Followups and Updates: The Eloquence of Coincidence (OT)

• Yesterday's post made me realize that I am not giving my current food experiment a decent chance. I am cheating too much, so I don't get to find out if the WFPB plan actually makes you feel better. Thanks to John Gillooly for asking the question. I really need to redouble my commitment so that I get good data on it, with my statistically insignificant but personally very significant experimental sample of one.

One commenter said he eats nothing but meat and has never felt better. I should point out that it's really all about outcomes. "Keto" (ketosis) diets, under myriad guises, do make you lose weight. But the statistical outcomes are much worse—you greatly increase your chances of getting cancer or heart disease over the long run. As my brother says, life is like a roll of toilet paper—the closer you get to the end, the faster it runs out. The whole point of food-as-medicine, if you ask me, is not just living longer (though that too) but being healthier, more fit, and with fewer medical problems as you age.

Heart disease has been the leading killer of Americans since the great influenza epidemic of 1919 subsided. It's the leading killer of cardiologists, for Pete's sake. Kim Williams thinks that's because they keep up on cardiology papers but not nutrition papers. I have a friend who is slim and fit at age 94—he golfed less than his age last year, when he shot an 89. I'd rather be more like him than be morbidly obese and taking forty different medications and feeling awful all the time as my life runs down to, you know, the little cardboard tube.

• I tried to skewer the carmakers the other day for gouging their customers with overpriced options on cars expensive enough that they ought to  come from the factory loaded. So it was quite a coincidence that the newspaper this morning relayed the news that the two Boeing "Max" jets that went down in clear weather in recent months both lacked two safety features that Boeing provides on the model only as options.

A fun little story about coincidence. I do "believe" coincidences happen, of course—a great little essay that touches on it is Chapter 2 of Steven Pinker's book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. The chapter is called "Entro, Evo, Info" (entropy, evolution, information). Recommended, although nobody but me would buy a book for one chapter.

Even so, coincidence can certainly be eloquent sometimes. The other night at a meeting of my 12-step program, the topic was prayer. A recurrent suggestion of our program is to get down on your knees and pray every morning, regardless of whether you believe in prayer or not. A member said that his girlfriend had challenged him a few days earlier about not saying his prayers. He defended himself by arguing with her that he didn't need to, but then, he said, "ever since then, the topic of prayer has been coming up again and again, and each time it does I somehow find myself on my knees." Then he said, "I suppose it's just coincidence."

At that, another member quipped, "no such thing as coincidence," and just as he spoke, the first person accidentally knocked his empty coffee mug to the floor, and the handle broke. I chair the meeting, and the broken mug was right in front of me, so I hopped to my feet and picked it up the mug and the piece of broken handle for the guy. As I headed to the kitchen (we meet in a Parish Hall) to throw it away, I noticed that not all of the handle was there. As I headed back to the meeting room, I ran into the guy who had broken the mug, who was heading for the wastebasket himself. He held up the second piece of the broken mug handle, saying, "see what I mean? I mention getting on my knees in prayer, and one second later I'm on my knees again, looking for this under the couch."

• Here's how to bake a potato properly. After I learned this I realized I had never really tasted a baked potato before.

You need GEAR, of course:

You'll need a great big honkin' two-tined fork (I use this barbecuing fork) and an accurate digital meat thermometer. Scrub a Russet potato with a vegetable brush under running water and remove any eyes if you care to. Blot dry with paper towel, then poke the bejeebers out of it with the fork—I jab it 16 times for 32 separate holes! Don't be shy—it makes all the difference, and I'm amused to admit that yes, I've run the test (once a reviewer...). Coat lightly with olive oil. Set it right on the oven rack uncovered. Don't wrap it in foil—that's how you get a steamed potato, not a baked one. Set the oven on convection if it has it. Bake for as long as you need to to get the internal temperature of the potato to no less than 210°F (99°C). This might take longer and require a higher temperature than usual cookbook recommendations. You just have to take it out of the oven and take its temperature until you get the time and oven temperature down pat.

