Mark Sisson's Blog, page 291

Dear Mark: Does Resistant Starch Cause Colon Cancer?

greenbananas For today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m handling just one question. I originally planned to answer more reader questions, but it turned into a complex answer that really made me dig deeper into something – butyric acid – I’d assumed was completely benign. I still do, mind you, for the most part. The position has just become more nuanced. Anyway, the question is from a reader who’s just seen a study that seems to implicate butyric acid, the primary short chain fatty acid that resistant starch-eating gut bacteria produce, in colon cancer. Was my ringing endorsement of resistant starch a mistake after all?

Let’s go:

Hey Mark,

Did you see this new article? It seems to implicate resistant starch as being a cause of colon cancer by increasing butyric acid which increases tumor growth. Are we making a big mistake with all this potato starch, green banana stuff? It definitely seems like it’s improved my digestion and sleep, but I’m pretty worried about this cancer connection (a couple of relatives have died from it).

Thanks,

Jack

Looks scary at first glance, I agree. A metabolite of colonic bacteria usually assumed to be wholly good for us – butyric acid – increased colon cancer in genetically susceptible mice. That’s the same metabolite that resistant starch increases, and it’s often touted as one of the main reasons to even eat the stuff. What gives?

Here’s the study. Or the abstract, at least. The rodents used in the experimental group were mutants with a gene deletion, not “wild type” mice. The deleted gene coded for the MSH2 protein, a regulator of DNA mismatch repair. To understand why this matters, let me briefly (and superficially) explain DNA mismatch. During synthesis of new DNA, adenine (A) is supposed to pair with thymine (T) and guanine (G) is supposed to pair with cytosine (C) to form nucleotide base pairs along the double helix. If errors occur and A matches with C or G matches with A or T matches with C, the DNA won’t function properly. That’s where MSH2 comes in; it’s part of the protein complex that identifies the mismatch errors so that another set of proteins can come in and fix them.

What does this mean for you?

While MSH2 can be epigenetically silenced, we don’t know of any environmental triggers like diet, exercise, sleep, or stress (although a safe bet is to do healthy stuff regardless), and the vast majority of MSH2 defects stem from germline mutations which occur upon or shortly after conception, are highly heritable and immutable. Even among patients with confirmed epigenetic inactivation, 70% still have the germline mutation.

How common are MSH2 mutations overall? Well, a hereditary condition known as Lynch Syndrome is responsible for 3-5% of all colon cancer cases, and MSH2 mutations account for 40% of Lynch Syndrome cases. This condition is actually fairly rare in humans, and colon cancers associated with MSH2 irregularities account for “just” 2-4% of total colon cancer cases (I hate to use “just” when discussing cancer case statistics, because those percentage points represent afflicted people and families and friends, not abstract numbers – but it’s the best word we have). So as far as MSH2 goes, it’s not a huge contributor to colon cancer in the grand scheme of things.

This is an interesting study, but I don’t think it’s particularly relevant to the majority of people. The control mice, who should be roughly analogous to most people reading, didn’t experience an increase in cancer with increased butyrate.

The bulk of the available research points to butyrate production – and the resistant starch consumption that promotes it – as protective against colon cancer. Plus, eating resistant starch can protect against some of the risk factors linked to colon cancer:

Inflammatory bowel disease - In induced IBD, resistant starch speeds up the healing of the intestinal wall and reduces the severity of the inflammation while increasing butyrate production and uptake by colonic cells. Colitis is often associated with a reduced uptake of butyrate by the cells of the colon, but resistant starch almost normalizes it. RS also regulates inflammatory cytokine secretion and T-reg cell release in the gut of IBD mice to control inflammation. Directly injecting butyrate into the colons of colitis patients reduces inflammation, bowel movement frequency, and blood in the stool.
Abdominal obesity - A recent mouse trial randomized subjects into two groups. One received a high resistant starch diet, the other received a diet high in digestible starch. While both groups gained the same amount of weight, the digestible starch group’s weight gain was concentrated in the abdominal region. They also gained more body fat overall. The RS group gained less fat and more lean mass; these were rippling mouse Adonises, folks.

If those risk factors have a causative relationship to colon cancer (and even if they don’t, it’s nice to not have IBD or a lot of visceral belly fat) eating resistant starch should improve resistance.

However, there is some contradictory evidence. There may be different rules for people with cancer. The same thing that could prevent cancer - butyrate/RS - might exacerbate existing tumors.

A 2007 review paper looked at this apparent “butyrate paradox,” (PDF) finding that “time at which the colorectal lesions (early vs. late stage) are exposed to fiber/butyrate are all factors that may influence the protective role of fiber against CRC.” A few of their other findings:

In early adenomas/polyps/benign colonic tumors, butyrate is highly protective, inhibiting growth and development into carcinomas.
Chronic, low levels of butyrate exposure might be inadequate for protection and actually select for cancer cells that are resistant to the inhibitory effects of butyrate. Thus, if early adenomas are exposed to low butyrate levels, they can become butyrate-resistant (malignant) carcinomas if allowed to progress. “Go big or go home.”
Most human colon cancer lines are greatly inhibited by butyrate infusion, but some are far more resistant to its effects.
Butyrate/resistant starch is probably best at inhibiting the early stages of tumor development and less effective in later stages.

From my reading of the research, resistant starch (and the resultant butyrate) has an overall beneficial, preventive effect on colon cancer risk. That relationship may change or become more complicated in advanced colon cancer, and the story may be entirely different for people carrying the MSH2 mutation from today’s highlighted study, but that remains to be seen. For now, I’m still incorporating RS into my diet.

