Jonny Bowden's Blog, page 17

Protein: What’s Best and Why?

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™

Can protein powders help you lose weight? Can they help you build muscle? And does it matter which kind you buy?

The short answer to all these questions is, “Yes”.

But before I talk about protein powders, I need to explain why the heck protein is so important to begin with.

Protein: The Crucial Macronutrient

The word protein comes from the Greek and means “of prime importance”. Without protein, your body starts breaking down precious muscle tissue, literally “eating” itself. Protein helps make enzymes, hormones, antibodies, and about a zillion other things your body requires to function. optimally

So you want to make sure that every meal and snack contains optimal protein.

But all proteins—and all protein powders—are not created equal. Vegetarians and vegans, take note: plant-based proteins overall have an inferior amino acid profile compared with animal proteins. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it just means you’ll want to include plenty of higher-protein plant foods like quinoa and legumes at every meal.

Meat eaters, you’re not off the hook. You can really screw up a high-protein diet by using crappy deli meats and ballpark franks. Sure, they’re high in protein– but they’re filled with other stuff that can be health robbing– like sodium, filler, and antibiotics. Skip the processed meats and consume clean protein sources like free-range chicken (and their eggs), wild-caught fish, and grass-fed lamb and beef.

One more thing, meat eaters: when I say higher-protein diet, I don’t mean all-protein diet. I don’t want you just noshing on grilled chicken breasts all day. I also want you to incorporate plenty of alkalinizing veggies, low-glycemic fruits, healthy carbs like quinoa and sweet potatoes, and nuts and seeds.

 

Now lets get to the powders. 

 

Whey Protein and Weight Loss

Whey protein is hands down my favorite form of protein powder. In protein quality and bioavailability scores, it consistently gets high marks. Not only that, but whey can help you lose weight and gain muscle, and it provides powerful support for your immune system.

In one study, subjects consumed a liquid meal containing equal amounts of either casein (milk protein) or whey protein. Then, ninety minutes later, they were let loose in a buffet and told to eat anything they wanted. Those who consumed the whey protein ate significantly fewer calories. So whey protein powder may well be a great tool in the battle to control appetite naturally.

Drinking whey protein is one of the best methods for coaxing the body into making more glutathione, arguably the most important antioxidant in the body. Unfortunately, glutathione is very badly absorbed when you ingest it orally. To get a healthy dose of glutathione, you need to provide the body with the amino acid “building blocks” it uses to produce it. Enter whey protein. Whey protein—because of its particular amino acid profile– has been shown to be one of the best ways ramp up glutathione production. For that reason alone, whey’s a great immune system booster.

PEA PROTEIN

As consumers continue to look for alternatives to traditional proteins, pea protein is becoming more and more popular. One selling point of pea protein is that it seems to lower blood pressure. Research published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showed that consuming a pea protein supplement for three weeks was associated with a 6 mmHg reduction in systolic blood pressure. Note: avoid pea protein if you have gout, since it contains purines, which can aggravate the condition.

HEMP PROTEIN

Yep, it’s actually made from the same plant that produces marijuana, but you won’t get a buzz from eating hemp protein. (Sorry!) Well-known for its nutty, rich flavor, hemp protein has all 8 essential amino acids (and in greater quantities than egg whites, tofu or cow’s milk)(3) It’s also extremely digestible and has a very favorable ratio of omega-6 to omega-3.

For me, the big selling point of hemp protein is its high fiber content. Hemp can be a fiber heavyweight (typically 5-14 grams per serving!) But hemp powder is typically lower in protein than, say, whey protein. And although I personally like it, some people find “gritty”.

SOY PROTEIN  

Soy- the poster child for all things “healthy”—is in fact, quite controversial in the health community. Detractors point to the presence of enzyme inhibitors (which block the action of enzymes needed for digestion), haemagglutinin, (a clot promoting substance), phytic acid (which can block the uptake of essential minerals), and the fact that 99% of our soy is genetically modified. Supporters point to the presence of phytoestrogens, phenolic acid (antioxidant), isoflavones, and compounds that lower cholesterol. My opinion: I think the dangers of soy have been somewhat exaggerated, but so have the health benefits. Small amounts of soy protein should pose no danger for most people, but I wouldn’t make soy my only protein shake.

