Saturday, May 16, 2009

Lemon Curd Bars, Gary Taubes, and the Liberation Diet

I had a lot of foodie fun this weekend. This morning I had the pleasure of seeing Gary Taubes give a lecture on his book Good Calories Bad Calories and even got to meet him for a minute afterwards and get my book signed and a quick answer to a question. I asked him if he ever thought low-carb had a prayer of gaining mainstream acceptance and he said that if anything he foresees a cognitively dissonant compromise - that carbs are bad but that fat (especially saturated fat) is also bad.


Gary Taubes speaking.

After the Taubes breakfast my sister and I headed off to another lecture given by a book author, The Liberation Diet. by Kevin Brown. He was a pretty engaging speaker and spoke out very strongly against all forms of modern industrialized food. I spoke with him a little before and after his presentation and I may have an opportunity to work with some of his clients by helping them change their diets by coming to their homes and cooking for them! I'm pretty excited by this idea and I hope it pans out.

The Liberation Diet meeting was a potluck and the dish I brought was these Lemon Curd Bars which I found over at The Nourishing Gourmet. If you use coconut oil instead of butter, these bars make a great occasional primal treat. I would have a picture for you but the pan got devoured pretty quickly; rest assured they looked exactly like the original and tasted amazing! The lemon curd is simple, just five ingredients, but beyond delicious. Even if you don't make the nut bars to go underneath, the curd is really something special.

7 comments:

Kimi Harris said...

So glad that you enjoyed the lemon curd bars! They are a favorite around here too. :-)

Thanks for the link!

Anonymous said...

Wow. I'm pretty impressed that you had the opportunity to hear Gary Taubes speak. Not sure how far you are through the book, but for me it was a moderately difficult read, but worthwhile.

I lost track of all of the various studies, but he does effectively get his point across regarding his a) belief in proper nutrition and b) the misinformation provided by the USDA.

BTW - I think people would have been JUST as impressed with a picture of GT as they would with the lemon curd bars.

Elizabeth said...

Kimi - Thanks for visiting!

Andy - I read GCBC back when it came out but it's so dense it's hard to take it all in in one go. I'm trying to reread it now since I got to hear him talk. If you want to hear a rough approximation of the talk I heard, search for the webcast of the lecture he gave at Berkley. It's really long (an hour and a half I think) but it's really good. And you are completely right about the picture! I put one up as soon as I saw your comment. :)

Cyndereli said...

Great to meet you today. I LOVED those lemon curd bars. That recipe is a keeper.

Jenny @ Nourished Kitchen said...

Oooh I'm jealous that you got a chance to see Gary Taubes! I'm in the process of reading GCBC for the first time and it's so informative - just so much to take in.

Anonymous said...

Elizabth, keep at the book. I found after the first 5 chapters, it sped up in terms of ease of reading. After chapter 5, I thought it was much more pertinent to today's choices.

Don't know if you subscribe to any podcasts, but Jimmy Moore of Livin la Vida Low Carb (http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/) had Gary Taubes on back in January. I believe he answered your question stating that it is going to take a while for people to realize the USDA food pyramid is not the best nutrition model and that only through shouting from the rooftops will people ultimately get the message.

Anonymous said...

Here's another link posted by Jeff that is a good summary of the book:
http://www.dhslides.org/mgr/mgr060509f/f.htm