To Fast or Not To Fast

To Fast or Not To Fast

Previously I have discussed the benefits of intermittent fasting, but haven’t yet discussed the experience of fasting.  There are many different ways of fasting (refraining from consuming any food for a specified time frame):

  • Fasting every other day
  • Fasting one day/week
  • 12-hour fast (8pm-8am)
  • 16-hour fast (8pm-12pm)

Benefits range from improved cognitive function to increased longevity.  But how do you manage hunger pangs and cravings?  What does it feel like to literally starve?  What is normal, and what is above and beyond your capacity?  Here are some common questions, and answers based on my experiences.

  1. Can anyone fast? Fasting has been done for hundreds (maybe thousands) of years.  But it is not for everyone.  People that are malnourished, women that are missing monthly periods, women with bad PMS, pregnant or nursing women, or people with hormone issues should not try out fasting.  Additionally if you are on medications, you need to check with your doctor and ensure the medications/dosages will not be affected by your fast.
  2. Are you always hungry on a fast? Initially when you change your eating habits – it’s normal to feel hungry if you reduce the amount of food you usually eat.  It takes some discipline or motivation to do it at the beginning.  But once you get into that routine, then you don’t feel the hunger nor get cravings.
  3. What’s the best preparation work to help start a fast? Get rid of the sugar 2-3 weeks before you begin a new diet involving fasting.  It helps stop the blood-sugar fluctuations which make fasting difficult.
  4. How should I start an intermittent fast? First, reduce sugars from your diet in general.  Then start slow by not eating after 8pm.  After a few weeks, don’t eat before 8am and continue this 12 hours fast for several weeks.  Track your energy, mood, and overall wellness.  Then if you desire more, select a few days/week to try a 16 hour fast (12pm – 8pm).  Again track your energy, mood, sleep patterns, and make sure the fast is benefitting you.

NOTE: it takes 8 weeks for a new habit to become routine.

NOTE: If you feel dizziness or start experiencing any other worrisome symptoms, stop fasting and consult with your health practitioner.

Fasting can be part of any of our clean eating events, so if your doctor okays you for trying it out… join us on our next clean eating event in November!  There is plenty of time for preparations, and shopping, and even getting a few friends to join you!

Pressure Cooking vs Traditional Cooking Methods

Pressure Cooking vs Traditional Cooking Methods

With the exception of raw vegans, most of us eat cooked foods.  Heat can destroy nutrients; but sometimes it will softening food tissue making the nutrition more bio-available.  Research shows that cooking definitely changes the nutrient and antioxidant values of foods, so what is the best way to cook our foods to preserve as much nutrition as possible?

Looking at nutrition values of foods that are raw, steamed, microwaved, boiled; steaming is considered the best cooking method to preserve nutrition because food’s not water-dunked enabling leaching of nutrients in water nor cooked at excessive temperatures causing negative chemical changes.  Microwaving came in second previously.  But with new cooking technologies and tools (like the instant pot – pressure cooker), we have to consider if this beats steaming.

So for most food, the longer you cook it, the more antioxidants you can lose.  So if you can cook food faster without higher temperatures, theoretically you can preserve the most antioxidants.

  • With dried beans/legumes, it’s a no-brainer. Studies show the antioxidant levels of black beans, for example, are 6 times higher for pressure cooking 15 minutes vs. boiling for 1 hour.  3 of 17 amino acids (lysine, cysteine, and arginine) were significantly reduced.
  • With vegetables, research showed that cooking did not significantly decrease the phytonutrient content, and it generally increases antioxidant values. Sautéing and pressure-cooking had the strongest values and so similar that they tie for first place, followed closely by boiling. With vegetables however, there was a significant loss of certain amino acids by pressure-cooking vs. blanching.  Two out of 17 amino acids (lysine & arginine) were generally reduced in the vegetables.
  • With greens, pressure cooking is the best overall, with steaming at #2 with higher ORAC than boiling. How does one pressure cook greens and still have something to eat when it’s all over?  Michael Greger’s method to put a layer of water down at the bottom of an electric pressure cooker, drop in a metal steaming basket on top, and then put the greens in and steam under pressure for zero minutes so it shuts off as soon as it reaches the cooking pressure.  Then quick release valve it immediately to release the steam. Voila!  The greens turn out perfect—bright & tender.

