As hordes of illegal immigrants from El Salvador pour across the Mexican border, they bring with them members of MS-13. The continued failure to secure the border is allowing the world’s most dangerous gang free movement into and out of the United States.

Debbie and my #1 destination in Vermont. Book one of the two front rooms at The Pitcher Inn with a porch overlooking The Warren Store. Great wine list and menu. Our friend and GM Ari Sadri and head waiter Mason will make you feel at home.

See photos from our trip by clicking here!

In the 1960s, U.S. government health guidelines, the medical establishment, and especially the processed food industry urged Americans to forsake butter and instead focus on grain-based processed foods and industrial-produced seed and vegetable oils. Grocery shelves were soon brimming with low-fat and no-fat faux foods packed with sugar, carbohydrates and omega-6 rich industrial seed oils—all of which are linked to insulin resistance, obesity and chronic inflammation.

But if you balk at the idea of eating butter or avocado, for example, because it seems downright counterintuitive in reducing the risk of disease and helping you maintain your ideal weight, perhaps an easier list to swallow is what type of fats you want to avoid and those that may help protect you from degenerative diseases.

Fats to Avoid

Omega-6 Fats: Omega-6s come from vegetable and seed oils (corn, soybean, sunflower, safflower, canola, cottonseed, peanut). Commercially fried foods and most processed foods (baked goods, sauces, dressings, chips) are loaded with Omega 6s. Conventionally raised beef is also to be avoided, if not for ethical reasons (read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma), than certainly for health reasons. Grain-fed beef can have up to 50 times more Omega-6s than Omega-3s.

Trans Fats: Get out your magnifying glass and start reading labels before you even think of buying another box, jar or can at your grocery store. Treat anything with the word “hydrogenated” as toxic. According to the Institute of Medicine, with trans fats, “there is no safe level to consume.”

Fats to Consume

Omega-3 Fats: The good news is that Omega-3s are found in wild salmon, sardines, pastured eggs, grass-fed beef and bison. Not as beneficial as the Omega-3s from animal sources, but still good, are walnuts, flax seeds and hemp seeds.

Saturated Fat: Consider butter, lard, tallow, and all dairy that is sourced from grass-fed cows, pastured pork, free-range chickens and wild game. Coconut oil is also on the “A” team.

Monounsaturated Fat: Best associated with the Mediterranean Diet, these fats come from nuts, avocados and olives as well as oils from these foods.

For further information, you’ll enjoy reading Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. Bon Appetit.

Debbie
Editor in Chief
Richardcyoung.com

Your summer getaway to New England must include lunch at Mission in Newport! Debbie and I know the twins who own Mission as almost an extension of our family, so perhaps we have a bit of a bias. Mission is a funky, noisy, rugby scrum of a locals place that quite simply has the yummiest in-house made Chicago hot dogs, grass-fed burgers, and craft beer that exist on the planet. Talk about a destination spot. See you at Mission.

Chicago Dog

Grass Fed Burger

That would be Turkey! Let the Turks wipe out ISIS. American interests are not threatened, and American intervention is not required. As Pat Buchanan rightly notes, the war hawks led by John McCain and Lindsey Graham are at it again. Americans should dismiss the rantings of the war hawks and insist that the five essential tenets of the original Weinberger/Powell Doctrine be satisfied prior to any American intervention abroad.

Turkey, a nation of 76 million, has the second-largest army in NATO, equipped with U.S. weapons, and an air force ISIL does not have.

If President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted to crush ISIS, he could seal his border to foreign fighters entering Syria and send the Turkish army to assist President Bashar Assad in annihilating ISIS in Syria.

The jihadists of the Islamic State may be more motivated, but they are hugely outnumbered and outgunned in the region.

The Syrian government and army, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shia-dominated government of Iraq, a Shia Iran of 70 million, and the Kurds in Syria and Kurdistan are all anti-Islamic State and willing to fight.

All are potential allies in a coalition to contain or crush ISIS, as is Vladimir Putin’s Russia, if U.S. diplomacy were not frozen in the 1980s.

Only last August, McCain and Graham were attacking Obama for not enforcing his “red line” by bombing Syria’s army, the most successful anti-ISIL force in the field.

The threat of the Islamic State should not be minimized. It would provide a breeding and training ground for terrorists to attack us and the West. But it should not be wildly exaggerated to plunge us into a new war.

You know, of course, that there are sulfites in your wine. On the back of each label the percentage of sulfites is listed in the bottle you just uncorked. Wine is volatile food product, and sulfites act as a preservative.  The use of sulfites in winemaking began in the 1900s to stop bacteria and other yeasts from growing. Sulfites also help make red wines redder.

Because 5% to 10% of people with asthma are severely sensitive to sulfites, which can trigger an allergic reaction, the U.S. requires that sulfites be labeled above 10 parts per million (PPM). But many food products contain sulfites in much higher levels than in wine. Dried fruit, frozen foods, and prepared soups, for example, all are extremely high in sulfites.

As wine warms, more molecular sulfur is released, which can give off an unpleasant aroma of cooked eggs. Some expert tasters can smell sulfites in wine at around 50 PPM. But becoming one of those experts is not easy. A recent WSJ article (here) profiles three women who have Masters of Wine diplomas, considered to be the highest achievement in the wine world. To obtain this diploma can take years and cost thousands of dollars. Worldwide, there are only 312 MWs, with 34 from the U.S.

In an article on sulfites (here), Will Lyons, who writes the WSJ’s European wine column, suggests that if you are worried about allergies to sulfites, eat some dried apricots. “If they make you sneeze, you may have a problem with sulfites. If not, I would have that second glass of wine.”