Jts5665

... Because the sheer success of Obamacare was too great for her to handle.

No entity highlights the ridiculous amount of bureaucratic inefficiency and ineptitude of government agencies better than the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Its reports are loaded with the sort of damning evidence that would lead those unfamiliar with how government actually works to assume that heads will be rolling. In reality, the agencies investigated by the GAO soldier on from scathing report to scathing report with little to no sign of improvement.

Tom Coburn, a long-time combatant of government waste and fraud who publishes a yearly report exposing the worst of worst in terms of senseless government spending (the "Wastebook") is now using the GAO's own words to craft a bill targeting the money pit that is the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).

Here's the leadup:

(3) NTIS is tasked with collecting and distributing government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information and reports.
(4) GAO found that NTIS sold only 8 percent of the 2,500,000 reports in its collection between 1995 and 2000.
(5) A November 2012 GAO review of NTIS made the following conclusions:

(A) 'Of the reports added to NTIS's repository during fiscal years 1990 through 2011, GAO estimates that approximately 74 percent were readily available from other public sources.'
(B) 'These reports were often available either from the issuing organization's website, the Federal Internet portal (http://www.USA.gov) or from another source located through a web search.'
(C) 'The source that most often had the report [GAO] was searching for was another website located through http://www.Google.com.'
(D) '95 percent of the reports available from sources other than NTIS were available free of charge.'

(6) No Federal agency should use taxpayer dollars to purchase a report from the National Technical Information Service that is available through the Internet for free.

And here's the punchline:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the 'Let Me Google That For You Act.'

Someone had fun cranking out this "Short Title."

As the bill points out, it was suggested by the Secretary of Commerce in 1999 that the NTIS would eventually outlive its usefulness. According to the GAO's 2012 findings, that sell-by date was reached more than a decade ago.

NTIS product expenditures exceeded revenues for 10 out of the past 11 fiscal years.

The "Let Me Google That For You" Act calls for the repeal of the 1988 National Technical Information Act and the disbandment of the agency itself, with the redistribution of whichever of its duties are still deemed essential to the Commerce Department.

It's not often you get the chance to watch an extraneous government agency be put down and even rarer still under a snarky, incisive, short title. This is for the best. As we've seen all too frequently, time marches on, swiftly distancing itself from the glacial pace of government innovation.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Police accused of dragging teen onto train tracks to cover up beating that left him paralyzed...


(Third column, 11th story, link)

---

Submitted by Mike Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

For those of you who don’t know Congressman Mike Rogers, he is the Representative hailing from Michigan’s Eighth District. He is also one of the biggest blowhard, chicken-hawk defenders of unconstitutional NSA spying in all of Washington D.C.

Back in 2012, he gave his support to internet spy bill CISPA by proclaiming: “Stand for America! Support this bill!” Naturally, this clown would also serve as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Rogers is notorious for being one of the staunchest critics of Glenn Greenwald. For example, earlier this year he made up all sort of lies about Greenwald in an attempt to smear the journalist. In response, Greenwald had the following to say about Rogers back in February:

“First is that he’s not only lying, and he is lying, but he not only is lying but he knows that he’s lying. This what is Mike Rogers is notorious for in Washington is literally making things up and smearing political opponents and journalists he doesn’t like.

 

I defy Mike Rogers, if he wants to make that accusation, to come forward and present actual evidence that any journalist has stolen, has sold documents or stolen material or engaged in any kind of criminality. He has no evidence, he’s just making things up.”

You’d think a guy like Rogers who aggressively lobs untrue accusations against a journalist trying to inform the American public about government criminality would have a squeaky clean background himself. After all, he was a former FBI agent. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.

Incredibly, Dick Morris points out that until recently Mike Rogers’ wife was the president and the CEO of the company that was contracted by the State Department to provide intelligence-based and physical security services. While this sort of crony capitalism is seen as “business as usual” in the cesspool that is D.C., the really crazy part of this story is that as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rogers is charged with investigating the adequacy of security at the Benghazi compound prior to the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack.

You can’t find a bigger conflict of interest than that…

Dick Morris writes:

Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is charged with investigating the adequacy of security at the Benghazi compound prior to the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack.

 

His wife, Kristi Clemens Rogers was the president and the CEO of the company that was contracted by the State Department to provide that security!

 

Mrs. Rogers, until recently, served as president and CEO of Aegis LLC, the contractor to the United States Department of State for intelligence-based and physical security services.

 

Aegis, a British private military company with overseas offices in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kenya, Nepal and the U.S., won a $10 billion, 5-year contract with the State Department to provide security for U.S. diplomatic posts around the world.

 

Aegis describes itself as “a leading private security company, provides government and corporate clients with a full spectrum of intelligence-led, culturally-sensitive security solutions to operational and development challenges around the world.”

 

Congressman Rogers, who abruptly announced his intention not to seek re-election, has been criticized for dragging his feet in the Benghazi investigation. Only when pressure from back benchers on his committee became intense did he agree to hold last week’s hearing at which former Deputy CIA Director Mike Morrell testified.

 

How on earth can the Rogers family justify having a husband who chairs a Congressional committee charged with reviewing the performance of his wife’s company in guarding the Benghazi compound?

Is this the reason Rogers just abruptly announced his retirement to become a talk radio host?

Full article here.

STUDY: Ability to forgive oneself critical to longer life...


(Third column, 18th story, link)

---

IRS agent testimony: No progressive groups were targeted, despite claims by Dems and media...


(Second column, 1st story, link)

---

Related stories:

FLASHBACK: DOJ Refuses to Appoint Special Prosecutor...

Republican lawmakers joined farmers and land developers to discourage the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from asserting a proposed rule which will increase its regulatory authority over the nation's streams and wetlands. 

"It's the most breathtaking power grab I've seen in a long time,” said Sen. Pat Toomey, (R-PA). In a letter from Toomey and signed by 14 other GOP Senators, they declared that the proposed rule hurts economic activity and oversteps legal bounds. At issue is the federal Clean Water Act, which grants the EPA authority to regulate "U.S. waters."

Two Supreme Court rulings in 2001 and 2006 restricted the EPA’s ability to regulate isolated ponds or marshes with no direct connection to navigable waterways. The EPA now wants to expand pollution regulations to include the country's so-called "intermittent and ephemeral streams and wetlands," which are created during wet seasons, or merely after it rains, but are temporary. As Breitbart News contributor Charles Hurt pointed out in one of his recent "Nuclear Option" columns, just having a pond on one’s property can subject landowners to enormous fines by the EPA. Moreover, Hurt asserted that the EPA has its own propensity for polluting our waterways.

The American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman said the proposed rule will create much uncertainty because it subjects farmers to potential regulation if water pools on their private land after a rainfall. Moreover, it gives the federal government authority over creeks and even ditches that are miles away from "navigable waters." For instance, an intermittent pond formed by rainfall which contained fertilizer or pest control chemicals could be subject to anti-pollution regulations.   

Meanwhile, Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) introduced appropriations language this week aimed at blocking the rule entirely. Stockman said that farmers can apply for exemptions, but they must engage in a “conversion practice” that complies with Natural Resources Conservation Services standards. “Once the landowner completes the conservation practice or changes the use of his land, he loses his EPA exemption and must now comply with a new, and more complex, set of rules,” Stockman said. "In other words, the only way a farmer or rancher can exempt himself from the EPA rule is to adhere to a mountain of other new federal rules."

