MD and I had to come to Las Vegas – a place we both hate – for a conference. We looked around for the best deal we could get on a hotel, and we found it at the Trump. We went ahead and booked, figuring that it was going to be just like all the other hotels in Las Vegas.
We were wrong.
After just one night it has become our favorite Las Vegas hotel. We can both heartily recommend the Trump International Hotel if you have to stay in Vegas and are looking for something non-Vegas-y.
Why? Many reasons.
First, unlike all the other large hotels in this town, there is no casino on the ground floor. In fact, there is no casino at all. When you come into the hotel, you don’t have to walk through acres of slot machines ding ding dinging. It’s like a regular hotel lobby – nice and quiet and clean.
Second, it is a totally non-smoking establishment. You don’t get to your room smelling like smoke after having had to walk through a phalanx of smokers playing slot machines on the ground floor.
Third, the rooms are terrific. The clerk asked us when we checked in if we wanted to upgrade to a suite for an extra $150 per night. We declined because we weren’t planning on spending a lot of time in the room. When we got to the room, it was of suite-like proportions. A huge bath, a kitchenette, and a monster-sized room. I can’t imagine what the actual suites would be like.
Fourth, the staff is incredibly friendly. In most of the Vegas hotels we’ve stayed in, the staff seems really jaded. Here they have been exceptionally friendly and helpful.
Fifth, the room service food is great. And doesn’t cost a kings ransom as does room service food in just about every hotel in which we’ve ever stayed. The giant – and I mean giant; it’s hard to tell how huge it was from the photo and from the fact that I had eaten half of it before it occurred to me to take the picture – double cut pork chop shown at the top of this post cost $19.00. The serving of steamed asparagus – also half eaten – cost a whopping 5 bucks. It was all cooked exactly as I like it instead of how room service food is typically cooked. We normally don’t use room service because it’s so outrageously expensive, but when we saw the prices on the menu, we couldn’t believe it, and so gave it a whirl. And were very pleasantly surprised.
All in all, the Trump Hotel would be a great hotel anywhere, but in Las Vegas it is a real gem. And well located. It’s right in the middle of everything.
As always, I have no financial affiliation with any Trump enterprise and have not been paid to endorse or recommend.
The official website of Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, low carb pioneers and authors of Protein Power.
That looks absolutely delicious. I just put a 5 pound pork tenderloin into the oven with a nice covering of fat on top. Yum.
It not only look delicious, it was delicious. And it was cooked by sous vide I’m sure – that’s the only way I know to get a piece of pork that thick cooked as uniformly as that one was.
Having recently stayed in the Bellagio and gone to bed with the ding ding ding ringing in our ears on a nightly basis I know exactly what you mean. The pork does indeed look delightful. That said, one of the few things I like about Vegas is the ubiquitous buffet meals. At a good quality one, invariably every type of meat and seafood you can imagine is on offer for a fixed price (often pretty reasonable) as well as good quality vegetables and salad. It’s just nice not to have to worry about getting enough food and not to need to negotiate a modified version of a dish with the waiter!
I like the buffet meals, too, but I’ll be happy to skip them for the food quality we’ve had at the Trump. Especially if it means I can avoid the casinos in which such buffets are usually located.
that’s a great tip. i despise las vegas but need to go occasionaly for business. last time i was sentenced to 10 days at the bellagio and i thought i would die. as you noted, walking through the deadly smoke filled lobby casino is nauseating enough but the “who needs you” attitude of the hotel staff was really off-putting. room service there was inexcusably over priced (coffee and 2 hard boiled eggs…$25!) and heaven forbid you need to use the lobby atm machine…$5 per transaction! i roasted a pork loin just last week with a nice paste of extra virgin olive oil, fresh rosemary, garlic, sea salt and coarse black pepper rubbed all over…YUM!
The Swedish media is reporting on a new NIH study that concludes that… hold on… fructose makes you fat. Fatter than glucose, even – fructose seems to have twice the fattening power of glucose. The Swedish FDA is poised to launch investigations into products that falsely claim to be “sugar free” when they in fact contain fructose.
Of course, I knew this already from reading this site, but hey 😉
Article here: http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/artikel_1759723.svd
(Headline: “Fructose makes us fat quickly”)
In other news out of Sweden, there has been a huge dustup recently between advocates of the standard low-fat dietary advice and HFPLC advocates in the main Swedish physician’s magazine “Läkartidningen”. Needless to say, the low-fat people got creamed. The controversy has even reached the tabloids – the largest one had a big expose yesterday that was rather shamelessly pro-HFPLC. (See: http://www.kostdoktorn.se/ for details if you know swedish) Note that swedish papers often mangle the terminology with regards to High Fat and Protein / Low Carb diets, branding them “GI” diets.
