Coumadin Cookbook???

[JimL]

I've wondered for a while if I couldn't get my coumadin cheaper by just buying the rat poison....

I bought some D-con this week to clean out the mice occupying the shed by my garden. I was very surprised to find that it was advertised as for warfarin-resistant rats! There was no warfarin in the D-con! So much for that money-saving plan. Maybe it will work anyway...

 

[Guest]

Rats go through many generations very quickly so mutations show up much faster than in humans. The rats that survived eating warfarin lived to pass on their genes while those that died had fewer offspring. Over time most of the rats were ones that were resistant. So they had to develop stronger warfarin derivatives. The name of the poison in your D-con probably is something that ends in -coumon or a similar spelling. These are the stronger derivatives.

This is the same phenomenon that is making bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Every time you take an antibiotic the first bacteria to be killed are the ones most susceptible. This leaves the resistant ones to live. When you need 10 days of antibiotic and only take 7 days, you have failed to kill the most resistant bacteria and have left them in your body to cause the next round of illness. In the 1950s 3,000 units of penicillin would rapidly kill most bacteria because they had never been exposed to it. Now a dose of 20,000,000 units often has little effect.

The latest issue of Nature reports something similar with bighorn sheep. The most sought after by hunters are the ones with the biggest horns. Since these are selectively killed, there are fewer and fewer rams with big horns available. Whichever one gets the biggest is more likely to be killed and therefore less likely to pass on his genes for growing big horns.

 

[dwfreck]

...warfarin-resistant rats! There was no warfarin in the D-con! So much for that money-saving plan. Maybe it will work anyway...

If your D-con doesn't work, maybe you should try baiting them with some of those cauliflower pancakes!

 

[dwfreck]

Marsha,

I was Christmas shopping at amazon.com, and I just couldn't resist a little extra search...

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The Coumadin Cookbook: A Complete Guide to Healthy Meals When Taking Coumadin

by Rene Desmarais, Greg Golden, Gail Benyon

List Price: $16.95
Price: $11.87
You Save: $5.08 (30%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 2 months

6 used & new from $11.25
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There is also another, out-of-print, edition which is available used from $5.80

 

[JimL]

Thanks, Al, for the explanation, which makes perfectly good sense. I'll continue getting my warfarin from Barr.

I'll keep the cauliflower pancake idea in mind, Dale, in case the D-con doesn't work. I don't have any intention of eating cauliflower pancakes myself; I prefer my pancakes with chocolate chips -- more heart healthy, I think.

 

[Ross]

Chocolate covered brussel sprouts!
Spinach burgers
Asparagus and ??????? Can't think of anything to go with it or into it.
Broccoli with a heaping serving of Ensure.

Can you feel the fall yet?

 

[catwoman]

Ross:

I love green things -- broccoli, asparagus and, yes, brussels sprouts. Have a great recipe for brussels sprouts leaves sauteed in butter, with chopped cranberries. Yeah, it sounds odd, but somehow it works -- for people who like brussels sprouts and cranberries.

Will someone who has the Coumadin Cookbook read the recipe on the cauliflower pancakes and report back, please! Am wondering how the white stuff is incorporated into the pancakes. I like cauliflower steamed, with a little sauce or raw, but can't imagine putting it in pancakes.

 

[Ross]

Cauliflower Pancakes
6 servings (4mcgs of Vitamin K per serving)

1 1/4 cups Cauliflower, cut in small pieces
1/2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 large egg
2 tsp grated onion (or 1 teaspoon powdered onion)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup canola oil, treated, for frying

Put everything in a blender or food processor and blend until there no lumps.

Make small 2 inch pancakes. Fry in oil, turning once

Good Plain or with Sour Cream.

 

[catwoman]

Ross: Thanks.

Whoa! Isn't canola oil high in vitamin K? Wonder why cookbook doesn't specify corn oil instead?

Just curious -- I've seen in a couple of places that cauliflower is high in vitamin K. Must not be, if the cookbook is tossing out recipes using it.

Recipe makes these sound more like potato galletes (sp? Yo no sabe Francais here in TX), the French-style cakes that have shredded potato, onion, flour, a little egg for binder and that are sometimes baked.

 

[dwfreck]

Ross,

I've got an excellent recipe for asparagus that includes crumbled hard-boiled egg!

Ross and Marsha,

The cauliflower pancakes sound more like the wonderfull "potato pancakes" I can get at the local Izzy Kadetz restaurant, along with excellent corned beef and/or reuben sandwiches. And I was thinking they were an alternative to buttermilk pancakes.

Marsha,

In french, it's mostly "ette" (like the end of cigarette (or is that a butt?)).

 

[Nancy]

Here's a link for Vitamin K information.

http://www.coumadin.com/consumer/INT_VitaminK1.asp#meat

I'll also post it as a separate item in the Coumadin forum.

 

[Ross]

Whoa! Isn't canola oil high in vitamin K? Wonder why cookbook doesn't specify corn oil instead?

Very observant young grasshopper. The key word was "Treated Oil" I forgot to put what treated meant. If you leave your canola oil in sunlight or artificial fluorescent light for 48 hours or so, it will significantly reduce (85%) the amount of Vitamin K in the oil, or so the book says.

 

[nadi]

Cool, I didn't know that does it work for olive oil also> I sure am glad I found a little time to check in.

 

[Ross]

canola, olive and vegetable oils-clear container and does not need to be opened, just let it set in sunlight or fluro for 48 hours.

 

[Guest]

If you start putting your oils out in the sun and getting rid of vitamin K, you will need to check your INRs after about a week to see if they went up because you are taking in less vitamin K.

 

[dwfreck]

If you start putting your oils out in the sun and getting rid of vitamin K, does that make your oils decayed?

 

[azpam]

That is VERY CUTE Dale!! Loved it!

 

[bvdr]

Me too, very very witty!

 

[JimChicago]

I notice the coumadin cookbooksays for olive oil:

13.7 mcg Vit K per ounce - regular olive oil
2.1 mcg vit K per ounce treated olive oil (decayed)

Is the cookbook talking here about a fluid ounce or the weight of an ounce? I wonder how many tablespoons correspond to those numbers?

I've seen others that say 100 grams of regular olive oil has around 55 mcg/vit K - I was hoping a tablespoon of olive oil would weigh less than 1/2 ounce (weight measurement).

My coumadin clinic says 6 tablespoons of olive oil has a moderate amount of vit K but they don't say how many micrograms that means. I put the olive oil bottle in a window sill for a couple weeks before using it where it gets sunlight a few hours on non-cloudy days but won't really know if it has been 'decayed' - treated enuff.

 

[Guest]

This is why I don't recommend the cookbook. People get too obsessed with the amount of vitamin K in various things. If you are going to try to work it out to this extent you would need to weigh the lettuce leaves that you are going to put it on. Then they might vary in the amount of vitamin K depending on the growing conditions. It is no more realistic than trying to keep your speedometer exactly on 35 mph.