Dana Carpender

Dana Carpender, 46-year nutrition buff, 29-year low-carber, opinionated writer, congenital smarty pants, and low-carb recipe guru. Lives in Southern Indiana with Otis the Pug, Squeaky the Cat, and as always, That Nice Boy She Married.

Low Carb Convenience Foods by Dana Carpender

Writing a column on convenience foods goes against the grain for me - I'm always nagging people to just cook something, will you, for crying out loud?! A little simple, plain cooking is your best defense against bad food, not to mention a sky-high food budget. But I am aware that many people rarely eat anything that takes more preparation than three minutes in the microwave. Even folks who do cook occasionally have days when they just want something fast.

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Zucchinis are a Low Carb Treat + Kolokythia Krokettes Recipe by Dana Carpender

In a few weeks, we here in the US celebrate (if that's the word) National Sneak Some Zucchini Onto Your Neighbor's Front Porch Day. This is because a single zucchini seed will flood an entire neighborhood with zucchini. And heaven forbid a novice gardener should make the error of planting more than one zucchini seed! We're talking Revenge of the Killer Squash, here, as zucchini take over your town, loitering on the sidewalks, bumping into old ladies, scaring the children.

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Is Splenda safe? by Dana Carpender

I recently got an email from reader Karen Kosel asking exactly that; she followed up by posting me a website that said some really unpleasant things about Splenda - to be specific, that it may cause shrinkage of the thymus gland, which is part of the immune system, and may also cause enlarged liver and kidneys. For balance, they also concluded that sucralose (the chemical that makes Splenda sweet) was probably "not as toxic as aspartame".

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Dana Carpender’s Cinco de Mayo Review of R.W. Garcia Soy and Flaxseed Tortilla Chips & Baja Bob’s Sugar Free Margarita Mix

All of which makes this a great time to review a couple of products Andrew sent me last summer, and I neglected to review in a timely fashion: R.W. Garcia Soy and Flaxseed Tortilla Chips, and Baja Bob's Sugar Free Margarita Mix. I just love it when Andrew sends me a party in a box!

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What Should You Do With Easter Candy? by Dana Carpender

Why is it that the holiest festivals of Christianity have become culture-wide sugar-fests? I know for a fact that millions of people who never darken a church doorstep from year's end to year's end still pig out on Christmas cookies and candy canes. I'm betting that a whole lot of those folks are also snarfing down chocolate eggs, creme-filled eggs, jelly beans, and Peeps. Look! It's a Church Festival and a junk food marketing opportunity! (Not to mention all the obvious pagan symbolism involved, but that's a chat for a different blog.)

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Eggs are a Low Carber’s Dream Food by Dana Carpender

We're just a few weeks out from Easter, and you know what that means: eggs are going to be cheap. Religious holidays aside, late winter/early spring is always a great time for eggs - that's why they became a symbol of this spring religious festival. I have occasionally seen eggs as cheap as 4 dozen for a buck - these were medium-sized eggs, to be sure, but still, at that price they might as well be giving them away. At prices like that, we can eat a lot of eggs.

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Is a Low-Carb Diet Low in Antioxidants? by Dana Carpender

I find the pronouncements from the dieticians and the medical industry more and more amusing every day. I recently read a column by a dietician who admitted that all of the research demonstrates that a low carbohydrate diet works for weight loss, and contrary to the dire predictions, actually results in better blood work than a low fat/high carb diet. She also admitted that there have been no indications of a problem with low carb diets long term. Still, she said, people shouldn't go on low carb diets because, after all, antioxidants are terribly important, and to get them we need to eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

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Low Carbers Love Pork by Dana Carpender

Several years back, when I was writing for United Media, I wrote a column about pork. I mentioned that it is both the most popular meat on earth, and one of the most controversial. In societies with food taboos, pork is one of the meats most likely to be shunned. And even among folks who have no religious constrictions against particular foods, pork is often thought of as a guilty pleasure, something that's tasty, but not really good for us. Heart attack on a plate and all that.

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Plan Your Low-Carb Super Bowl Party by Dana Carpender

Confession: I am perhaps the only person in the entire state of Indiana who will not be watching the Colts play in the Super Bowl next weekend. It's partly that I simply find football - and other games - dull, and so does That Nice Boy I Married. It's also because having worked with some pro-footballers in my career as a massage therapist, I know all too well just exactly what they're doing to their bodies. I can't watch all those 300 pound guys run sideways into each other's knees. Ouch.

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