Still, there is definately progress on this side of the pond, which is good.
This is good news. Keep us all posted. Thanks for the links. When I get back, I’ll try to Google translate them since I speak no Swedish. I can’t understand why all you people over there don’t just speak English and be done with it. It would sure solve a lot of problems for the rest of us. 🙂
Hey, I hate Las Vegas too! I used to have to go there for sales meetings. Casinos annoy me. Glad you found a good hotel, most of them just seem… tawdry.
Tawdry…or worse.
I just want to add that the conflict-of-interest section for the low-fat debaters in Läkartidningen reads like, well, comedy: Here it is, in Swedish. But you can pick up on the joke pretty quickly even without Swedish skills: (Short version: If there is an industry interest to be in hoc to, they are)
Potentiella bindningar eller jävsförhållanden (Transl: “Potential conflicts of interest”):
Claude Marcus: ledamot i vetenskapliga rådet i Nationellt centrum för främjande av god hälsa hos barn och ungdom (NCFF), Itrim, McDonald´s Sverige AB, ledamot iSwedish Nutrition Foundations nutritionsråd,konsult åt Wasabröd AB och Wenderfalks reklambyrå, forskningsstöd från Pharmacia och Abbott, föreläsningsarvoden från Novo, Abbott, SanofiAventis;
Göran Hallmans:ledamot i forskningsnämnden inom Swedish Nutrition Foundation, ordförande i The Sino-Swedish R&D Centre for Food Safety, Nutrition and Health, medlem i en grupp som söker ett patent som ska användas för att förebygga Helicobacter pylori- infektion.
Gunnar Johansson: ledamot i expertgruppen för kost- och hälsofrågor och nationella amningskommittén;
Elisabet Rothenberg:inga uppgivna
Stephan Rössner: expert i Livsmedelsverket, vetenskapligt råd i Socialstyrelsen, ledamot av expertråd för Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Abbott, Merck, Novo, föreläsningsarvoden/rese-bidrag från flera olika läkemedelsföretag för enskilda presentationer, stöd till enheten i kliniska prövningar från för närvarande Pfizer, Novo, Sanofi, Abbott, J&J, expert åt försäkringsbolaget if, konsult för Aftonbladets viktklubb.se och flera bokförlag.
It’s nice to see that things are the same over there. We here in the US wouldn’t want to have the entire franchise on conflict of interest.
Cheers–
MRE
speaking of sous-vide, I’ve discovered that’s a great way to cook a really tender grass fed ribeye. I love grass fed meat, but it’s hit or miss regarding tenderness. Sometimes meat from the same source really misses, ie. it can be a real workout for my jaws.
Here’s what I do: I coat the steak with olive oil, rub in some salt and pepper, or some steak seasoning ( or instead, sometimes I use a marinade), put the steak in a reynolds vacuum bag, suck the air out with the cheapo hand unit thingy, put hot tap water (it comes out of the tab at about 125 – 130 degrees) into the rice cooker (a crock pot works too), set it on low, drop the steak into the water, and leave it all day while I go to work. When I get home, I fire up the grill (I use a big green egg) to around 500 degrees or so, and just hit the steak for a few minutes on either side. Comes out fantastic. If I ever start a blog I’ll post some pics…
Sous vide works great for all kinds of meat, especially pork. Someday I’ll have to do a post on how to do it.
Re: sous-vide… Is there a concern about cooking in plastic and BPA leaching?
Not really, I don’t think, because the temps are so low and the contact period is short.
My name is Tim and I go to Las Vegas because there are casinos there.
We stay at the Paris and find the rooms and suites not to mention the food – just right. We also like the central location on the strip. I am curious now about the Trump. Thanks for the Tip.
My name is Mike and I go to Las Vegas sometimes only because I have to. I hate casinos, so the Trump is perfect for me. Having said that, I’m heading to the Paris for the first time ever in about 20 minutes. I have several meetings there today before I head out.
I’d love to hear about sous-vide-ing pork… I tried it once, using the method I described above, for my wife (silly woman refuses to eat red meat, ugh..). It was a bit of a failure, apparently it was rubbery. I’m guessing I would need a higher temp. water (which would requre more specialized equipment than I have on hand), and maybe less time in the water?
btw, that’s a great tip for Lost Wages – I’ve only been once, and I hated the noisy smokey casinos too. If I ever go back, I’ll try to stay at the Trump.