BROWN RICE PROTEIN

The main selling point of brown rice protein is that it is not made from dairy or animal products. It’s hypoallergenic and is suitable for anyone wanting to avoid dairy, soy or gluten. Rice protein is not a complete protein, due to insufficient levels of the amino acids threonine and lysine, though these are sometimes added to rice protein products to correct the imbalance. The protein in rice is digested more slowly than whey or egg protein, if this is a concern for you. Two of the best rice protein-based formulas are Jarrow Formulas Brown Rice Protein Concentrate, which is made using a process that does not involve the use of chemical solvents, and Sunwarrior’s Warrior Blend Raw Protein, which has the distinction of being one of the few protein shakes endorsed by the raw foods crowd.

SACHA INCHI

Sacha inchi is one of the most exciting new sources of plant-based protein I’ve come across, though it’s hardly new. It’s been used medicinally by the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon for literally thousands of years. The seeds of the sacha inchi plant are very high in omega-3’s. A few combo products—such as Vega One—use sacha inchi as one of their protein sources. Look for a lot more sacha inchi products to appear soon.

COMBO PRODUCTS: (VEGA ONE)

Several manufacturers of high-quality plant-based protein powders use a mix of protein sources for their complementary qualities. One of the premiere manufacturers of vegetarian protein powders, Vega, uses a mix of pea protein, hemp seed protein, sacha inchi and brown rice protein (plus some chlorella, just for good measure) to get a complete protein blend. Vega One’s Nutritional Shakes also contain over 6 grams of omega-3 fatty acids (from flax and chia seeds), as well as quite a number of additional vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and probiotics.

 

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™

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Jonny Bowden, “the Nutrition Myth Buster”™ is a board-certified nutritionist and the best-selling author of The Great Cholesterol Myth and 13 other books. Visit him at www.jonnybowden.com.

 

 

 

9 surprising heart health tips

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Rogue Nutritionist” ™

Having written a book that essentially questions the entire cholesterol establishment and the notion that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease (“The Great Cholesterol Myth” by Bowden and Sinatra), I’m frequently asked the following question:

If saturated fat and cholesterol aren’t the problem, what is? And, more importantly, what can I do to protect my heart?

Glad you asked.

I’ve put together my ten nine tips for protecting your heart and living happily to a seriously ripe old age.

 

Reduce sugar and processed carbs. Sugar is a way bigger contributor to heart disease than fat ever was. Plus it contributes to inflammation which is part of just about every degenerative disease on the planet.


Stop worrying about fat, including saturated fat. Two major

meta-analyses in the last few years have established that saturated fat does not cause heart disease, and isn’t even related to it. However, the combination of sugar and fat is a particularly bad one.


Do an oil change! Reduce your intake of vegetable oils and

increase your intake of omega-3’s, especially fish oil. The balance between omega-6 (vegetable oil) and omega-3 (fish oil) is one of the most important metrics for human health, and the ideal ratio of these two types of fat in the diet is 1:1. Research shows we consume over than 16 times more (pro-inflammatory) omega-6’s than (anti-inflammatory) omega-3’s.


Learn some techniques for managing stress. Stress contributes to every disease known to man (including heart disease) and is a tremendous risk factor for cardiovascular disease.


Get some sun and spend some time outdoors. Most people are too low in vitamin D and could use more reasonable sun. And research shows that

being around greenery improves health in a number of measurable ways.


Eat an anti-inflammatory diet. Cholesterol doesn’t cause heart

disease, but inflammation sure does promote it. Foods rich in anti-inflammatories include virtually all vegetables, low-sugar fruits like apples and berries, avocados, nuts—all the usual suspects. And new research shows that citrus Bergamot—available now as a supplement by Reserveage– is a powerful balancing agent for the critical Triglyceride: HDL radio.


