You hear it over and over again: Cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease. Low HDL is a risk factor. High triglycerides are a risk factor. Obesity is a risk factor for heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer. Being over 50 is a risk factor for all sorts of things. But what does "risk factor" mean?

It sure sounds as if a risk factor increases your risk of something happening, doesn't it? It doesn't.

I have no kids, but I can't help but notice that it's back-to-school season. It's been so hot around here it seems really odd, but the notebook and pencil displays are in the stores, the flyers for school clothes are in the local paper, and those stupid talking Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheat squares are talking about keeping kids "full and focused" again.

Thank you to April Walker for posting this article to Facebook; I had to share!

All that glitters is not gold. (Yes, yes, English majors, I know it's really "glisters.") Beware of wolves in sheep's clothing. Surely there's some other hoary old cliche for the inside not matching the outside? Oh, yeah: Don't judge a book by its cover.

There it was at the Goodwill the other day: A pretty, shiny hardcover book, complete with dust jacket and bright pretty pictures, with the title splashed across the front: The Low-Carb Bible. For $1.98, I had to pick it up.

What a disappointment. Beyond that: What a crock.

Once again, comedian and blogger Tom Naughton has hit it out of the park.

Back in the day, there was a "tonic" called Hadacol. It was hyped as vitamin elixir, a dietary supplement, a source of vitamins B1 (thiamin), B2 (riboflavin), and B3(niacin), plus iron. Hadacol was advertised as something you would take for your health, that would relieve the root cause of many ailments, from heartburn to nervous disorders.

It's always interesting to me what foodstuffs are available where; it's a down-and-dirty gauge of the public's interests in nutrition. When products that not-so-long-ago were hard to find show up on the shelf at the local big-box grocery store, clearly the public is demanding them. The fact, for instance, that WalMart is now the nation's largest purveyor of organic produce says volumes about how very mainstream the demand for organically-grown food has become.

Very likely I watch too much television. In my defense, I'll add that only very rarely do I sit down and simply watch TV (except perhaps for Mad Men, which I stare at, transfixed, absorbing every word, trying to take in every period detail, and notice the symbolism I know it's loaded with.) I have the TV on while I'm cooking, folding laundry, loading and unloading the dishwasher, exercising, even sometimes while I'm working, especially when I'm doing very basic editing work that takes little thought. Still, it means I get a lot of exposure to television advertising.

Chances are you've seen the news already: Fructose can cause cancer. Specifically, this study looked at pancreatic cancer, a particularly deadly and intractable form of cancer, and one that has been increasing in frequency. I was unable to find the full text of this article, but gleaned that it demonstrated that cancer cells are particularly able to use fructose to reproduce, fueling tumor growth. Some thoughts:

Well, geez, the world is just full of fascinating but perplexing information. Consider this: a study showing that feeding stevia or steviosides increases abdominal fat in chickens.

I mean, what the heck? The chickens given the stevia or stevioside supplemented feed ate more, which makes sense if chickens, like people, have an inherent taste for sweet stuff. Certainly my chickens went nuts for the mulberries that fell from my tree this year.

One of the great things about the Low Carb Meet-and-Greet is that it gave me a chance to get feedback on Zevia and Blue Sky Free, the two new all-natural sugar-free sodas. This was needed, because, as I've mentioned, I loathe all soda pop, and a series of reviews all of which said "BLEEARGH! HOW CAN PEOPLE DRINK THIS STUFF?" just wasn't going to be very useful to you, the consumer.

What fun! The Low Carb Meet-and-Greet happened yesterday, and it was just so much fun. About twenty folks came, along with Jimmy and Christine Moore, of course, and Amy and John Dungan and their kids, Matt and Rachel. I hadn't met Matt and Rachel before; they're great kids -- smart, personable, well-behaved. The Dungan family came Friday night, so we all had dinner together, and Saturday morning Amy, Rachel and I went to the local farmer's market to buy fresh local vegetables for crudites, not to mention a local cantaloupe for an easy dessert.

Here's the flounder recipe I promised you. I confess, the carb count is off just a teeny bit, because I haven't entered the stats for coconut flour into my Mastercook database yet. And with company showing up any second -- low carb blogger Amy Dungan and her family -- I don't have time to fix it right now.

That Nice Boy I Married gave this a perfect 10, and said, "You have a way with flounder, darling." (I'd done another really tasty thing with flounder earlier in the week.)

Coconut Crusted Flounder with Browned Butter and Lime

1/2 cup coconut flour

At the Hold the Toast Facebook page , Lisa Feinson posted a link to a great website called Sugar Stacks. It has photos of various foods with piles of sugar cubes illustrating how much sugar is in a serving. Doesn't mention total carb count at all, or the fact that starch turns into sugar in the blood stream, but it's still fun and eye-opening stuff.

Got this email from a reader named Janice Salomon:

Hi, Dana -

A Google search on The Julian Bakery led me to your blog where I noticed that your 5/25/10 post about a carb test seems to be based upon incorrect math. If you started out at 125 (lowest reading), and your highest reading was 157, then the gap between high and low was 28 points, not 38. So I'm assuming that a lower baseline would result in a better carb count for this bread (I figure 2.4?). Anyway, just so you know. I wouldn't notice if my house is burning down, but this I noticed...LOL...