The pork needs an internal temp of 140-145 then sear the outside. But the temp needs to be carefully controlled. A little too much, and the pork is rubbery.
The Trump is great. All the casinos are nearby – you can walk or take a cab. But after the noise, smoke and the thousands of chavs milling about, you can come back to the smoke-free tranquility of a nice hotel.
Please please please don’t mention buffets..oh phuq.I can feel the dopamine cascading already
I will almost go anywhere for a buffet… and am only slilghtly joking..cold fish meats salads berries cold glass of ‘shampoo’.
When aged 20/1-ish me and many pals had 21st birfday do’s ..marquees and the oblig cold buffets.
One old pal actually reckoned, and he was serious though i don’t beleive in such twaddle, i had some kind of 6th sense whereby i could literally sniff out free food, as i seemed, oer a 2 yr period to manange unintentioanlly to get invited to many parties and doo’s all with the oblig cold buffets.
Intuition/psychic sense/morphogenic resonance or greeding phuqing pig…more like the latter !
Thanks for the info, Dr. Mike. I, too, avoid casinos because of the noise and cigarette stench. Trump is very smart with his layout in Lost Wages, NV. Very tempting to book there. We have Indian casinos here in NW Washington, but, of course, they couldn’t ban smoking as cig. sales are a big money maker in their stores due to their sovereign nation, no-tax status.
Here is the Swedish article, put through Google Translation and cleaned up a bit:
Original article: http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/artikel_1759723.svd
Translation:
Fructose is converted to fat more easily than previously thought. Results from a new study suggests that soft drinks and other beverages sweetened with fructose may play an important role in the obesity epidemic. The (swedish) FDA is now investigating cheating with alleged sugar-free products that contain fructose.
Fructose, and then especially the refined, but allegedly natural form: HFCs, or ‘high fructose corn Syrup’, which is often used as a sweetener in soft drinks and many other products have for years been suspected to play a central role in the global obesity epidemic.
American researchers, supported by the National Institutes of Health, have for the first time studied exactly what happens in the body when we drink different kinds of sugar solutions. The results, published in the Journal of Nutrition, show not only that fructose is converted to body fat more easily than glucose, but also that it is done so astonishing quickly and in a slightly different way.
Healthy volunteers received three drink mixes, one with only glucose, one with equal parts of glucose and fructose and 75 percent fructose. Measurements showed that fat retention doubled from 7.8 per cent for the glucose drink to 15.9 and 16.9 percent for the mixtures with more fructose. At the same time, levels of triglycerides in the blood increased by up to 29 percent.
-The message from this study is powerful because body fat was measured immediately after the sweet drinks were consumed, commented research leader Elisa Bets Parks of the University of Texas. She believes that the effect may have been underestimated because attempts were made on healthy and normal-weight people. The trial revealed that the body will, when well accustomed to form fat from fructose, be more likely to do so.
-The carbohydrates came into the body as sugar, the liver picked apart the molecules in ‘Lego pieces’ and put them together again as fat. All this occurred within four hours after the fructose was consumed.
The scientists emphasize, however, that fructose alone can not be blamed for the obesity epidemic and the rise of type-2 diabetes, but it is part of a pattern of public consumption of calories.
“This is something that needs to be said but has been ignored for too long. The body does not need fructose to perform any essential functions, the only thing that is for is to lead us to fruits containing other goods. Then it is better with normal sugar, it also contains glucose that control essential functions in the body, “says Charlotte Erlanson-Albertsson who is a professor at Lund University.
Fructose is about twice as sweet as sugar and stimulates the body’s reward system so that we want more. The body appears to be particularly difficult to deal with sugar, drinking, such as soft drinks, juice, juice or yogurt.
-It is also incredibly easy to quickly consume large amounts of fructose through a beverage. The levels found in normal fruit are much lower and the fruit is useful in other ways, so you should absolutely not interpret it that you should not eat the fruit, “says Charlotte Erlanson-Albertsson.
Last summer, the Consumers Association of Stockholm reported a number of cases of alleged misrepresentation to the (swedish) FDA. Among other things, the report highlighted the often confusing marketing of products “without added sugars.” Sometimes these contained fructose, honey or fruit- and berry concentrates extremely rich in fructose.
