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Trevor
Friday, January 25, 2013
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Why Organic?
I decided to write my next article on organic food and the reasons why it is common sense to chose organic over conventionally grown food. This topic stemmed from the recent "study" performed at Stanford University and the media reported conclusion of the study. I was driving to the gym early one morning and I heard on the radio a brief statement "organic food no better then conventionally grown food says new study". As soon as I heard that statement I laughed and instantly knew what I would be looking into that evening. Even without having read the study yet, I still would have put my life savings on the line that the paper was funded by industry and there was a heavy bias to finding a specific conclusion which was to bash organic food. What I actually found out in the following week was even more surprising then I had thought.
Now before I begin let's take a look the two types of farming practices we are comparing. Conventional Food (CF) involves the use toxic chemicals, GMO's, monoculture and synthetic additives either to feed or to the plants. Basically trying to make nature the way we want it. Organic Food (OF) involves the use of no synthetic chemicals or fertilizers, no GMO's, crop turnover and polyculture. Essentially using and working with nature to allow the crops to be as healthy as possible. Now many of you reading this may think "well common sense would point to OF being the better option for health, environment and leaving the smallest footprint possible". Thinking this way you are definitely correct, however being raised in a society with selective media, corporate interests, false industry driven education and a general indifference about the food we eat, can lead many people thinking OF is a joke and make them think that the chemically doused food makes more sense to eat.
If you're going to be ingesting food you want that food to be as free of synthetic chemicals and as close to nature as possible. Throughout evolution the body has become accustomed to eating an apple, and only that apple. Not the apple, and the fluoride based chemicals, the genetic changes in the apple and others, it simply knows how to digest the apple. So it would make sense when you are choosing what you eat, it should be as close to natural as possible. Fruits and vegetables naturally contain their own pesticides and fungicides, many of which are called phytonutrients. When humans ingest these plant based chemicals they have a positive effect on the body. Many of these chemicals once they enter the body are known as antioxidants. Take Salvestrol's for example, these are natural fungicides that the plants develop to keep themselves healthy. Once ingested they are extremely beneficial to us and have even been linked to being very effective for cancer patients at attacking damaged cancerous cells and leaving the regular cells healthy. You won't see these phytonutrients on the nutritional label and your Dr and RD will have most likely never even heard about them. However they are extremely valuable in the maintenance of good health.
With CF the crops are sprayed with synthetic toxic fungicides, and the plant then no longer develops its own fungicide. This means that when you ingest that conventionally grown apple it is void of Salvestrol's as well as many other phytonutrients. Now that was only one example, but would it not be common sense to state that CF is less nutritious then OF? If you had a choice to ingest a food with these phytonutrients or a food without I'm pretty sure you would pick the one with.
I am not going to get into every single nutrient that OF contains and that CF is completely void of as that would be another article on its own. However I do want to discuss how a study like the one at Stanford University comes to the public's attention with those claims. First of all the Stanford Study was not a study but a review of past studies, there was no control, lab analysis, or new data completed. The study did not look at many phytonutrients, they tended to stick to the nutrients found on nutritional labels. Now for those of you that have a good background on nutrition will know that what is on the nutritional label is not even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the nutrition in food. When a review is performed and reported the data has to be "significantly different" for something to be considered. If the values are different but not significant enough then it will be determined that there "was no significant difference" and you would report that in your findings. When looking at nutrients on the nutritional label between OF and CF there is not a significant different is most of the nutrients. In many, there is a difference, but it is not a large enough difference to report on. How ever if you look at various different phytonutrients (that many of the nutritional governing bodies don't even recognize) there would be significant difference.
When a specific results is wanted from a study or review the data reviewed will be specific so as to get the conclusion wanted. In the case of the Standford study, phytonutrients were virtually ignored and only certain nutrients were reported on. This allowed them to conclude that OF is no more nutritious then CF. That's the equivalent of stating a Ferrari and a Honda are the same or not significantly different because they both have 4 wheels, one engine and are the same color. Clearly the rest of the picture is missing. This comes as no surprise when you look at the funding of the study and the head scientist of the study. When the study was published the financier was actually not labelled, which is clearly a red flag. It then came out later that the money actually came from multiple Biotech companies such as Cargill. The lead scientist also had financial ties to certain Biotech industries as well. Basically the study was nothing more then an attempt to create a false conclusion on OF by trying to look like legitimate science. The reason for someone to chose OF over CF is much greater then simply because one is more nutritious then then the other. Even when taking into account the differences in phytonutrient content that is still just a small part of why one should eat OF.
I've briefly talked about the nutrient side of OF but now I want to go over the chemical part of it. Because OF doesn't involve the use synthetic pesticides or chemicals, you are severely limiting your exposure to chemicals by choosing OF. This was actually reported in the Stanford study but they tried to justify it by saying the levels found were below the FDA recommendations. I'll explain the issue with this later. The mainstream media decided to not talk about this but simply just talk about how OF was found no more nutritious then CF. The media is very careful about which stores they run since they do not want to bite the hand that feeds and many of the stations are owned by various biotech and pharmaceutical corporations or receive quite a bit of money from them for advertising. Now when looking at your chemical exposure when ingesting CF it is much higher. Due to the overuse of these chemicals, GMO's and bad farming practices CF had led to the use of the chemical 2,4-D. This if roughly half of what Agent Orange consisted of back in the Vietnam War. Yes the one that touted as safe until all of the health issues came out down the road and then it was banned. The chemical companies love these super bugs because this means more profit for them. Super bugs that are resistant to older chemical pesticides mean the heavier use of stronger pesticides. Yes this means you are ingesting much stronger chemicals.
People who don't want to look at the bigger picture always tend to say "But if it was bad the government would stop it" or "well the FDA/USDA makes sure the levels aren't too high". The interesting part is that many fruits and vegetables actually tested up to 80 times higher for chemicals then legally allowed. These are the foods you are ingesting. If you think that the FDA is actually out to protect your health then you need to look at a much larger picture. Just look at what the past directors for the FDA have to say about what goes on behind closed doors. One quote from a past director was "What the people are told the FDA is doing and what they are really doing are two completely different things". There is a reason why many people on the board of directors for the FDA work for companies like Monsanto for a few years and then go to the FDA for a few years on their board of directors and then switch back. So yes in a nutshell you now have biotech and chemical companies running the FDA which is "out to protect public health". If you think Canada is much better then you are sadly mistaken. Look at the past chief advising scientist of Health Canada who was fired after not allowing GMO's to be introduced into the food system. They then hired on a puppet who chose his job over the safety of a country and allowed GMO's to be used in Canada.
Most of the synthetic chemicals used in CF are known carcinogens and all of them are heavily toxic to humans. When safety levels are looked at they only look at one chemical at a time. The ridiculous part of that is that when you then put 6 different chemicals on one food even if all 6 are within the "safe" levels you now have a synergistic effect and combined those levels are much higher then the recommended amount. Bottom line, no level of synthetic chemical is safe.
When it comes to meat and other animal products organic is a much better option. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone but if you are going to choose one over the other then pick organic. Just go to your local farmer and ask them the differences in Organic and conventional meat. OF is fed actual food, the CF cattle are fed chicken litter (chicken shit) and GMO corn etc. There is arsenic, growth hormones, antibiotics as well as other in CF feed. CF meat contains a "sodium pump" which injects the meats with the excitotoxin MSG. Just this last paragraph alone should make it pretty obvious at the benefits of OF over CF.
The are various other benefits of OF over CF especially in the environmental side of things. I'm not going to get into much of it, but I will briefly talk about a few things. There have been multiple reports from industry leading scientists that are stating that with CF farming practices we are ruining the soil, water, air quality and are going to be shooting ourselves in the foot for 50 years down the road. They have also stated that by switching to OF farming the damage done so far can be reversed and it can be done in a sustainable way which allows for healthy soils for future farming generations ahead. When you choose OF you are avoiding synthetic chemicals in your food such as Aspartame, MSG, Sucralose, artificial colorants, falvorants etc. You are also aoiding GMO's which has very real health consequences. I am not going to get into GMO's in this article, but avoiding the is a very big step towards feeling much healthier.
For those that feel that OF is too expensive I recommend shopping at a specific OF store. If you go to a regular grocery store then OF tends to be inflated quite a bit like a "boutique item". In a grocery store dedicated to organic food the prices tend to be much more realistic. Organic Meat and animal products are the only part that tends to be very pricey. This is due to the inefficiencies of having to feed your food. It also has a lot to do with government subsidies which are not given to OF farmers. Yes your taxes pay to make CF meat and animal products cheaper but it will not go to OF or to healthy fruits and vegetables. Your health needs to be a priority and the little increase that OF costs is a very small one that will greatly pay itself off down the road. If you are eating healthier and no longer eating processed products of animal products it is actually cheaper to eat this way then CF. Take a good look at your day to spending and where you can cut back. The majority of people spend a lot of money weekly on things that are of low priority and contribute to bad health.
The word Organic is the only word that is regulated. The term "natural" actually means nothing and can be used on anything. Sure there is the possibility that certain OF may be contaminated with chemicals or a food processing plant doesn't follow the strict regulations. However there are people from the certifying bodies who do periodic tests and checks to ensure that the standards are followed. Not to say that there are not any problems however it is a much better option as it is still regulated. Obviously growing food in your own back yard would be the safest (test your soil) but for some people this is not an option.
Next time when your in your grocery store go for the certified organic food and know that you are taking another step towards optimal health. Although the food make look the same, your body will thank you.
Now before I begin let's take a look the two types of farming practices we are comparing. Conventional Food (CF) involves the use toxic chemicals, GMO's, monoculture and synthetic additives either to feed or to the plants. Basically trying to make nature the way we want it. Organic Food (OF) involves the use of no synthetic chemicals or fertilizers, no GMO's, crop turnover and polyculture. Essentially using and working with nature to allow the crops to be as healthy as possible. Now many of you reading this may think "well common sense would point to OF being the better option for health, environment and leaving the smallest footprint possible". Thinking this way you are definitely correct, however being raised in a society with selective media, corporate interests, false industry driven education and a general indifference about the food we eat, can lead many people thinking OF is a joke and make them think that the chemically doused food makes more sense to eat.