If you’re worried, ask your doctor about getting an MSH2 status test. And review your family history of cancer. Was it colon? Was it a DNA repair mismatch-related case? Even if you do have the MSH2 mutation and a family history of Lynch Syndrome, don’t fear fermentable fibers, resistant starches, and butyrate. Your colonic cells run on butyrate. It’s their primary energy source. And all the other myriad benefits of prebiotics remain relevant. Besides, this is one study. It’s not proof or confirmation of anything. Not yet.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Let’s hear what you think about all this in the comment section.

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Published on August 04, 2014 08:00

Weekend Link Love – Edition 307

Episode #30 of The Primal Blueprint Podcast is now live. I read another essay, this time an excerpt from The Primal Connection about the pursuit of Primal thrills – safe (but not too safe), exciting, healthy ways to sate that very human desire for adventure. If you have any ideas for future podcasts, please let us know by using the blue “Submit a Question” button in the sidebar!

The Primal Blueprint Transformation Seminar is coming to you, West Bloomfield! If you live in Michigan and want to learn more about Primally transforming your life, come join us Thursday, August 7, at 7 PM.

Research of the Week

Former elite athletes are more likely to have osteoarthritis than members of the general population.

As long as you maintain the intensity, varying the exercises you do seems to improve strength development more than sticking with the same movements.

Extra virgin olive oil doesn’t just increase HDL. It increases the quality and protective function of your HDL.

Having lots of skeletal muscle – and using it - upregulates the human “longevity protein.”

Chimps prefer African and Indian rhythms to western or Japanese music, perhaps because the latter remind them of “chimpanzee dominance displays [which] commonly incorporate repeated rhythmic sounds such as stomping, clapping and banging objects.”

Interesting Blog Posts

What your workout choice might say about your social class.

This dentist gets it. Do you?

Media, Schmedia

The American Society for Nutrition, supposedly the home of “the best of nutrition research,” is full of processed food apologists.

Too much medical intervention may not just be useless and costly, it could actually be making us sicker.

Everything Else

The guys from Gibbon Slacklines brought their unique mode of play to the favelas of Brazil and shot a gorgeous video of the reactions. Slacklining might not replace soccer anytime soon, but they really seemed to dig it.

Poop is really important. It’s also kinda funny, but how (and what) we poop tells us a lot about the state of our health. Here’s a free downloadable poster with helpful graphics to teach you and your kids what your poop’s trying to tell you.

If you’re going to run, five minutes a day is enough to show benefits. Hour long slogs are unnecessary.

A paleo pre-teen from 100,000 years ago who suffered severe blunt head trauma and brain damage as a young kid lived to 12 or 13 and was loved enough to receive good care and a ritualized burial. So much for our ancestors being mindless savages.

It’s not like you guys were lining up for Walmart ice cream sandwiches anyway, but this should put you off them even more.

Recipe Corner

Forget Ikea. These paleo Swedish meatballs are far superior.
Man, do these bumbleberry baby back ribs look incredible.

Time Capsule

One year ago (Aug 3 – Aug 9)

How to Turn Your Nature Deficit Into a Nature Surplus – We all need to get away, more often than we think. Here’s how to do it.
15 Concrete Ways to Play – Some people need a little help with having fun.

Comment of the Week

haaaaaaaaaash broooooooooowns….

- I’m unclear what this comment had to do with the subject at hand, but I support and agree with it nonetheless.

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Published on August 03, 2014 08:00

Primal Fuel Bars

PrimalFuelBars1 The goal of this recipe was to create a protein bar, but it turned out to be so much more. While eggs and Primal Fuel do add protein with delicious chocolate flavor, and macadamia and coconut butter add loads of healthy fat, these dense, moist chocolate-coconut-macadamia flavored bars could also make a fine cake topped with whipped whole cream and berries. This recipe, as it turns out, is a case when you can have your cake and eat it too.

If you’d like to decrease the amount of maple syrup you can; if you’d like to add a little more Primal Fuel or chunks of macadamia nuts and coconut for more texture you can do that too. Or, take things in a more dessert-like direction by adding chunks of dark chocolate.

Whatever Primal Fuel Bars are for you – a snack mid-hike or post-workout, a quick breakfast on the way out the door, dessert after dinner – one thing will remain constant: Primal Fuel Bars are a real treat. Enjoy!

Servings: 12 bars

Time in the Kitchen: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

3/4 cup coconut cream/coconut butter (200 g)
1 cup (116 g) raw, unsalted macadamia nuts (or 1/2 cup macadamia butter)
1/4 cup maple syrup (60 ml)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (2.5 ml)
1/4 cup chocolate Primal Fuel (28 grams)
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (2.5 ml)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 °F/177 °C.

The coconut butter should be at room temperature or slightly warmed so the texture is soft and runny.

In a food processor, blend the macadamia nuts for several minutes until a smooth, thick paste or “butter” forms.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the coconut butter, macadamia butter, maple syrup, baking soda, chocolate Primal Fuel, eggs and salt.

Pour the batter into an oiled 8″x8″ baking dish.

Bake 20 minutes until the batter is set and has puffed up a bit. Let cool before cutting.

Primal Fuel Bars can be refrigerated or kept at room temperature.

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Published on August 02, 2014 08:00

At 87 Years Old, for the First Time in My Life I Feel Beautiful, Both Inside and Out

It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!

real life stories stories 1 2 After reading last week’s success story post and all the comments from people who wanted to hear from someone my age, I thought I could be that inspiration telling my primal story. I am 87 years young and found the primal lifestyle about three and a half years ago. I went from 220 pounds to 130 pounds. Here’s my story.