Supplement wisely. My top recommendations include fish oil,

magnesium, vitamin D, CoQ-10, resveratrol (trans-resveratrol), curcumin, probiotics, and for those with existing heart issues, D-ribose and               L-carnitine. Reserveage makes an all-trans-resveratrol product that I take every day, as well as an exciting new product from the citrus bergamot plant called Bergamot Cholesterol Support which lowers triglycerides and blood sugar and boosts HDL cholesterol.


Do some kind of exercise every day. For basic heart health and

protection, it’s hard to beat a daily walk.


Cultivate nourishing relationships. And I’m not just talking about Facebook friends. Friendships, connections, and social usefulness have enormously beneficial effects on both the heart and on health in general.

Will doing all these things eliminate all risk? Of course not. But neither will wearing a seat belt and driving sober. Doing those things won’t positively guarantee that some nutbag texting teen won’t jump the divider and kill you.

These actions will improve your health and cut your risk.

And really, that’s all we can ask of them!

 

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Rogue Nutritionist” ™

 

 

 

 

The Great Cholesterol Myth

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Rogue Nutritionist” ™

Since Amazon is featuring a special on the Kindle Edition of “The Great Cholesterol Myth” during August, I thought this would be a perfect time to review some of the important concepts we cover in that book. If you haven’t read it yet, the amazing sale on Amazon is a perfect time to pick it up (or, in this case, to have it auto-delivered!) http://amzn.to/1IBRUkS

As some of you probably know, cardiologist Stephen Sinatra and I co-authored a book entitled “The Great Cholesterol Myth” which created quite a stir when it came out at the end of 2012. The Australian BBC did a two-parter on it—which engendered all kinds of protests from the (very conservative) Australian medical establishment, and when we appeared on Dr. Oz, ten doctors wrote a joint letter to him protesting the fact that he gave air time to the “ridiculous” notion that cholesterol doesn’t matter. (Of course, hundreds more doctors wrote to us to thank us for finally telling the truth!)

So, you might well ask, what is the great cholesterol myth? And why should I even care?

First of all, belief in the Great Cholesterol Myth has caused us to take our eye off the ball when it comes to preventing heart disease. Belief in the Great Cholesterol Myth has caused us to neglect the real causes of heart disease while obsessively focusing on an innocuous molecule that’s essential for life and has only a minor role in heart disease.

And you should care about all this for two reasons. One, the Great Cholesterol Myth has been the foundation of the boneheaded dietary advice you and I have been saddled with for the past thirty years, “official” dietary advice that has directly contributed to the greatest epidemic of obesity, diabetes and heart disease in history.

The Great Cholesterol Myth is actually a series of related myths. Here are eight of my favorites.

MYTH: High cholesterol is the cause of heart disease.

FACT: Cholesterol is a fairly insignificant player in heart disease.

MYTH: High cholesterol is a good predictor of heart attacks.

FACT: High cholesterol is a lousy predictor of heart attacks. Half the people admitted to hospitals with heart disease or for heart surgery have normal cholesterol, and plenty of people with elevated cholesterol have perfectly healthy hearts.

MYTH: Lowering cholesterol with statin drugs will prolong your life.

FACT: There is no data showing statins have any impact on longevity. In virtually all of the studies, the people taking statins have a couple of less deaths from heart disease and a couple of more deaths from other causes like cancer, making the total number of lives saved… let’s see.. that would be zero.

MYTH: Statin drugs are perfectly safe.

FACT: Statin drugs have significant side effects, including loss of memory and libido, muscle pain and fatigue, and approximately 65% of doctors don’t report those side effects. (1)

MYTH: Statin drugs are appropriate for men, women, children and the elderly.

FACT: The only group in which statins have been shown to have even a modest effect is in middle-aged men who’ve already had a heart attack. If you’re not in that group, you’ve got no business on a statin drug. (2)

MYTH: Saturated fat is dangerous.