If you're going to be ingesting food you want that food to be as free of synthetic chemicals and as close to nature as possible. Throughout evolution the body has become accustomed to eating an apple, and only that apple. Not the apple, and the fluoride based chemicals, the genetic changes in the apple and others, it simply knows how to digest the apple. So it would make sense when you are choosing what you eat, it should be as close to natural as possible. Fruits and vegetables naturally contain their own pesticides and fungicides, many of which are called phytonutrients. When humans ingest these plant based chemicals they have a positive effect on the body. Many of these chemicals once they enter the body are known as antioxidants. Take Salvestrol's for example, these are natural fungicides that the plants develop to keep themselves healthy. Once ingested they are extremely beneficial to us and have even been linked to being very effective for cancer patients at attacking damaged cancerous cells and leaving the regular cells healthy. You won't see these phytonutrients on the nutritional label and your Dr and RD will have most likely never even heard about them. However they are extremely valuable in the maintenance of good health.
With CF the crops are sprayed with synthetic toxic fungicides, and the plant then no longer develops its own fungicide. This means that when you ingest that conventionally grown apple it is void of Salvestrol's as well as many other phytonutrients. Now that was only one example, but would it not be common sense to state that CF is less nutritious then OF? If you had a choice to ingest a food with these phytonutrients or a food without I'm pretty sure you would pick the one with.
I am not going to get into every single nutrient that OF contains and that CF is completely void of as that would be another article on its own. However I do want to discuss how a study like the one at Stanford University comes to the public's attention with those claims. First of all the Stanford Study was not a study but a review of past studies, there was no control, lab analysis, or new data completed. The study did not look at many phytonutrients, they tended to stick to the nutrients found on nutritional labels. Now for those of you that have a good background on nutrition will know that what is on the nutritional label is not even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the nutrition in food. When a review is performed and reported the data has to be "significantly different" for something to be considered. If the values are different but not significant enough then it will be determined that there "was no significant difference" and you would report that in your findings. When looking at nutrients on the nutritional label between OF and CF there is not a significant different is most of the nutrients. In many, there is a difference, but it is not a large enough difference to report on. How ever if you look at various different phytonutrients (that many of the nutritional governing bodies don't even recognize) there would be significant difference.
When a specific results is wanted from a study or review the data reviewed will be specific so as to get the conclusion wanted. In the case of the Standford study, phytonutrients were virtually ignored and only certain nutrients were reported on. This allowed them to conclude that OF is no more nutritious then CF. That's the equivalent of stating a Ferrari and a Honda are the same or not significantly different because they both have 4 wheels, one engine and are the same color. Clearly the rest of the picture is missing. This comes as no surprise when you look at the funding of the study and the head scientist of the study. When the study was published the financier was actually not labelled, which is clearly a red flag. It then came out later that the money actually came from multiple Biotech companies such as Cargill. The lead scientist also had financial ties to certain Biotech industries as well. Basically the study was nothing more then an attempt to create a false conclusion on OF by trying to look like legitimate science. The reason for someone to chose OF over CF is much greater then simply because one is more nutritious then then the other. Even when taking into account the differences in phytonutrient content that is still just a small part of why one should eat OF.
I've briefly talked about the nutrient side of OF but now I want to go over the chemical part of it. Because OF doesn't involve the use synthetic pesticides or chemicals, you are severely limiting your exposure to chemicals by choosing OF. This was actually reported in the Stanford study but they tried to justify it by saying the levels found were below the FDA recommendations. I'll explain the issue with this later. The mainstream media decided to not talk about this but simply just talk about how OF was found no more nutritious then CF. The media is very careful about which stores they run since they do not want to bite the hand that feeds and many of the stations are owned by various biotech and pharmaceutical corporations or receive quite a bit of money from them for advertising. Now when looking at your chemical exposure when ingesting CF it is much higher. Due to the overuse of these chemicals, GMO's and bad farming practices CF had led to the use of the chemical 2,4-D. This if roughly half of what Agent Orange consisted of back in the Vietnam War. Yes the one that touted as safe until all of the health issues came out down the road and then it was banned. The chemical companies love these super bugs because this means more profit for them. Super bugs that are resistant to older chemical pesticides mean the heavier use of stronger pesticides. Yes this means you are ingesting much stronger chemicals.
People who don't want to look at the bigger picture always tend to say "But if it was bad the government would stop it" or "well the FDA/USDA makes sure the levels aren't too high". The interesting part is that many fruits and vegetables actually tested up to 80 times higher for chemicals then legally allowed. These are the foods you are ingesting. If you think that the FDA is actually out to protect your health then you need to look at a much larger picture. Just look at what the past directors for the FDA have to say about what goes on behind closed doors. One quote from a past director was "What the people are told the FDA is doing and what they are really doing are two completely different things". There is a reason why many people on the board of directors for the FDA work for companies like Monsanto for a few years and then go to the FDA for a few years on their board of directors and then switch back. So yes in a nutshell you now have biotech and chemical companies running the FDA which is "out to protect public health". If you think Canada is much better then you are sadly mistaken. Look at the past chief advising scientist of Health Canada who was fired after not allowing GMO's to be introduced into the food system. They then hired on a puppet who chose his job over the safety of a country and allowed GMO's to be used in Canada.
Most of the synthetic chemicals used in CF are known carcinogens and all of them are heavily toxic to humans. When safety levels are looked at they only look at one chemical at a time. The ridiculous part of that is that when you then put 6 different chemicals on one food even if all 6 are within the "safe" levels you now have a synergistic effect and combined those levels are much higher then the recommended amount. Bottom line, no level of synthetic chemical is safe.
When it comes to meat and other animal products organic is a much better option. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone but if you are going to choose one over the other then pick organic. Just go to your local farmer and ask them the differences in Organic and conventional meat. OF is fed actual food, the CF cattle are fed chicken litter (chicken shit) and GMO corn etc. There is arsenic, growth hormones, antibiotics as well as other in CF feed. CF meat contains a "sodium pump" which injects the meats with the excitotoxin MSG. Just this last paragraph alone should make it pretty obvious at the benefits of OF over CF.
The are various other benefits of OF over CF especially in the environmental side of things. I'm not going to get into much of it, but I will briefly talk about a few things. There have been multiple reports from industry leading scientists that are stating that with CF farming practices we are ruining the soil, water, air quality and are going to be shooting ourselves in the foot for 50 years down the road. They have also stated that by switching to OF farming the damage done so far can be reversed and it can be done in a sustainable way which allows for healthy soils for future farming generations ahead. When you choose OF you are avoiding synthetic chemicals in your food such as Aspartame, MSG, Sucralose, artificial colorants, falvorants etc. You are also aoiding GMO's which has very real health consequences. I am not going to get into GMO's in this article, but avoiding the is a very big step towards feeling much healthier.
For those that feel that OF is too expensive I recommend shopping at a specific OF store. If you go to a regular grocery store then OF tends to be inflated quite a bit like a "boutique item". In a grocery store dedicated to organic food the prices tend to be much more realistic. Organic Meat and animal products are the only part that tends to be very pricey. This is due to the inefficiencies of having to feed your food. It also has a lot to do with government subsidies which are not given to OF farmers. Yes your taxes pay to make CF meat and animal products cheaper but it will not go to OF or to healthy fruits and vegetables. Your health needs to be a priority and the little increase that OF costs is a very small one that will greatly pay itself off down the road. If you are eating healthier and no longer eating processed products of animal products it is actually cheaper to eat this way then CF. Take a good look at your day to spending and where you can cut back. The majority of people spend a lot of money weekly on things that are of low priority and contribute to bad health.
The word Organic is the only word that is regulated. The term "natural" actually means nothing and can be used on anything. Sure there is the possibility that certain OF may be contaminated with chemicals or a food processing plant doesn't follow the strict regulations. However there are people from the certifying bodies who do periodic tests and checks to ensure that the standards are followed. Not to say that there are not any problems however it is a much better option as it is still regulated. Obviously growing food in your own back yard would be the safest (test your soil) but for some people this is not an option.
Next time when your in your grocery store go for the certified organic food and know that you are taking another step towards optimal health. Although the food make look the same, your body will thank you.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Vegan vs Paleo- The Reason I Chose One Over the Other
Welcome back readers, sorry for the delay after a bit of an end of summer break I am back and will try to keep the articles coming once a week
I'm sure the title has caught some eyes and got the defences up from either side. Before I start this article I want people to understand where I am coming from when I write this. This is not meant to fuel the fire or argument or to bash one side and put the other on a pedestal. This is being written to explain to people the reason I decided to go Vegan instead of Paleo. Because I am a vegan it will seem like this is coming from a biased perspective, but understand I am writing this as a person who has tried both diets as well as heavily researched both and to highlight the reasons that had swayed me to one side over the other. I get this question a lot and figured it was time to write about it.
This article is comparing the healthiest versions and true versions of both diets. What I mean by this is that when I refer to the vegan diet I am referring to a soy free, gluten free, whole food, plant based diet that is free of processed foods and is mostly raw. Not just eating anything as long as it doesn't contain animal products. When I refer to the Paleo diet I am also referring to the proper paleo diet which is grain free, low carb (lack of heavy carb based food sources like a potato) dairy free including whey, contains only grass fed organic beef, contains a moderate amount of raw foods but much is cooked. These are the two specific diets that are being compared, as there are various ways to call yourself either a Vegan or Paleo when your far from a healthy diet. Keep it mind that this isn't knocking anyone who is not eating these specific diets and still calls themselves one or the other, I just need 2 specific diets to compare.
When I compared the two diets I looked at various aspects of each of the diets effect on the body as well as its role in evolution. I am not going to be comparing animal ethics or environmental impacts of either diet, this is strictly a health and athletic performance article.
Bioavailability-Nutrient Absorbtion
If properly designed, neither diet even without taking supplements will lead to a deficiency of a single nutrient, so both diet are very nutrient dense and complete. I have written past articles about specific nutrients if you want to look into specifics, just take a look at the article archives. The bioavailability of protein is much higher in plant based (PB) foods then it is in meat. Although most meats will contain more protein on the nutritional label, what your body does with the food is much different. This vast majority of PB foods are alkaline causing and combat acidity. They also naturally combat inflammation and are high in antioxidants. Plants do not need to be cooked to be eaten which keep the nutrients and enzymes intact making the food essential self digesting. The top superfoods in the world are all plant based, and contain gram per gram more antioxidants then the top animal based. The amount of time to digest meat is very high and it stays a long time in your digestive tract. It has also been found that the majority of meat eaters (even only organic) have parasites in their digestive system. Eggs on the other hand are not very tough on the body to digest and are very bioavailable source of protein. This is assuming that you are not turning the eggs cholesterol toxic which I will talk about further in the article. The only issue with eggs is that they are highly allergenic in many people. These are not sever reactions but commonly more subtle things such as a consistent runny nose etc. The other problem is that eggs are high in a very potent environmental carcinogenic toxin called Dioxin. Even organic eggs are not free of this. It is true however that 200 years ago this wouldn't have been a problem as dioxin is brought on by industrial chemical waste.