I was raised on a cotton farm in California’s Central Valley. I was the youngest of eleven children. We all worked on the farm and during the Depression we ate what we raised. But even as a young teenager, when I asked my teacher if she thought I was fat she replied, “You are pleasingly plump.”

At seventeen I left home and moved to Santa Cruz to work at the Boardwalk, living on hot dogs and hamburgers. Four years later I met my husband of 64 years.

We had four children, two daughters right away and a son and daughter seven years later. Trying to make ends meet, we ate a lot of beans, oats and rice. My husband and I worked in the restaurant business, he as a chef and myself as a waitress. Needless to say, we both worked long hours and meals for us was whatever was quick to put on the table for the family.

When our two youngest became teenagers, I decided to be a stay at home mother. With this there began to be loneliness and boredom and food often filled the void. I never had a drivers license and my husband worked ten to twelve hours a day. I would eat when I was bored, lonely, mad or happy. And so, my emotional eating began increasing with the empty nest.

Oh, I would try to lose weight through the years; Atkins, Weight Watchers, Weigh Down, but they never worked.

In 1990, at the age of 63, I learned I was diabetic. How confused and scared I was to learn this. But even with this news and doing my best with SAD meals for diabetics, I could never lose the weight. Along with diabetes and still no weight control, of course, came the onset of heart disease. I suffered a heart attack in 1999 and stepped up my efforts with different fad diets, but was never able to keep the weight off.

My grandson became the editor of this blog (which I didn’t know what that was) and soon his parents were following this new lifestyle. They kept telling me how the Primal way wasn’t a diet but a simple way of life. They gave me a copy of The Primal Blueprint and as I began reading it something just clicked. I no longer wanted to be overweight. Each week I saw a difference as the weight came off with ease. I never felt like I was deprived and found I wasn’t hungry all the time. After a year of being Primal, I moved to be closer to my daughter. My new doctor checked my blood work and took me off of several medications, including insulin. I have been able to manage my diabetes through eating Primally and exercising three times a week.

At 87 years old, for the first time in my life I feel beautiful, both inside and out. People look at me and tell me I’m so tiny. I still can’t get over that. I tell my Primal story to anyone I meet. Being overweight all those years has taken its toll on my heart, but I have never felt better. My advice to those thinking about the Primal way of living; do it. It is simple and it works! I eat better than I ever have and feel better than I ever have. Look at me!

Living life,

Faye

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Published on August 01, 2014 08:00

The Case for Structure (and 6 Tactics That Can Come in Handy)

agenda One of the things I love most about the Primal Blueprint is its malleability. It’s not a hard-nosed agenda or nauseating treatise of commandments. It’s a loose set of suggestions that together take a general and dynamic shape a person can then apply in whatever way works for his or her life. The fact is, I’m a casual, go with the flow kind of person. Living in California all these decades helps that. Frankly, I chafe against too many rules. I don’t like to have my choices confined into a ready-made box of someone else’s design. I set up the PB with that point very much in mind. (If I don’t like to follow other people’s edicts, why would I expect others to embrace mine?) In understanding all this about myself, however, I also get that not everyone takes the same casual, free flowing approach to health. Some people appreciate structure. They seek it out or even depend on it, in fact. It’s never about what’s right or wrong in these endeavors. One approach isn’t better than another. It’s simply a matter of this does or doesn’t work for me.

People need or desire structure for any number of reasons. For many, it’s a matter of simplicity. The fewer choices they have to make in a day, the easier their lives feel. Although the research on “decision fatigue” is mixed, some people feel making fewer selections genuinely frees up mental bandwidth if not self-discipline. Others simply like to plan their lives and organize most if not all the dimensions of living with an eye for clear intention. Still others look to structure as a critical map to plot their course each day through the thicket of long-standing unhealthy habits and even self-destructive thinking or behavior around food. Particularly for those beginning a Primal journey or for those who have been more or less Primal for a while but hit a stressful patch, leaning on the constancy and clarity of structure can be a linchpin to getting healthy or staying the course. I’m interested in hearing what all of you may have used in the past to institute your own brand of structure for living Primally, but here are a few strategies I’ve suggested to folks in the past who ask me about putting structure in place.

Establish a systemized schedule.

A meeting gets called right before lunch. The kids’ activity schedule is all over the map. You’re on vacation or a business trip. Social events or family obligations have you on a different agenda every night. Stop the car right there. While some of us can roll with these continual shifts – particularly with ample Primal time under our belts, for others this kind of dysregulation is our continual undoing. When I work with clients who struggle with these circumstances, I explain that an established schedule is simply about realigning our bodies’ physiological rhythms – particularly around sleep and hunger cues – and about setting good social boundaries. Not everyone else’s needs in the world come before yours. If you want to prioritize your health, it’s got to be front and center – at least for a while until it’s had a chance to become woven into the natural patterns of your day. For many people, having set eating times wards off major hunger, which can send us down a spiraling path of unfortunate choices. Eating the healthy meal you’ve planned right before ravenous hunger gets the better of your thinking can keep you on track. Setting an alarm to hit the sack at your body’s ideal bedtime sets you up for the best sleep, which means you’ll be more productive and make better choices the next day.