Separate the potato from the skin right out of the oven
and the skin will stay crispy and delicious

Once done, with a table fork, immediately make a row of holes in the top of the potato lengthwise and push the ends together, and empty out the skin. By separating the skin right out of the oven you keep it nice and crispy/chewy; if you let the potato cool in its skin, the skin will steam and become soggy and much less pleasant to eat. Then let everything cool to close to room temperature. This converts some of the starch to indigestible starch (very good for the lower reaches of your gut) and reduces the potato's glycemic index* (sometimes called the "insulin hit" or "glycemic load") considerably. You can either eat it cool as I prefer, or reheat it in the microwave—once the starch converts to indigestible starch via cooling it doesn't convert back if reheated, which is why cold potatoes in things like summer salads are better for you than hot boiled potatoes. Eat with nothing on it save maybe a little table salt. No butter, no sour cream, no nothing.

A baked potato prepared this way will be moist, delicious, and flavorful all by itself, without a trace of the dryness, graininess or hardness that baked potatoes are notorious for. Eat the folded skin like a steak, cutting it into chunks with a steak knife. It's the best part.

Mike

*The Glycemic Index (GI) is a relative ranking of carbohydrate in foods according to how they affect blood glucose levels. Carbohydrates with a low GI value (55 or less) are more slowly digested, absorbed and metabolised and cause a lower and slower rise in blood glucose and, therefore insulin levels." (Source: University of Sydney)

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Want to help?

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Dave Van de Mark: "I am looking forward to trying a potato baked just as you have instructed and eating it 'plain' too. As a boy, I literally made a 'soup' of 1/2 butter and 1/2 potato inside the skin and wolfed it all down—yeoww, I still want to do that but wish to live another week.  :-) You made no mention of baking temp—is 350 to 375 a good range?"

Mike replies: The key is to get the center of the potato to 210°F. For me it's 425 degrees for 1:10, but ovens differ....

Comments

[KeithB]

America's Test Kitchen likes the thermapen:
https://www.thermoworks.com/Thermapen-Mk4

Or its little brother, the thermopop.

You can also use the temperature probe in your oven to get your potato to the exact temperature you want without opening the oven door.

[MikeK]

I recall reading that pasta is similarly more healthy if left to cool and then reheated. Good news if you like leftovers.

[Jeff]

One restaurant in my area serves fabulous potato skins. I get them with no toppings.

[John Wilson]

When any country in North or South America makes top ten list for living the longest, then I might read a diet book, Until then I will just keep pushing myself away from the table, before I am filled.

[Daniel]

If you want to lose weight, exercise more than you take in.
Works for everyone.
It really is just that simple.
All the fancy diets and programs can't get around it. You exercise more, maybe cut back on intake and your weight goes down. Even if you don't cut back on food if you burn off more calories than you take in you lose weight, inches and tone up the muscles you have.

[Patrick Medd]

“"Here, eat a bit, sir," said he, resuming his former respectful tone as he unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked potatoes. "We had soup for dinner and the potatoes are grand!"

Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes seemed extremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat.

"Well, are they all right?" said the soldier with a smile. "You should do like this."

He took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato into two equal halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt on it from the rag, and handed it to Pierre.

"The potatoes are grand!" he said once more. "Eat some like that!"

Pierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better.“

From War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, book 4, part 1, chapter 12

My grandfather always referred to a baked potato as a Bezukhov in honour of this passage from War and Peace, and I think you’ll struggle to find a greater literary reference to a baked potato. Tolstoy has a quote for most occasions.

[c.d.embrey]

Delicious? Ah, no! I prefer healthier brown rice.

As a SoCal guy I've ate Mexican and Asian food all my life. I've been known to eat Vietnamese beef pho (a soup) for breakfast 8-) My favorite processed food is native America hominy (corn soaked in lye water). Grits (ground hominy), makes a good breakfast.