Recovery-Athletic performance
When it comes to athletic performance, the most important factor other then the stimulus is the recovery. This includes sleep, and the ability to repair tissue damage as quick as possible. The most important factors of repairing tissues is keeping the body alkaline, reducing inflammation, reducing oxidative damage, keeping the blood flow high going in and out of the muscle and lowering the bodies overall stress so it can focus on recovery. The PB diet is superior at reducing inflammation, reducing oxidative damage (antioxidants), keeping the body alkaline as well as keeping the blood flow to the muscle. When meat is ingested it is hard on your body to digest causing your body to have to increase the blood flow into your digestive system. This lowers the amount of blood at the muscles to aid in recovery by bringing in nutrients and flushing out by products. This is also why many people feel very sluggish and exhausted after a meal. You should actually feel energized and not heavy after a meal. The nutrients are also much slower to be utilized by the body when the food takes a lot longer to digest making them less readily available to be used by the body. When it comes to sleep you do not want any excess food in your stomach or extra blood in your digestive system. Because meat can take up to 24 hours to fully digest (depending on the person) there is a very high chance that you will have partially digested food in your gut when you sleep.
Carbohydrate consumption is also a very important factor in recovery, more specifically glycogen levels. Due to the nature of a low amount of starch based carbs in the Paleo diet glycogen replenishment is hindered. Whole fruit is considered fine for Paleo's but fructose cannot replenish muscle glycogen making it essentially useless for muscle recovery. I am not saying that going ketogenic is dangerous or that you cannot function, but when it comes to optimizing recovery and even performance your body needs it's glycogen levels topped up. Starch based carbs are not needed throughout the whole day, but when glycogen levels become depleted recovery and performance becomes hindered. With a PB diet starch based carbs like Quinoa, brown rice, and sweet potato's are ingested much more frequently which replenishes muscle glycogen and speeds recovery.
Evolution-Human Design
There are various theories right now regarding the Paleolithic man and the genes that we have. It is fairly well recognized that humans have evolved from the Paleo's of around 5,000 years ago. How ever the ones that have been found to be upwards of 30 000 years old are thought to have become extinct and had completely different DNA then what we have. When it comes to evolution, 5 to 10 thousand years ago really is not an adequate time frame for major changes to be made or evolve. Small changes maybe, but major ones no. Meaning just because our ancestors did something a few thousand years ago, does not mean that our bodies have evolved to that as well. A completely plant based civilization has been found by archaeologists recently and it was found that they too, just like the Paleo's, became extinct. Many past civilizations stuck mainly to plants, but as the ice age got closer, and these civilizations were now further North or covered in snow. The plants were now either dormant , dead or covered. However animals were seen walking and were killed as a food source which led to the Omnivore diet. When the ice age receded these civilizations followed the animals and continued with the Omnivore diet which was still very heavy in raw plants.
Any other species on earth that is a carnivore catches and kills their food with their own physical features. This is usually done with sharp fang like teeth or claws. Humans are the only species that physically cannot kill an animal, but needs to use tools instead. The defence I was told many times to this is because humans have to intelligence to make such tools the body didn't need to adapt with claws and fangs. This is just flat out and obviously incorrect. The body does not evolve in that sense, where if the brain is smart enough the then body just stops changing. If that theory was to be correct then why are humans still able to walk (and are showing no evolutionary signs of getting weaker) if they are now intelligent enough to create the car and electric wheelchair. Because they still walk around here and there so that is why we haven't become weaker at walking? Well since humans have been eating meat for the last little while they have continued using their teeth but yet haven't grown fangs, so that can't be correct. What about all of the other inventions that humans were so intelligent to make? Does the human body automatically turn that body part obsolete if the new invention can do it instead? A first year physiology student knows that humans just aren't evolved to be meat eaters.
The fact that meat sits in the digestive system for so long further strengthens that thought. If the body was designed so well to ingest meat then why are we lacking so many features of all the other species on earth that ingest meat naturally? Our stomach pH is much more basic then most meat eaters. Our body goes through increased stress to properly process meat. The human body has a longer intestinal tract compared to carnivores of the same size, this causes meat to stay in the intestines longer. Why do carnivores not have the same negative effect on the body's vessels and blood profile after ingesting excessive meat like you see in humans? Food poisoning is a relatively common occurrence in humans but virtually unheard of in natural carnivores.
Toxicity
When a human or an animal ingests a toxin whether environmental or other, the majority become stored in the fat tissue. When you ingest that animal you ingest those toxins. Animal are higher up the food chain meaning that these toxins increase as you go up the food chain. Animals store the toxins of the prey that they eat, and the same thing happens to humans. Eating PB means your eating lower on the food chain which results in much less toxins. Organic Meat is much lower in toxins then traditional, but it is definitely not free of them. Fish are highly toxic, long gone are the days of finding areas in the ocean that are clean and clear of heavy metals PCB's, Dioxin etc. Just look into Corexit which is the oil dispersant being used to "clean up" the oil spill. Wild fish like Wild Alaskan will ensure no added hormones antibiotics or deformed fish, but they are not even close of being free of contaminants.
Degenerative Disease-Longevity
When it comes to diseases I put these two diets almost side by side in effectiveness. Now before you go saying how there are multiple studies out there connecting diets high in meat with cancer, heart disease etc. Most if not all of the studies performed looking at meat ingestion and disease are very skewed by other animal products such as dairy etc. They also look at non organic meat which is much different then organic meat and has a different effect on the body. As of now I am unaware of any study that had looked at the consumption of strictly organic meat with the absence of other disease causing animal proteins such as dairy. Both diets have been shown to reduce/cure diseases like diabetes as well as others. If I was to put my health on the line I would definitely go with the PB diet as it stresses the body much less and has no risk of contaminating the person with toxins that would hinder recovery of the disease. In my opinion if one is to start a new diet to try and reverse a new disease diagnosis then I would definitely not recommend they stress their body with the consumption of meat. However if either diet is started at a healthy state then the risk of being diagnosed with disease is virtually zero in both diets.
Now when it comes to longevity and looking young the PB diet has it won for sure. With PB foods putting much less stress on the body this leads to much less oxidative damage which helps you look young for longer. Your collagen and elastin are much better preserved with the less oxidative damage on the body.
The Cholesterol Conundrum
Many people assume because I am all for a plant based diet that I am against fat and cholesterol. This is definitely not the case. When it comes to research it would be have been easy for me to jump on the cholesterol hating band wagon because a PB diet does not contain any dietary cholesterol. However doing this without properly researching cholesterol's effect at the cellular level with an unbiased view would not make me very credible. Nor would it be very good advice or guidance. I have read various sides of the cholesterol research and what seems to be the most well grounded and science based theory is this:
Cholesterol is essential, bottom line. Now this does not mean dietary cholesterol, but cholesterol in the body. It is the basis of how cells are built and helps transport hormones throughout the body. This is why statin drugs are some of the most dangerous for a person to take. And now to explain why statin's are essentially useless. Dietary cholesterol only accounts for roughly 20% of the cholesterol in your blood and vessels. This is why a Dr telling his or her patient to stop eating cholesterol does virtually nothing to lower LDL cholesterol and in a few months the said patient ends up on Lipitor. The reason is because the rest of the 80% of cholesterol in your blood is caused by the types of food you eat signalling the liver to secrete more cholesterol into the blood stream. Cholesterol is produced primarily from the liver and on a plant based diet it will produce what you need. The intake of non toxic dietary cholesterol (will explain ahead) will cause the liver to produce less cholesterol which will also keep the supply of cholesterol at what your body needs.
When a person ingests trans fat - think solidified plant based oils such a margerine, shortening, or highly heated oils like canola fryer oil - their liver is signalled to produce much more cholesterol. Trans fats are also found in the ruminant fat of animals when you ingest animal products like dairy or meats. I've read through much literature on both of these types of trans fats and what seems to be the understanding so far is that synthetic trans fats are highly toxic. The trans fats from animals do not have the same effect on the body as the former however more research is needed to assess the specific effect these fats have on the body and relation to disease. There are many small scale studies that have provided evidence for both sides of the argument but more research is needed to make a conclusion. Ingesting refined sugar, or more specifically causing a spike in insulin, is largely responsible for the increase in cholesterol production by the liver. Whenever insulin is elevated beyond normal levels, cholesterol production in the liver increase. Due to the proper Paleo diet being very low in carbs, the insulin is rarely ever elevated which helps keep the cholesterol in the blood down. On a proper PB diet the amount of carbs are higher but unless eaten in large amounts, the wheat free complex carbs will not spike the blood sugar very high to increase insulin production at the liver.
Here's the low down on toxic cholesterol. Cholesterol that is not cooked or is "raw" I guess you could say, is the type that I was talking about in the above paragraph. Cooked or toxic cholesterol is far from healthy once it enters the body. For example if you were to cook an egg, sunny side up or a raw egg, it keeps the cholesterol from becoming toxic, the yolk is still uncooked. Scrambled eggs cook the cholesterol and therefore it becomes toxic. Meat has to be cooked for human consumption which also makes the cholesterol toxic. The majority of people tend to grill their meat on a BBQ. Any time a food becomes blackened or charred it becomes carcinogenic and increases its content of free radicals. Hence why raw food is far superior even in plant based foods, so yes avoid grilling your veggies, you are cooking them down to nothing. A Paleo meal with a grilled steak and grilled veggies is very toxic to your body. The same meal with raw veggies is much better for your body (keep in mind healthier does not mean healthy) however you are still relying on the plant based raw foods to combat the damaged causes by the grilled steak. Why not just avoid the toxic part?
So you may be wondering now what if the meat was eaten raw? Well then the cholesterol would not be toxic and would not harm your body. The body would still go through the increase in uric acid, and have to deal with the heavy burden of the digestion, but the cholesterol would be fine. This brings me back again to the obvious point that humans are not designed to eat meat. If you don't understand this yet then this may help... WE HAVE TO COOK IT. May be a little bold, but it is quite clear. No other species on the earth has to cook their food first so that it is safe for consumption, not one. This is due to natural carnivores having an extremely acidic stomach, a much lower pH then humans have. This kills any bacteria in the food they are eating and speeds up digestion. If any food in your diet has to be cooked in order for it to be safe, then you clearly arn't designed to ingest it. Sure brown rice or quinoa and even sweet potato's are pretty much always cooked. But go ahead and eat them raw and I assure you that you will not become sick.
