I’ll admit, I have a sweet tooth. Once I get a taste of something sweet, it’s like a Lay’s Potato Chip, you can bet, I can’t eat just one. Excess sugar can be destructive to our health, filled with empty calories that expand our waistline. Enter, a possible solution…sugar “substitutes”. These are ingredients or extracts that provide the sweetness, without the calories. They can be found in all sorts of foods, drinks, and desserts! 

Monk Fruit is the new “sugar substitute du jour”…let’s take a taste! 

What is Monk Fruit?

You’ll also see it listed as Lo Han Guo on food labels, Monk Fruit is a fruit native to China. It’s been used for centuries not just as a sweetner, but medicinally in Chinese Traditional Medicine. To produce the sweetner, they crush the fruit and then extract out the sweet compounds and dry them into a powder. 

How sweet is it?

About 100-250 times sweeter than table sugar. It contains zero calories, no matter how much you use, however it’s so powerful you only need to use a tiny amount. In fact, the amount is so small, it’s hard to use, therefore it’s often combined with other sweetners, like Erythritol, to add bulk and weight. 

How does it have ZERO calories?

What makes Monk Fruit sweet are specific compounds called Mogrosides, the main one being Mogroside V. These compounds are not absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract, therefore they are not converted into units of energy, or calories. Monk Fruit extracts are only made from Mogrosides and what makes them different is the concentration of Mogroside V, the higher the amount the sweeter the extract will be. 

Is Monk Fruit Extract safe?

YES, the FDA has reviewed Monk Fruit and has designated it as GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe). Research has shown that Monk Fruit is removed by the digestive system and 80-90% is excreted in the urine within 2hrs. 

Can Monk Fruit help me to lose weight? 

There isn’t anything in Monk Fruit that causes weight loss, however, using it as a substitute for high calorie sugar or sweetners, can help you to lose weight by managing your calories. Calorie management has shown to be the most powerful took for weight loss, Monk Fruit is a great solution for sugar. 

Who would benefit from Monk Fruit?

Anyone who has an issue with managing their calorie due to their love of sugar (me!), Diabetics, Children, and also seems to be safe for Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women. Sweetners that are naturally extracted from plants are great options for all these groups. 

How does it compare to other sweetners? 

If you currently use NutraSweet or Equal (Aspartame) or Sweet N Low (Saccharin), then Monk Fruit will be an equal replacement, but if you like Stevia or Sucralose, you’ll need to use more of Monk Fruit to provide the same level of sweetness. Monk Fruit is great for those who want a natural sweetner choice. 

How should I buy Monk Fruit? 

Because Monk Fruit is very sweet, you only need a small amount. Consequently, when you buy it as an extract (by itself to mix with your food/beverage), products will combine it with other low-calorie sweetners to add bulk.  Make sure you check the ingredients to see what else is in the product and that Monk Fruit is listed as the first one. 

What is this soreness? 

It’s referred to as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, DOMS, and it can start right after your workout, but usually peaks around 2-3 days after. The mechanism of why it happens is not well understood, you hear about lactic acid build up, but that’s a theory. What we do know is that it’s initiated because of tiny tears in the muscle and connective tissue caused by stress when you overload them. 

Does it happen with all types of workouts?

You will get these tears with any type of strenuous use of your muscles, but they will be greater when you’re performing new/unfamiliar movements and/or when your muscles are eccentrically loaded. Eccentric means the muscle is lengthening at the same time it’s contracting. I like to think of it as when you’re “braking” a force; the way down on a bench press or running downhill. Every complete movement has an eccentric component. 

Is being sore a good thing?

Not exactly. Soreness can be an indicator of progress, pushing yourself to new limits. However, it’s not a sole indicator of growth and getting stronger. You can build muscle without always being sore, and actually, it’s not good to be sore all the time because it keeps you from working out and putting more load on in your next workout. 

Can I still build muscle without being sore?