FACT: Saturated fat is mostly neutral and may even have some health benefits. Recent peer-reviewed studies have shown no association of saturated fat with heart disease. (3)

MYTH: The higher your cholesterol, the shorter your lifespan.

FACT: In the Framingham Study, the people who actually lived the longest had the highest cholesterol. (4)

MYTH: A high carbohydrate diet protects you from heart disease.

FACT: Diets that substitute carbohydrates for saturated fat actually increase the risk for heart disease. (5)

For much, much more, check out “The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Cholesterol Won’t Prevent Heart Disease and the Statin-Free Plan that Will”.

Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS, aka “The Rogue Nutritionist”™, is a board-certified nutritionist and co-author (with cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, MD) of “The Great Cholesterol Myth”.

 

REFERENCES

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17696579
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-430928/Statins-wont-prevent-women-getting-heart-disease-claim-doctors.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648
http://chriskresser.com/cholesterol-doesnt-cause-heart-disease
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/80/5/1175.abstract?ijkey=6f0b7d9fbbf501ff2f16776c8c3745870fa45394&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Rogue Nutritionist” ™

 

 

 

GMO: Friend or Foe?

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka The Nutrition Myth Buster™

I haven’t written about GMO foods before because, frankly, I came a bit late to the party. For a long time I wasn’t paying strict attention, concerned as I have been for most of my career with weight loss, diabetes and heart disease. And—full disclosure—I bought into a lot of the arguments put forth by industry, particularly the companies that make this stuff.

 

The pro-GMO crowd likes to argue that GMO increases yields, reduces pesticide use, benefits farmers, brings economic benefits, benefits the environment, reduces energy use, and will help feed the world.

Undoubtedly, some of that may be true, though most of those arguments fall apart under close examination. Right now, though, I’m concerned with the effect of GMOs on individual health. So let’s talk about what GMOs mean to you and me.

First, some definitions. Genetic modification means splicing the genes from one species onto the genes of another. This is fundamentally different from breeding. We all know you can make a mule by breeding a horse with a donkey, or a Labradoodle by crossing a Labrador retriever with a poodle. This is different. This is splicing the genes from a fish onto a tomato. Or a cow’s gene onto a pig.

And it’s fraught with uncertainty.

This kind of gene splicing has a huge potential for disaster. Why? Because we’re taking something that does not exist in nature and putting it in food.

Now think about it. What does the body do with foreign compounds? It mounts an attack. Which always—not sometimes—involves inflammation. And what do we know about inflammation, class? Only that it’s a cause, a multiplier, a promoter or a contributor of just about every degenerative disease we know of.

Also, remember that the gut is the first interface between food and the body. Inflammation in the gut almost always translates to something called leaky gut syndrome where the tight junctures in the gut—think of them as a kind of cheesecloth—start loosening up. The protective fence becomes less protective—now there are holes in that cheesecloth allowing all sorts of compounds to get into the bloodstream where they don’t belong.

It gets worse. Much worse.

Let’s just look at a little compound called glyphosate—which you may know by it’s more common commercial name, “Roundup”, the herbicide made by Monsanto. GMO crops are frequently “Roundup ready” which means you can spray them with Roundup without killing them. Even GMO crops that are not “Roundup ready” are frequently sprayed with Roundup since it’s a very effective dessicant (it dries crops out before harvesting).

Want to see what the research studies on glycphosate show?

Glyphosate (Roundup) is an antibiotic—but it kills some of the best bacteria in the microbiome, including bifidobacteria and lactobacillis.
Stephanie Seneff, a senior researcher at MIT, published a paper suggesting that glyphosate may explain the link between a damaged microbiome and gluten intolerance.
Glycphosate suppresses cytochrome CYP enzymes in the liver, meaning it compromises detoxification in the body
Glyphosate’s been shown to be an endocrine disrupter in human cells. (Translated: it screws around with your hormones.)
Glyphosate changes human cell permeability
Glyphsoate amplifies toxicity
Glyphsoate induces human breast cancer cell growth via estrogen receptors.
Glyphosate accelerates cell proliferation (i.e. cancer) at tiny concentrations (measured in parts per billion to parts per trillion!)
Rats fed Roundup-ready corn have damaged liver and kidneys.

