A question of nutrition

What kind of load

Q: I've read that the glycemic index is overrated and what we should really be looking at is the glycemic load. What is the difference between the two?

A: The glycemic index is overrated. You should focus on glycemic load instead. There is a big difference here:

The glycemic index is a way of measuring the impact that a given amount of carbohydrate has on your blood sugar levels - something you should definitely be interested in. However, in order to make a fair comparison, a fixed amount of carbohydrate must be used. In the case of the glycemic index, it is a standard amount of 50 grams of carbohydrates in the form of a food. The problem, however, is that very few carbohydrate foods are consumed in a portion size of 50 grams of carbohydrate in real life. Imagine that you go to the store to buy spices and there is a spice that costs 500 euros per pound, which of course sounds like a lot of money. However, if you only buy half a teaspoon of this stuff, then the price is quite irrelevant. What you care about is what you pay at the checkout and not necessarily what it would cost if you bought a pound.

Similarly, you should care very little about the impact 50 grams of a food has on your blood sugar - you care about the impact of the amount you actually eat. The glycemic load is based on a more sophisticated formula that takes into account the amount of carbohydrates in grams that you eat - in other words, the portion size. The glycemic index of carrots is high, which is why a lot of people think that you should never eat carrots, which is of course a silly conclusion. The fact is that the average carrot contains only 3 grams of carbohydrates. So you'd have to eat carrots like a giant rabbit for them to have a significant impact on your blood sugar levels. The glycemic load of a carrot is only 3, which makes it a very low-glycemic food - as long as you don't drink pure carrot juice or eat 13 carrots at once.

Pasta, on the other hand, has a moderate glycemic index, but is almost never eaten in small portions. If you consider the portion size of a typical serving of pasta, your blood sugar levels will skyrocket and stay there for a week. It is therefore not surprising that the glycemic load of pasta is very high. The technical formula for the glycemic load is the GI (glycemic index) multiplied by the amount of carbohydrates in the portion in grams, after which the result is divided by 100. A low glycemic load is between 1 and 10, a medium glycemic load is between 10 and 20 and anything over 20 is considered a very high glycemic load. In all these considerations, however, you should also bear in mind that both the glycemic index and the glycemic load only refer to a food consumed on its own. Add some fat or protein and the overall impact will decrease. And many high glycemic foods are good for you (e.g. carrot juice), while many low glycemic foods are not (e.g. fried donuts).

So you should take your glycemic load into account, but not be a slave to it. It is merely a value that you should take into account when planning your diet. Athletes who train intensively can even benefit from high-glycemic foods, especially if you train twice a day. But Mrs. Schmitt with metabolic syndrome... please not so much!

The best fat loss supplement

Q: You once wrote that fiber is the best supplement for fat loss. What do you mean by that? And how much fiber does the average athletic man need per day?

A: High blood sugar levels and insulin are the enemy of fat loss and a high fiber diet helps keep blood sugar levels (and insulin levels) in a healthy range. The more fiber you eat, the lower the glycemic impact of the food. And the slower the sugar enters your bloodstream, the less damage it is likely to do.

Fiber also keeps you fuller for longer, which means you're less likely to binge eat. And since fiber keeps your blood sugar levels in a nice comfortable range, you're less likely to suffer from nighttime cravings. And then there's the added fact that fiber is primarily found in foods that tend to be rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds.

As great as protein and fat are, both provide zero fiber. Nearly all of us - including athletes - need more fiber than we typically consume. Our paleolithic ancestors - a good population model for the ideal diet - ate between 50 and 100 grams of fiber per day. The average American and Western European, on the other hand, consumes just 4 to 11 grams of fiber per day. I don't usually agree with mainstream conventional health organizations when it comes to dietary advice, but in this case, most of them are right. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends between 25 and 38 grams of fiber per day, with the recommended amount for "active" people being even higher. Active men between the ages of 14 and 50, for example, should consume between 42 and 45 grams of fiber per day.

If you're not eating loads of vegetables and beans, then this probably means you could benefit from a fiber supplement such as cellulose fiber, psyllium husk or bran.

However, when increasing your fiber intake, make sure to drink more water. If you don't do this, then you'd better get used to constipation.

Turmeric: the super spice

Q: You wrote in your book 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth that the spice turmeric deserves a whole book to itself. What's so great about this stuff - apart from the fact that it makes Indian food so delicious?

A: The active ingredient in turmeric is curcumin, a member of the class of plant chemicals known as curcuminoids. Curcumin has anti-cancer properties and even the very conservative American Cancer Society says on its website that curcumin "has demonstrated some anti-cancer effects."

Different types of cancer cells have been inhibited by curcumin in the laboratory and it has been shown to slow the spread of cancer in some animal studies. It is a powerful antioxidant with strong anti-inflammatory effects and since inflammation is a component of almost every degenerative disease on the planet, this is quite an impressive resume.

And as if that wasn't enough, curcumin is one of the most liver-friendly compounds on the planet, which is one of the reasons you'll find curcumin in almost every liver detox supplement.

The best oils

Q: We all know that extra virgin olive oil is very healthy and after reading your interview on T-Nation, I started using coconut oil as well. What other oils do you recommend?

A: I'm glad to hear that you've started using coconut oil, which is the most underrated oil in my opinion. I consume at least a jar of organic coconut oil every month. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but I use it for everything from roasting vegetables and shrimp to scrambling eggs.