Anecdotal-Tried it Hated it
If you are going to be trying either diet to see for yourself what you found better then you need to give either one a minimum of 3 months. It will take that long for your body to go through all of it's changes and reach homoeostasis within your new diet. Do it right, don't decide after reading one or two articles that you are an expert and that you have all of the bases covered. Consult with someone who is knowledgeable about either diet and can ensure that you are covering all of your bases and can asses what you will be eating. This way you will at least make sure that you are not missing something out and then do not get to experience the whole benefit of either diet.
Many people who have tried a PB diet try it for 2-3 weeks or a month or two. These people tend to have the same story, that they felt tires or sluggish. I have consulted with many people who have tried to go vegan in their past and had experienced fatigue. After going through what they were eating it is no surprise that they felt the way they did. Sure they technically were eating "vegan" but it was far from healthy or optimal. Your body goes through a transition which is a bit of a shock in the beginning of making the change. If you decide to stop before your body has had adequate time to transition then you will never experience how you should have felt.
I have also spoken with many Paleo's who have dropped a lot of weight and gotten fairly lean from switching. After talking to them I found out that they still ate dairy and MSG loaded regular meat. How they lost their weight is they essentially went on a ketogenic diet and cut out all carbs. They weren't eating the proper Paleo diet and it is far from healthy. Looking at the scale it looks successful, but at the cellular level that's not the case.
In conclusion I would recommend people to consult with someone who is knowledgeable and try both types of diets. Make the decision for yourself based on how you feel and what you experience. Just make sure you try either diet properly, or you are just fooling yourself and will get skewed results. You really cannot say one is superior to the other without trying it for yourself first. Stating that things like digestion or fatigue levels are fine, without having tried the other diet for comparison is not accurate as you have nothing to base it against.
I'm sure the title has caught some eyes and got the defences up from either side. Before I start this article I want people to understand where I am coming from when I write this. This is not meant to fuel the fire or argument or to bash one side and put the other on a pedestal. This is being written to explain to people the reason I decided to go Vegan instead of Paleo. Because I am a vegan it will seem like this is coming from a biased perspective, but understand I am writing this as a person who has tried both diets as well as heavily researched both and to highlight the reasons that had swayed me to one side over the other. I get this question a lot and figured it was time to write about it.
This article is comparing the healthiest versions and true versions of both diets. What I mean by this is that when I refer to the vegan diet I am referring to a soy free, gluten free, whole food, plant based diet that is free of processed foods and is mostly raw. Not just eating anything as long as it doesn't contain animal products. When I refer to the Paleo diet I am also referring to the proper paleo diet which is grain free, low carb (lack of heavy carb based food sources like a potato) dairy free including whey, contains only grass fed organic beef, contains a moderate amount of raw foods but much is cooked. These are the two specific diets that are being compared, as there are various ways to call yourself either a Vegan or Paleo when your far from a healthy diet. Keep it mind that this isn't knocking anyone who is not eating these specific diets and still calls themselves one or the other, I just need 2 specific diets to compare.
When I compared the two diets I looked at various aspects of each of the diets effect on the body as well as its role in evolution. I am not going to be comparing animal ethics or environmental impacts of either diet, this is strictly a health and athletic performance article.
Bioavailability-Nutrient Absorbtion
If properly designed, neither diet even without taking supplements will lead to a deficiency of a single nutrient, so both diet are very nutrient dense and complete. I have written past articles about specific nutrients if you want to look into specifics, just take a look at the article archives. The bioavailability of protein is much higher in plant based (PB) foods then it is in meat. Although most meats will contain more protein on the nutritional label, what your body does with the food is much different. This vast majority of PB foods are alkaline causing and combat acidity. They also naturally combat inflammation and are high in antioxidants. Plants do not need to be cooked to be eaten which keep the nutrients and enzymes intact making the food essential self digesting. The top superfoods in the world are all plant based, and contain gram per gram more antioxidants then the top animal based. The amount of time to digest meat is very high and it stays a long time in your digestive tract. It has also been found that the majority of meat eaters (even only organic) have parasites in their digestive system. Eggs on the other hand are not very tough on the body to digest and are very bioavailable source of protein. This is assuming that you are not turning the eggs cholesterol toxic which I will talk about further in the article. The only issue with eggs is that they are highly allergenic in many people. These are not sever reactions but commonly more subtle things such as a consistent runny nose etc. The other problem is that eggs are high in a very potent environmental carcinogenic toxin called Dioxin. Even organic eggs are not free of this. It is true however that 200 years ago this wouldn't have been a problem as dioxin is brought on by industrial chemical waste.
Recovery-Athletic performance
When it comes to athletic performance, the most important factor other then the stimulus is the recovery. This includes sleep, and the ability to repair tissue damage as quick as possible. The most important factors of repairing tissues is keeping the body alkaline, reducing inflammation, reducing oxidative damage, keeping the blood flow high going in and out of the muscle and lowering the bodies overall stress so it can focus on recovery. The PB diet is superior at reducing inflammation, reducing oxidative damage (antioxidants), keeping the body alkaline as well as keeping the blood flow to the muscle. When meat is ingested it is hard on your body to digest causing your body to have to increase the blood flow into your digestive system. This lowers the amount of blood at the muscles to aid in recovery by bringing in nutrients and flushing out by products. This is also why many people feel very sluggish and exhausted after a meal. You should actually feel energized and not heavy after a meal. The nutrients are also much slower to be utilized by the body when the food takes a lot longer to digest making them less readily available to be used by the body. When it comes to sleep you do not want any excess food in your stomach or extra blood in your digestive system. Because meat can take up to 24 hours to fully digest (depending on the person) there is a very high chance that you will have partially digested food in your gut when you sleep.
Carbohydrate consumption is also a very important factor in recovery, more specifically glycogen levels. Due to the nature of a low amount of starch based carbs in the Paleo diet glycogen replenishment is hindered. Whole fruit is considered fine for Paleo's but fructose cannot replenish muscle glycogen making it essentially useless for muscle recovery. I am not saying that going ketogenic is dangerous or that you cannot function, but when it comes to optimizing recovery and even performance your body needs it's glycogen levels topped up. Starch based carbs are not needed throughout the whole day, but when glycogen levels become depleted recovery and performance becomes hindered. With a PB diet starch based carbs like Quinoa, brown rice, and sweet potato's are ingested much more frequently which replenishes muscle glycogen and speeds recovery.
Evolution-Human Design
There are various theories right now regarding the Paleolithic man and the genes that we have. It is fairly well recognized that humans have evolved from the Paleo's of around 5,000 years ago. How ever the ones that have been found to be upwards of 30 000 years old are thought to have become extinct and had completely different DNA then what we have. When it comes to evolution, 5 to 10 thousand years ago really is not an adequate time frame for major changes to be made or evolve. Small changes maybe, but major ones no. Meaning just because our ancestors did something a few thousand years ago, does not mean that our bodies have evolved to that as well. A completely plant based civilization has been found by archaeologists recently and it was found that they too, just like the Paleo's, became extinct. Many past civilizations stuck mainly to plants, but as the ice age got closer, and these civilizations were now further North or covered in snow. The plants were now either dormant , dead or covered. However animals were seen walking and were killed as a food source which led to the Omnivore diet. When the ice age receded these civilizations followed the animals and continued with the Omnivore diet which was still very heavy in raw plants.
Any other species on earth that is a carnivore catches and kills their food with their own physical features. This is usually done with sharp fang like teeth or claws. Humans are the only species that physically cannot kill an animal, but needs to use tools instead. The defence I was told many times to this is because humans have to intelligence to make such tools the body didn't need to adapt with claws and fangs. This is just flat out and obviously incorrect. The body does not evolve in that sense, where if the brain is smart enough the then body just stops changing. If that theory was to be correct then why are humans still able to walk (and are showing no evolutionary signs of getting weaker) if they are now intelligent enough to create the car and electric wheelchair. Because they still walk around here and there so that is why we haven't become weaker at walking? Well since humans have been eating meat for the last little while they have continued using their teeth but yet haven't grown fangs, so that can't be correct. What about all of the other inventions that humans were so intelligent to make? Does the human body automatically turn that body part obsolete if the new invention can do it instead? A first year physiology student knows that humans just aren't evolved to be meat eaters.
The fact that meat sits in the digestive system for so long further strengthens that thought. If the body was designed so well to ingest meat then why are we lacking so many features of all the other species on earth that ingest meat naturally? Our stomach pH is much more basic then most meat eaters. Our body goes through increased stress to properly process meat. The human body has a longer intestinal tract compared to carnivores of the same size, this causes meat to stay in the intestines longer. Why do carnivores not have the same negative effect on the body's vessels and blood profile after ingesting excessive meat like you see in humans? Food poisoning is a relatively common occurrence in humans but virtually unheard of in natural carnivores.
Toxicity
When a human or an animal ingests a toxin whether environmental or other, the majority become stored in the fat tissue. When you ingest that animal you ingest those toxins. Animal are higher up the food chain meaning that these toxins increase as you go up the food chain. Animals store the toxins of the prey that they eat, and the same thing happens to humans. Eating PB means your eating lower on the food chain which results in much less toxins. Organic Meat is much lower in toxins then traditional, but it is definitely not free of them. Fish are highly toxic, long gone are the days of finding areas in the ocean that are clean and clear of heavy metals PCB's, Dioxin etc. Just look into Corexit which is the oil dispersant being used to "clean up" the oil spill. Wild fish like Wild Alaskan will ensure no added hormones antibiotics or deformed fish, but they are not even close of being free of contaminants.
Degenerative Disease-Longevity
When it comes to diseases I put these two diets almost side by side in effectiveness. Now before you go saying how there are multiple studies out there connecting diets high in meat with cancer, heart disease etc. Most if not all of the studies performed looking at meat ingestion and disease are very skewed by other animal products such as dairy etc. They also look at non organic meat which is much different then organic meat and has a different effect on the body. As of now I am unaware of any study that had looked at the consumption of strictly organic meat with the absence of other disease causing animal proteins such as dairy. Both diets have been shown to reduce/cure diseases like diabetes as well as others. If I was to put my health on the line I would definitely go with the PB diet as it stresses the body much less and has no risk of contaminating the person with toxins that would hinder recovery of the disease. In my opinion if one is to start a new diet to try and reverse a new disease diagnosis then I would definitely not recommend they stress their body with the consumption of meat. However if either diet is started at a healthy state then the risk of being diagnosed with disease is virtually zero in both diets.