(Full disclosure: after a ton of pressure, that journal printing that last rat study retracted it for “inconclusive results”, but taken with the rest of the published evidence, it’s still pretty damning.)

Oh, and by the way. I have the references for every one of the studies listed above. They were all presented at a recent conference put on by the American College of Nutrition. If you want the references, shoot me an email.

Now. And are you ready for the amounts of glyphosate “legally” permitted in food?

I hope you’re sitting down.

The amount of glycphosate that’s “legal” for breakfast cereals is 30 ppm. For soybeans, it’s 120 ppm.

Umm, did I mention the study that showed that ONE ppm causes a 35% reduction in testosterone in rats?

(I thought that might get your attention.)

The 9 crops that are always GMO in this country (unless they are labeled organic) are soy, corn (not popcorn), cottonseed (oil), canola (oil), sugar beets, papaya, zuchinni, yellow crookneck squash, and alfalfa.

And don’t count on transparency from the GMO folks. Nineteen- count ‘em—nineteen states floated bills requiring GMO products to be labeled truthfully so that consumers could actually know what they’re buying and make their own informed choice.

Not one bill passed, not even in health-conscious California. Remember, we’re dealing with the lobbying and advertising budget of a company (Monsanto) that’s literally twice the size of Major League Baseball. In California, the ads convinced my fellow voters that labeling food as GMO would make it more expensive.

The bill was defeated.

Remember, despite efforts to convince you that organic food is “no better” nutritionally than conventionally grown food, the truth is we don’t buy organic food for what’s in it.

We buy it for what’s not in it.

Like the genes from other species.

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka The Nutrition Myth Buster™

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is Orthorexia Nervosa?

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™

 

It’s an all-consuming obsession with eating “right”. While Orthorexia is motivated by health, it takes on a life of its own, and Orthorexia Nervosa takes away the joy from the experience of eating.

Watch the video: www.bit.ly/OrthoRXNervosa

 

 

 

Now, here is your turn. Share your experiences and questions in the comment below.

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™

 

 

Ketogenic Diets

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™

A lot of people think of ketogenic diets as high protein diets, but they’re actually not, they’re high fat diets. Why would anybody go on a high fat diet? When you reduce carbs to this low an amount, your body is forced to burn fat for fuel. There’s very little glucose in your blood stream, and the body has to go to an alternative fuel source.

So many good things happen when you burn fat as opposed to sugar. You have more energy, fewer cravings, you don’t have the blood sugar roller coaster, and you almost always lose weight, sometimes pretty rapidly. Burning fat when you don’t have any carbs in your system creates this alternative fuel source called ketones. The ketogenic diet generates a state called ketosis and you lose weight because your body is producing these ketones from fat from your diet, sure, but also from your hips, butt and thighs. That’s the ATM machine for fat! You’re going to use that for fuel, and you’re going to lose body fat.

For many years, people thought ketogenic diets were really hard to stay on, and that they were probably unhealthy because of all that fat. Think again. We’ve known for a long time that ketogenic diets are used as a treatment for childhood epilepsy; they use ketogenic diets right now at Johns Hopkins. In epilepsy, we learned at this conference, the brain is basically starving for sugar. It needs energy, and the brain cells are basically saying, “Feed me”. They’re going nuts and they start to spasm and that’s a very non-technical way to explain epilepsy. When your body’s producing ketones, the brain loves them; it will run all day on ketones. So will the heart. So will the muscles.

As we learned at the conference, ketogenic diets are also being investigated for cancer. Remember, cancer cells feed on sugar, that’s their only fuel. Ketogenic diets are also being investigated for MS. There’s this wonderful doctor named Terry Wahl’s who had MS, and it was so serious that she was in a reclining wheelchair. She gives these TED lectures now. She’s created this protocol all about ketogenic diets; look up the Wahl’s protocol. Ketogenic diets are also being investigated for cognitive and neural impairment among other things.