The proposed regulation is strongly endorsed by environmental groups and is at the heart of the Obama Administration's strategy for the 2014 midterm elections. President Obama has promised to use his executive “pen” as needed to ram through environmental and climate change protections.

On February 6, Google revealed not only its dramatic bias against conservatism, but against reality. How else to explain an email received by WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah with regard to the Google AdSense policy?

The email announced that AdSense would be cancelling WorldNetDaily’s account thanks to a “policy violation email this morning regarding negative/hate speech particularly with the repeated references to ‘black mobs,’ although I don’t know that this is specifically what it’s limited to.” According to Farah, Google wrote, “The reviewers cited a number articles [sic] with usage of this term specifically and in general asks that no ad code is placed on articles containing hate/anti or sensitive content as this is against Adsense policies and does not provide a good experience for users and advertisers.”

So what, exactly, was WorldNetDaily’s heinous offense? WND reported on the so-called “knockout game” phenomenon in which mobs of black teens attacked white and Jewish passersby in a macho attempt to prove their testosterone-filled bona fides. Google did not reference any specific misuses of the term “black mob,” nor did they identify any articles that actually constituted hate speech. “Just the term ‘black mob’ was disallowed, both within the content of WND stories and any comment left from viewers within the forums on WND.com,” Farah explained.

According to Farah, the issue goes beyond simply WorldNetDaily. “[W]e heard from a reliable third-party source,” he stated, “that Google has a list of sites they actively monitor for policy violations. Apparently WND is on that list because other sites with same or similar content are not getting flagged.”

Perhaps most disturbing, Google’s decision to pull WND’s AdSense account did not restrict its scrutiny to the actual written material by WND staffers or writers; it also encompassed the comments section, which on many sites is lightly policed. Such a policy would heavily discourage websites from opening comments at all, stifling speech and shutting down debate and community formation.

It’s no surprise to see Google crack down on particular political viewpoints. Google has long been a leftist company. Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of the company, is a heavy supporter of President Obama financially, helping him with campaign advice in 2008 and 2012; Obama reportedly considered him repeatedly for slots within his administration before Schmidt was picked as Obama’s transition advisory board, as well as for a position on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, or PCAST. Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, received personal training from Schmidt. So did Obama for America Chief Technology Officer Harper Reed and Engineer Mark Trammell.

Even the company’s Google doodles are politically charged. Last Easter, Google featured Cesar Chavez instead of Easter, and has not had an Easter doodle since 2000. The site also has never had a specific Christmas doodle, even though it featured Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson, and iconic figure Frank Zamboni (creator of the Zamboni ice machine).

Furthermore, Google is in bed with the Obama administration when it comes to the greatest threat to internet freedom currently on the radar: net neutrality. That policy, under which the government would require “non-discrimination” with regard to bandwidth use for internet service providers, would dramatically regulate the market and prevent entrepreneurial exploitation of comparative advantage by competing internet service providers and websites. Google was in favor of net neutrality; that’s because, as Robert E. Litan and Hal J. Singer wrote in the Harvard Business Review, “Absent net neutrality restrictions, entrepreneurs in their garages would devote significant energies trying to topple Google with the next killer application.”

Google was in favor of net neutrality. Until, of course, Google got into the broadband business, at which point it became an opponent of net neutrality, at least for its own purposes, and at which point the Obama administration’s FCC simply ignored enforcement of consumer regulations against GoogleFiber.

But Google’s overall position has not changed. Schmidt still maintains that Google stands for internet freedom, which makes its new take on disapproved political language somewhat unwieldy.

Google is a private company. It has the capacity to utilize its massive power for whatever political agenda it chooses. But for it to pretend to be an advocate for internet freedom while simultaneously disadvantaging messages it finds politically incorrect is deeply hypocritical.

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.

(Don Boudreaux)

Here’s a letter to the Washington Post:

George Will writes that “tax simplification would reform politics by shrinking opportunities for transactions between private factions and the political class.  This class confers favors as much with the tax code as with appropriations.  ‘You can drain the swamp,’ says [Sen. Ron] Wyden.  ‘They did it in ’86′” (“A tax reformer’s uphill push,” April 6).

Alas, matters are more complicated.

In 1986 Milton Friedman, along with my late Nobel-laureate colleague Jim Buchanan and many other economists, while applauding the tax simplification enacted that year, pointed out that it was politically feasible only because by the mid-1980s the tax code had become so flooded with fiscal favors dispensed to special-interest groups that there was little room left for politicians to dispense any further such favors.  So politicians drained the swamp.  They did so, however, not to shrink opportunities for them to exchange political favors with private factions, but to make such exchanges once again easy and profitable.  The swamp was drained, in short, only so that it could be refilled with the foul water and stench of interest-group politics.

This reality is no argument against tax simplification, but it does counsel realism about the motives of politicians who seek it and about the permanence of that simplification.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA  22030​​

I began the year with a series of posts explaining why I believe weight loss is mostly about chemistry, not character.  People who insist it’s all about character (usually people who’ve never been fat) are fond of reciting calorie math:  there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, ya see, so if you just shave 500 calories per day from your diet, you’ll lose a pound per week.  Problem solved.  So demonstrate a little character, stop buttering your toast and pour skim milk instead of cream in your coffee, and you can be as thin as Jillian Michaels and the other experts in thermodynamics.

Those of us who spent years as frustrated dieters know it isn’t that simple.  We cut those 500 calories per day from our diets, maybe even drank crappy meal replacements like Slim Fast, lost a little weight, then stalled.  Calorie math just didn’t work as advertised for us.  The more we tried that whole “just eat less and move more” theory, the more it seemed like a myth.

Hmmm, maybe someone should write a book to explain this stuff with a title something like The Calorie Myth …

That is, in fact, the title of Jonathan Bailor’s latest book: The Calorie Myth.  (I’m more than a little fashionably late with my review, by the way.  The book was released in January, but as I’ve explained in my recent posts, I’ve been swamped with work.)

I reviewed Bailor’s book The Smarter Science of Slim back in 2012 and met him on last year’s low-carb cruise, where he gave a presentation about misguided calorie math.  As he explained in that presentation, the usual calories-in/calories-out math assumes your body works like a machine.  But it doesn’t.  Your body works like a body.

In The Calorie Myth, Bailor explains what “works like a body” means, and not surprisingly, it’s about all hormones — a.k.a. chemistry.  Bailor is quite a science wonk, and he cites published research virtually every time he makes a point.  Frankly, I’d buy this book just for the study references. But he’s also a gifted writer, so he takes what is often complex science and explains it simply enough for your Aunt Martha to understand.

I know some people will see the title and assume Bailor either doesn’t understand the laws of thermodynamics or is denying them, so let me say this for thousandth time or so: no one, including Bailor, is claiming that calories don’t count or that a high-quality diet causes calories to magically disappear.  The point is that the quality of the calories you consume has a dramatic effect on what your body decides to do with those calories … store them, burn them, use them for repair and rebuilding, etc.  In other words, the calories-in side of the equation affects the calories-out side of the equation.