Now when it comes to longevity and looking young the PB diet has it won for sure. With PB foods putting much less stress on the body this leads to much less oxidative damage which helps you look young for longer. Your collagen and elastin are much better preserved with the less oxidative damage on the body.
The Cholesterol Conundrum
Many people assume because I am all for a plant based diet that I am against fat and cholesterol. This is definitely not the case. When it comes to research it would be have been easy for me to jump on the cholesterol hating band wagon because a PB diet does not contain any dietary cholesterol. However doing this without properly researching cholesterol's effect at the cellular level with an unbiased view would not make me very credible. Nor would it be very good advice or guidance. I have read various sides of the cholesterol research and what seems to be the most well grounded and science based theory is this:
Cholesterol is essential, bottom line. Now this does not mean dietary cholesterol, but cholesterol in the body. It is the basis of how cells are built and helps transport hormones throughout the body. This is why statin drugs are some of the most dangerous for a person to take. And now to explain why statin's are essentially useless. Dietary cholesterol only accounts for roughly 20% of the cholesterol in your blood and vessels. This is why a Dr telling his or her patient to stop eating cholesterol does virtually nothing to lower LDL cholesterol and in a few months the said patient ends up on Lipitor. The reason is because the rest of the 80% of cholesterol in your blood is caused by the types of food you eat signalling the liver to secrete more cholesterol into the blood stream. Cholesterol is produced primarily from the liver and on a plant based diet it will produce what you need. The intake of non toxic dietary cholesterol (will explain ahead) will cause the liver to produce less cholesterol which will also keep the supply of cholesterol at what your body needs.
When a person ingests trans fat - think solidified plant based oils such a margerine, shortening, or highly heated oils like canola fryer oil - their liver is signalled to produce much more cholesterol. Trans fats are also found in the ruminant fat of animals when you ingest animal products like dairy or meats. I've read through much literature on both of these types of trans fats and what seems to be the understanding so far is that synthetic trans fats are highly toxic. The trans fats from animals do not have the same effect on the body as the former however more research is needed to assess the specific effect these fats have on the body and relation to disease. There are many small scale studies that have provided evidence for both sides of the argument but more research is needed to make a conclusion. Ingesting refined sugar, or more specifically causing a spike in insulin, is largely responsible for the increase in cholesterol production by the liver. Whenever insulin is elevated beyond normal levels, cholesterol production in the liver increase. Due to the proper Paleo diet being very low in carbs, the insulin is rarely ever elevated which helps keep the cholesterol in the blood down. On a proper PB diet the amount of carbs are higher but unless eaten in large amounts, the wheat free complex carbs will not spike the blood sugar very high to increase insulin production at the liver.
Here's the low down on toxic cholesterol. Cholesterol that is not cooked or is "raw" I guess you could say, is the type that I was talking about in the above paragraph. Cooked or toxic cholesterol is far from healthy once it enters the body. For example if you were to cook an egg, sunny side up or a raw egg, it keeps the cholesterol from becoming toxic, the yolk is still uncooked. Scrambled eggs cook the cholesterol and therefore it becomes toxic. Meat has to be cooked for human consumption which also makes the cholesterol toxic. The majority of people tend to grill their meat on a BBQ. Any time a food becomes blackened or charred it becomes carcinogenic and increases its content of free radicals. Hence why raw food is far superior even in plant based foods, so yes avoid grilling your veggies, you are cooking them down to nothing. A Paleo meal with a grilled steak and grilled veggies is very toxic to your body. The same meal with raw veggies is much better for your body (keep in mind healthier does not mean healthy) however you are still relying on the plant based raw foods to combat the damaged causes by the grilled steak. Why not just avoid the toxic part?
So you may be wondering now what if the meat was eaten raw? Well then the cholesterol would not be toxic and would not harm your body. The body would still go through the increase in uric acid, and have to deal with the heavy burden of the digestion, but the cholesterol would be fine. This brings me back again to the obvious point that humans are not designed to eat meat. If you don't understand this yet then this may help... WE HAVE TO COOK IT. May be a little bold, but it is quite clear. No other species on the earth has to cook their food first so that it is safe for consumption, not one. This is due to natural carnivores having an extremely acidic stomach, a much lower pH then humans have. This kills any bacteria in the food they are eating and speeds up digestion. If any food in your diet has to be cooked in order for it to be safe, then you clearly arn't designed to ingest it. Sure brown rice or quinoa and even sweet potato's are pretty much always cooked. But go ahead and eat them raw and I assure you that you will not become sick.
Anecdotal-Tried it Hated it
If you are going to be trying either diet to see for yourself what you found better then you need to give either one a minimum of 3 months. It will take that long for your body to go through all of it's changes and reach homoeostasis within your new diet. Do it right, don't decide after reading one or two articles that you are an expert and that you have all of the bases covered. Consult with someone who is knowledgeable about either diet and can ensure that you are covering all of your bases and can asses what you will be eating. This way you will at least make sure that you are not missing something out and then do not get to experience the whole benefit of either diet.
Many people who have tried a PB diet try it for 2-3 weeks or a month or two. These people tend to have the same story, that they felt tires or sluggish. I have consulted with many people who have tried to go vegan in their past and had experienced fatigue. After going through what they were eating it is no surprise that they felt the way they did. Sure they technically were eating "vegan" but it was far from healthy or optimal. Your body goes through a transition which is a bit of a shock in the beginning of making the change. If you decide to stop before your body has had adequate time to transition then you will never experience how you should have felt.
I have also spoken with many Paleo's who have dropped a lot of weight and gotten fairly lean from switching. After talking to them I found out that they still ate dairy and MSG loaded regular meat. How they lost their weight is they essentially went on a ketogenic diet and cut out all carbs. They weren't eating the proper Paleo diet and it is far from healthy. Looking at the scale it looks successful, but at the cellular level that's not the case.
In conclusion I would recommend people to consult with someone who is knowledgeable and try both types of diets. Make the decision for yourself based on how you feel and what you experience. Just make sure you try either diet properly, or you are just fooling yourself and will get skewed results. You really cannot say one is superior to the other without trying it for yourself first. Stating that things like digestion or fatigue levels are fine, without having tried the other diet for comparison is not accurate as you have nothing to base it against.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Hunger - Your Body's Cry For Nutrition
Quick! What's the first thing that pops into your mind when I say the word "Hunger"?
...you may vision a country with famine, or you may think of your grumbling stomach an hour before lunch. Many of you I'm sure thought about a diet, or multiple diets that you have tried in the past. Diets and hunger are synonymous in the commercialised diet industry. It is the reason why diet's fail and keeps returning customers looking for the next diet pill promising false hopes. It keeps people hating hunger and viewing it as the evil or the road block as to why they are not in the shape that they have always wanted.
But what if hunger is actually a good thing, a way for our bodies to communicate with us to help us be in the best shape possible? What if over the years the media, diet industry, and failed diets have all convoluted our view about hunger. Now we try and push it away with ingredients like ephedrine, synephrine, caffeine all to achieve that "healthy" weight. This leads to constant bombardment of the adrenal glands (adrenal fatigue) with leads to increased cortisol levels and therefore more abdominal fat storage. Fat cannot be spot reduced, but it certainly can be spot specific when you gain it.
For the rest of this article I'm going to explain to you how you can use hunger to your advantage and how it is your bodies way of helping you stay lean and healthy.
In the world of muscle building you have cycles of cutting and bulking. Cut in the summer (diet), lose body fat and try and keep as much muscle from being lost as possible. Bulk in the winter (eat huge amounts of food, most unhealthy) so that your muscles are being constantly full of glycogen and you can ensure the maximal amount of muscle gain possible. The reason this is done is because it is impossible to know the perfect amount of glucose/glycogen and muscle needs, too little and you limit recovery/gains, too much and it spills over into fat. So the train of thought is to bombard the body with excess amount of carbs and you get maximal growth.
Now in the world class level of bodybuilding (think Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman) where competitors are 280lbs at 5% BF bulking and cutting is necessary, for reasons that I am not going to discuss any further in this article. But for the individual who is looking to build as much muscle as they naturally can and staying at a very lean body fat year round and have the athletic/fitness model look, bulking and cutting is not necessary.
Here's why:
Go to any big gym and look at the guys (natural) who cut and bulk. Very few of them if any actually bulk cleanly, meaning they use quality complex carbs. The majority of these people are shovelling down ice cream, eating pizza's, drinking "weight gainer" shakes which are loaded in corn syrup and other artificial compounds. Thus leads to little muscle gain and a lot of fat gain. Therefore, the bulking period for many is nothing more then an excuse to get fat and eat what they want. Then for 3 months in the summer they restrict their calories and diet their way into hopefully single digits BF%, due to the rapid time for them to try and lose the fat, they end up losing a lot of muscle as well.
For someone who is truly after the pursuit of full body health and who want to look great on the beach, bulking is not the way. Why would you not want to have single digits BF% all year round, and not have to go up and down in your weight, and do a crash diet just for the summer. To me, true health is looking great all the time, and feeling great fro the inside all of the time..
Now that you've gotten a better basic understanding of why people bulk, it's time to talk about hunger:
So I've mentioned earlier that the magic number of how many carbs your body needs is something people wish they only knew...something that you would see Harrison Ford in an Indiana Jones movie trying to find. But what if that number, or at least a very close representation to that number can be found out, and your body has been trying to tell you it since you were born. Hunger, yes hunger is the key to figuring out that elusive magic value. Ignoring hunger is when problems arise such as irritability, muscle wasting, mood changes etc. Because your body doesn't crave Calories, but nutrients, ignoring hunger is ignoring your bodies cry out for more nutrients.