What was really interesting at this conference was how many top athletes are using ketogenic diets. They’re running on fat! When Natural Health Sherpa sent me and Dr. Raffelock down to the conference, we came back very jazzed because we’re going to be starting work soon on a whole new exciting project harnessing the power of the ketogenic diet. For now, you can read a lot about ketogenic diets online, a great place you might want to start is the blog of Dr. Peter Attia called The Eating Academy.

We’re beginning to see the whole establishment that’s been built around “low-fat” crumbling and finding out that the guidelines for fat consumption were never based on science in the first place. New studies are questioning the cholesterol hypothesis and absolving saturated fat of any role in heart disease. I think you’re going to see a big shift in attitudes about fat in general and about high-fat diets especially among people like the folks on Metabolic Mastery who stay ahead of the curve. Read about this, follow all the health news and listen to us. I’m writing a book about high-fat diets right now with the esteemed Dr. Steven Masley out in January, and we’re going to be doing a version of a high fat diet in our next program for Natural Health Sherpa. On a ketogenic diet you can lose body fat, increase energy, and if the emerging work pans out, you may also reduce the risk of certain diseases, and maybe even improve your athletic performance!

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™

 

 

BUSTING THE MYTHS ABOUT COOKING OILS

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Nutrition Myth Buster”™

I’ve spent a large portion of my career fighting the wrongful demonization of dietary fat, trying to set the record straight, and to reclaim respectability for fat in general, saturated fat in particular, and—most importantly—cholesterol. Now it’s time to take on the whole area of cooking oils.

The subject of dietary fat and the subject of cooking oils overlap- but it’s not the same subject. While all cooking oils are made from fat, they have specific properties of their own—how they stand up to heat, for openers. And there’s a lot of misinformation about the best way to use cooking oils so as to get maximum benefit from them.

And there are a lot of myths. Consider:

Extra virgin olive oil is the best stuff ever, you should use it for everything! Coconut oil is a fantastic cooking oil, its saturated fat stands up to high heat beautifully! Canola oil is the healthiest oil on the planet!

Well, if you’re an informed health consumer, you’ve probably heard every one of those statements, and you probably even agree with them. I don’t blame you. Those ideas are deeply embedded in what’s now called “the health space”, meaning places where people talk about, read about, tweet about, discuss, and debate what’s healthy and what’s not.

The problem is they’re not true.

Or at least they’re not completely true. Because with cooking oils the devil is truly in the details. And you simply can’t have a serious discussion about healthy cooking oils without including one absolutely critical detail that no one seems to ever talk about—temperature.

Take extra virgin olive oil, for example, everybody’s poster child for the best oil ever. Extra virgin olive oil is made by simply crushing olives and extracting the juice. It’s made without a hint of chemicals and industrial refinement, and under temperature that will not degrade the oil (i.e. less than 86° F). People pay a lot more money for extra virgin olive oil, and then proceed to use it for all their cooking needs.

Big mistake.

Think about it. Why did you pay such a high premium for extra virgin in the first place? It was to get all those spectacularly healthy olive polyphenols, in virgin condition, undamaged by heat or chemicals. So why in the world would you take this delicate, carefully prepared oil, just dripping with delicate compounds that you paid a lot of money for, and then heat it to a high temperature which is basically guaranteed to destroy most of what you paid for?

Doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Cooks and chefs have a term for the temperature at which oils begin to be damaged—it’s called a smoke point. If an oil is heated until it smokes, the valuable nutrients will be damaged. Worse, the oil itself becomes harmful to ingest. If you take a healthy fat—like for example, extra virgin olive oil, or unrefined coconut oil—and you cook it past its appropriate temperature tolerance you’ve just taken a smart fat and made it into a dumb one.

So pay attention to the temperature guide below, and never use an oil at a temperature that causes it to smoke. (Don’t go nuts around this, though—if you happen to accidentally burn an oil from time to time, just take the pan off the heat, wipe the pan with a paper towel, and start over.)