For example, here are some quotes from the book about the metabolic effects of semi-starvation diets:

Eating less of a traditional Western diet does not cause long-term fat loss because this approach incorrectly assumes that taking in fewer calories forces our bodies to burn fat. This has been clinically proved to be false.  Eating less does not force us to burn body fat.  It forces us to burn fewer calories…. When our body needs calories and none are around, it is forced to make a decision:  go through all the hassle of converting calories from body fat or just slow down on burning calories.  Given the choice, slowing down wins.

… When we do not provide our body with enough essential nutrients (vitamins, minerals and essential fatty and amino acids) our body goes into starvation mode.  What does our body want more of when it thinks we’re starving?  Stored energy.  What is a great source of stored energy?  Body fat.  So when our body thinks we are starving, does it want to get rid of or hold on to body fat?  It wants to hold on.

… After our body survives starvation, its number one priority is restoring all the body fat it lost and then protecting us from starving in the future.  It does that by storing additional body fat.  Researchers call this “fat super accumulation,” and they believe it is a primary trigger for “relapsing obesity” – also known as yo-yo dieting.

He goes on to cite several studies (both animal and human) in which starvation diets led to slower metabolisms and more fat accumulation over time.

Wait, don’t get depressed just yet.  It isn’t hopeless.  The problem with those starvation diets is that they don’t adjust your set-point – the amount of fat your body is hormonally driven to maintain and will, in fact, fight to maintain.  As Bailor explains:

Long-term fat gain works like this: a person’s hormones go haywire, causing his set-point to rise, and then his body fights to keep him storing more fat…. Most obese people hold a stable weight around their elevated set-point.  Obesity is simply the result of the body defending this elevated weight – but in a very regulated way.  A heavy person’s higher set-point prompts the body to store more fat in just the same way that a thin person’s lower set-point prompts the body to burn more fat.

We all have a set-point – and that’s what determines how slim or stocky we are long-term.  Not calorie counting.

As Bailor points out, what makes the calorie-counting frenzy of the past several decades so ironic is that back in the days when most people were lean, almost nobody knew what a calorie was – and even if they did, it’s not as if there were calories counts listed on food labels.  So why weren’t they fat?  Bailor explains:

The explanation is that up until a few decades ago, we ate foods that maintained our body’s ability to balance calories automatically around a slim set-point weight.  In other words, for the past forty years we’ve been told to eat things that prevent our body from doing what it did for the entirely of human history – stay healthy and fit automatically.

Notice he wrote we’ve been told to eat things, not food.  That’s largely what screwed up so many people’s hormones and in turn their set-points:  the food-like substances that resulted at least in part from anti-fat hysteria and the push to convince everyone to consume more grains and more processed vegetable oils.  So it’s no surprise that Bailor’s prescription for lowering the body’s set-point revolves around food – as in real food.

The diet he recommends isn’t high-fat, but it isn’t low-fat either.  It’s not a low-carb diet, but by virtue of being a real-food diet, it’s not a high-carb diet either.  Rather than focusing on macronutrients, Bailor measures the quality of food by applying his SANE acronym, which looks like this:

• Satiety – how quickly calories fill us up and how long they keep us full
• Aggression – how likely calories are to be stored as body fat
• Nutrition – how many nutrients (protein, vitamins, minerals, essentially fatty acids, etc.) the calories provide
• Efficiency – how many calories can be stored as body fat

The idea is to eat foods that are high in satiety and nutrition, but low in aggression and efficiency.  Those are the SANE foods.  Sugars and refined starches (and food-like products in general) are INSANE foods because they’re not satiating, not nutritious, and easily converted to fat.  Protein is of course high on the SANE scale because it’s satiating and not easily converted to fat.  Nutrient-vegetables are high on the SANE scale because they’re nutritious (duh), not aggressive, and not easily converted to fat.  (I watched Bailor eat on the low-carb cruise.  The man is serious about getting his daily dose of vegetables.)

The meat of the book (pardon the pun) is dedicated to explaining the science of how SANE foods lower our set-points and how INSANE foods raise our set-points and thus make us fatter.  But there are also chapters on why most forms of exercise won’t make us thin, why yo-yo dieting makes us fatter, why anti-fat and anti-cholesterol hysteria don’t hold up to the actual science, and why what Bailor calls smarter exercise (the right kind of progressive resistance training) will improve our health and body composition by building lean muscle mass and triggering positive hormonal changes.  The final section of the book provides an action plan for putting Bailor’s recommendations into practice.

Bailor doesn’t label his plan as paleo specifically, but it’s pretty close, as evidenced by this quote:

The closer a food is to a plant we could gather or an animal we could hunt, the more SANE it is.  And if anything other than cooking or cutting is required between the plant or animal and our stomach, it probably does not belong in our stomach to begin with.

So it’s a real food diet, but at the same time, Bailor and I share the opinion (which we’ve discussed) that perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of good … in other words, don’t freak out if you can’t find or can’t afford local and organic versions of everything you eat:

This point has nothing to do with eating organic versus conventional food.  Until someone discovers a Cheerios tree, a pasta plant or a bread bush, conventional blueberries are more SANE than organic Cheerios, pasta or bread.

Bailor’s writing is simple and direct, his advice is very SANE indeed, and I highly recommend this book.  (I also highly recommend his podcast show.)

NOTE:  As I suspected, Wednesday night’s very impressive lightning storm knocked out our cable service entirely — no signal coming into the house, according to Larry The Cable Guy, which means a crew will have to come out and find the problem.  We were told this will take anywhere between one and seven days.  So I’m posting the review, but won’t be able to read or approve comments without driving somewhere to get an internet connection.

As a general rule I try not to discuss Obamacare (officially the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA) here on The Self-Pay Patient blog. I have plenty of other outlets to share my views on that law, and this blog is supposed to be focused on how self-pay patients can find affordable care, whether they’re uninsured, have a high deductible plan, or have more comprehensive coverage but their insurer won’t cover a particular treatment or provider.

But Obamacare is a central feature of today’s health care system, and it’s just not possible to completely avoid the subject here. So today I want to address one of the problems that Obamacare has created for people wanting to buy health insurance, and what some solutions might be.

The problem is pretty basic – the ‘open enrollment’ period for people to buy health insurance is now over (well there’s still some leeway for people who tried to sign up but couldn’t because of technical difficulties, or who at least claim they tried), meaning that it is effectively impossible for many, perhaps most, people to buy health insurance until the next open enrollment period rolls around (November 15, 2014 thru February 15, 2015). 

A story in the Washington Post this morning explains the problem pretty well:

Health insurance isn’t a year-round thing anymore

WASHINGTON — Here’s more fallout from the health care law: Until now, customers could walk into an insurance office or go online to buy standard health care coverage any time of year. Not anymore.

Many people who didn’t sign up during the government’s open enrollment period that ended Monday will soon find it difficult or impossible to get insured this year, even if they go directly to a private company and money is no object. For some it’s already too late.

With limited exceptions, insurers are refusing to sell to individuals after the enrollment period for HealthCare.gov and the state marketplaces. They will lock out the young and healthy as well as the sick or injured. Those who want to switch plans also are affected. The next wide-open chance to enroll comes in November for coverage in 2015.

It’s a little-noted consequence of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, which requires nearly all Americans to be insured or pay a fine and requires insurers to accept people with health problems.

