Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Food: African Beef Stew

Just realised I never posted this recipe, the peanuts are distinctly neolithic but the flavour is yummie. Occasionally... It's on the top of the cooker now!

Peter

African beef stew, serves 2, maybe 3...

ingredients:
1 lb diced beef
Tin tomatoes.
Medium carrot, sliced.
Medium onion, chopped.
50-75g butter, depends on how fatty the meat is.
50g peanut butter.
Bayleaf.
About 200ml water, to just cover meat.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Fresh root ginger, however much you like.
3 cloves garlic, crushed
Pinch Cayenne pepper
Pinch ground cloves
Tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice.

Place all ingredients in a casserole, bring to boil, stir well, cover, place in oven at gas mark four for 2-3 hours until meat melts in the mouth. Stir every half hour.

Can be cooked very slowly on top of the cooker.

8 comments:

Brad Reid said...

Peter,

Sounds very good...I plan to give your recipe a go.

Of possible interest to you and others, this report on Vitamin C and its deleterious effects on a training regimen for humans and Wistar rats:

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/87/1/142

It seems that large doses of Vitamin C (1 gram per day orally in humans) blocks an important signal the body needs to self-correct and adjust to oxidation.

Worth a read if you haven't already seen it.

Brad

Peter said...

Hi Brad, the ref is very interesting and pretty well fits in with what I'd decided was happening with myself. I spent a year mega dosing with C and found that I had more infection problems than I'd had for some time in the lead up to it. The C ameliorated the signs very well but I decided, with some refs from Emma and possibly Chris, that I actually needed some free radicals to have an effective immune system. I stopped all C for the last year and am playing with small doses, a couple of hundred milligrams a day, at the moment.

As an aside I still think that when free radicals are likely to cause apoptosis of cells I want to preserve there is a role for a few days of mega dosing. Thinking of rock concerts here, protecting my auditory cells in the aftermath. Not that rock concerts feature in life at the moment!

The paper seems to fit well with Power, Sex and Suicide's message about free radicals too.

Peter

StephenB said...

I like to see a pinch of cayenne in a recipe. It doesn't take a lot, but the results sure are great.

StephenB

Peter said...

Just a pinch, yes. The vinegar is interesting too

Peter

JohnN said...

JB and Peter,
I have several issues with the cited study:
1. Feats of physical endurance (at the level the Wistar rats are forced to perform) may not equate to optimal health. There may even be a divergence between the two.
2. Rats can produce vitamin C but human cannot. Perhaps they should replace rats with hedgehogs?
3. Dosages are different between rats and human. Also 1g/day for man is not that big a dose.
4. No mention of diet for both rats and humans.

The increase in mitochondrial biogenesis is nice to have in normal condition but is probably not sustainable here and could be a call for replacement of damaged mitochondria which is not needed with vitamin C supplement.

Sometimes I wonder if Linus Pauling's claim of heart disease as low-grade scurvy of the endothelium is true but there has to better designed study than this.
Best regards,
John

JohnN said...

Re. the recipe: 50g of peanut butter and the accomanying PNA (agglutinin)?

Peter said...

PNA is undoubtedly there, people should cook this with their eyes open. I have to say I've been wondering about a tree-nut butter of some sort to avoid the peanuts. Might be an interesting flavour with hazelnuts or cashews blended to butter consistency....

Re the C, personal observations of n=1 (in myself) are a bit limited to say the least. What went through my mind is that 20g/d might well be useful if you eat a mixed diet with a bias towards carbs. On continuous LC there is much less scope for glucose ascorbate antagonism, less need for ascorbate and more scope for unwanted anti inflammatory effects if ascorbate is present in supraphysiological concentrations. I have to say that I have a fair amount of time for Pauling's hypothesis but I think he and Rath were semi wrong about the Lip(a) connection. Guinea pigs don't make Lip(a) as they thought, but do seem to get scurvy much more rapidly and severely than humans when deprived of C, possibly due to this...

I'd see this as compatible with Lip(a) being ascorbate sparing but with C being necessary for vascular health but at lower levels in humans than GPs

Peter

Richard Nikoley said...

Peter:

You might give the Masamun beef curry stew a try.

http://www.freetheanimal.com/root/2009/03/masaman-beef-curry.html

No requirement to do the rice, but since it's a rare treat, that's a splurge for me, now and then; and plus, I think rice is in a completely different category from most other grains.

Also, with two cans of full fat coconut milk, it's got WAY the nice fat content.