In truth, a regimented schedule might sound like torture to some people, but it’s a lifesaver to others. While a schedule suggests confining order, to other people it’s nothing more than a functional scaffolding for the day in which everything else can work around the self-commitments they make to themselves. Setting specific non-negotiable times for eating, bedtime and exercise can feel for some people like high treason against all the other people or commitments in their lives. When you assign your basic health priorities the same importance as a work meeting or your kids’ soccer game, you might be surprised how powerful a mental shift and a logistical tactic this action becomes. How can this work, you ask? Commit to it for a week no holds barred. Have each meal (or a meal) always ready to travel. Get over the self-consciousness that says you can’t eat in a work meeting (hey, if they set a meeting for noon, this comes with the territory) or the stands of your daughter’s hockey practice. Give up T.V. in order to get things done in preparation for a 10:00 p.m. bedtime. It’s amazing what in your life can become modular when you make your health commitments the non-negotiables.

Commit (for a time) to extensive tracking, experimenting and journaling.

Again, no tactic is for everyone, but I’ve had more clients than I can count who significantly benefited from this idea. Personally, I like to consider a journal as a tool that allows me to be consciously responsible for my choices and to keep notes on self-experimentation. Yup, I even designed one, and it’s based directly on what I used for myself and with one-on-one clients.

To me, it’s not simply about what you’re eating and when you exercise. It’s tracking your choices but also how they shake out and what progress you make each day. We’re not looking for ways to berate ourselves here: remember, as Art says, “no failure, only feedback.” How did a new gym time affect your energy trajectory today? When during the day do you feel yourself craving sweet or salty foods? What is the sweet spot for heading to bed for the quickest process of falling asleep? Do you get better output in your weight lifting over lunch or in the morning? How much recovery time do you really need? When during your day do you feel the biggest physical effects of stress? When you pay attention to your body’s sensations and feedback, you can direct a relevant and effective response or simply make better choices.

Set a weekly master plan that you consult each day.

This is an easy extension off of the journal. Choose one day each week to create the week’s menus for yourself with all meals (including snacks) accounted for. Write up the grocery list, hit the market and prep what you bring home to your heart’s desire. Cook a big batch of stew you’ll pack for lunches. Put together a large salad you can divvy up for the first couple days of the week. Boil some eggs, cut up vegetables you’ll use for morning omelettes, etc., etc. Keep the list on your fridge or in your phone. You will always know what you’ll be preparing or packing each day. Taking the guesswork out of the equation can also stave off temptation for many people. Additionally, write out your fitness plan for the week (e.g. gym time and goals) and any other good healthy intentions you have for the seven days.

Choose strategic repetition.

While I’d say variety is key for eating healthily and getting the most out of exercise, showing up for our general Primal intentions is more important than incorporating every diverse nuance. If it’s easiest to have the same thing for breakfast and the same mid-afternoon protein shake each day, then go with it. Some people go further than that and include more repetition when they feel like they’ll fall off the wagon without it because they hit a week of big stress or time constriction. Do what you need to do, switch out whatever you comfortably can (incorporating as many foods into, say, the same daily lunch salad as possible), and wisely supplement.

Set up a check-in system.

For people who are beginning a health overhaul, I can’t emphasize this enough. It might seem extreme, but social support is a critical part of structure for many people. Find a Primal buddy (on- or offline) or a supportive friend who you can check in with each day to share what you’ve done for your intentions that day. (Even a relevant app can be useful for this purpose.) If funds allow, enlist the services of a personal coach or The Primal Advantage. Sharing your progress with another person gives you a sense of accountability of course, but you’ll also feel like you have someone in your corner. As I’ve noted (and most of us here have experienced), going Primal is kind of a counter-cultural endeavor. Having someone who “gets” the path you’re on and can encourage you along the way will go a long way on those days when stress is high and the best choices aren’t the convenient ones.

Try the 21-Day Primal Blueprint Total Body Transformation book.

Oh, the shameless self-promotion… Seriously, however, I wrote this book with structure fans in mind. It’s literally everything you need to put Primal into action from day one right down to the grocery shopping list. For those who are looking for a straight-forward formula with meal plans and exercise protocols, it’s all there. There’s no reason why you have to stop using it at day 21 either. Carry over the foods and routines that worked for you into the next 21 days and beyond.

The idea here is to see where you hit your personal structure sweet spot. Experiment and find what gives you what you need to stay confident in your Primal change. The right choices – whether free flowing or thoughtfully organized – are ultimately the ones that best allow us to take care of ourselves in the long haul.

Thanks for reading, everybody. Do you lean toward structure and consistency? What tactics have you used in going – and staying – Primal? I’ll look forward to reading your thoughts. Have a great end to the week.

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Published on July 31, 2014 08:00

PUFA-rama: The Rise of Vegetable Oils

Death by Food Pyramid has received almost nothing but 5-star reviews since Primal Blueprint Publishing released it at the end of last year. It’s undoubtedly a hit within the community, and I think it’s an important read because it gives you, the consumer, the eater of food, the arbiter of what goes in your mouth, the tools to make the right choices and bypass the middlemen when it comes to interpreting science. Author Denise Minger and I want everyone to have a chance to read this book, so today we’re participating in a special promotion organized by Buck Books. Until midnight tonight you can get a Kindle copy of Death by Food Pyramid for just 99 cents! Today’s Buck Books offer has several other titles for just 99 cents that might interest you as well, including Cholesterol Clarity by Jimmy Moore, and Eat the Yolks by Liz Wolfe. You can view them all here. Enjoy the excerpt from chapter 9 of Death by Food Pyramid below, and grab your copy while this limited-time offer lasts. Grok on!