In summary, the instant pot is gaining fame among most health practitioners as a preferred method of cooking plant-based proteins, vegetables, and greens.  The only negative thing I found was a decrease of a few amino acids, of which lysine es the only essential amino acid.  Lysine is important for supporting a healthy immune system and for boosting athletic performance.  Animal-proteins are the well-known sources but since most cooking methods will decrease the value of it, we’ll look at plant-based foods that we may not have to cook.  Lysine can be found in dried apricots, avocados, mangoes, beets, leeks, tomatoes, pears, green & red peppers, soy milk, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, cashews, macadamia nuts, yogurt, cheese, butter, and milk.

My life with an instant pot began about a year ago, and it’s been bliss ever since.  It’s great for cooking dried beans, lentils, dals, legumes, grains like rice or quinoa, or cultures like yogurts, or soups, or one-dish meals.  The best bit is that you can schedule when it should cook your food, so if you’re going to be gone all day, you can fill it and schedule when it should start/finish.

Balancing Trillions of Friends

Balancing Trillions of Friends

In my TedX Talk I talk about all of us having trillions of friends… inside our guts.  In fact there are more of these gut bacteria than our own cells.  We are quite literally more bacteria than ourselves!  I often talk about eating for them more than for ourselves since they outnumber us.  If one wanted to eat for a healthy microbiome…. WHAT would one eat?

Do the bacteria just take a bit of everything we eat?  A little pizza here, a little French fries there, and a little chocolate cake every now and then?  Truth is they need fiber.  You see the fiber that our body can’t take anything from (the undigested “resistant” kind) remains unprocessed and takes the ride down our digestive tract.  This is also referred to as “pre-biotics”.  That is healthy microbiome food.

When we provide this prebiotic food to our microbiome, it produces a short-chain fatty acid called Butyrate.  And coincidentally butyrate is the fuel source for the cells that surround our colon, which I refer to as our intestinal barrier.  Our intestinal barrier is a single layer of cells… SINGLE LAYER that separates the food still being digested and absorbed from the rest of our body. That’s a profound barrier because when things start leaking – there is usually trouble brewing.

So in summary, we feed fiber and prebiotics to our microbiome…. And they produce butyrate to support our intestinal barrier.  It’s a perfect symbiotic relationship.  And after all… our gut bacteria (the ones that stay with us long-term) have a vested relationship in our health.  They exist as long as we do.

But what about other bacteria that gets in our guts that don’t stay long term and aren’t invested in our health.  The ones we refer to as “bad bacteria” that get us sick and leave us via explosive exits (front door or back door or both)?  Our immune system is expected to attack the bad bacteria and tolerate the good bacteria.  How does it tell the difference or know when this delicate balance is off?

It turns out butyrate is produced by our good bacteria alone.  It tells the immune system that the level of good bacteria vs bad bacteria is healthy, and low butyrate levels are indicative of unhealthy balance of gut bacteria.  Butyrate is an anti-inflammatory.  As long as our butyrate levels are good, our immune system remains as “Dr. David Banner” and performs its duties in a calm manner.  When our butyrate levels get too low, it prompts the immune system to take action – it’s inflammatory.  It is indicative of a “Hulk” reaction and our immune system starts attacking bacteria in an effort to regain balance.  The longer it takes to regain balance and order, the higher the risk of an inflammatory bowel disease and a chronic hypersensitive immune system.  Chaos ensues.  I’ve been there and done that –it’s not pleasant.