We suggest you choose 1-2 oils you can use for high heat cooking—like avocado, pecan, extra-light olive oil, or ghee—and let these be your staples for high heat cooking. Medium-high heat oils are the ones you’ll probably cook with most of the time. They’re great for browning meat or poultry, or for cooking vegetables. Good choices: virgin olive oil (not extra virgin), almond oil, hazelnut oil, and macadamia nut oil.

You should probably also choose 1-2 medium heat oils for when you don’t heat a pan past medium heat. Good example: nutrient rich, unrefined coconut oil like Barlean’s, and sesame seed oil.

More nutrient rich oils, like extra virgin olive oil, are wonderful for drizzling or for salad dressings. High lignin flaxseed oil can be used for drizzling or for salad dressings (but never for cooking, ever). Other oils that work well for this purpose—oils that can be used for dressings or sprinkled on dishes for extra flavor after they have been cooked—include sesame, pistachio and walnut oils.

The bottom line: Use the right oil, but use it at the right temperature! That’s just plain smart cooking!

          Cooking Heat, Cooking Oils, Smoke Points*            

Cooking Heats (°F)                                     Appropriate Cooking Oils            

High Heat                  450-650°                   Avocado oil, Grapeseed oil,                                                                                              Pecan oil, Ghee (clarified butter),                                                                                           Extra-light olive oil

******

Medium High Heat  375-449°                   Virgin olive oil, Almond oil,                                                                                                             Hazelnut oil, Refined Walnut oil,                                                                                           Macadamia nut oil, Refined                                                                                              Coconut oil

******

Medium Heat                        324-374°                   Extra virgin olive oil, Lard, Butter,                                                                                      Unrefined coconut oil,

******

Medium Low Heat   250-324°                   Unrefined sesame seed oil,                                                                                             Unrefined walnut oil

******

Low Heat                               225-249°       Pistachio oil

Oil                               Smoke Points (F)    Maximum Cooking Temp

Almond oil                             430°               Medium-high

Avocado oil                           520°               High

Avocado oil, (virgin)             400°               Medium

Butter                                     350°               Medium

Butter, (clarified)                  485°               High

Coconut oil, (refined)          400°               Medium

Coconut oil, (unrefined)     350°               Medium-low

Grapeseed oil                      485°               High

Hazelnut oil                           430°               Medium-high

Lard                                        380°               Medium

Macadamia nut oil               400°               Medium

Olive oil, Virgin                     420°               Medium-high

Olive oil, Extra Virgin           400°               Medium

Olive oil, Extra light              470°               High

Pecan oil                               470°               High

Pistachio oil                          250°               Low

Sesame oil, (unrefined)     350°               Medium-low

Walnut oil, (refined)             400°               Medium

Walnut oil, (unrefined)        320°               Medium-low

*Table adapted from the forthcoming book, “Smart Fat: Eat More Fat, Lose More Weight, Get Healthy Now!” by Jonny Bowden, CNS and Steven Masley, MD (Harper One, Jan 2016)

 

 

Scared To Death

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Rogue Nutritionist” ™

Recently, a 30 year old meth addict named Ricky Lee Fowler was found guilty of starting what’s now known as the 2003 Old Fire in Southern California, a raging 90,000 acre blaze that resulted in the evacuation of 80,000 people and the destruction of nearly 1000 homes. Fowler was actually convicted of murder because five people died in the fire.

But here’s the thing: none of the five died because of fire.

All five died from heart attacks.

I mention this because it’s a great example of something cardiologist Stephen Sinatra and I discuss at length in our book, “The Great Cholesterol Myth”. In that book, we talk about the four real causes of heart disease. One of those is what caused the five deaths in the Old Fire of 2003.

I’m talking about stress.

