If You Add More And More Butter . . .

But first, belatedly, Baghdadi:

It may have been odd for Trump to thank Russia before thanking the Kurds — who died fighting beside us to defeat ISIS and who told us where he was — but at least he gave our military effusive praise.  And rightly so.  Don’t miss.  Two minutes.  The tweets, yes, but the video that follows.

And now:

Richard Factor:   “I’ve been eating peanut butter with butter for decades, but I use Irish butter bought in modest bulk from Costco. The consumption algorithm involves scraping the peanut butter residue from the face of the butter bar before ceding it to others.  Since I use Lipitor as a lifestyle drug, I don’t worry about the alleged health consequences of my food choices.  . . . Meanwhile, here’s one for you: try a salami sandwich made from two slices of salami with butter as the filling.   When people question my liberal (or even progressive) use of butter, I remind them that if you add more and more and more butter to a slice of bread, eventually you will have almost enough.”

→ A man after my own heart.

And speaking of hearts:

Yesterday’s post notwithstanding, there is such a thing as too much grapefruit — if you take certain medications.  Caring for a loved one on meds? Click the link for two columns of drugs . . . those that are grapefruit-safe (like Crestor/Rosuvastatin) and those that are not (Lipitor/Atorvastatin).

Randy Mahoney: “But there’s hope!  University of Florida plant scientists have developed a grapefruit variety that does not cause this interaction.  Stay tuned.”

Gloria: “My grandpa used to say: ‘En el libro de los justos, cada cual tiene su gusto‘ (‘in the book of fairness, we all have our tastes’). However, Smart Balance doesn’t taste better than butter, come on. What sort of sorry ass butter have you eaten to make that assertion? Same question about tomatoes: what kind of anemic tomatoes have you encountered that have inspired you to add ketchup?”

→ I got them from your grandpa.

Steve Strunk: “Being from the Midwest and of a family that has grown tomatoes for years, I had always heard to NEVER refrigerate tomatoes and had just taken this as gospel given the reverence my family (and later, my wife’s as well) had for the fruit. My wife’s family will often have an entire meal of just tomatoes served with mayonnaise.  Anyway, seeing your article today where you said you do refrigerate I thought maybe I should do some research on the subject. One of my favorite sites for testing various food tropes is Serious Eats. And sure enough, they did some testing with refrigerating tomatoes versus not.  It seems the answer is more complicated than my family would have me believe, and I never knew to keep tomatoes stem side down to keep them better longer so I learned a couple of things!”

Tamara Hendrickson: “I’m sure you realize it but it’s worth reiterating that the carbs in an apple versus a margarita are not metabolically equivalent at all. The carbs in a margarita are mostly sugar and the added alcohol also plays a role in carbohydrate metabolism (but it is the sucrose from the margarita mix or sour mix that is really bad). With an apple, five of those carbs are straight up fiber, which we don’t digest at all so they don’t affect our metabolism as a ‘carb.’ The remaining carbs are mostly fructose, rather than sucrose. Now of course things like high-fructose corn syrup are bad and it is the same fructose in apples. But in smaller quantities, fructose mixed with fiber is better for you than sucrose. Fructose doesn’t trigger an insulin response the way glucose does. (Sucrose, or table sugar, is a molecule of fructose attached to a molecule of glucose.) Fructose does eventually mess with our metabolisms if we eat too much of it, thus the fight against high-fructose corn syrup.  Margaritas made with lime juice or orange juice (as the best ones are) will have far less sugar than if made with margarita mix. A typical margarita mix has about 5g sugar per ounce.  For most food it is the quality of the calories more than the quantity that matter for health.  Can you tell I teach metabolism for chemistry majors?”

Sande Roberts: “And Charles was okay with this ‘fine dining?'”

→ That’s how I knew he loved me.

Boo!