The thing that triggers the chronically inflamed immune system to stand down… transition back to “Dr. David Banner”… is butyrate in the colon.  How do we get more butyrate in the colon?  You guessed it!  More greens, more fiber, more prebiotics.  This is all very important to know so we make great dietary decisions.  So the next time you have to choose between French fries and a side-salad… choose the salad.  It might seem like it’s cheaper or more satisfying to have the fries, but in the long run… it’s much cheaper and more satisfying to have the salad.  Because if we don’t continually eat enough fiber, then we can’t make enough butyrate.  Our body can mistake low fiber intake for having a population of bad bacteria in our gut and prompt a “Hulk” response.  So eat plenty of fiber every day.  This is the most compelling reason ever to eat your greens!

Savory Sweet Potato Toast

Savory Sweet Potato Toast

Skip the bread, and toast sweet potato slices and top with whatever you desire!  Here’s one version from Dr. Mark Hyman that serves 4.

INGREDIENTS

2 sweet potatoes

1 avocado

4 hard boiled eggs (optional)

1 cup corn & bean salsa

pinch salt (optional)

pinch chipotle pepper flakes (optional)

METHOD

  1. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
  2. Set a wire baking rack over a baking sheet. Lay each sweet potato slice on the wire rack.
  3. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the potato slices start to soften.
  4. Remove from oven and store baked slices in the fridge to make each morning.
  5. In the morning, toast each slice in the toaster.
  6. In a medium bowl, mash the avocado together with eggs (if using).
  7. Top each sweet potato slice with a scoop of the salsa & avocado.
  8. Sprinkle with salt and chipotle pepper flakes to taste (if using) & serve.
Path to Most Resistance

Path to Most Resistance

The majority of our diets is carbohydrates – most of which is eventually converted to starches.  Starches are long chains of sugar (glucose); which can be found in grains, legumes, potatoes, and other vegetables.  The entire starch is not digested, as parts of it pass through the digestive tract without being processed.  These parts are resistant to digestion and called “resistant starches”.  Resistant starches pass through our digestive tracts for a number of reasons:

  • Because the starch is bound inside a fibrous cell wall. (found in grains, seeds, and legumes).
  • Some digestible starches convert to resistant starches via the cooking/cooling of starchy foods.

 

BENEFITS

Studies show regular consumption of resistant starches (like soluble fiber) can provide more health benefits, so let’s find the path to most resistance [starches]:

  1. Improved insulin sensitivity (up to a 50% improvement in 4 weeks with 15g/day)
  2. Lowered blood sugar levels
  3. Reduced appetite since resistant starches have ½ the calories as regular starches
  4. Better Digestion

 

Because resistant starches pass the stomach and small intestine intact, they feed the good bacteria in the colon and provide a number of health benefits by strengthening our microbiome.  The benefits range from improved digestion to optimizing immunity.  This happens because when our microbiome bacteria digest resistant starches, some compounds are formed – mainly gasses and short-chain fatty acids (like butyrate).  Butyrate is the preferred fuel source of the cells in our colon.  So resistant starches feed our bacteria AND our colon cells.  In addition to providing nourishment for the cells in our colon, studies shows reduced pH, reduced inflammation, and reduced risk of colorectal cancer.  These benefits translate into a great nutritional therapy for those with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) like Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, and other GI issues like constipation, diarrhea, and diverticulitis.

 

In animal studies, resistant starches show improved nutritional absorption, and weight loss.  Using resistant starches as nutritional therapy for any reason may also improve the quality of life by reducing the risk of chronic disease (metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s). 

 

The path to most resistance [starch] (RS) leads you to these top food sources, especially when cooked and cooled.

  1. Oats
  2. Rice (Brown Rice is preferable)
  3. Bananas (Unripe is preferable)
  4. Potatoes (potato starch is preferable)
  5. Corn Tortillas
  6. Plantains
  7. Chickpeas
  8. Lentils
  9. Green Peas
  10. Beans