“I have people that can buy insurance, but the companies shut them down. They won’t take the applications,” insurance broker Steve Bobiak of Frackville, Pa., said…

… eligibility for coverage during 2014 is guaranteed only for people who experience certain qualifying life events, such as losing a job that provided insurance, moving to a new state, getting married, having a baby or losing coverage under a parent’s health plan…

What this means is that anybody who decides that they actually should have health insurance (and I’m an advocate for people having health insurance or anything else that provides protection against major medical expenses) but missed the March 31 open enrollment deadline, will have to wait until med-November to roll around.

As the article notes, there are exceptions. People who lose employer-sponsored coverage, get married, age off of their parents plan, or experience another ‘life event’ will still be able to get new coverage before the next open enrollment period.

But if none of those apply, and someone decides they should get some sort of coverage, what options to they have? Fortunately, there are a number of options, which I’ll run through briefly here.

Health care sharing ministries. These are voluntary, charitable membership organizations whose members agree to share medical bills. They provide protection against major medical expenses similar to insurance. There are five sharing ministries that I know of (I have been told there may be a few small, local sharing ministries, but don’t have any info on those).

Four are open only to practicing Christians: Samaritan Ministries, Christian Healthcare Ministries, Altrua Healthshare, and Christian Care Ministry (CCM operates under the name Medi-Share).  A fifth, Liberty HealthShare, accepts anyone who shares their belief in religious liberty.

Each of these ministries operate entirely outside of Obamacare, and accept new enrollees year-round. They all operate a little differently, but the basic idea is consistent across all of them, with likeminded people sharing medical expenses similar to insurance. Members of three of the five (Samaritan Ministries, Christian Healthcare Ministries, and Christian Care Ministry/Medi-Share are exempt from Obamacare’s tax on being uninsured, while Liberty Healthshare is seeking confirmation from the Department of Health & Human Services that their members will enjoy a similar exemption. Altrua appears to have been founded too recently (only 9 years before Obamacare was passed, while the law requires 10 years) to qualify for the exemption.

One other major benefits of health care sharing ministries is that they are typically much, much less expensive than conventional health insurance. I cut my own cost of coverage by about 75% when I joined a ministry.

Short-term health insurance policies. If someone is looking for a policy that will cover them for several months, until the next open-enrollment period, a short-term policy may be just what they’re looking for These policies usually last between 1 and 11 months  and are not regulated under Obamacare. Because of this, they don’t offer the same level of benefits that drive up costs for conventional insurance, meaning they are typically much less expensive. Deductibles are available that are higher than what is allowed with Obamacare-compliant health insurance, leading to further savings.

Short-term policies can typically be renewed at the end of the policy (technically it isn’t a renewal, it’s simply purchasing a brand new policy, which means it won’t cover any conditions that occurred under the previous short-term policy). This shouldn’t be a problem assuming that someone is simply trying to obtain insurance coverage to fill the period until the next open-enrollment occurs.

Alternative insurance products. While not as comprehensive as conventional health insurance, a sharing ministry, or short-term insurance, there are other insurance products that will provide lump-sum payments if you are diagnosed with a major illness like cancer, or have a heart attack or stroke, or have another medical event. These include fixed-benefit, critical illness, accident insurance, and even some life insurance policies. They cost a fraction of what health insurance costs, and by giving you cash directly you aren’t locked in to any particular provider network.

People might also look at what it would take to qualify for one of the ‘life events’ that allows the purchase of a health insurance policy outside of the open enrollment period. While getting married just to get insurance probably isn’t a very good idea, it may be that you live and work in an area where a short move across state lines will allow you to buy insurance without having to uproot yourself from your job, family, and friends.

And of course, as regular readers of The Self-Pay Patient blog know, not having health insurance or even alternative types of coverage is not a complete barrier to getting affordable care. There are numerous ways to get affordable health care and pay bills if a major medical need arises while uninsured, such as medical tourism, medical bill negotiators, patient assistance programs offered by nearly every pharmaceutical company, and several other options.  

It’s unfortunate that Obamacare only allows people to make such an important decision during a limited time frame, but that is how things will work going forward. If for some reason you find yourself in a situation where you missed the open enrollment deadline but still want health insurance or at least some sort of coverage, you do have options that will get you through until the next open enrollment period and perhaps beyond.

$6 Billion Went Missing...


(First column, 10th story, link)

---

Related stories:

Hillary: Partisanship taking US backwards...
Struggles to list accomplishments during tenure as Sec of State...

I didn't really pay all that much attention to the Supreme Court's election speech case yesterday.   But as I learn the reasoning that is driving the dissent by the four Justices on the Left, I am left deeply worried about the future of speech rights.

I really haven't put much time in understanding how Progressives justify strong speech protections for non-political activity (e.g. pornography) while eschewing them for political speech (in the form of multiple types of limits on the amount and timing of speech one is allowed prior to an election).  Justice Breyer, in writing for the minority in in McCutcheon, lays out what I suppose is the Progressive position.

First up, here is David Bernstein

But how can liberals, who so expansively interpret other constitutional provisions, narrow the First Amendment so that campaign finance no longer gets protection?

Justice Breyer’s dissent today shows the way, as he revives the old Progressive conception of freedom of speech as serving instrumental purposes (which he calls “First Amendment interests”), rather than protecting individual rights or reining in potential government abuses.  And once we identify those “First Amendment interests,” we must limit freedom of speech to ensure that they are advanced.

Thus, Justice Breyer, writes, “Consider at least one reason why the First Amendment protects political speech. Speech does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, political communication seeks to secure government action. A politically oriented ‘marketplace of ideas’ seeks to form a public opinion that can and will influence elected representatives.”  Just to make sure he’s not being too subtle, Breyer goes back to the source, Justice Brandeis, citing his opinion in Whitney for the proposition that freedom of speech is protected because it’s ”essential to effective democracy.”

Further showing off his affinity for the Progressive statism of a century ago (noted by Josh Blackman and me here), Breyer turns constitutional history on its head, by declaring that the purpose of the First Amendment was not to prevent government abuses, but to ensure ”public opinion could be channeled into effective governmental action.”  ...

Breyer adds that “corruption,” by which he means individuals engaging in too much freedom of speech via campaign donations, ”derails the essential speech-to-government-action tie. Where enough money calls the tune, the general public will not be heard. Insofar as corruption cuts the link between political thought and political action, a free marketplace of political ideas loses its point.”

This strikes me as both tortured and dangerous.  Once one posits that that there is some ill-defined, un-measurable value like "promotion of positive government action" can be balanced against free speech, then the government gets a nearly unlimited ability to limit speech.

James Taranto also highlights parts of the decision

In making the case for the constitutionality of restrictions on campaign contributions, Breyer advances an instrumental view of the First Amendment. He quotes Justice Louis Brandeis, who in 1927 "wrote that the First Amendment's protection of speech was 'essential to effective democracy,' " and Brandeis's contemporary Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who in 1931 argued that " 'a fundamental principle of our constitutional system' is the 'maintenance of the opportunity for free political discussion to the end that government may be responsive to the will of the people" (emphasis Breyer's).