Lets say that you just finished a 60 minute tough lift to failure workout. You have a protein shake and when you get home some brown rice. You are going to go to bed in an hour or 2 and 30 mins after your last meal you are already feeling hungry. Many people would chose to ignore the hunger because they have a fear that eating more will make them fat. This hunger is your bodies way of saying "my glycogen stores are not full, I needs more glucose (starches)" . This is why it is better to ingest smaller meals (relative to each person/activity) and listen closely to your bodies signs. Even if you were to go to bed 30 mins after having another serving of quinoa or what ever wheat free starch it was, you will not convert any of it to fat. The reason being, you fuelled your body with what it needs and since your muscles needed glycogen, none of the starch based carbs you ingested went into fat storage, but instead went to muscle glycogen. Now this would not be the same if you were to ingest wheat based starches due to insulin spikes (even from whole grain/wheat) but I will be writing a future article on wheat. This also would not apply to ingesting fructose based carbs, and you can read my past article on Fructose
If you are constantly in tune with your body and are monitoring the signals it is giving you, you can then ensure that the muscles are being fuelled optimally for muscle gain. All at the same time as ensuring your body is in the single digits BF%. Yes that is right, building muscle while losing BF. The myth that this is impossible stems from eating a diet that makes this impossible. Eating properly for your body will allow you to do both.
Hunger is not the enemy, but your bodies way of communicating that it needs something. Address your hunger properly and enjoy your fittest body yet.
...you may vision a country with famine, or you may think of your grumbling stomach an hour before lunch. Many of you I'm sure thought about a diet, or multiple diets that you have tried in the past. Diets and hunger are synonymous in the commercialised diet industry. It is the reason why diet's fail and keeps returning customers looking for the next diet pill promising false hopes. It keeps people hating hunger and viewing it as the evil or the road block as to why they are not in the shape that they have always wanted.
But what if hunger is actually a good thing, a way for our bodies to communicate with us to help us be in the best shape possible? What if over the years the media, diet industry, and failed diets have all convoluted our view about hunger. Now we try and push it away with ingredients like ephedrine, synephrine, caffeine all to achieve that "healthy" weight. This leads to constant bombardment of the adrenal glands (adrenal fatigue) with leads to increased cortisol levels and therefore more abdominal fat storage. Fat cannot be spot reduced, but it certainly can be spot specific when you gain it.
For the rest of this article I'm going to explain to you how you can use hunger to your advantage and how it is your bodies way of helping you stay lean and healthy.
In the world of muscle building you have cycles of cutting and bulking. Cut in the summer (diet), lose body fat and try and keep as much muscle from being lost as possible. Bulk in the winter (eat huge amounts of food, most unhealthy) so that your muscles are being constantly full of glycogen and you can ensure the maximal amount of muscle gain possible. The reason this is done is because it is impossible to know the perfect amount of glucose/glycogen and muscle needs, too little and you limit recovery/gains, too much and it spills over into fat. So the train of thought is to bombard the body with excess amount of carbs and you get maximal growth.
Now in the world class level of bodybuilding (think Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman) where competitors are 280lbs at 5% BF bulking and cutting is necessary, for reasons that I am not going to discuss any further in this article. But for the individual who is looking to build as much muscle as they naturally can and staying at a very lean body fat year round and have the athletic/fitness model look, bulking and cutting is not necessary.
Here's why:
Go to any big gym and look at the guys (natural) who cut and bulk. Very few of them if any actually bulk cleanly, meaning they use quality complex carbs. The majority of these people are shovelling down ice cream, eating pizza's, drinking "weight gainer" shakes which are loaded in corn syrup and other artificial compounds. Thus leads to little muscle gain and a lot of fat gain. Therefore, the bulking period for many is nothing more then an excuse to get fat and eat what they want. Then for 3 months in the summer they restrict their calories and diet their way into hopefully single digits BF%, due to the rapid time for them to try and lose the fat, they end up losing a lot of muscle as well.
For someone who is truly after the pursuit of full body health and who want to look great on the beach, bulking is not the way. Why would you not want to have single digits BF% all year round, and not have to go up and down in your weight, and do a crash diet just for the summer. To me, true health is looking great all the time, and feeling great fro the inside all of the time..
Now that you've gotten a better basic understanding of why people bulk, it's time to talk about hunger:
So I've mentioned earlier that the magic number of how many carbs your body needs is something people wish they only knew...something that you would see Harrison Ford in an Indiana Jones movie trying to find. But what if that number, or at least a very close representation to that number can be found out, and your body has been trying to tell you it since you were born. Hunger, yes hunger is the key to figuring out that elusive magic value. Ignoring hunger is when problems arise such as irritability, muscle wasting, mood changes etc. Because your body doesn't crave Calories, but nutrients, ignoring hunger is ignoring your bodies cry out for more nutrients.
Lets say that you just finished a 60 minute tough lift to failure workout. You have a protein shake and when you get home some brown rice. You are going to go to bed in an hour or 2 and 30 mins after your last meal you are already feeling hungry. Many people would chose to ignore the hunger because they have a fear that eating more will make them fat. This hunger is your bodies way of saying "my glycogen stores are not full, I needs more glucose (starches)" . This is why it is better to ingest smaller meals (relative to each person/activity) and listen closely to your bodies signs. Even if you were to go to bed 30 mins after having another serving of quinoa or what ever wheat free starch it was, you will not convert any of it to fat. The reason being, you fuelled your body with what it needs and since your muscles needed glycogen, none of the starch based carbs you ingested went into fat storage, but instead went to muscle glycogen. Now this would not be the same if you were to ingest wheat based starches due to insulin spikes (even from whole grain/wheat) but I will be writing a future article on wheat. This also would not apply to ingesting fructose based carbs, and you can read my past article on Fructose
If you are constantly in tune with your body and are monitoring the signals it is giving you, you can then ensure that the muscles are being fuelled optimally for muscle gain. All at the same time as ensuring your body is in the single digits BF%. Yes that is right, building muscle while losing BF. The myth that this is impossible stems from eating a diet that makes this impossible. Eating properly for your body will allow you to do both.
Hunger is not the enemy, but your bodies way of communicating that it needs something. Address your hunger properly and enjoy your fittest body yet.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Fructose, Fat Loss, and Building Muscle - What's the Deal?
For the sake of this article I am going to try and avoid going into specifics of the pathways that fructose and other sugars take through the body. I want to keep this article focused on the basics of the effect that fructose and other sugars have on your body in relation to storing fat. This article is not to bash fruit or to try and convince you that it is bad. Whole fruit contains many good things such as anti oxidants, nutrients, and fibre, and can play a role in ones diet. I am trying to highlight to you that with all of that goodness comes a lot of sugar as well, and that this does have a certain effect on the body.
The focus of this article is for someone who is trying to stay very lean, who wants to walk around with a full 6 pack with their obliques showing. Although this article will also give some good insight even for those who are just looking to live healthy and are not worried about muscle striations on the beach.
To give you an idea of what foods typically contain these sugars here is a few examples.
Fructose
-100% of the sugar found in fruit
-sucrose (table sugar) 50% fructose and 50% glucose
-the sugar in vegetables is fructose, although much less then fruit
-agave 100% fructose
-raw honey contains mostly fructose, but also glucose as well
Glucose
-starch based carbs are broken down into glucose in the body
-dextrose
-maltodextrin more complex form of dextrose
Muscle lacks the enzymes to convert fructose into glycogen so to top off muscle stores and aid in muscle recovery fructose is useless. Even if you muscles are depleted after a hard workout and you are ingesting fruit or a fruit juice, your muscles will still be depleted. Glucose will replenish your muscles as well as your liver if it is needed, but it goes to the muscles first. Muscles deplete their glycogen levels before the liver does. The liver will not be depleted unless you are training at a very high intensity for a relatively long period of time and are not ingesting any carbs. For the most part, most people even if lifting heavy and intensely, will not deplete their liver glycogen stores, unless they are working out on an empty stomach. This is why fructose post workout really is not doing anything more then being stored as fat.
Optimizing muscle recovery via glucose:
"I gotta get a lot of simple carbs in me after my workout to spike insulin so I get a lot better gains"
This is a statement that is tossed around the gym and weightlifting forums all of the time, and is quite frankly untrue. After an intense workout that involves muscle glycogen depletion, your carbohydrate uptake is *Insulin Independent*. This means that your body does not need or use insulin to absorb the glucose from your blood stream into your cells/muscles. This happens up until the muscles become full of glycogen, and then your body uses insulin again to uptake glucose. Sorry to burst the insulin spike bubble, but for most people to actually spike their insulin after an intense workout they would need to over 250-400g of glucose. If you were to ingest that many carbs the least of your worries is insulin, at this point you are spilling over into fat storage, as well because your insulin would now be spiked you are also preventing fat from being burned for fuel. When ever insulin levels are elevated fat cannot be burned.
The bottom line is get off the idea of focusing on insulin levels post workout and focus on replenishing your muscle glycogen to improve recovery and muscle fullness. If you fuel up optimally then you will not store any excess as fat and your muscles will improve recovery. This is all done without any effect on insulin. This is why listening to your body and being in tune with your body is so important. If after a post workout meal high in starchy carbs you still feel hungry, then this means that your muscles need more glycogen. This is why I recommend not eating massive plates of food even post workout. Split it into two and let the first dish settle and go from there.
Do I Need Fast Burning Carbs Post Workout?
Simple answer, no, and here's why:
Many people have found that adding Dextrose (simple carb consisting of only glucose) to a post workout drink increases their fat storage. When these people switched to Maltodextrin (complex carb consisting of glucose) their fast storage went down, but their muscles still got replenished. The reason isn't because these people spilled over, they were ingesting the same amount of carbs each time from both carb sources. The reason is because when you ingest such a fast absorbing carb that spikes your insulin very acutely, your muscles have a hard time converting all of those carbs so fast into glycogen and then storing them. The muscles are flooded with a very high amount of glucose wanting to be converted to glycogen for storage, and the muscles can't work with that amount of glucose. This leads to indirect spilling over and some of those carbs convert into fat. So amidst all of the old fashioned gym goers groans, I am going to recommend you ingest starch based COMPLEX carbs post workout.
The reason is this: Many think that complex carbs take hours before your body absorbs them, and this is clearly false. Your body starts absorbing complex carbs instantly, but the release is much slower causing a much lower insulin spike and creating a source of energy that last much longer. Basically your muscles are now being replenished consistently over a longer period of time instead of being bombarded for a brief amount of time. Now your muscles are able to convert the glucose it receives into glycogen as it is now receiving a lower amount over a longer period of time. This limits or completely stops the glucose from being stored as fat as your muscles can now process all of the glucose properly. In the end the muscle is still getting replenished with the same amount of glycogen. The complex source of carbs is also healthier for your body as it does not spike your insulin as high and will supply your body with a constant source of energy over a longer time. - keep in mind that if this is post workout then the insulin spike doesn't apply
I'm sure you now can see the bigger picture as to why fructose is not effective to replenish muscle glycogen, and as to why it increases fat storage. If you are an ectomorph body type who is naturally very lean, or if you are just trying to maintain a healthy BF% then having fruit a couple times a day will not be an issue, nor will it increase your BF%. But if you are trying to get to a low BF% of around 6-8% and maintain that, then you will not want to be ingesting fructose.