Absolutely, you can build muscle without resulting in soreness because muscle growth can occur with greater mechanical tension (the stress you place on a muscle) and/or metabolic stress (how tired you make the muscle). Muscle damage, which creates soreness, is just one of the 3 ways, not the only way. 

Should I work out if I’m sore?

The quickest way to recovery, is to keep moving. You wouldn’t do the same exercises and you decrease the intensity (significantly), but you’d keep the blood flowing through the muscle. This will bring healing/recovery nutrients to the area and promoting detoxification. 

If I’m sore all the time, what should I do?

Think about rest, nutrition, hydration. In that order. If the same muscle is sore for 4-5 days after your workout, you need to take some time off and decrease the intensity.  You’re doing too much, the tissue can’t handle the amount of stress you’re placing on it all at once. You’ve got to intense, too soon. Nutrition is also key, carbohydrates are your best friend here, they replace the glycogen stores in muscle which allows them to heal and recovery. Up your calories too, you need the energy to fuel healing. Drink more water, water helps to not only hydrate and build the muscle but it’s a detoxifier, “flushing” the muscle of the toxins created from the stress and recovery. 

Anything to be careful of?

Being sore and being in pain are two different things. Your muscles may be sore, but you can still move around. There is no sharp, stinging, significantly weakening experiences with soreness, if you feel that, you might have hurt yourself.  Also, soreness will fade as the days go by. If you feel pain, STOP. 

How do you deal with soreness?

Movement is key. I’ll choose a very low weight, 20lbs on the leg extension (when I usually do 170lbs), and perform 40-50 reps, get the blood really pumping in the sore area. I’ll also make sure I drink a protein shake before bed, 2:1 ratio of Protein:Carbs, feed my muscle during its optimal recovery time. Lastly, I’ll drink water with electrolytes, especially magnesium, to pull hydration into my muscle. 

Grass-fed has more healthier nutrients, but the question is – how much more, does it really matter, and is it worth the additional cost? 

You’ll see grass-fed on butter, but let’s examine Beef because there is more reliable data and studies. 

Grass-Fed vs Grain Fed Key Nutritional Data: 

Grass-fed is certainly higher in healthy nutrients and lower in areas such as calories and fat. 

It’s important to note that for most of the B-Vitamins and Minerals, the amounts for both are similar. 

There was one notable difference with Vitamin B-12, which grass-fed had more than double the amount.

So now the question is, does it really matter?

Beef or butter should not be your primary or secondary source of vitamins and minerals. Fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, can be much better sources, therefore to compare amounts seems a bit pointless. 

Fats and protein (meat has 0 carbohydrates), does make a difference. Protein, especially, there is no other food source that will provide the concentration of protein per calorie more effectively. 

Here you see some difference, grass-fed has more protein, less calories. That’s great. 

You’ll hear a lot about the “amazing” Omega 3 (a very healthy type of fat) composition of grass-fed products, but something to consider regarding Omega3 is, how much and is Beef the best source? 

I say, “not much and no”!  The difference for Omega 3 is 100mg, which seems like a lot, but there isn’t that much health benefit with the increase, and most importantly, if you’re looking for a healthy source of Omega 3, go grab some fish, King Salmon has 1,270mg in the same serving! 

From a nutritional perspective, grass-fed products, whether its butter or beef, have a healthier more nutrient profile than grain fed. It is important to note that grain-fed studies have shown a much closer comparison in these areas based on the type of grain fed, but grass-fed still fares out better. 

The cost for grass fed will be about 30% higher and there are taste differences, which should always be accounted for…you should enjoy the taste of your food! 

If you’re going to be consuming these products regularly, there could be a compounding benefit. All these nutrients, protein, and calories add up. 

However, if you’re compromising on the amount of protein you should be consuming because you want grass-fed and it’s too expensive, it’s not worth it (from a health standpoint). 

You should also not feel any less healthy or more vulnerable to toxins because you’re purchasing grain-fed, there has been no research to show these types of issues. 