DBFP 3D small The year was 1837, and the place was Cincinnati—the nation’s hub for all things pig. With its prime location, explosion of tanneries and slaughterhouses, and herds of swine tottering through the streets, the city had earned the nickname “Porkopolis,” shipping pork galore down river and feeding mouths near and far. And for two of the city’s accidental transplants—William Procter and James Gamble—that meant a steady supply of their business’s most precious commodity: lard.

But cooking with it was the last thing on the men’s minds. Instead, the rendered fat was the chief ingredient for their candles and soaps.

That the men had met at all—much less launched the now-largest consumer goods company in the world—was somewhat serendipitous. Procter, an English candle maker, had been voyaging to the great American West when his first wife died of cholera—cutting short his travels and leaving him stuck in Cincinnati. Gamble, an Irish soap maker, had been Illinois-bound when unexpected illness plopped him in the Queen City as well. Cupid must’ve seen a prime opportunity for meddling, because the men ended up falling in love with two Cincinnati women who just happened to be sisters. Marriage ensued, and with it came their new father-in-law’s flash of insight that the men, who were already competing for the same materials for their soap and candle-making pursuits, ought to become business partners.

And thus was born Procter and Gamble—or P&G, as we know it today.

The Death of Lard

Though Procter & Gamble enjoyed early success, its lifeblood—the animal-fat industry—saw the first hint of its eventual undoing near the turn of the century. It was a death-march summoned largely by journalist Upton Sinclair. After a two-month investigation of Chicago’s meatpacking district, he penned a fictional tale inspired by the horrors he’d witnessed: revolting conditions for immigrant workers, unsanitary meat-handling practices, and an utter abuse of power by the nation’s “industrial masters.” It wasn’t long before the novel, titled The Jungle and first published as serial installments in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, took the nation by storm.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the kind of storm Sinclair was banking on. While he assumed the book would evoke sympathy for the working class (and, if all went as planned, win support for the socialist movement), readers were too shocked by his descriptions of meat production to care much about the workers’ social plight: the stench of the killing beds, the acid-devoured fingers of pickle-room men, the poisoned rats scrambling onto meat piles and inadvertently joining America’s food supply. If nothing else, Sinclair succeeded in churning an unprecedented number of stomachs. And the sinking ship of meat’s reputation brought with it another casualty: lard. As one gruesome passage described:

The other men, who worked in the tank rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them to be worth exhibiting— sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out to the world as Durham’s Pure Leaf Lard!

The image of lard containing the renderings of people proved too vivid to purge from memory—a sort of Soylent Green prelude. Shortly after The Jungle exploded onto the scene, sales of American meat products sank by half. And while the book never elicited the political response Sinclair had hoped for, it did lead to a food-safety uproar so profound that the US government had to step in and calm its horrified citizens. In 1906, mere months after the book’s debut, Congress passed two landmark acts—the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906—to enforce standards for food production and help Americans feel better about what they were eating. (The two acts collectively set the groundwork for the Food and Drug Administration years later.)

Believing The Jungle failed as a social commentary but inadvertently succeeded as an exposé on food sanitation, Sinclair later remarked: “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach!”

But even if Sinclair’s book managed to sour Americans on lard, no alternatives other than butter currently existed to satisfy the country’s cooking needs. At least not yet.

Over in France, chemist Paul Sabatier had been busily developing the hydrogenation process—the act of shooting hydrogen atoms into an unsaturated chemical compound. Though his early work was limited to vapors, it wasn’t long before another scientist, Wilhelm Normann, replicated the procedure using oils—demonstrating for the first time that a liquid fat could, through deft chemical tweaking, become solid at room temperature. At the time, it seemed on par with lead-to-gold alchemy.

And best of all, the thick, creamy result of hydrogenation was exactly what P&G needed to seal their legacy. Although the company spent years oblivious to those oversea hydrogenation miracles, a pivotal moment came in 1907 when Edwin Kayser—a recent transplant to Cincinnati, and chemist for the company that owned the rights to the process of hydrogenating oil—approached Procter & Gamble’s business manager with an idea. Why not use this revolutionary new substance to make soap?

It didn’t take long before the dream was a reality. By 1908, the company owned eight cottonseed mills and had secured a steady supply of the oil they needed to feed production.

Elbows-deep in the cottonseed market, Procter & Gamble realized their soap making—as lucrative as it was—had only tapped the surface of cottonseed oil’s potential. And the company soon found itself facing a new conundrum: the dawn of the electrical age. Although it would be many more years before the whole country was firelessly alight, candle sales were already taking a blow, and Procter and Gamble knew they needed to keep pace with the changing world to avoid a financial nosedive. It was time to enter the kitchen.

The Birth of Trans Fats

In 1910, Procter & Gamble applied for a US patent on the use of hydrogenation for making a human-grade food product. Compared to the flowery, rhetorically brilliant hype it would later receive, the description was cool and clinical:

This invention is a food product consisting of a vegetable oil, preferably cottonseed oil, partially hydrogenated, and hardened to a homogenous white or yellowish semi-solid closely resembling lard. The special object of the invention is to provide a new food product for a shortening in cooking.

After a few failed attempts to claim a name—“Krispo” was taken by a cracker company; “Cryst” sounded religious—Procter and Gamble settled on “Crisco,” derived from “crystallized cottonseed oil.” The name would quite literally become a household term.

Up until that point, a handful of processed vegetable oils had presence in America—but unlike today, their claim to fame had nothing to do with being edible. In fact, stomachs were often the last place highly refined oils would end up. Peanut oil had gained some publicity as a potential fuel: one company managed to coax a small diesel engine into running on it during the 1900 Paris Exhibition. And cottonseed oil made its American debut back in 1768, when a Pennsylvania doctor figured out how to collect the fat from crushed cottonseeds—which he then used as a treatment for colic. (Woe be to his patients, that crude oil was teeming with gossypol—a chemical that causes infertility, low blood potassium, and sometimes paralysis, and can only be removed from cottonseeds through heavy processing.)