Even though I wrote a cookbook called "The World's Healthiest Meals", I'm not much of a cook, but I can tell you that for high-heat frying, macadamia oil - which contains even more oleic acid than olive oil - avocado oil and hazelnut oil are the best.

Heating extra virgin olive oil to a temperature at which it starts to smoke is not a particularly good idea. This destroys the delicate compounds that are retained when the oil is cold-pressed - and then what is the point of using extra virgin olive oil? Peanut oil only starts to smoke at a very high temperature, which is very good from a cooking point of view, but unfortunately peanut oil also contains a very high proportion of omega-6 fatty acids. Omega-6 fatty acids are not necessarily bad, but we generally consume too many omega-6 fatty acids and not enough omega-3 fatty acids anyway, so using peanut oil for frying can further contribute to this imbalance.

Diet and acne

Q: I am in my late twenties and still suffer from acne. I have heard for years that our diet has no effect on acne. Is that true?

A: That's about as true as saying you can't get pregnant the first time.

The notion that diet has nothing to do with acne is an old wives' tale put out there by some very dubious studies funded by the chocolate industry in the late sixties.

I talked about some of the causes of acne in my book "The Most Effective Cures on Earth", the conclusion being that very few people suffered from acne in the time of hunter-gatherer societies, whereas a large percentage of people who follow a Western diet suffer from acne.

And in 2002, Loren Cordain, PhD, dealt the final blow to the theory that there is no link between diet and acne with a study in which not a single case of acne was found in two societies that did not eat a Western-style diet. These people ate tubers, fruit, fish and coconuts. In other words, the Paleolithic diet of our hunter-gatherer ancestors is the best diet for people who suffer from acne. This diet includes what I call the four food groups: Foods you can fish, hunt, gather and pick.

The bottom line is that the Western diet, with all its sugar and starch and white junky carbs, can activate the same genes and upregulate the same hormones that can exacerbate acne. You can easily test this for yourself: if your food doesn't resemble anything you might encounter on the savannah in Africa, then you shouldn't be eating it.

The truth about potatoes

Q: What about normal potatoes? Are they a healthy vegetable? Are sweet potatoes better?

A: Regular potatoes are garbage.

I had this discussion with Dr. John McDougall of Vegetarian-Diet fame and I told him that the "body" looks at a bowl of white potatoes the same way it looks at a large serving of sugar. He argued that this was nonsense and I told him to go back and retake his biochemistry course. But to be fair, of course potatoes can be part of a "healthy overall diet" as those idiots at the American Dietetic Association would call it. But they'd say the same thing about M&Ms.

And of course they're better than Twinkies, and of course they contain small amounts of healthy things. But for the most part, they are a nutritional lightweight and anyone who suffers from blood sugar problems should stay away from potatoes. The fact that, in America at least, they're usually served with low-quality cheese products and bacon doesn't necessarily make it any better.

Sweet potatoes are definitely a better choice. At least they contain good nutrients. Of course, they're not much better from a blood sugar perspective, but this needn't be a cause for concern for everyone - especially bodybuilders. If you do, you're better off avoiding sweet potatoes too, or at least eating smaller portions of them.

Eating at night

Q: What do you think of the idea of stopping eating at a certain time of the day when it comes to fat loss? I've read of people not eating after 5pm, while others stop eating at 8pm. Is eating before bedtime a bad thing if you want to lose fat?

A: Adele Davis, one of the early pioneers of nutrition and the first to support the use of supplements, had a motto: "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a beggar."

Which, as you know, is the exact opposite of how most people eat. While those Neanderthals from the American Dietetic Association claim that it makes no difference when you eat, it's worth noting that sumo wrestlers eat a big meal before they go to sleep. While I don't think there's anything magical about the exact time (5pm, 7pm or 9pm), the concept of not going to bed on a full stomach when your pancreas is flooding your body with fat-storing insulin is a very good idea.

Instead of obsessing too much about the exact time, simply leave a few hours between your last meal and bedtime. And eat something lighter in the evening.

The perfect snack

Q: I need an evening TV snack that includes some of the healthiest foods around. Do you have any ideas?

A: Frozen blueberries and some full-fat yogurt or raw milk (if you can find it anywhere) would be a good idea. The raw milk or yogurt will freeze slightly over the blueberries and you'll have a fantastic antioxidant-rich dessert that tastes like a sorbet. Sprinkle a few slivered almonds on top for the finishing touch.

The radiation debate

Q: What is your opinion on food irradiation?

A: I'm still forming my opinion on this topic. If you promise not to hold anything I say today against me later, before I've looked into it further, I'll tell you about my current impressions on the subject.

• The whole thing is far more complicated than it appears to be at first glance. Economic, political and social issues are involved and it is not just about the obvious issues of nutritional value and health (e.g. trade is affected).
• Irradiation destroys a large amount of pathogens contained in food. But it's also a bit like pouring perfume over garbage. You can kill some microbes, but you don't change the bad conditions that are responsible for the development of those microbes such as fecal matter, manure and other agricultural contaminants.
• And irradiated meat - while it may be free of certain pathogens - is still the same inferior product that contains steroids, hormones, antibiotics and more factory farm additives. It's just free of e-coli bacteria. Great...
• And then, of course, there are all the unknowns. I'm not sure it's really as dangerous as the critics claim, but I'm also sure it's not as harmless and safe as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration claims. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle and I wish we could hold off on this until we at least know a little more.

by Jonny Bowden, PhD | 09/09/08

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/question-of-nutrition-1