After citing Jean-Jacques Rousseau's (!) views on the shortcomings of representative democracy, Breyer quotes James Wilson, one of the Founding Fathers, who argued in a 1792 commentary that the First Amendment's purpose was to establish a "chain of communication between the people, and those, to whom they have committed the exercise of the powers of government." Again quoting Wilson, Breyer elaborates: "This 'chain' would establish the necessary 'communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments' between the people and their representatives, so that public opinion could be channeled into effective governmental action."

And here's how Breyer sums it all up: "Accordingly, the First Amendment advances not only the individual's right to engage in political speech, but also the public's interest in preserving a democratic order in which collective speech matters."

What is democratic "order"?  What the hell is "collective" speech?  This is the kind of thing I would expect dictators-masquerading-as-elected-officials to spout as an excuse for suppressing dissent.  After all, doesn't dissent interfere with order?  How can we have collective speech when there are these folks out there disagreeing so much?   Again from Taranto:

It's important to note that when Breyer refers to "collective" rights, what he does not have in mind is individuals exercising their rights by voluntarily collecting themselves into organizations. In fact, the prevailing left-liberal view, most notably with respect to Citizens United v. FEC (2010), is that collections of individuals, at least when they take corporate form, have (or should have) no rights.

The only "collective" that matters to Breyer is the one from which you cannot opt out except by the extreme measure of renouncing your citizenship: "the people" or "the public" as a whole. In Breyer's view, the purpose of the First Amendment is to see that (in Chief Justice Hughes's words) "the will of the people" is done. Individual rights are but a means to that end. To the extent they frustrate it, they ought to be curtailed. You will be assimilated.

POLL: 75% Believe Politicians Corrupted; 70% Use Political Power to Hurt Enemies...


(Second column, 12th story, link)

---

Walter Olson

An extraordinary and disturbing story just out from the Indianapolis Star/USA Today: 

WALDRON, Ind. — FBI agents Wednesday seized “thousands” of cultural artifacts, including American Indian items, from the private collection of a 91-year-old man who had acquired them over the past eight decades.

An FBI command vehicle and several tents were spotted at the property in rural Waldron, about 35 miles southeast of Indianapolis.

The Rush County man, Don Miller, has not been arrested or charged.

So if the owner hasn’t been arrested or charged, what’s the basis of the raid? 

Robert A. Jones, special agent in charge of the Indianapolis FBI office, would not say at a news conference specifically why the investigation was initiated, but he did say the FBI had information about Miller’s collection and acted on it by deploying its art crime team.

FBI agents are working with art experts and museum curators, and neither they nor Jones would describe a single artifact involved in the investigation, but it is a massive collection. Jones added that cataloging of all of the items found will take longer than “weeks or months.”…

The aim of the investigation is to determine what each artifact is, where it came from and how Miller obtained it, Jones said, to determine whether some of the items might be illegal to possess privately.

Jones acknowledged that Miller might have acquired some of the items before the passage of U.S. laws or treaties prohibited their sale or purchase.

Might be illegal. Or might have been acquired lawfully. They’re not saying! But to satisfy its curiosity the government gets to seize everything and sort through at its leisure over longer than “weeks or months.” 

It doesn’t sound as if the artifacts were in some sort of immediate danger:

In addition to American Indian objects, the collection includes items from China, Russia, Peru, Haiti, Australia and New Guinea, he said. …

The objects were not stored to museum standards, Jones said, but it was apparent Miller had made an effort to maintain them well.

I’ve written previously, elsewhere and in this space, about 

the rise of a new “antiquities law” in which museums and private collectors have come under legal pressures to hand over (“repatriate”) ancient artifacts and archaeological finds to governments, Indian tribes and other officially constituted bodies, even when those artifacts have been in legitimate collector hands for 100 or more years with no hint of force or fraud.

Further regulatory regimes covering exotic and endangered animal and plant material make it dangerous to let the feds anywhere near your high-end guitar or other wooden artifact, and will soon make it unlawful to sell or move across state lines your family’s antique ivory-keyed piano (more here).

P.S. Coverage at broadcaster WISH-TV makes the SWAT-like federal occupation of Don and Sandra Miller’s property (an FBI “command center” and “massive tents” now surround the family’s home) seem even more appalling. Locally famous for his collecting, Miller has been anything but secretive about his holdings, which were featured in a four-part series in a local newspaper. 

So now that the Turkish incumbents have been re-elected, the government will allow Twitter to be turned back on in the country.

I think that the vast, vast majority of Americans would agree that this turning off of a communications vehicle several weeks before an election was a pretty transparent dodge to protect incumbent politicians, and that most of us would oppose such steps -- even be outraged by them.

So why the hell was McCain-Feingold's ban on 3rd party ad-based communications 60 days prior to an election any different?   These two steps seem absolutely identical to me, but my guess is most everyone agrees the Turkish actions were bad but the Citizens United decision that overturned the McCain-Feingold restrictions was met with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

For years, experts have known that in mild to moderate cases of depression exercise is as effective (or more effective) a treatment as prescription drugs. Yet, here we are in 2014, with still climbing obesity rates and higher than ever numbers of people taking anti-depressants – a 400% jump in the last 20 years.  This past week, exercise as medical therapy got another round of press after The Atlantic highlighted the issue in their thought provoking feature “For Depression, Prescribing Exercise Before Medication.” Let me add, however, that we aren’t just missing the boat in terms of depression therapy. Research has shown time and again that exercise offers just as good if not better results for an array of medical conditions. I might be preaching to the choir with the general theme, but let’s go beyond the basic assumptions and home in on the critical underlying messages reflecting why exercise isn’t just the safest and often most effective choice but why it so often remains the least accessed therapy.

Yes, the whole picture is profoundly intuitive to any Primal type (or maybe anyone not sold on the pharmaceutical solution to living). Isn’t it a funny, head-scratching coincidence that basic exercise can prevent – and treat – psychological and physical decline? Who would’ve thought that movement was useful to our bodies – that offering our physical forms the activity they were designed to perform for eons would confer some actual benefit? Still, the actual results themselves are fun if not impressive to read. Consider this…

• Regular exercise resulted in a 30% remission rate for those with depression who didn’t respond to SSRI medication.
• Study participants with heart disease who exercised had the same risk of dying as those who took popular drugs such as statins, antiplatelet drugs or ACE Inhibitors.
• Research subjects with prediabetes who took the array of common prescription medications had the same mortality risk as those who simply exercised.
• Among study subjects who had experienced stroke, those who exercised had a significantly lower mortality risk than those who took medications such as anticoagulants and antiplatelets.

On the flip side of this coin, of course, are the negatives. We’ve established that exercise confers physical, cognitive and emotional advantages for the prevention and/or treatment of many medical conditions. Add to this equation the question of drawbacks. Does exercise have disadvantages? In all fairness, your hair gets messed up. You’ll likely sweat. You perhaps need to take an extra shower or time the day’s toilette to match your workout schedule. You need to buy a pair of shoes (but then again you can just go barefoot). You’ll need to invest a little time for heavier workouts but perhaps can try to get some of the low level movement in while using a handy-dandy treadmill desk (or, more old school, work a job with heavy manual labor or lots of activity). Then we come upon the whole inertia argument, but in response there are even effective exercise options for the motivationally challenged.

While I’m not trying to minimize the nuisance of smelly armpits or losing an hour on the sofa, let’s take a look now at the potential downsides of pharmaceutical solutions.