Ginning mills were thrilled someone wanted to haul away their cottonseed. Through much of the 1800s, the stuff had simply been left to rot in gin houses, or occasionally dumped illegally into rivers. But one man’s trash had become another man’s treasure, so to speak, and P&G had pioneered what’s now an American tradition: getting rid of agricultural waste products by feeding them to humans. The company had effectively bridged the gap between garbage and food.

By 1911, Crisco made its official debut. And what a debut it was. Almost immediately, the new fat had gained not only the nation’s trust, but also its passionate love. Within a year, over 2.5 million pounds of Crisco had flown off the shelves; by 1916, that number reached sixty million.

How could a single product dominate the cooking world at warp speed—rising from total obscurity into an indispensible staple in a matter of months? P&G had a back-patting answer for themselves: that housewives, chefs, doctors, and dieticians “were glad to be shown a product which at once would make for more digestible foods, more economical foods, and better tasting foods.” Crisco exploded onto the scene all on its own, was the implication. It was just that good!

In reality, though, Crisco’s expedited fame was owed mainly to some of the most skillful, manipulative ad campaigns the young century had seen. Knowing it would be hard to convince housewives—the gatekeepers of America’s kitchens—to give up their familiar lard and butter in exchange for this strange new item, P&G had hyped their product like few things had ever been hyped before. The company mailed samples to fifteen thousand grocers in America. Thousands of flyers were circulated among jobbers.12 The company deftly played upon women’s burning desire to be “modern,” persuading them that clinging to animal fats in the face of this new scientific discovery would be akin to their grandmothers refusing to give up the spinning wheel.

But most powerful of all was The Story of Crisco—equal parts advertisement and cookbook—which P&G handed out to housewives free of charge. Its 615 recipes, all united by their shared ingredient, Crisco, ranged from tantalizing (Clear Almond Taffy; Snow Pudding with Custard) to whimsical (Calf ’s Head Vinaigrette; Mushrooms Cooked Under Glass Bells). The true marketing genius, however, came from the book’s introductory chapters. Carefully grooming readers into future Crisco acolytes, the book first painted animal fats in the most dismal light possible, expounding their “objectionable features” and whetting appetites for a better replacement. Crisco was presented as a panacea of sorts—healthier than lard, more economical than butter, and altogether in a category of its own. Everything other fats did wrong, Crisco did right. P&G managed to create a demand for something people hadn’t even known they wanted.

(As a peek into the different meat world of the day, the book was also busting with recipes for ox tongue, baked brains, heart, kidney omelets, sweetbreads (that’s the more appetizing term for pancreas or thymus), stewed liver, and tripe (the rubbery lining of ruminant stomachs)—all foods fit for an impressive supper back in the day. As we’ll see in the upcoming Meet Your Meat chapter, the systematic purging of these foods from the modern menu has done us a great nutritional disservice.)

In the wake of the grungy, repulsive world of meatpacking depicted in The Jungle, Crisco built its image on purity. Its factories were gleaming, sterile wonderlands. Its product was bright as snow. Its packaging included not only a tin can, but also an over-wrap of white paper, emphasizing its pristine state. Everything about the product screamed undefiled. Like the incorruptible relics of a saint, Crisco seemed eternally taintless—exactly what America, eager to wipe itself of the grime of the 1800s and enter a cleaner century, was hungry for.

Incidentally, The Story of Crisco also captured a fascinating view of fat from the early 1900s—a perspective that would face extinction once the USDA unleashed its smack down on all things lipid. In its chapter titled “Man’s Most Important Food, Fat,” The Story of Crisco remarked, “No other food supplies our bodies with the drive, the vigor, which fat gives. No other food has been given so little study in proportion to its importance.” (Emphasis in original.)

Back in the day, Crisco was indeed nothing short of a miracle. It came from plants; it was firm; it was tasty; it was cheap; it fried foods without smoking; and huzzah, it was even kosher and parava—usable with both milk and meat per Jewish dietary law. (Rabbi Margolies of New York, who was in charge of approving the food’s kosher label, remarked “the Hebrew Race had been waiting four thousand years for Crisco.”)

It wasn’t long before this new dietary messiah had infiltrated pantries, fryers, cakes, pies, omelets, meatloaves, and the very heart of America’s psyche. During World War II, butter rationing helped push Crisco and margarine to center stage, and oils from corn and soybean joined cottonseed oil as the slippery darlings of a new food technology. It wasn’t long before science seemed to be cheering on the trend as well.

In 1961, with the famous Ancel Keys now an iron-jawed board member, the American Heart Association (AHA) officially threw its weight behind the idea that saturated fat was causing heart disease—implying that P&G’s profit-driven corralling of Americans away from lard and butter had accidentally been good for their health. Around the same year, the nation’s margarine consumption exceeded butter intake for the first time in history.

It seemed Crisco had done the impossible and lived up to its own unbridled hype. But there was a dark side to all this purity. With cottonseed oil’s omega-6 to omega-3 ratio registering a magnitude 258 to 1, Crisco became the first ingredient to unleash unprecedented levels of linoleic acid—a polyunsaturated fat—into the American diet. Unknown to even the sharpest nutritionists of the day, Crisco had invited two killers into the American diet: trans fat resulting from partially hydrogenating oils and an astronomical intake of omega-6 fats—both now known to increase the risk of heart disease and cause inflammatory immune responses. It would be many decades before anyone realized what had gone so horribly wrong. In fact, the USDA would promote trans fats all the way up until 2005.