Fructose and Blood Sugar:
You hear many times from either MD's or on the news, that fructose is great for diabetic people of pre diabetic people. This is wrong, and very wrong it is. This statement comes from a very short sighted view that since fructose doesn't enter the bloodstream like glucose and it goes to the liver, then it doesn't spike insulin or blood sugar and it therefore healthier. The big picture is that although fructose may not spike blood sugar acutely, but through other metabolic pathways fructose in high amounts increases insulin resistance (think High Fructose Corn Syrup). This doesn't mean that these diabetic people should ingest a lot of glucose either and spike their blood sugar. The best option is to stop ingesting fructose, and to ensure that their carb sources are all very complex. Sources such as sweet potatoes, quinoa, beans etc. This causes the blood sugar to stay more consistent therefore lowering insulin spikes and reducing insulin sensitivity.
Exercising at high intensities (relative to their health) is also very very effective for diabetics and pre diabetics. This is because you create glycogen depletion in the muscles which then allows the uptake of glucose to be insulin independent which means that there is no need for insulin to uptake the glucose into the cells after the workout. If you are diabetic or pre diabetic avoid the Canada Food Guide and anyone who tells you to follow it. I know of pre diabetics who were told that ingesting the 6-8 servings of fruits or vegetables all from fruit was perfectly fine, even from fruit drinks as long as there is no added sugar. As much as I dislike and disagree with the Canada's Food Guide, when I heard this I was blown away. That is the perfect set up for a pre diabetic to become diabetic.
Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) and Non Alcoholis Steatohepatitis (NASH):
These disease's (NASH being the more advanced version of NAFLD) are becoming increasingly diagnosed in North America and eventually will lead to liver failure. The current treatment is the typical recommendation to "lose weight" and put people on Metformin. Metformin is a diabetes drug which is not related to NAFLD or NASH and has many complications such as muscle fatigue, lactic acidosis and causing a B12 deficiency. Many people on Metformin have been shown to become dependant and need to increase their dosages for it to have any effect. Metformin is a diabetes drug, not a drug for NAFLD or NASH. A biased study was run by the Pharmaceutical industry trying to find a benefit of Metformin in patients with NAFLD or NASH, although some of the studies methods are very questionable, and the other actually shows no benefit, it is now being prescribes by DR's to treat these two diseases. Basically the Dr's were lacking a drug from big Pharma to prescribe for this increasing disease so they tried to find a benefit of giving the patients Metformin. Although it provides no benefit to the patient, the Dr's now feel like they are treating the disease, big Pharma makes more money, and unknowing patients think they are being helped. Allopathic medicine yet again refuses to look at the patients diet, in this case Fructose, more specifically High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) as the reason for this "disease". They of course turn to the typical "well the patient must have the disease due to not having medication in their system" and the meds are prescribed. No one has a disease due to a lack of medication, just as no one has a headache due to a lack of Tylenol. If you actually look at the pathways of certain nutrients in the human body you would notice that the liver is responsible for metabolising 100% of fructose. This means that people who are ingesting pop and drinks loaded with HFCS are putting a massive strain on their liver. This is why many young children are now being diagnosed with NAFLD. To me it's very clear as to what the cause is. This also leads you to the "cure" or basically what you should stop doing that is causing the disease to begin with. The cure to a black eye isn't make up, it is stopping the impact to your eye. Losing weight may help a person, but the weight gain is not the issue, it is the excess fructose consumption.
Here's my take:
If you are trying to get very lean or are trying to stay very lean, then avoid fructose (except from veggies). Just ensure that you are using starch based carbs to supplement the fructose you are taking out of your diet. You do not want to starve your body of what you need, just give it an optimal nutrient that it needs. If you are already at a healthy BF% and are not looking to stay very lean and want to just be healthy, then go ahead and have 1-2 whole fruit a day. I never recommend drinking fruit juices, if you are going to ingest fruit then eat it whole so that you are ingesting all of the enzymes and fibre. Fruit juices, even ones with no added sugar and not from concentrate are pasteurized voiding all of the enzymes and getting rid of the fibre. It is essentially concentrating all of the fruit sugars. If you do eat fruit, stick with the most potent nutrient dense ones and ingest it upon waking up or in the middle of the day.
I hope this article offered you some insight into the different effect that two different sugars have on the body and will help you make certain nutritional decisions down the road.
Thanks for reading!
Monday, May 21, 2012
The Diet Conundrum - Why Diets Do Not Work
There is a good chance that almost everyone who reads this has at least once in their life tried some sort of diet. I'm not referring to the word diet as what it really means - what someone eats day to day. I'm talking diet as in the media term for it - when you restrict your body of certain nutrients to drop some temporary pounds. There are literally hundred of diets out there, think of something crazy to cut out and there is most likely a name for it as a special diet with empty promises. Sure you may have lost those 10 lbs you wanted for your beach party, but at what cost? To be miserable, grumpy and lethargic for weeks before? Or to go and gain back double what you lost? This is the reality with the fad diets out there and even with these terrible results many still turn to them as soon as they want to lose some weight. Any time you restrict and deprive your body you will drop weight, the problem is you drop just as much muscle with it and your metabolism as well. Here's a new diet - don't eat for 7 days, it's a guarantee that you'll shed pounds fast. Sound extreme? Then why isn't anyone batting an eye at these so called detox diets where you ingest nothing but lemon water with honey for a week? There is really no difference.
The reason people are turning to these diets is because of two reasons. The first reason being that they don't know any other option to lose weight so they go with what seemed to work for their friends or their favourite celebrity. They feel that the only diets out there are the ones that they are seeing on TV and in magazines. The second reason being that the way our food system is now a days (if you eat a traditional NA diet) it is virtually impossible to not become fat, or at the very least maintain a lean body. We're ingesting what were told is food, but in reality it is nothing more then food products, chemistry experiments, all designed to trigger your pleasure centres in the brain to keep you wanting more. Our food is stripped of any nutritional value so that it is concentrated fat, sugar, and sodium - nothing of what your body needs, but plenty of what your brain craves. Every day people pass by advertisements with flashy pictures of food products, only to then see an advertisement for the next diet pill with a picture of a skinny (unhealthy) model. What needs to be remembered is that these are industry's, plain and simple. They both work hand in hand to keep the revenue coming in. You have a society that eats the food products and becomes unhealthy and fat, you then have those same people spending millions of dollars each year on the diet products, only to become so deprived that they turn back to the food products and end up gaining back more then they lost in weight. This vicious cycle feeds itself year after year. Each time the body becomes more and more deprived of what it actually needs and people become sick with disease and start to feel lethargic and sore. They then go to a doctor who cares nothing about their lack of nutrition and is quick to give their soreness a name of a new found disease, maybe something like fibromyalgia. The prescription is written, the expensive pills are bought, and the life time customer is now hooked. All while the actual cause of the weight gain and lethargy is never actually addressed.
This may seem like a pretty dark picture to you, and it most definitely is, but the reality is, this is happening to thousands of people every day. Industries and corporations (Food, Diet, Big Pharma, Medical) are making billions per year off of these people every single day. People are shelling out hundreds and thousands of dollars every month for the hope of finally getting to their dream weight. All this money being spent, while none of it is actually going to wards their true health, to someone who actually cares about improving the person's health.
The bright side to all of this is that you do not have to be one of those people, no one does. All it takes is some knowledge and a willingness to eat consciously - to care about what your are putting in your body, and what you are doing to your body every day.
Why diets do not work:
Enough of the gloom in the paragraphs above, time to get to the main issue, and how you can fix it.
The reason a diet does not work is simple, it is because it is exactly that, a diet, restricting and depriving. What needs to be remembered here is that your body, as amazing as it is, does not know what you are planning on doing. It does not know that you are trying to lose weight for your up coming wedding or party that you have in a few weeks. All your body knows is what it needs in terms of nutrients and where exactly to store those nutrients for present or future use. As soon as you decide that you are going to "diet" and you begin to restrict lets say on a Monday morning, your body begins to think a famine has hit. After that week of deprivation, your body has effectively lowered your metabolism so that you stop burning very important fuel stores. It also begins to becomes very efficient at storing fat, because remember you are in a "famine" and your body doesn't know when it will end. Because you are so deprived of vital nutrients your body has started to break down muscle to use amino acids as fuel. Your muscle begins to lose all of its glycogen stores, and your muscle becomes lighter and depleted. You lose a lot of water weight due to your muscle and carb depleton. Your body begins to signal to your brain that is severely deprived and you becomes irritable, depressed, angry, and you start to find it challenging to think straight. But at the end of the week the scale says you are lighter then the beginning of the week. Success? I don't think so. You are nothing more then unhealthy and deprived. Very little of that weight loss is actually fat.
The week after your party or wedding or whatever function your dieted for:
You go back to eating your traditional NA diet. Your body still thinks it is in a famine so every nutrient you ingest is going to be stored as fat. You now have a suppressed metabolism, less muscle mass, and most likely a suppressed immune system. You are likely to become sick due to this. You are so happy to finally be able to eat again that you now over indulge and your body is packing on much more fat so it can prepare for the next "famine". At the end of this week you weigh yourself and find that you have gained back double of what you originally weighed. This leave you feeling depressed, miserable and hopeless. On the way home from work you see an advertisement for a new diet pill or fad diet. You tell yourself that next Monday you will begin your new diet.
As you can no doubt see not only are fad diets useless for your body, but they are extremely hard on you mentally. They put you through a roller coaster of emotions.
But why vegan?
