I'm still working on the whole notion of making my own sugar-free chocolate, partly because the stuff I like best -- Valor, from Spain, is not cheap, and partly because, as you are no doubt aware, commercial sugar-free chocolate makes one, er, socially offensive. You know about fat-free products, of course; I've started referring to my home-sweetened chocolate as "fart-free" chocolate.

Time is running out to submit your comments regarding the USDA Nutritional Guidelines. I just submitted mine; they read:

The modern grocery store sometimes seems to be only tangentially a purveyor of foodstuffs. Much of the time it seems more like a huge biochemical experiment, with the general population playing the role of the hapless guinea pigs. Here, just as examples, are five cases where real food not only has fewer chemicals than the processed stuff, but substantially fewer carbs, too:

* Real Seafood versus Imitation Seafood

Ah, yes. Another day, another reason diabetics should rely on a low carb diet instead of on ever-increasing doses of hypoglycemic medication.

Turns out that metformin, aka Glucophage, can cause malabsorption of vitamin B 12, and can therefore lead to B 12 deficiency. Since Glucophage is one of the most commonly prescribed diabetes medications, especially in obese diabetics, this potentially affects thousands, maybe millions, of people.

I'm working on 100 new recipes to put in a revised and expanded edition of 15 Minute Low-Carb Recipes, and I need to know from those of you who already have and use the original edition: Which of the recipes are most useful to you? What does the book need more of?

* Main dishes
* Skillet suppers
* Main dish salads
* Side dishes -- veggies and the like
* Side salads
* Soups
* Desserts

Something I'm not thinking of?

Do you want more fish and seafood recipes? Burgers? Pork? Beef? Egg dishes?

Several people have recommended FitDay to me over the years, and in the past few days I've started using it. I've used MasterCook to track my food intake in the past, and of course I'm using it to analyze the recipes I'm writing for the expanded edition of 15 Minute Low-Carb Recipes.

Just read an important article on Mark's Daily Apple -- the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending aggressive cholesterol screening and statins for kids as young as eight. I think statins are dangerous and useless for the vast majority of people on them; I've mentioned here before that my doctor and I have an agreement that if she ever wants to lose me as a patient, she'll try to get me to go on statins. But this!

Made this up today from stuff I had on hand. The combination occurred to me, and it just sounded good. It was! I had this cooked and eaten before the timer beeped for 15 minutes.

Creamy Chicken-and-Noodles In A Bowl

1 package tofu shirataki (I used fettucini)
1/4 cup diced roasted red pepper
5 kalamata olives
1 scallion, sliced, including the crisp part of the green shoot
1 tablespoon minced parsley
3 tablespoons chive and onion whipped cream cheese
3 ounces precooked chicken breast strips (mine had Southwestern seasoning)
salt and pepper to taste

Is it just me, or are the ads for stuff the food-and-drug conglomerates are trying to pass off as healthful even more annoying than the ads for outright junk? Is it just that I'm both a nutrition freak and an ad man's daughter that these commercials get under my skin?

I've had another busy day. I went up to Indianapolis with my darling friend Virginia, to go to the consignment shops. I had a of clothes to get rid of. The trip was part success, part failure: On the one hand, the consignment shop only wanted about half my stuff, and they wanted me to take it all home, wash it all (it was clean to begin with) and iron it, then re-hang it, and drive the 90 minutes back there. I'm thinking eBay instead. On the other hand, I got a few really nice things, including a totally spiffy Panama hat I'm wearing this instant.

I love Tom Naughton, in a totally innocent, he's-happily-married, I'm-happily-married, but damn-I-love-his-work fangirl kinda way. You've got to read today's Fathead blog post about the USDA guidelines. And really, anything else Tom blogs about.

Years ago, somebody I know (looks innocently at the sky, whistling) stated, in print, that weighing one's self is a pretty lame way to judge how fat one is. One could go with the fit of one's clothes, or perhaps a tape measure.

The person who said that now weighs herself faithfully every single morning. Well, except when out of town. And I might buy a travel scale, though I still can't figure out how that would work on a cruise, what with the ship moving and all.

So the American Diabetes Association released the news this week that a new study suggests that red meat may increase the risk of developing diabetes. Have I panicked, and purged my freezer of all red meat? Hardly.

A reader who goes by Water Melts Fat asks:

But Dana: what's with this bit from Weil?

"there has been increasing evidence that added sweeteners in foods may contribute to heart disease. Sweeteners appear to lower levels of HDL cholesterol (the higher your HDL, the better) and raise triglycerides (the lower the better)."

Sweeteners are LC salvation. Must we give them up too? Are all sweeteners born equal (not Equal)? My favorite is a blend of cyclamate and saccharin.I thought they were just the victim of witch hunts.

I live in a lefty-trendy college town. I love the place -- it has the amenities of a city many times its size, with the charm, friendliness, and pace of a small town. But I do tire of the constant pressure from the large local vegetarian and vegan faction, telling me that not only am I killing myself by basing my diet on animal foods, I'm destroying the planet as well.