But long before then, there had been growing suspicion that trans fats were fatal to our well-being. As early as the 1950s, while Ancel Keys was busy winning the world over to Team Anti-Saturated Fat, other researchers were noting the uncanny connection between the use of partially hydrogenated oils (and the trans fat they contained) and the rising rates of both heart disease and cancer.16 While correlation between the two couldn’t prove causation any more than Keys’s population data could conclusively damn saturated fat, the parallel between trans fat intake and chronic disease rates were beginning to ring some warning bells.

Early research also suggested something awry about trans fats. By the 1960s, scientists realized that while vegetable oils were known to reduce cholesterol levels in controlled trials, the hydrogenated forms of those same oils failed to follow suit. In 1968, it was disconcerting enough for the American Heart Association (AHA) to take note and warn the public in a brochure titled Diet and Heart Disease:

Partial hydrogenation of polyunsaturated fats results in the formation of trans forms which are less effective than cis forms in lowering cholesterol concentration. It should be noted that many currently available shortenings and margarines are partially hydrogenated and may contain little polyunsaturated fat of the natural cis,cis form.17

(Cis is a chemistry term meaning “on this side,” in this case referring to the configuration of atoms in unsaturated fat.)

Despite fifteen thousand pamphlets going to print with a carefully worded demotion of trans fats, none of them would see the light of day. That’s because Fred Mattson—a researcher gainfully employed by P&G—convinced the AHA’s medical director to remove all traces of those incriminating statements. Instead of distributing the thousands of copies they’d already printed, the AHA revised the brochure to make it more palatable to the margarine and shortening industries. Decades would pass before the AHA dragged trans fats back onto the cutting block—years where countless lives were no doubt injured by ignorance of its dangers.

Gag Order on Trans Fats

Remember our conversation back in chapter two on Luise Light, the former USDA nutritionist whose plans for a new food guide—one that would have cracked down on processed starches and sugars in favor of fresh, whole foods—had been so brutally mutated? As it happens, her shadowy safari through the agriculture department included a peek into the era’s trans fat research. And what she saw was shocking.

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Published on July 30, 2014 08:30

The Evidence Continues to Mount Against Statins

statin Although statins get a lot of flak in the Primal health community, you have to hand it to them. They may not cure cancer, or single-handedly save the economy and bring back all the jobs, or render entire populations totally immune to cardiovascular disease, but they do exactly what they’re meant to do: lower cholesterol. And they’re very good at what they do. You want lower LDL without changing what you eat or how much you exercise, or trying that crazy meditation stuff? Take a statin. Do you want to hit the target lipid numbers to lower your insurance premium? Take a statin.

Except that statins lower cholesterol by inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase, a crucial enzyme located upstream on the cholesterol synthesis pathway. If that were all HMG-CoA reductase did for us, that’s one thing. At least we’d know what we were getting ourselves into when we filled the prescription. But the “cholesterol pathway” isn’t isolated. Many other things happen along and branch off from the same pathway.

Some would deem those other products of the pathway inconsequential when you have the opportunity to lower cholesterol. Okay; that’s a normal reaction given the widespread hysteria surrounding blood lipids. Still, I maintain that we should give the benefit of the doubt to our physiology and assume the unfoldment of the body’s processes happens for a reason, even when we’re unaware of the “benefits” or existence of a particular process. There are a lot of moving parts in the meat sack your consciousness calls home. Probably a good idea to let them happen, or at least know what’s going on down there.

What else is downstream of HMG-CoA reductase?

CoQ10: Statins block CoQ10 synthesis. Because CoQ10 production is downstream from HMG-CoA reductase, statins interfere. This is a problem, for CoQ10 is an endogenous antioxidant and vital participant in the generation of cellular energy. It helps us generate ATP to power our cells, tissues, and structures. Muscle contractions require it. Deficiencies in CoQ10 have been linked to heart failure and high blood pressure. Luckily, supplemental CoQ10 is both widely available and, according to many studies, effective at countering some of the muscle-wasting effects of statins.

Squalene: Since squalene is the precursor to cholesterol, blocking squalene production is an expressed purpose of statin therapy. Good if you want to lower cholesterol at all costs, bad if you enjoy the antioxidant effects of squalene.

Vitamin K2: Statins interfere with vitamin K biosynthesis. The pathway inhibited by statin use is the same pathway used to convert vitamin K into vitamin K2, which is protective against cardiovascular disease. Interestingly, the sites in the body where statin-related adverse effects predominate – the brain, kidney, pancreatic beta cells, and muscles – also happen to be typical storage sites for vitamin K2.

Vitamin D: Since vitamin D synthesis in the skin upon UV exposure requires cholesterol, statins may impair it. This hasn’t been studied yet, save for one short term study where statin users’ vitamin D levels were monitored for a month. Although no changes were noted, changes in CoQ10 production take months to appear after statin therapy and vitamin D production may require a similar time frame to show changes.

Testosterone: Steroid hormone production is also dependent on cholesterol, and statin therapy is associated with a small but significant reduction in circulating testosterone levels in men.

What are some possible side effects of statin therapy?

