe for our Wednesday lunches, please DO NOT park in the private lots surrounding 1st Moravian Church.  You may park on the street (metered), or you may park at First Presbyterian Church at E. Market and N. Queen Sts. in the un-numbered, yellow-lined parking spots, and please include a sign on your dashboard to indicate you are a Healthy World Cafe volunteer. Then, walk one block west down Clarke Ave. to First Moravian (and enter on north side)!

-- TAKE OUT: Take out orders for lunch are available by e-mailing your selections (by 10 a.m. March 26) to healthyworldcafe(at)gmail(dot)com.

-- VOLUNTEERING: In order to better respect our volunteers' time, we split the Wednesday lunch into two volunteer shifts: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and noon to 3 p.m. Feel free, of course, to sign up for both shifts, if you wish.

Sign up to volunteer through our calendar on VolunteerSpot.

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