By the way, I wonder why sour cream hasn’t been mentioned. Sour cream is a wonderful product, pretty well unique to the U.S. (at least I never found it for sale in England). One can easily find a brand that doesn’t have any additives, such as Daisy, and it makes just about everything taste better.

Seth: Yes.

“I have not compared omega-6 to nothing but I suspect it would produce worse results, given that olive oil appears worse than nothing. ”

Seth: In Expt A I compared flaxseed oil to olive oil. In Expt B, I compared flaxseed oil to nothing. Expts A and B were very similar. Comparing olive oil in Expt A to nothing in Expt B, olive oil was worse than nothing.

Finally, a cautionary reminder of the confusion that can arise when medication causes the symptoms of the condition it is intended to treat. Here, a lady from Worcester writes to tell of the ever-more intrusive symptoms of her long-standing anxiety, where she would become fixated on the fine detail of things – dots on carpets, small stones, leaves, people’s eyebrows, and so on.
Her doctors and the community psychiatric nurse were sympathetic, but had no suggestions as to what to do. Then late last year, her anti-anxiety medication Stelazine became unobtainable in Britain – since when her fixation episodes have vanished, so far never to have returned.

Buy the best, and freshest, whipping cream you can get. Organic is best, and without any additives like carageenan gum.

Buy some plain kefir (not yogurt) -you’ll have to look for it- but it’s worth it – and you only have to buy it once.

Add kefir to the cream in a ratio of about 1:5, place in a glass jar/bottle and leave somewhere at room temp (countertop, cupboard above fridge, etc) for 24hrs. This is why you use kefir instead of yogurt – it works at room temp, not 35-40C like yogurt – and is a much stronger mix of probiotics.

After 24hrs, put the cream back in the fridge and leave for three days. It is then ready to eat, is as thick as whipped cream, and has a slight tangy taste. you can flavour with vanilla, stevia, honey, coffee, brandy, etc

You can also make cultured butter from it at this point. Just half fill a jar with your kefir-ed cream, leave out to warm to room temp (or sit in a warm water bath if you can’t wait), and then just shake the jar end to end. Normally takes about three minutes for the cream to break, but longer if it is cold.
You can then pour off the buttermilk, and use that for pancakes or other (gluten free) baking.

Wash the butter with cold water until is clear and store. Salt it if you like.

Not only will this be the best butter you ever tasted, it is probably the healthiest, and possibly cheapest too.

The three minutes of shaking is worth it and makes and ideal pre-dinner mini workout, or to get the blood going in the morning!

Tastes great.

–Ed

Perfecting a model of citizen science is what I’m talking about.

1. research institutions (the vast majority of the research)

2. the n=1 self-experimenter (a select minority; people like you, Seth)

Yesterday I was struck with an idea: Why not crowd source science? Set up a website where people from across the globe can participate in worthwhile science projects. It could encompass all sorts of subjects, from psychology to nutrition to collaborative physics. People can join in experiments they feel to be promising and interesting.

Just as Wikipedia overhauled the encyclopedia, this website could revolutionize science.

Like my grocery store – if I want Greek yogurt, I can take my choice of 3 delicious varieties… all zero fat.

So, to me, all the 3-hour test shows is that c14:0 and shorter saturated fat consumption can improve mental performance. It doesn’t say anything about c16:0/c18:0, the predominant saturated fats in meat, eggs and nuts.

Seth: The simple RT test was less sensitive because it involves less mental processing. No, this study does not change my view of the value of simple RT as a measure of cognitive function. I have never believed it is a good measure of that.