• Side Effects for SSRIs: gastrointestinal disturbances, anxiety, agitation, insomnia, sleep disturbance, weight gain, sexual dysfunction
• Side Effects for Statins: memory loss, forgetfulness, confusion, muscle damage, increased risk of diabetes, liver injury
• Side Effects for Anti-coagulants: excessive bleeding, severe bruising, bloody urine or stool, headache, back pain, chest pain, difficulty breathing
• Side Effects for ACE-inhibitors: dizziness, headache, fatigue, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal problems, diarrhea, numbness, fever, joint pain
• Side Effects for Beta-blockers: diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, rash, blurred vision, muscle cramps, fatigue, headache, depression, confusion, dizziness, sexual dysfunction, low or high blood glucose

The final kicker? A study out just last month showed that more than 20% of older adults being treated for multiple medical conditions are prescribed medications that worsen the symptoms of another condition. In other words, their medications work at odds or in “therapeutic competition” with each other. The more we dig ourselves into the pharmaceutical hole, it appears, the worse (and more ironic) it all gets.

Knowing all of this, why does the obvious solution feel so impossible? Why won’t people accept exercise as a genuine medical option? Why do we tend to go with a pill (at times, an awfully expensive one) rather than a simple, natural behavior change? Why are we individually invested in this choice? Why are we as a culture – or medical establishment – so invested in this approach?

We’ll spend billions of dollars researching which gene “lights up” or which protein levels rise all in the name of better understanding the physiological mechanisms of disease while the solution itself is staring us in the face. Let me back up for a moment and suggest that I’m not arguing that exercise covers any and all medical need. I’m not saying it has the absolute power to cure or prevent any particular person from developing illness in his/her lifetime. Our physiology is inherently complex. People should avail themselves of the broad medical options that allow them to lead the fullest and healthiest lives possible. That said, there’s rarely an instance in which lifestyle choices can’t make a powerful difference either unto themselves or in conjunction with conventional or complementary medical treatments.

The million dollar question in all this, of course, is how do we get people to accept exercise as a treatment? How do we convince doctors to literally prescribe exercise (understanding, of course, that some already do)? How can patients be convinced to avail themselves of the safest, perhaps most effective treatment option? The Atlantic feature chose to address this question from the perspective of psychiatrists. Their answer? To treat it “like real medicine.” For one psychiatrist interviewed, that means addressing it in his appointments with patients as he would a prescription for medication, discussing the details of studies that support the effectiveness of exercise, talking about effective “doses” and intensity levels, emphasizing the importance of consistency by comparing it to a diabetic’s occasional versus regular use of insulin.

It’s a provocative thought. What if doctors talked about exercise as medicine in their sessions? Would it be convincing to the majority of people who walk through their doors? (Would it win you over?) The results, according to doctors in The Atlantic piece, seem mixed. The most difficult factor is the obvious elephant in the living room – that the pill is there ready to be prescribed, whether it’s called “a last resort” or not. Nonetheless, can the rhetoric sway at least some people to take exercise to heart? Will homing in on the technical details of dosage and variety get people to take the usually friendly advice as medical law – and personal treatment plan?

There’s an interesting wrinkle to this that I don’t often see discussed with how we tend to downplay the value of lifestyle interventions. Research into the placebo effect demonstrates that the more costly we believe a certain placebo “medication” is, the higher we rate its “effectiveness” in treating our symptoms. The value we attach to a treatment influences the actual results we think we experience.

This point, in turn, brings up another dimension. While we (rightly) exalt the everyday accessibility of exercise, are we simultaneously downgrading its appeal to those who need it most? Let’s just brainstorm for a minute. What would happen if doctors could prescribe personal training and/or fitness center/class use as they do physical therapy? People often skip physical therapy or bow out before they’ve met their goals, but generally people take advantage of it when a doctor orders it. Would it boost people’s buy-in if we promoted general fitness training and support the same way? Are we kidding ourselves to think we can put the onus solely on the individual when the system so clearly supports the opposite choices?

There’s an interesting cultural dichotomy at work here. I think a lot of ordinary people would bristle at the suggestion that they need a trainer or that this person’s service should cost them in treating their illness. Yet, they think nothing of spending as much or considerably more on medications than they would the guidance (and motivation) of a personal trainer. Simultaneously, there’s an odd fascination with the most extreme representation of the trainer figure as millions watch Jillian Michaels et al. every week in the disturbing entertainment of televised panopticon meets “fat camp.” We’re a confounding, nonsensical populace (collectively speaking)….

On the other end of the “medical speak,” when prescribing exercise is the self-care justification. You deserve to take care of yourself. You deserve to thrive. You deserve to not have to take insulin every day or deal with the complications of statins. Is this line of reasoning any more convincing for people than dosing out activity according to medical study suggestion? My own sense is it depends on the patient.

Either way, it always intrigues me how put out we are by our bodies’ needs. Are we naturally this lazy, or has the culture just gotten to us that we feel so put upon having to exercise ourselves – having to make the effort to pick up our 100 lb gym shoes and walk out that 1000 lb front door to go for a walk? That hour we have to “waste” on fitness could’ve been used for three dozen other, more pressing needs. Why not see a pill as the ultimate “easy button” that allows us to have it all. It’s hard to kick the collective faith in that assumption even if the research suggests a much different picture. Where does medical logic fit in a modern mindset? It’s hard to tell, but the simple Primal perspective as always holds – that we naturally live through our bodies and have the ability to physically and psychologically thrive when we offer ourselves the age-old inputs our genetic blueprints anticipate. Maybe Primal logic’s time has come.

Thanks for reading today, everyone. What thoughts does all this raise for you? Is there any clarity or direction to be found in how to prescribe movement over medicine?

(Don Boudreaux)

Here’s a letter to Pacific Standard:

Twenty-seven year old Johnie L. Jones is the first person profiled in your “Top 30 Thinkers Under 30” (April 1).  According to your description, he is among an elite few “social-science wunderkinds,” each of whom boasts a “brawny brain” and “jaw-droppingly impressive” ideas for “addressing society’s toughest challenges.”  And the challenge for Mr. Jones - as he describes it - is to “advance the mission of providing our country with healthy food options.”

Is Mr. Jones an innovative farmer staking his own funds on experiments to improve agricultural yields?  Is he an entrepreneur with a new business plan for reducing the costs of retailing food in poor neighborhoods?  Is he an agronomist testing new varieties of plant seeds that might grow abundantly in poor soil?  Nope.  Nothing like that.  Mr. Jones is a government bureaucrat who aspires to be elected to Congress.  Yawn.

Rather than creatively figuring out how to spend his own money, or money voluntarily entrusted to him, on ways to improve the life of Paul, Mr. Jones’s only idea is the depressingly primitive one of forcing Peter to spend money on ways to improve the life of Paul (or, more accurately, on ways that Mr. Jones merely fancies​ will improve the life of Paul).

So while Mr. Jones might have admirable intentions, there’s nothing remotely new or “brainy” or ”jaw-droppingly impressive” about his ideas.  Quite the opposite.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA  22030

“I want power to order people about!” is an idea neither new nor noble.

Bomber blows self up after forgetting to set watch forward for Daylight Saving Time...