Tip: if you see “grass-fed”, look closely to make sure it notes grass fed all the time, instead of terms like “grass-finished’. 

Gummies are all the rage. What was once for kids is now for anyone who enjoys a convenient, candy-like experience to take their Vitamin C, Collagen, Apple Cider Vinegar, and the hundreds of other nutrients gummy manufacturers have packed into these tasty treats.

Studies show that vitamins (they only tested vitamins) are equally absorbed into the bloodstream no matter if they were consumed via a gummy or pill. They had the same bioavailability (the amount a substance can be absorbed by the digestive system). So that’s a great thing, you’re not losing anything.

But here is where it gets sticky. When you formulate a gummy, you must take a lot of inactive ingredients into account. The gelatin or pectin, the sweetener, colors, flavors, stabilizers, etc., and all this “stuff” reduces the amount of actives (nutrients) you can put into a gummy.

So most of the time, you’ll see gummies have a LOT less of certain nutrients than their pill partners. With pills, you can smash (remember, they get pressed in tons of pressure) a large dose of nutrients in a small tablet/pill.

Some ingredients, like CBD, you don’t need a lot to be effective, so they work great for gummies, but if you want multiple ingredients in one gummy or nutrients like Collagen (where you need grams), you won’t find enough in a gummy. So be aware of how much of a nutrient the gummy actually contains.

Gummies are also more sensitive to degradation. So you’ll want to use them quickly as they can lose their potency rather quickly, and manufacturing testing (for shelf life) is not as reliable as tablets, capsules, or soft gels.

With pills, you don’t have to worry about taste, color, smell, or “chewiness”, so there aren’t any added sugars, artificial ingredients, or fillers. The more nutrients or nasty-tasting (like B-vitamins), the more you need to use these non-actives to have a tasty experience.

Most of the time, between pills and gummies, pills will be a more effective choice. You’ll get more of the nutrient and/or combination of nutrients, less added “stuff”, and more variety of ingredients (so hard to make optimal doses of herbs taste good!).

BUT, gummies are great for kids, if you hate swallowing pills, and for single ingredients that don’t have a lot of taste issues with optimal dosages that are not high – CBD, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Calcium, etc.

Last note, I don’t think you’ll get much health benefit from these popular gummies – Collagen, Apple Cider Vinegar, Greens or Veggie, and Multi-Nutrient formulations.

Let’s Milk Oats For All It’s Got….

Q: What is oat milk?

It’s not really “milk” in the traditional sense, it’s more like very fine, ground up, oats that have been soaked in water (hence the creamy texture). Think of it as very runny, oat porridge. When they make it, it’s very thick and creamy, but it still needs to be thinner, so companies add a lot of water to the finished product (along with a few other things, discussed below) 

Q: How is this different than nut-based milks?

As far as processing, not much, you’re still grounding up the nuts and then straining them to produce the “milky” like water. Where you begin to see differences is in the Calories and Macro-Nutrients Protein-Carb-Fat) area. Nut based will have less calories, less protein and carbs, and more fat. There is more fiber in Oat milk, but it’s a small difference. 

Q: Why have I been seeing it more and more?

Primarily reason is that individuals want to have the same dairy milk experience, taste, texture, flavor, but feel it’s more healthier or causes less digestive issues. Lactose is a sugar in dairy milk that can be difficult to digest, causing bloating, gas, etc.., Oat (and nut) milks are naturally lactose free. Also many people want to be more plant-based or vegan, so Oat milk fits that preference.

Q: Is oat milk healthy? 

Yes, it’s healthy, but you must be careful. Oats are not generally great tasting when they are ground up into mush and water is added, so brands will add sugars, sweetners, and flavors to create a better taste. The mouth feel (creamy texture) is also an issue, so brands will add oils like sunflower, canola, or rapeseed. 

Q: How does it compare to regular dairy milk?

