Low Carb Gluten Free Oreo Cookies

My next ice cream idea is for Cookies and Cream. It’s basically a sweet cream base with Oreo cookies added. Oreos are hardly low carb, so either I have to find an off the shelf replacement or make my own. Atkins used to make an Oreo clone called “Atkins Endulge Chocolate Creme Sandwich Cookies.” They tasted good, but they caused stomach upset and were mostly made from wheat flour. If there was ever an Atkins product that stretched the idea of “low carb,” it was this one. That's probably why it’s been discontinued.

Comparing two MD5 files

Using md5sum to compare single files is easy to do and straightforward. Working with multiple files recursively in directories isn’t straightforward. Creating an md5 file of a directory path can be accomplished by:

find ./path -exec md5sum -b '{}' \; > output.md5

But how do you compare the contents of two different output files? This short Perl script will compare two md5sum outputs and report the old, new, and changed files in a new file called diff.txt. Keep in mind that if the path of identical files are different, they will be interpreted as old/new.

What makes a scientist?

Tom Naughton in his brilliant presentation called, “Diet, Health and the Wisdom of Crowds” recounts when a researcher responded to one of his critiques of their study on dietary cholesterol. Tom summed up the researcher’s attitude as essentially, “I’m a scientist and you’re not, so shut up.” I interpreted the response as, “you must be a shill for the egg industry, while I’m an expert of impeachable character and zero biases.” Still not a shining example of open-mindedness, but I digress.

If the foundation of science is truth, then the definitions of science, scientist, and the scientific method should be well understood and pervasive across the scientific community. (Notice that I said should.) What better source in the context of nutrition than Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry? It’s a biochemistry textbook used in undergraduate courses at many universities. Here’s how the authors define what “scientists” are:

Lost article on insulin response to glycerine has been found!

In my previous post titled, “The poor, misunderstood...glycerol molecule,” I lamented that I was unable to find an article that would hopefully answer once and for all how insulinogenic glycerine would be for people with normal metabolisms. Googling for “Oral Glycerin Has a Negligible Effect on Plasma Glucose and Insulin in Normal Subjects” yields only references people have made to the article, but none for the article itself. There’s no record of it on the Diabetes journal website. I contacted the webmaster and they can’t find it either. I contacted the only other link I had: Dr. Thomas Wolever, MD, PhD, DM (Oxford). He was mentioned in the glycerine article by David Mendosa. Believe it or not, he responded with 30 minutes with a scan of the article. Lo and behold, he’s its author.

Maple Walnut Bacon Low Carb Ice Cream

I don’t use Carbquik anymore since I wanted to eliminate grains from my diet. I usually keep some plain carbalose flour on hand for light breading, but I’m essentially gluten free these days. I still use sugar free maple syrup sometimes in recipes, but I try to avoid it since it contains mostly sorbitol as a sweetener.

This ice cream flavor was something truly inspired. I was reminiscing of the days when I would indulge in Belgian waffles made from Carbquik with a side of bacon and sugar free maple syrup over the whole lot. My first thought was to simply make a maple-walnut concoction. The Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book has such a recipe using grade C maple syrup. Almost all maple syrups sold for pancakes and waffles are grade A. (Trader Joe’s used to sell a grade B.) Grade C is only available commercially in large quantities and is used in recipes because of its strong robust flavor, which makes it more suitable for flavoring in cooking. There are a number of maple extracts I can try, so a low carb version of this recipe ought to be a slam dunk.

Low Carb Mozzarella Sticks

This is a favorite recipe of mine that uses the low carb breadcrumb recipe I posted before. I can’t provide exact measurements since I basically make as many as I can until I run out of one of the ingredients. I make a large batch of sticks and keep them in the freezer until I’m ready to fry.

Low Carb Italian Breadcrumbs

These are great for any Italian recipe that calls for breadcrumbs. I like to mix this at a 1:1 ratio with Parmesan cheese right before I’m ready to use it as a breading.

CMMI maturity levels are NOT implementation steps

One of the biggest mistakes organizations make when implementing CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) is to use the maturity levels as a roadmap. Part of the confusion may stem from the CMMI documentation itself.¹ From the section titled, “Advancing Through Maturity Levels:”