(Third column, 9th story, link)

---

Last week’s Definitive Guide to Resistant Starch garnered a lot of attention. While the article covered a lot of ground, many of you had lingering questions and concerns about the topic: What is and isn’t resistant starch? How much resistant starch should I be eating? Why is resistant starch good for me? What is resistant starch again?

I don’t blame you; it’s a confusing one that appears, on first glance, to challenge some of the fundamental Primal ideas about food and nutrition.

Today, I’m going to answer as many questions from last week as I can. Hopefully it clears up most of the bigger questions.

Let’s get right to it:

Do the benefits of RS outweigh the negatives of rice, legumes, potatoes, etc.?

Great question.

Rice and potatoes, yes. I’ve already spoken on both those subjects in previous posts, and my basic conclusion is that both rice and potatoes are relatively toxin-free sources of starch that an insulin-sensitive, sufficiently-active individual can likely consume in moderation without ill effect. For both foods, the negative effects come from the carb load they represent, which is simply too high for some people. But by cooking and cooling them, you reduce the carb load, reduce the glucose response, and improve your insulin sensitivity. In essence, any “negatives” are mitigated by the emphasis on resistant starch. If you have trouble with glucose tolerance, and you’re looking to drop weight, you should still exercise caution with these foods and heed the Carb Curve, but preparing them in a way that increases the RS content will only make them less problematic.

One note: potatoes are iffy for people with nightshade intolerance. So there’s that to consider.

Legumes, I’m not sure. I strongly suspect that the health benefits ascribed to legumes are solely due to the prebiotic, RS effects, which interest me but are not the sole province of the legume. But the fact remains that many people simply don’t tolerate legumes very well. It could be that some of the tolerance issues stem from disrupted gut flora and introducing RS will ameliorate your troubles, but who knows? We’re still learning a lot. In the meantime, I’m not too interested in soaking beans. There’s nothing essential about them, so long as we’re getting RS from other sources.

I’m a little confused…how does one go about adding RS in whole food form without doubling or tripling their normal daily carb intake? I can’t see eating 1-2 green bananas and a couple raw potatoes each day, in addition to normal amounts of carbs from veggies and fruit (I usually have one serving of fruit a day– berries, if possible) and still staying under 100-150 carbs. Please, enlighten me!

Believe it or not, you can easily eat green bananas without tripling your digestible carb intake. And that’s the key: you don’t digest these carbs, your gut flora do. An average large banana contains a hair over 30 grams of carbohydrate. If it’s green and totally unripe, the majority of that carbohydrate will be resistant starch that your body does not digest into glucose.

You’ll know you’re getting the good stuff when the banana is crispy and leaves a chalky aftertaste in your mouth. Pleasant, I know. But added to a smoothie, it’s actually quite nice. In fact, here’s a recipe I’ve been playing around with:

• Cup of milk (coconut, almond, cow, goat, etc)
• Large green banana, peeled and sliced
• Quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract
• Quarter teaspoon of cinnamon
• Half teaspoon of honey (may be unnecessary depending on the sweetness of your bananas)

I assume that the time of day you take RS does not matter?

It shouldn’t. Once you’ve established a healthy population of butyrate-producing gut bugs, they don’t need to be fed at a certain time every day. They’re quite malleable and adaptive, and they’ll also begin feeding on other fermentable fibers in your foods.

What is the reason to supplement RS instead of getting it from food? How much RS is “good enough” and how much real food would meet that amount?

Supplemental RS is just easier, and most of the research in support of it has used supplemental RS-rich powders – so we know it works. But real food probably works even better since it comes with vitamins, minerals, and polyphenols (which have prebiotic effects in their own right), and it most closely resembles the way our early ancestors consumed RS.

Let’s see. If you can work your way up to between 30 and 40 grams of RS, whether from food or from powders, you’ll be in a good place. That’s the dose used in much of the research, and it’s where butyrate production is maximized.

What does that look like in food form?

600 grams of baked, then cooled, potato has around 25 grams. You can even lightly heat the potato after it’s been cooled and retain the RS.

1 large (8 inch) green, fully unripe banana has somewhere between 20-25 grams. A large green plantain has about 50 grams. Not the most palatable, but it’s doable, especially if you slice into discs and dehydrate into chips. A smoothie masks it well, too.

Any idea if heating the potato starch (like using it as a thickening agent in soups/stews) negates its RS function?

Yes, the RS will be completely negated. Sorry. It does make a good thickener, though.

Cooked and cooled rice – as in sushi? Or does the vinegar somehow negate the benefit of the resistant starch?

Yes, cold sushi rice will contain RS. Good sushi restaurants generally keep their rice at room temperature, though, so I’m not sure you’ll get the retrograde RS effect unless you go for grocery store deli case sushi. And hey, I actually like that stuff, so there’s no shame in eating it. Just avoid gas station sushi if you know what’s good for you.

Vinegar shouldn’t affect it either way. Vinegar does reduce the blood glucose response when consumed with carb-rich foods, so it might be a nice supplement in its own right if that’s an effect you’re after.

So that pizza crust recipe has mostly tapioca starch/flour (same) in it. (Also, not Potato Starch–potato flour) If I make the crusts and freeze them and then reheat and eat, would the RS still be usable? Same as the potatoes and rice I would think. So perhaps that is a go on the RS.

I don’t think it works like that. For retrograde RS to form, it has to be in its whole form – potatoes, not potato starch; cassava, not tapioca starch; rice, not rice flour.

Question about “cooked and cooled” – what the heck does that mean? So, I cook it, and cool it. Does that mean I have to eat it cold to get the resistant starch? If I zap my bowl of bean soup and rice that came out of the fridge, when does it lose the resistance to digestion?

Retrograded RS (cooked and cooled) is maintained during subsequent heating. You can even heat it and cool it once again to create even more RS. So you don’t have to eat it cold, though I would advise against re-heating a cooked and cooled RS source into oblivion. Keep the heat relatively low.

Should the carbohydrates from resistant starches (for example, a cooked and cooled potato) still be counted in daily consumption if it is not digested?

Some of it should still be counted, because not all – or even most – of the starch is resistant. Most of it is good old digestible glucose. But you can subtract the 4-5 grams of RS from the 21 grams total starch in every 100 grams of cooked and cooled potato. Not bad, eh?

And remember, it’s not that the 4-5 grams become inert, useless matter passing through your body. They are bioactive, just not with the biology of the host. They turn into fatty acids that fuel your colon and improve your ability to tolerate the digestible glucose you consumed along with them.

Is just eating Pistachio’s (or other seeds) enough RS to do the trick?

Probably not. To hit the 30-40 grams of resistant starch that maximizes benefits in most trials with pistachios would require a lot – of money, of calories, of shelling. 100 grams of roasted pistachios has around 3.5 grams of RS. That may be in the shell, and raw pistachios may have more, but either way it’s not a huge amount. Not bad, not great. The beauty of the less calorically dense RS sources is that they allow a more varied diet. It’s nothing to add a couple tablespoons of potato starch to your diet.

That said, pistachios are potent prebiotics. One recent study found that they increased butyrate-producing bacteria in the colon, outperforming almonds. You should definitely eat pistachios, but I think you should also eat other more concentrated sources of RS.

That’s the beauty of it all: it’s not a competition! We can eat pistachios and other things at the same time without disrupting the effectiveness of either.