[c.d.embrey]

It's not the quantity of life, it's the quality of life. I was very surpried when I saw this in the L.A.Times I’d rather be dead than linger on in an old folks’ home https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-goldman-worse-than-death-20190310-story.html

I'm Do Not Resuscitate (DNR). I see no reason to die more than once. YMMV.

[Jeremy]

Ketosis is not an unhealthy state and is sustainable. I have been in nutritional ketosis for about 9 years now and in that time have increased my muscle mass. Newborn babies are in ketosis a good part of the time and they seem to do ok.

The biggest problem with ketosis is that most doctors, dieticians and lay people confuse ketosis with ketoacidosis. Ketoacidosis usually occurs in diabetics and is very bad.

As for the statistical outcomes being worse, like much of nutrition science, these are based on very poorly conducted epidemiological "studies" and are to all intents and purposes meaningless. For example, these studies are often based on Food Frequency Questionnaires which rely on the respondent recalling what they ate, sometimes years in the past. Can you accurately remember what you ate yesterday, let alone last week? Also, correlation does not equal causation. Just because someone ate meat is not necessarily why they got cancer. It could also be because of all the vegetables they ate along with the meat.

[I edited that part out. All I can say is that when I tried a ketosis diet--it was in the late '90s--few things have ever made me feel more horrible. I hated it. Never again <--for me. Again, not telling anyone else what to do. --Mike]

[Ned Bunnell]

Got to say, Mike, that’s the longest recipe for a baked potato I’ve ever read.

You also might want to clarify one item in this paragraph:
“Set the oven on convection if it has it. Bake for as long as you need to to get the internal temperature of the potato to no less than 210°F (99°C).”

What’s the oven temperature? :)

[JG]

So I just tried your method for making baked potatoes -- well, except I cooked mine on the grill because I hate to heat up the house but also so I could grill some sugar snap peas to go with them -- and they were indeed quite tasty.

So, thanks!

[Gary Bunton]

Mike, since you are becoming more interested in living longer, aren't we all, I would suggest picking up a copy of the book Younger Next Year it was on the N.Y. times bestseller list for some time, you would appreciate it I'm sure.

[Thomas Mc Cann]

Sacrilege
Use a micro wave

[Andy Webster]

Moving away from spuds for a moment, I think of coincidence as an iceberg - the ones we experience are but a tiny part of the whole. Yesterday I went into a shop where, just a few seconds earlier, my first ever girlfriend had been shopping. It was a nearly-coincidence, we didn't quite coincide and there must be many, many more of these than the observed type. I do want to 'believe' in coincidences but, depressingly, it's probably all down to statistics.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Some follow-up on your observation that "the newspaper this morning relayed the news that the two Boeing "Max" jets that went down in clear weather in recent months both lacked two safety features that Boeing provides on the model only as options."

Boeing is apparently making standard the one that warns when the two angle-of-attack sensors do not agree. The indicator that adds the current agreed reading of the angle of attack to the information already overwhelming the pilots will remain an option.

A correspondent claiming that foreign airlines that don't take all the FAA's and Boeing's rules and advisory circulars as seriously as the American carriers do (see Jim Fallows' Notes at The Atlantic) points out that American and Southwest had installed both options in all their 737 MAXes, while United did not, because "our pilots know how to fly this airplane."

[JOHN GILLOOLY]

Why not WFPB nutritional plan, follow it 80%. Doesn't that provide a more reasonable life plan that one can follow and not feel as though you are on or off the wagon? I feel like any of these methods that require strict adherence are just short-term fads in one's life. What people need is to genuinely change their lifestyle. Eating real food is obviously better. Eating processed food full of sugar is obviously bad.

[hugh crawford]

Old Weston darkroom thermometers can be used for cooking. Calibrate them by putting them in boiling water and note that assuming you are at sea level at normal barometric pressure for cooking purposes whatever the dial says is 100 Celsius or 212 Fahrenheit. The needle will have gone around the dial at least once.

I figured this out when I had to measure the temperature of a roasting turkey one thanksgiving when the stores were closed and all I had was film processing stuff that happened to be in the kitchen.