Food Authorities in Sweden and Norway have now started a joint survey regarding the marketing of sugar.
– Claims such as “without added sugars” and “sugar free” are becoming increasingly common, but the terms used are not always accurate, “said Ulla Boy who is on the State Food Administration.
About 100 products now being investigated by the FDA. Common shortcomings are that products are marked with “no added sugar” even though they have been sweetened with fructose, glucose, honey or fruit and berry concentrates.
Thanks for the translation. Here is a link to the article from the Journal of Nutrition about which the Swedish article was written.
Hi again Dr. Eades: I am glad that you enjoyed your stay at Trump Hotel. I have a question about snacks within low-carb diets.
Is it ok to occasionally have 1 peach or an apple within the diet? I know that 1 apple has 23 grams of carbohydrates which is a lot for just 1 food. Or is it better to eat some peanuts, or cashews for snack? or perhaps 1 cup of hot milk which has 13 grams of carbohydrates, less than the 23 grams of carbohydrates of an apple.
Thanks
Sure, it’s okay to occasionally snack on fruit. As long as it’s only occasionally. And you need to count the carb in your daily allotment.
Hi Dr again: Last week I fell off the low-carb wagon last week by having 2 large pancakes of 2000 calories both. I was depressed after that binge, that i will never binge-eat again. In fact i think God put in my destiny a The Learning Channel show last night about super-fat people who have to eat 40,000 calories a day in order to stay alive. I think I will not celebrate these christmas and thanxgiving hollydays like most people, I will follow my strict low carb, high protein dieting, because i need to look like Brad Pit
Too good to miss!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEbRxTOyGf0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVsgXPt564Q
Unbelievable…
Yep, I’ve seen these. The makers of HFCS are obviously feeling the heat.
I bought a relatively inexpensive PID temperature controller for sous vide cooking at auberins.com, and it works great. While I still prefer to cook steaks in a pan, tough cuts come out nice and tender after 1-3 days at 135 degrees. I cooked beef heart for 3 days, and it came out as tender as steak. The less tough of the tougher cuts (like eye of round roast) are fine with just a single day.
The way it works, is you plug a crock pot, rice cooker, etc. (must be a unit that does not have electronic controls) into the PID controller and the controller plugs into an electrical outlet. The controller’s temperature probe is placed into the cooking device, which is filled with water. The food to be cooked is vacuum sealed in a food-vac bag and placed in the water. The controller then turns the cooker on and off, as needed, to keep the water temperature within 1-2 degrees of the desired temperature. The controller is ~$130, but considering that laboratory water baths start at around $900, a PID controller and a crock pot are a deal.
I’ve only ever driven through Las Vegas. My FIL destroyed his family with his gambling problem, so between my lack of interest and my husband’s intense negative feelings about gambling, Lost Wages holds no appeal for us.
One time, my son and I were flying across the country, and transferred planes in Las Vegas. As we flew over The Strip to land, the nice gentleman seated next to me on the aisle pointed out various famous LV landmarks to my son (about 7 yo at the time), who was seated in the window seat. The man told my son he really needed to visit Las Vegas some so he could see the Eiffel Tower up close, because it was really special. My son said, “Why? I’ve been to the real Eiffel Tower in Paris and this one’s an imitation and really small.”
I wanted to crawl under the seat during that awkward moment, but inwardly I felt a bit of pride that my son could make the distinction between the real deal versus the ersatz experience.
Good for your son. I, too, would have been proud.
Cheers–
MRE
.. LV is as i understand it is the very upside down symbol/model/epitomey of the way we moderns live i.e don’t all resources water and such like have to be brought in..its basically a desert area right (?) that we’ve made into this playground where physical reality (what a term !) is somewhat suspended..well as much as it can be..i.e. not totally
It’s a noisy, nasty, smoky, awful, dreadful place, a mecca for chavs with disposable income. And located in the middle of the desert.
I wish I’d known about the Trump before we went to Las Vegas last year. We went to see a Cirque du Soleil show that only plays in LV rather than gamble, so we could have done without the casino in the lobby of our hotel and the way the smell of it reached even our room 30-something stories above. The odor of the smoke mixed with the chemicals they put in the air to disguise the smell was pretty bad. There was a nice steakhouse there though, specializing in dry-aged prime rib and they had no trouble with our requests for low-carb sides.
Hello all: Warning about the coming hollydays, the coming thanksgiving and christmas.
