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Category Archives: Probiotic

Jun 28
0

Coconut Oil Called Unhealthy By The AHA? My Opposing View.

By | Cholesterol, Diet, Fat Burning, Insulin Resistance, Probiotic, Weight Loss | No Comments


Did you see the recent article with a statement from the AHA (American Heart Association) saying that coconut oil isn’t healthy for us because its a saturated fat?  Apparently they’re still recommending the low fat, high carb diet that sent obesity and diabetes to epidemic levels.    Like when the ADA recommended our diet be 60-70% carbohydrate in 1994 and from 1997 to 2007, the number of people with type 2 diabetes doubled.  Hmm.

Personally, coconut oil is one of my favorite fats, and since I eat a high fat, low carb diet, that make it pretty important to me.  Coconut oil is a medium chain triglyceride so its easily converted to energy, as a replacement for carbs, without increasing blood sugar.  It also kills a strain of Candida bacteria which is one of the bacteria strains we don’t want a lot of in our gut.

As a saturated fat, its my “go to” for cooking eggs and veggies.  Saturated fats are stable fats and withstand high heat without smoking, or oxidizing, like unsaturated fats do.  The oxidized, unsaturated fats become free radicals causing inflammation in our bodies.  Inflammation is the beginning of all disease in our bodies so we don’t need to add anymore of that.  Yet, that’s exactly what cooking with the “recommended” unsaturated oils, like canola and corn oil, does.

Those grain based unsaturated oils, polyunsaturated, also contain a lot of omega 6 fatty acids, which are also inflammatory.  Our ratios of omega 6 to omega 3 fatty acids should be 1:1, but in the Western diet is generally 10:1 or 20:1, so why would we add more to our diets.  We struggle as it is to get enough omega 3’s with fish oil and flax supplements.

Dr. Perlmutter, who wrote “Grain Brain”, actually calls coconut oil “brain food” and highly recommends cooking with it.  If your concern is the effects of cholesterol and saturated fat on heart disease, allow me to recommend two books that will clear this up for you.  The first is “The Cure For Heart Disease” by Dwight Lundell M.D. and Todd R. Nordstrom and the second is “The Great Cholesterol Myth” by Jonny Bowden PhD and Stephen Sinatra, M.D.

In my opinion, the information gap lies in diets being observed containing high fat.  In a typical Western diet, full of starch, sugar, fast food, etc. then you have fat combined with high blood sugar and insulin which certainly causes fat storage and other health issues.  You have similar issues with a high carb, low fat diet.  But a low carb, high fat diet in which the carb source is primarily non starchy vegetables  and blood sugar and insulin are kept at low levels, fat is the primary fuel source.  In this case, less fat is stored and more fat is burned. There is also much less inflammation created with a low carb diet than a high carb diet.  The variable causing the problems isn’t fat.  The problems are a result of an excess of sugar and starch.

If you’re looking for a diet to help you reduce sugar and starch and include more vegetables for controlling weight and balancing your biome, please consider my Food Comes First Diet.  It includes a food list and a week’s worth of meal suggestions for breakfast, lunch, dinner and afternoon snacks.  You can find it here: Food Comes First Diet Plan.

Jun 23
0

The Ratios Of Bacteria In Our Gut Determines How Many Calories We Store Or Burn

By | Diet, Fat Burning, Probiotic, Weight Loss | No Comments

90% of the bacteria in our gut is made up of two major types: Firmicutes and Bacteroidetes.  The populations of these two types of bacteria make up our F/B ratio.

The Firmicutes bacteria absorb more calories from our food than Bacteroidetes, AND trigger the storage of calories as fat.  Bacteroidetes don’t absorb as many calories and allow more of the calories we do absorb to be burned for energy.  The F/B ratio is actually considered to be a bio market for obesity.

In 2015, a Harvard study compared the stool samples of children from western Europe to those in rural Africa, where obesity is almost non existent.  The children in western Europe had a much higher population of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes, a higher F/B ratio, as is common with our western diet.  The  children in rural Africa, whose diet includes a lot of vegetable fiber, had a much higher population of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes, a lower F/B ratio.

The food that we eat has a direct influence on the type and strains of bacteria living in our gut.  Generally, the Firmicutes flourish when the  diet includes large amounts of sugar and starch.  Bacteroidetes thrive when there is more vegetable fiber in the diet.

A low population of Bacteroidetes is also associated with gut permeability,or leaky gut, which leads to inflammatory compounds escaping the colon and being released into our bodies.  These inflammatory compounds can cause disease and auto immune responses.

A diet loaded with non starchy vegetables feeds the bacteria we want living in our gut for the greatest health benefits, weight control and the avoidance of disease.

You can get my Food Comes First Diet, which includes a food list and a weeks worth of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks at this link:  Food Comes First Diet.