Voodoo Death

The notion that stress kills is hardly new. In the book we talk about something called “Voodo Death”, a concept that was explored in the 1920’s by the great American physiologist Walter Cannon. Voodo death is sudden, unexplained death arising from a voodoo curse. Here’s how Esther Sternberg, MD, put it in the American Journal of Public Health. (1)

“The dramatic suddenness of the illness following the threat, coupled with a lack of any apparent injury, exposure to toxins, or infection suggested to Cannon that merely the fear of death could, through physiological response mechanisms initiated by fear, precipitate death itself.”

Stress Kills, Cholesterol Doesn’t

The stress response is a complicated hormonal cascade of events that was designed to save your life in an emergency. But the devil is in the details. When that stress response is turned on 24/7—the way it is for a lot of us—nothing good happens. It’s like speeding down the 405 freeway in first gear. That first gear can be a lifesaver if you’re trying to get up a steep hill, but it’s death to your transmission if you’re driving 75.

Hormones are released—like cortisol and adrenaline—which cause blood pressure and heart rate to rise. Blood pounds against the artery walls, ultimately contributing to micro-injuries in the vascular system that soon become inflamed. These inflamed areas attract oxidized particles of LDL called LDL-b, not to mention inflammatory cytokines and all sorts of other metabolic riff-raff, the end result of which can be unstable plaque.

And the end result of that can be a heart attack.

In vulnerable people—such as the five people who died in the fire—the result can be pretty immediate. A cardiovascular system that’s already been weakened by a bad diet with too many trans fats and sugar, and by inflammation and oxidation in the vascular walls can easily be overwhelmed by a sudden overload of cortisol and adrenaline. This is probably why more heart attacks happen on Monday morning than on any other time or day.

Scared to Death

There’s even a developing field devoted to the effects of stress on the heart—it’s called stress cardiomyopathy, and even “healthy” people aren’t immune to it. “You have people in acute, sudden heart failure who were perfectly healthy an hour earlier”, cardiologist Ilan Wittstein, MD, told the Wall Street Journal. (2) Many of these patients survive—but many do not.

The chairman of the neurology department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston—Martin A. Samuels, MD—has collected literally hundreds of reports detailing how people died suddenly in scary situations. The reports include stories of children who died while on amusement rides, people who were victims of muggings (even though there was no physical attack or injury), and car accident victims whose injuries were negligible. The only thing they all have in common is that their hearts literally failed, not because of cholesterol, not even because of physical injury, but because they were unable to survive the aftermath of a massive overload of stress hormones.

So why are we chasing cholesterol and not paying attention to stress?

One reason might be money. There’s over 34 billion dollars a year made on cholesterol-lowering drugs. There’s not a whole lot of money to be made teaching people how to manage stress.

One of the biggest casualties of the war on cholesterol is that it’s caused us to take our focus off the things that really cause heart disease, things we can actually do something about cheaply, and things that don’t require prescription drugs.

Cholesterol is not your enemy.

But stress— except in small, infrequent doses—most definitely is.

 

REFERENCES

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447278/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001...

 

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Rogue Nutritionist” ™

 

 

 

What Do You Call A Veterinarian Who Can Only Take Care of One Species?

Guest Video-Blog by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz

A physician! Unfortunately, this is no laughing matter, as MD Barbara Natterson-Horowitz has fortunately brought to our attention in this insightful TED Talk—watch short video: http://bit.ly/JBNHTED While Physicians and Veterinarians may serve patients of different species, it turns out that many of same disorders are experienced by both animals and humans. Congestive heart failure, diabetes—even mental disorders—are not unique to human beings. And yet, the means by which Vets and Docs approach these illnesses are completely different—a realm of knowledge that is shockingly isolated between the separate medical fields.

While most scientists would agree that we are “merely mammals,” there is a general understanding that humans are superior—and vastly different than all other species. This consensus, in part, is one reason that animal doctors heal their patients according to practices that many of our physicians have never conceived. Check out this short video, discover the connections, and learn how this physician is working to break through the knowledge-gap and improve the lives of all species of Planet Earth.

 

What learning surprised you most in this Ted Talk? Please share in the Comments below.

 

Guest Video-Blog by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz

Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS aka “The Rogue Nutritionist” ™

 

 

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