Slow and Low Is the Way to Go

By Kelley Herring

Want to live longer... enjoying drippingly-delicious meat?

It may sound too good to be true, but it's not. You simply need to be aware of three factors - quantity, quality, and preparation.

Quantity (eating too much meat) and quality (eating the wrong kind of meat - i.e., "conventionally" raised meat, packed with hormones and pesticides and rich in inflammatory omega-6 fats) are the first two issues.

These are easy to fix by eating smaller portions and choosing only grass-fed meat.

But there's a third, much-overlooked, issue you need to address: the way you prepare your meat. Problem is, the most popular ways of cooking meat - grilling and broiling - are recipes for cellular damage and disease.

Here's why.

Cooking protein-rich foods at high temperatures - even for short periods of time - promotes the formation of cancer-causing heterocyclic amines (HCAs). But you can prevent this... by slow cooking!

Cooking your grass-fed meat in a slow cooker - at or below 212 degrees - creates negligible amounts of HCAs. Cooking "slow and low" also infuses your meat with wonderful flavor, a tender texture, and mouthwatering moisture.

In addition to using a slow cooker, you can make your meat safer by stewing or poaching. And be sure to add antioxidant-rich herbs and spices (especially turmeric and rosemary) to further reduce the risk of HCAs.

It's Good to Know: Are You Didaskaleinophobic?

You probably know about arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces). But did you know that those who suffer from didaskaleinophobia are afraid of going to school? (Don't let your kids find out this has been documented.)

Here are a few more less-common fears you may not be familiar with:

• Phasmophobia - fear of ghosts
• Enochlophobia - fear of crowds
• Iatrophobia - fear of doctors
• Pteronophobia - fear of being tickled with feathers (Okay, this one isn't so common.)
• Spheksophobia - fear of wasps

(Source: Schott's Original Miscellany)

Word to the Wise: Cogent

Something that's "cogent" (KOH-junt) - from the Latin for "to drive together" - is convincing, appealing to the mind or to reason.

Example (as used by Meg Wolitzer in Surrender, Dorothy): "One woman, Adrian Pomerantz, was so intelligent that the professors always lit up when Adrian spoke; her eloquent, cogent analyses forced them not to be lazy, not to repeat themselves."

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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2585, 02-06-09], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.