The problem with portion control diets that promise you can still eat the foods you love and have no problem leaning out, is that you are still introducing toxins into your body. The main toxins I'm talking about are flavour enhancers like MSG. Lets say you are practising portion control or even eating "healthier" foods when you go out etc. You order a garden salad with a chicken breast lets say, the iceberg lettuce is offering you no real nutritional value other then water and the chicken would contain, on top of hormones and other toxins, MSG due to the sodium pump. You taste buds taste this, and your brain goes through over excited neurons and then death. You are then hungry less then an hour after your "healthy" meal and your body is now craving flavours that you can never obtain with natural foods. The only way to curb this craving is to experience more neuron killing MSG. So you basically still end up deprived and wanting foods or more of foods that you cannot eat. I have spoken with and even experienced this myself. You may be thinking "well I know a lot of people that are lean and have abs and they seem to eat what they want or just use portion control". Well you don't see everything behind closed doors. Are they able to stay lean year round? Or do they go on an extreme or deprived diet to lean out for summer beach season? You don't know what they really eat day in and day out. From the people I've dealt with and from what I've experienced, these people may be lean but every time they see that pizza or drive by that fast food joint, they are fighting constant cravings. It isn't will power that keeps them from caving in, it is love. They love being lean more then they love the fast food. Many of these people are fitness competitor's or care a whole lot about what they look like. For them they can put the constant craving away and try and battle through it for beach season or for that competition down the road. But by winter, or as soon as that competition is over see what they are eating.
The reality is this. Not everyone out there has a huge drive to be lean for beach season or to be on stage in a competition, for these people they find it extremely hard to deal with the everyday constant cravings and stick with their so called diet. They find it hard to love a lean body over the only food they know to eat. So what is the solution?
That is why a Plant based Whole foods diet is so effective, from athletes all the way up to every day people. Without getting into the health benefits, or sport performance benefits I'll explain it for you. When you eat a vegan diet (remember I'm talking about a whole foods plant based diet that is mostly raw) your are not introducing any of these toxins into your body. You are getting rid of the flavor enhancers and allowing your palate to be able to actually taste the natural flavors in vegetables. You are filling your body up with well balanced unprocessed meals that give your body the macro and micro nutrients that it is actually craving and needing. You do all this without worrying about calories, without being hungry, and while being so much more energized. At first it may seem restricting, but once you get going on your diet you will realize how many different types of foods you are eating that you never even knew existed before. How amazing would it be to not have to read a nutritional label again, to only have to read ingredients?
I have worked with many people that think that there is no way they can do it as they feel it sounds so restricting. This is why after I sit down with them and design their specific meal plan for their specific day to day activities, I then take them to the grocery store. I am able to show them where to look for the right foods, what to avoid, and many other important hints on how to truly shop healthy. You will never have to feel hungry or deprived, and you will have more energy then you have ever had before. You will now be eating meals that are more nutrient dense then a full day of your past diet. Your body will not be constantly craving food because you are filling your body up with what it needs, nutrients. Your body doesn't crave Calories, it craves nutrients, and it will signal that it is hungry when you do not feed it nutrients, regardless of how many calories you've ingested. If you are hungry then you need to eat, bottom line. If you are hungry then there is a reason for that, it means your body is in need of something. "You need to be hungry to lose weight" is a myth told to you by people who don't understand nutrition. After a few weeks people always call me to get me to reassure the that they will lose weight because they aren't hungry. The weight starts to drop after a few weeks and their worry goes away. They are just so used to feeling so deprived to lose weight. Because you are fuelling your body with what you need, you will not lose muscle mass and your metabolism stays elevated. When you fuel your body with what it needs your body will naturally go back to a weight that it is meant to be at. No one is born with a genetic disposition to be fat. Every body naturally is meant to be lean, it is only until we introduce these toxins and food products into our bodies that they become fat.
Once you experience how good you can feel and were meant to feel, the last thing you are going to want to do is go back to eating food products. The weight loss is just a side effect of a properly designed meal plan. A meal plan that gives you the knowledge to chose what you eat based on what your body needs. Stuck in traffic? You will already have an on the go full meal shake with you. Just finished a hard workout and are going to bed soon? You will be eating a meal that will re fuel your muscles and supply your body with what it needs without being stored as fat and hampering your sleep.
It is time to stop dieting and start living. It is never too late to take control of your life and enjoy life void of deprivation or restriction and full of energy and health.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Common Misconceptions about a Plant Based Diet Explored
I am constantly asked this question when people ask about a plant based diet, it usually follows the protein question. The question falls somewhere along the lines of "Arn't you deficient in certain things?" or "Yeah, it may be healthy but you are still missing something" The first one isn't a problem, but the second question is just based on ignorance and misconception taken as fact. I realised that it wouldn't make for such a bad article and it would answer a few questions that many people have regarding nutrient deficiencies.
Lets start with Protein. I am not going into much detail here as I have already written about protein in past articles. All I'm going to say about protein for the sake of this article is bioavailability. Just because a nutrition label states a certain amount of protein does not mean that is what your body is actually absorbing and utilizing. For info on complete and incomplete protein's read another one of my past articles
Fats/Cholesterol:
Many people assume that I am riding the "fat is the enemy" bandwagon due to me supporting a whole food plant based diet which tends to be low in fat, and has no dietary source of cholesterol. This is not true, I am against any single diet that tries to restrict any single macro nutritient whether it be Protein, Fat, or Carbs. With that being said, I am a big fan of fat, as long as it is the right type of fat. Eating fat found in nuts, coconut oil (all saturated fat), or flax seed is very beneficial to your body. It helps control inflammation, helps in the development of nerves and neurons, keeps the body feeling satiated as well as a ton of other fantastic functions. The saturated fat found in coconut oil are Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCT), this means that they put no stress on your hepatic system and gall bladder to release bile to digest fat. They practically self digest and your body uses MCT's instantly as a high quality source of fuel. This means that it virtually never gets stored as fat. Eating the wrong type of saturated fat can put tremendous stress on your gall bladder which may lead to the removal of it through a medical operation. Cholesterol is essential to the development of all cells, as well as the transportation of certain hormones in your body. That being said, your liver produces cholesterol and recyles it and you can live a healthy life without a dietary source of cholesterol. However, when you ingest certain types of cholesterol, your liver suppresses the excretion of cholesterol and people seem to have lower levels of cholesterol in their blood. Keep in mind that cholesterol is not a direct sign that you are unhealthy or healthy. The type of cholesterol as well as other blood markers. This means that having higher levels of cholesterol because you do not eat any cholesterol does not mean that you are in any harm of heart disease. The opposite tends to be seen with vegans (no dietary source of cholesterol) having drastically reduced rates of heart disease. The type of cholesterol you ingest matters as well. If you heat up your sources of cholesterol to higher levels then it becomes toxic to your body. As an example, scrambled eggs are much worse then a sunny side up egg or a raw egg. Due to the bodies very inefficient ability of converting plant based Omega 3's into DHA and EPA (~3-5%) I recommend most people to take a high quality fish oil supplement each day. High quality means that is is filtered for heavy metals and other toxins, and then tested for purity afterwards. With supplements, paying more is usually for a good reason. This fish oil will also give you a dietary source of cholesterol. It is possible that not ingesting any fish oil and only relying on plant based Omega 3's is still healthy and does not lead to any problems, as there are millions of vegans who do it every day. This is based off of my research which is focused on optimizing health and not from a view of animal ethics (although many of you know my stance on animals fits very well with veganism) So yes you can be very healthy not ingesting any fish oil, but to optimize brain health/function as well as suppress your livers production of cholesterol, taking a fish oil supplement daily makes sense. ***Do not take Omega 3, 6 or 9 together. They fight for the same receptors and block each other's uptake. Only take Omega 3. Most people have more then enough Omega 6 and 9, much more then they need, so stick with Omega 3 only.***
B-12:
There are very limited sources of B-12 in a vegan diet. Some sources like Spirulina are not bioavailable to the human body. B-12 even in animal products in not naturally created by the animal. According to Dr. Seale the B-12 found in animal products is a result of the bacteria contained in the animals stomach and digestive tract that produce B-12. This makes a lot of sense considering in plant based sources - bioavailable or not, the B-12 is found in bacteria or yeast such as Spirulina or Nutritional Yeast. Nutritional Yeast contains B-12 that is found to be bioavailable to humans and is a good dietary source of B-12. It is also interesting to note that the rate of B-12 deficiency is similar between Omni's and Vegan's, and actually has been shown to be worse in Omni's in some cases. This correlates well with the theory that B-12 deficiency wasn't found in earlier cultures due to their lack of excessive use of antibacterial soaps and excessive washing of the hands. This exposed them to much more forms of bacteria, many beneficial which also exposed them to B-12. I always recommend people to take a B-12 supplement even if you eat nutritional yeast daily. I find the liquid supplement is absorbed better then the pill form. Or you can go to a Naturopathic Dr and get a B-12 Injection which last much longer in the body.
Iron:
Ahh yes the infamous Iron myth. Many people will tell you without much real knowledge on the subject, that animal sources (heme) of Iron are much more absorbed then plant based (non heme)sources. I have heard many times from anemic patients that their MD's have told them to eat a ton of red meat because their iron levels are low, or they put them on hundreds of mg's of elemental iron with little to no change in their blood levels. Lets look at iron absorption from a scientific, un biased and realistic view. Plant based foods contain non heme iron, and animal based food contain 40% heme iron and 60% non heme iron. It was previously thought that the heme iron in animal based foods was much more absorbed by the body. When it is looked at in the big picture instead of one small aspect you begin to see why telling patients to eat more red meat doesn't work. Your body has a natural mechanism that regulates the uptake of iron. Because iron can be very toxic to the body if over absorption happens this is very important. Iron at too high amounts will start to oxidize and damage cells. At closer look it was found that heme iron completely bypasses this natural regulating mechanism and forces the body to absorb the iron. Non heme iron on the other hand was found to follow this natural regulation system by the body, and only become absorbed when needed. If not needed then the iron was passed out of the body. This stops any cell damage caused by an over absorption of iron. Most people know that Vitamin C enhances the absorption of iron. It was found that when paired with vitamin C, non heme iron was 6x more absorbed then heme iron. Here's the kicker, most plant based sources of iron are naturally high in Vitamin C, amazing? This means that vegans who are eating a well balanced whole food diet although ingesting only non heme iron, they are actually absorbing iron 6x faster then their Omni's friends. This is all happening while following the body's natural regulatory system so that the body will never become damaged due to excess iron absorption, amazing. This is why many previous Omni's who switch to a well designed vegan diet end up having any previous Anemia issues disappear. Gotta love the human body and how everything naturally functions together as one.
Those are the most common deficient nutrients that most people think of when they think of a vegan diet. Hopefully you got some of your questions answered, or you learned something new!
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