Same calories, less protein, more nutrients, less sugar. If you’re drinking Oat milk for the protein benefits, it’s not a good choice. If you’re trying to watch your sugar, assuming you’re drinking sweetened, Oat milk is a good choice. Also dairy milk inherently has more nutrients (13) vs. oat milk, which needs to be fortified, usually with 5 or so. 

Q: When is Oat Milk a good choice?

If you’re looking for a plant-based milk that gives you more protein and calories, oat is your best choice. The fiber is kinda nice, but oat milk also has some immune nutrients that the other nut-based ones do not have. It’ll have a creamer texture as well, so great to use for a creamer or when you want to thicken something up in cooking. Has more iron too, so women can benefit from this. 

Q: What are you dipping your cookies in?

Almond milk, because it’s lower in calories. And it still sucks. I’d love to drink dairy milk, but it makes my stomach hurt. I don’t need a lot of any milk, I don’t drink coffee, eat cereal, dip cookies (usually eat them plain), thank goodness because I think these plant-based milks are not a good value. Not enough protein, fortified nutrients, not calorie dense, palatable only with sweetners, and very expensive. Best to drink water (unless you’re a baby – then ONLY dairy milk!) 

Move over sweet…Sour is Power! 

What is sourdough bread?

Simply, it’s bread without the use of yeast. Yeast is what’s added to a bread mix (flour, sugar, water, salt), to make the bread rise and have the soft, chewy, fluffy texture. Sourdough, replaces Yeast with a “starter”, which is made from flour and water…there is no yeast, milk, oils, or sweetners.  It’s about as natural as you can get when it comes to bread.

What makes it a healthier bread?

First off, the ingredients, there is only two – Flour + Water, then nature takes its course, making sourdough. But next, it’s the “nature’s course” the process called Fermentation. Fermentation is how the bread rises, and contributes to its texture, mouth feel, and taste. Fermentation is the KEY to sourdoughs health value. 

How does fermentation make it healthy?

It breaks down nutrients that can be problematic for some: 

Gluten – gluten is a known allergen that can cause digestive irritation and abuse, fermentation can break down some of the gluten in flour, making it easier to digest for some individuals sensitive (not intolerant!) to gluten. 

Phytic Acid – phytic acid is naturally occurring in grains and flours, it’s an “anti-nutrients” binding to minerals, especially zinc, iron, and calcium, making them hard to absorb, fermentation can break this acid down.

Probiotics – these are healthy bacteria that live in your gut that allow you to break down food and utilize the nutrients, fermentation creates healthy bacteria in the bread. 

Good for diabetics?

Better than regular white bread. Research shows that sourdough has a lower glycemic (sugar) effect on the body, managing sugar and insulin levels. 

How do I make my sourdough more healthier?

Use healthier flour. Using rye or whole wheat (wholemeal) flour instead of white flour can increase the amount of brand chain amino acids by 10 to 17x! This doesn’t include all the other vitamins, minerals, and fiber you increase when using these flours. You can also greatly reduce the glycemic (sugar) response, make it easier on the system to digest, and the enhance the feeling of fullness (making you eat less!).

How do you eat sourdough bread?

I eat two pieces every day with my breakfast with butter and garlic spread. I love how it taste with my eggs and arugula salad. The sourdough gives me just enough carbohydrates but pairs it with healthy fiber. The bread is easy to eat, I feel light afterwards, and the carbohydrate fuel is perfect to help the recovery after my workout (before breakfast) and fuels me to get into the office.  

Stop All That Cardio! 

Ok, I’m going to save you from the “blah-blah-blah” regarding the molecular underpinnings of exercise, fat breakdown and utilization, and hormonal cascades that relate to hunger, fat storage/release, and metabolism…and keep it simple.

Look around the cardio room next time you’re in the gym and you’ll probably notice the same people you’ve been huffing and puffing next to all these years, look the same as when you first saw them. And I have a good feeling they jumped on that cardio machine with dreams of stepping off a leaner person. 

Doing long or intense cardio is NOT the optimal, best, or in my opinion, ANY way to lose the “bad” (fat) weight and keep it off. 