God put in my destiny a The Learning Channel show last night about super-fat people who have to eat 40,000 calories a day in order to stay alive. That show served me as a warning to control myself and stay away from compulsive eating. And indeed, anybody could gain a lot of weight with the food addictions. We must stay away from those people who celebrate every thing with food.
Dr. Mike,
I was fascinated by the discussion of magnesium deficiency and supplementation. (That finally convinced me to order a copy of PPLP!). Anyway, if there’s anything new on magnesium since that book, perhaps you could write a future blog entry on Mg?
Thanks!
Thanks for introducing me to sous vide. First time I’ve heard of it and it sounds great.
Regarding casinos, I understand your reservations, but I do go to Las Vegas once a year or so. My favorite game is craps, and if you know the right bets, the house take is only 0.5%. You can play for hours and be up or down a small amount.
So why would that be worth spending hours doing ? It’s just fascinating seeing all the people’s reactions. It’s wild and fun. It’s a truly random game based on dice rolls, which means that there are streaks of up and down rolls which can last a long time.
The players are also truly random, this is what I like about it. There can be 20 players around the table, an Iowa farmer and his wife with John Deere hats, a couple of hip-hop guys with their girlfriends who have a lot of bling-bling. A rich couple from Hong Kong with a few million to blow. A doctor and his wife in for a convention. A couple of college guys down to their last ten bucks hoping to make enough to pay for their room. An elderly couple celebrating their 50th anniversary, a newlywed couple having their honeymoon.
So you have this completely random diverse group playing a completely random game and all thoughts and emotions are shared on the roll of the dice. The emotion is thick, when a streak goes in the player’s favor the crowd goes wild. When it goes bad everyone commiserates.
It is a really fun experience. Maybe it’s like the hunts of the Paleolithic days, some days are lucky, some days aren’t!
FYI,
There’s another Dean Ornish post on the Tierney blog.
In case you weren’t aware, HDL are the garbage trucks blah blah blah.
Cheers!
Just in case you haven’t read it already, here is my response to the HDL-as-garbage-truck nonsense.
Cheers–
MRE
I have a new WOW statement from someone who should know better. A veterinarian who thinks he’s a human physiologist – Michael Davis. I have never seen such a unsourced stupid comment as this one:
“If you feed a diet that’s very high fat to a human, a lot of humans become obese and they develop type 2 diabetes. And the dogs don’t,” Davis said. “There is no such thing as an obese Type 2 diabetic sled dog despite the fact that they’re eating a diet that should produce that.”
Full article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080926/sc_livescience/iditaroddogsendurancesecretrevealed
This guy should know better studying dogs that were bred to get our food…alas what a poor soul.
-Eric
The depth of their dumbth is astounding.
HELLO EVERYBODY AGAIN: i would like to comment on a couple of things about high protein diets. Well, i would like to comment about metabolism, high protein diet, low carb diets. The thing is that i had a soy protein pancake for dinner, with egg and fat free cheese. But then after a while i got so hungry that i had to eat 8 oz. of baked chicken and some fat free cheese. i think i am eating more calories now than when i used to eat higher in carbs. But i would like to know if high protein diets raise the metabolism and as a result of raising the metabolism, do high protein/low-carb diets increase hunger as well?
Never been to Vegas, but if I do I know where I’m staying! 🙂 THANKS Dr. Mike!
Thought you might want to look at the new Science Daily article which suggests that we are all eating too much protein. What about this IGF-1 they are talking about? They seem to think humans and mice should eat the same way.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924151018.htm
It’s too complex to get into in an answer to a comment. Perhaps I should post on it at length.
Trump’s condos here aren’t selling well, so you can really get a great deal on staying there as the unsold units are being rented out per night to keep cash flow happening.
Per getting money at an ATM, Bank of America has ATM’s in the Forum Shops (one near Casa Fuente) that are real B of A machines. IE, no extra fees.
Also, I believe it is Wells Fargo that has a similar machine in Harrah’s Carnival Court.
Hope this helps,
Ted Newkirk
Managing Editor
http://www.accessvegas.com
Thanks for the info.
ANSWER TO LOW CARBER
IT MIGHT BE A LITTLE LATE TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION BUT…. WTF! DUDE. A SOY PROTEIN PANCAKE, FAT FREE CHEESE? THOSE THINGS ARE LOADED WITH CARBS , THAT IS WHY YOU ARE FEELING HUNGRY…. LESS THAN 20 CARBS PER DAY WILL KEEP YOU WITHOUT CRAVINGS.