Question: would hummus fit the bill as cooked & cooled legumes?

Yes, hummus seems to qualify even though it’s not Primal. According to the PDF from last week’s post, 100 grams of hummus has 4.1 grams of RS. Hummus made from soaked chickpeas will have more than hummus made from canned chickpeas, however.

What would be the best way to gradually incorporate RS into the diet for a person that has gut inflammation with chronic bloating?

You need probiotics. And in your case, I doubt yogurt or even kefir will be sufficient. Try something soil-based, as in the same types of probiotic organisms that Grok was getting on a regular basis simply from living. These are likely the microbes to which our guts are evolutionarily accustomed.

Primal Flora works (worked for me with RS!); it provides a high dose of two specific soil-based strains that have been shown to be helpful in clinical trials. You could also go more broad-spectrum, with more soil-based strains but lower concentrations.

Start really, really, really small with the RS. If you’re going with the unmodified potato starch, start with 1/4 to 1/2 a teaspoon. It will look like almost nothing. Increase it by 1/4 tsp slowly as comfort allows.

If that doesn’t work – but I imagine it would – and your gut is really compromised, I suggest trying Dr. BG’s gut healing protocol. It involves probiotics, prebiotics, and a number of other, more drastic but potentially necessary steps. The good doc is a bit wild, but in a good way. Just read her stuff at least twice and you’ll figure it out. Reading it out loud seems to help, too. She certainly has a way with language!

Does this mean I can start eating sushi and potato salad??!

Well, you can choose to eat anything you want, of course. That’s never changed. What this does indicate is that those foods, when cooled, have unique effects, different than if you were to eat a bowl of hot steamed rice or a large baked potato fresh from the oven.

The preponderance of evidence suggests that the potato salad and the cold sushi rice will result in a lower blood glucose response and feed the helpful critters in your gut – both good things. But before you go digging into that store bought potato salad on a regular basis, consider avoiding the seed oils and making your own. I’m a fan of lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and fresh herbs, myself. I can rarely be bothered to make my own mayo, although that’s also a good option.

Anyone have a recipe using raw potato starch that can be easily incorporated into a primal/paleo diet (meat, eggs, veges, occasional fruit)? I don’t do smoothies, nor do I do fruit juice or yogurt.

Aside from smoothies, sparkling water is the best vehicle I’ve found for potato starch. The bubbles seem to enhance the dispersal of potato starch granules into the medium, even without a blender. Just a fork or even a quick stir with your index finger is enough to get it completely mixed in.

So what to use? Bob’s Red Mill Potato Starch or Bob’s Red Mill Tapioca Flour?

Potato starch seems to be the most reliable way. From reading the comment sections on blogs and posts on various forums, the digestibility of tapioca starch/flour varies from person to person. Many people seem to get elevated blood sugar after taking a tablespoon or two of the tapioca, whereas potato starch is almost invariably indigestible.

Can the potatoes be fried in lard and then cooled? I would rather try a yummy food source then a powder.

A few weeks back, I described my method for foolproof, easy crispy root vegetables. You pre-bake them and store in the fridge. This increases the RS content of the potato. When you’re ready to fry them, simply peel the skin, cut them up into the desired shape (cube, fry, etc), and lightly pan fry them in the fat of your choice. Lard is a great option. Since they’re already cooked, you don’t need a lot of heat or a lengthy cooking time, and the RS is preserved.

If we’re taking probiotics without RS as well – what is happening? The bacteria in the probiotics are starving? But don’t they eat other stuff besides RS? Sorry, I know I sound like a boob, but – I’m still a little confused.

No, the probiotics can still help, by partial colonization. But for the best results, you’ll want to provide food so that the probiotics have more lasting power and can hitch a ride into the colon where they do the most good. Feed the animals; they aren’t bears and it’s not Yellowstone! It can be resistant starch and/or any other prebiotic fiber. The point is to feed them stuff they can eat, thrive on, and ride on.

RS fits the bill.

One more question – how does this need for RS fit into the Grok-lore? What did our Paleo ancestors do that we aren’t doing?

As I’ve written before, wild tubers, roots, and other underground storage organs are frequently highly fibrous with lots of indigestible starch. That’s what Grok would have encountered, not the smooth, starchy goodness of a Russet potato, which had to be selected for by the experienced hands of agrarian tuber breeders.

We can’t all eat dirt-encrusted cattails rich in resistant starch, but we can approximate the effects with modern tools. Taking soil-based probiotics and emphasizing preparation methods that maximize resistant starch content is, by all accounts, an extremely Primal and biologically-appropriate way to emulate one important aspect of our evolutionary metabolic environment.

Any thoughts on the resistant starch found in Quest Bars? Quest Bars contain isomalto-oligosaccharides. The makers claim this is a resistant starch.

It’s not a resistant starch per se, but rather a prebiotic fermentable fiber. Studies indicate that while its consumption does improve constipation and increase production of the short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) propionate and acetate, it does not increase production of the most beneficial SCFA, butyrate.

Is consuming RS the only way to feed our gut?

No, definitely not. Other prebiotic substances matter, like various plant fibers (inulin, pectin), dark chocolate, and even connective tissue (yes, animal fiber - the crunchy gristle and cartilage too many people discard). With a Primal eating plan rich in plants and whole animals (including bones and broth), you should be getting plenty. But resistant starch is an important, unique prebiotic that makes feeding our gut a whole lot easier and more effective.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading!

An over a century-old record falls. The average temperature for December 2013 to March 2014 period in  Chicago was only 22.0°F, 10 degrees below freezing, beating the old record set in the winter of 1903-04. It even beat the harsh … Continue reading →

Throughout the whole Ed Snowden ordeal, defenders of the NSA and the surveillance state keep insisting that revealing even the slightest details of the NSA's capabilities help our enemies "win" because they'll learn how to avoid the surveillance. As such, they've been wringing their hands about how any revelation of what the NSA is up to will cause immense damage. Just recently, the NSA pressed hard on the Washington Post not to reveal the name of the country where the NSA is currently recording every single phone call. The Washington Post agreed to withhold this information -- a decision that some have challenged.

However, barely a week later, in a glowing profile by the LA Times of now-retired NSA boss Keith Alexander, his former number two guy at the NSA, Chris Inglis, who also just retired, breezily admits to the depth of the NSA's surveillance capabilities in Iraq, information that prior to this had not been public:

In Iraq, for example, the National Security Agency went from intercepting only about half of enemy signals and taking hours to process them to being able to collect, sort and make available every Iraqi email, text message and phone-location signal in real time, said John "Chris" Inglis, who recently retired as the NSA's top civilian.

The entire article is a weak (and grossly transparent) attempt to recast General Keith Alexander's legacy -- and thus it seems that Inglis, Alexander and the NSA have no problem at all revealing the details of its capabilities in Iraq when the entire purpose in doing so is an attempt to show how good Alexander was for the NSA. Rest assured, however, had the same bit of information come out from one of the reporters with access to the Snowden documents, the NSA and all its defenders would be screaming as loud as possible about how the publication of such information would cost lives and create immense damage to American interests while aiding our enemies. Yet, apparently, it's all fine and dandy to reveal such information... when it's part of the effort to canonize the NSA retired leader.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story