When I was in 8^th grade, I was heavy, so I stopped eating and ran..and ran…and ran.  I lost a lot of weight, I looked super thin, but I certainly didn’t look fit.  Cardio results when you were 16 are not gonna work for anyone over 30yrs old. 

Building muscle will (no matter what age!) 

Think of muscle as your caloric sink.  Whenever you eat calories or breakdown places that have calories (e.g. fat), those calories need to find a healthy home.  That home, is MUSCLE.  If there is no home for those calories to go, they start roaming the streets (e.g. your bloodstream) rioting (causing destruction) and then meet up with other nomad calories in storage warehouses (e.g. fat) 

Your muscles are engines that are fueled by calories, you fire up the engine, it pulls in and then burns up the calories and puff, literally “puff” (you breath out the fat – more on that in another email). 

So isn’t two engines better than one? Isn’t a hemi charged, V-12 engine better than a V-4? Which one is gonna be calorie guzzler? 

You want to build the biggest engines you can (not in excess, no need to be “Arnold”). 

Cardio is NOT going to do that. In fact, the way most perform cardio – intense, sweating like crazy, breathing heavy, etc…is not only NOT burning fat, but burning up muscle! (read my blog on Zone 2 training) 

Listen, if you have a pear shape, like I did, and want to look like a smaller pear, then deprive yourself of calories (diet) and do cardio all day.  At best, you’ll just be a smaller version of yourself that will inflate back up once you start eating again.  
But if you’re looking to burn existing fat, keep from storing more excess fat, and change the way your dimensions look (e.g. flatter stomach, tighter love handles, leaner “whatever”), then get into the weight room and be a “mechanic” – start building up your engines (all your muscles) and make them powerful!

Lucky Charms is magical, but not that magical!

Sorry, the FDA did NOT rank Lucky Charms healthier than ground beef, whole milk, or wheat bread.

The graph below, is NOT the new food pyramid, it’s actually a graph of a scoring system created by researchers at Tufts University, called the Food Compass.

Social media hounds and health pundits/activists have turned this into something it’s not. Yes, there was funding by the NIH/government to Tufts for this research, yes it does rate various foods by health value, and yes, it is being used as a guide for public policy.

However, the researchers were forthcoming that the Food Compass has some flaws and there are some rankings that are “outliers”, they fall outside of what the scoring system should do.

Basically, the current Food Compass has some faults and they are continuing to do more research to strengthen where it’s weak!

The FDA replaced the Food Pyramid with MyPlate in 2011, it shows a plate should be made up of a good portion of fruits, vegetables, and proteins and dairy. But it doesn’t compare certain foods to others.

Hence tools like the Food Compass.

How I rate food is based on two things, calorie density vs nutritional density. Essentially how much nutrition do I get per calorie. The more, the better.

For example, 100 calories of broccoli provides more vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants than 100 calories of soda. So for general health and wellness, I’ll choose 100 calories of broccoli over the soda.

But what if I needed to run a mile and I needed quick energy? Then 100 calories of sugar (quick energy) from soda is much more useful to me than 100 calories from broccoli – the nutrients in broccoli won’t give me immediate energy.

This is why it’s hard to rate foods against each other, you must understand the context of why you’re eating the food.

Be careful of social media, it’s all “click bait” and emotion, many sources are just looking for a rise out of you and are not well educated. Think logically, think for yourself, and look at various sources on both sides…you’ll find the truth somewhere in the middle

In short…doesn’t really matter!

Vitamin C is one, if not THE most popular single Vitamin supplement that individuals take.  

Emergen-C, tasty gummies, fizz drinks, whether it’s for optimal health or when you’re feeling sick, Vitamin C is the go-to vitamin to cure all. 

Formulator note: the fact that it’s a pretty inexpensive ingredient to source, doesn’t have much taste issues, and doesn’t take up a lot a space in a tablet, capsule, gummy, we formulators will load it up in your product to make a nice label. 

Vitamin C comes in all sorts of forms, Ascorbic Acid, Ester-C, Liposomal Vitamin C, from natural sources like lemon or orange peels, etc.. So which one is best source or form?

There is no evidence to say one is better than another. Whatever additional benefits you get, such as the bioflavonoids from the lemon or orange peel source, is negligible and not worth the cost. All these forms will be the same compound/molecule: L-ascorbic acid. 

If you are taking very high doses of Vitamin C, which you shouldn’t without supervision from a health care provider, the ascorbate forms can be easier on your stomach. 

But again, be careful taking too much. At high levels, Vitamin C becomes an Oxidant and Free Radical, which is highly stressful for the body and can be very destructive and inflammatory. 

Few tips when purchasing and using Vitamin C:

• Vitamin C is very sensitive to breakdown, so store in a dark, cool area and use within a month or two max. 

• Do not choose gummies, Vitamin C is corrosive, so they can stick to your teeth (which can promote decay), same with Vitamin C drinks. Wash your mouth right after. 

• Do not overpay for fancy Vitamin C, all forms will be highly usable by the body, and it’s a very inexpensive ingredient for the manufacturer. BTW – natural and synthetic are equally recognized by the body. 

• Do not take in excess, an observational study of 10,000 adults showed a 33% greater risk in all-cause mortality and 60% greater risk of cardiovascular disease morality when blood levels of Vitamin C were on the high end of adequate (48 to 70 mcmol/L). 

Let’s sink our teeth into this..

Q: What is the Carnivore Diet?

A: It’s a zero-carb or animal-source food diet, it basically consists of eating 100% animal foods – meat, fish, eggs, high-fat dairy products, and animal fats. There are NO vegetables, grain, fruits, nuts, etc..if it isn’t from an animal, it’s not on the diet! 

Q: Has there been any studies on it?

A: Not really, there are a multitude of anecdotal evidence. Huge communities that have been following this diet lifestyle with reported benefits that range from weight loss to improving their mental health conditions. There was a study done by researchers from Harvard that 2,000 individuals self-reported (so kinda weak quality of data) that 93% lost weight, 93% improved their hypertension or diabetes, 97% had better digestion, and 96% said their psychiatric symptoms improved. 

Q: Do you literally only eat meat?

A: Yes, and if you’re really strict, there aren’t even any seasons besides salt and gravies that are made of meat fat. Typical day is – Breakfast (Eggs/Ham), Lunch (Chicken or Fish), Dinner (Fatty Steak). No snacks. 

Q: What about fiber and vitamins & minerals?

A: Proponents of the diet say your body doesn’t need the fiber and that your body can make all the vitamins and minerals that it needs by using the building blocks of meat. Basically, there is nothing truly useful or needed in the any non-animal derived food, if anything, those foods have nutrients that are dangerous for the body?

Q: What could be dangerous in fruits and vegetables?

A: They are called “anti-nutrients”. Plant life is dependent on living and thriving, therefore they have evolved to create nutrients that protect them from being eaten or harmed by insects, weather, etc. These nutrients are also harmful to the human body when consumed. 

Q: What is the theory of the Carnivore Diet?

A: That humans were always heavy/exclusive meat eaters. Our brain size increased due to eating meat, our digestive system is designed for meat digestion rather than plants (highly fiberous), ancient remains demonstrate we ate more meat, and that there was a decline in health when we began the agricultural revolution. 

Q: Are there resources on the diet?

A: Yes, lots. Books, forums, events, there is a significant community of Carnivores and/or primarily carnivore dieters. Books and videos by Dr. Paul Saladino and Dr. Shawn Baker are the best resources. 

Q: Your thoughts?

A: There is plenty of evidence that it is safe and beneficial for the short-term. The theory is legit, however I worry if the diet is for everyone. There has been considerable data to show that plant based, variety diets, and fiber is beneficial for the body. I think any diet that is heavily restricted is not good for me because I won’t be able to do it for the long term. The best diet is the one that you can do long-term.