Statins may cause myalgia, or muscle pain. If you listen to anecdotes from people who’ve taken statins, this is probably the most common side effect. On the other hand, most clinical trials suggest that muscle pain is rare. What can explain this discrepancy? “Mild symptoms… such as fatigue, myalgias, or mildly elevated CK (creatine kinase, a marker of muscle damage), are usually not reported to the US Food and Drug Administration in a drug’s postmarketing period,” suggesting that “clinical trial estimates of these adverse events are an underestimation of the real world event rate.” In some cases, statins even lead to rhabdomyolysis, a severe, often fatal type of muscle damage which overloads the kidneys with broken down muscle protein.

Statins impair adaptations to exercise. When you add statins to an aerobic exercise routine, the normal improvements in cardiovascular fitness and mitochondrial function are attenuated (PDF). Furthermore, due to the possibility of musculoskeletal pain and/or injury, exercise also becomes less attractive and enjoyable. It’s no fun working out – or even going for a walk – when you ache all over.

Statins increase the risk of musculoskeletal injuries. In a recent study, statin users (characterized by use of a statin for at least 90 days) were more likely than non-users to develop musculoskeletal pain, injuries (dislocations, strains, tears, sprains), and diseases. Another study found similar results for statin use and osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and chondropathies.

Statins increase fatigue. In one recent study, a group of over 1000 healthy men and women aged 20 and older took either statins or placebo. Those taking statins reported reductions in overall everyday energy and the amount of energy they were able to muster during exercise. These effects were more pronounced in women taking the drug.

Statins increase the risk of diabetes, with stronger statins having a greater effect. Three mechanisms have been proposed. First, statins reduce glucose tolerance and induce both hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia. Second, certain statins change how insulin is secreted by pancreatic beta cells. Third, the reduction in CoQ10 impairs cellular function all over the body, leading to dysfunction. These are features of statins. They may not all lead to full blown diabetes, but these mechanisms occur uniformly across statin users to varying degrees, and the longer you adhere to your statin therapy the greater the risk.

Statins may increase the risk of certain cancers. Amidst flashy, misleading headlines claiming that statins could lower the risk of breast cancer based entirely on an association between high cholesterol levels and breast cancer from a study that didn’t even examine statins, we have long term usage of statins actually increasing breast cancer rates in women and overall cancer mortality in the elderly enough to offset the reduction in cardiovascular mortality.

Everything we know we only know because the pharmaceutical companies deign to provide it.

They control the flow of information. They have the raw data and release only the published research that’s been picked clean and gone over with a fine tooth comb. Actually, we don’t know what’s happening, what’s been removed, and what’s been omitted because we don’t have access to it. Seeing as how pharmaceutical companies have both the opportunity and motive to omit or downplay unfavorable results, I’m not confident we’re getting the whole story on statin side effects. For one thing, large statin trials will often have a “run-in period” where people who show poor tolerance of the drug are eliminated from inclusion in the full trial. That’s just crazy. We need trials specifically looking at, or at least including, the statin-intolerant. Side effects certainly are rare when you exclude the people who are most likely to have them.

Okay, okay. Even with the potential for side effects, surely the benefit to heart health makes it all worthwhile. Right?

It depends.

Even though statins can reduce mortality from heart disease in certain populations, they consistently fail to reduce all-cause mortality in everyone but people with an established clinical history of heart disease. For primary prevention in people without prior history of heart disease, even those considered to be at the “highest risk” (high LDL and such), statins do not reduce all-cause mortality. Same goes for the elderly (who seem to suffer more depression and cognitive decline when taking statins). Nor do statins lower the total number of serious adverse events (PDF), which include death (from any cause), hospital admissions, hospital stays, permanent disability, and cancer. That’s the story, time and time again. You might be less likely to die from a heart attack, but you’re more likely to die from something else. It’s a wash in the end – unless you have prior history of heart disease/attacks.

What does this mean for you?

If you’re currently on statins and notice any of the possible side effects listed above, talk to your doctor about cycling off. Your doctor works for you, not the other way around. Express your concerns, come armed with a few studies printed out, and suggest a trial period without statins to see how you respond under his or her guidance. Keep them apprised of your status with frequent updates. Turn it into an N=1 self experiment. Maybe it becomes a case study, even. Maybe you change your doc’s mind about the realities of statin side effects; good documentation tends to do that. Or maybe you realize that statins weren’t the problem after all.

Statins may not hurt you. They may even help, if you’ve already had a heart attack and you’re not elderly. I’m not saying you shouldn’t take them. I’m only suggesting that if you’re experiencing any of the issues mentioned above, you should probably consider not taking them with the help of your doctor to see if they resolve. And if your doctor is pushing you to take statins because of some mildly elevated cholesterol numbers, think about all the important physiological processes that occur along the same pathway whose inhibition you’re considering.

The narrative seems to be changing, though. Yeah, they want to give statins to pregnant women and there’s been chatter for years about putting them in drinking water, but things are getting better. The pill-pushers have overreached. Their latest curated guidelines for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, which looks suspiciously similar to the guidelines you’d come up with if your primary goal was getting as many people taking your drug as possible, are receiving considerable push back from physicians in the UK. Mainstream doctors who write for TheHeart.org are publicly questioning the utility of statins.

Statins have their place. I won’t deny that. But they’re not for everyone and there are consequences, and I think people deserve to know that.

What do you think, folks? Got any statin experiences? Good, bad? Let’s hear about them!

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Published on July 29, 2014 08:00

Dear Mark: Constantly Falling Off the Primal Wagon, Frozen Produce, and A Few More Carbs

donut2 For today’s Dear Mark, I answer three questions from readers. First, I give some advice to a reader with a knack for doing a week or two strict Primal and then falling promptly off the wagon into a pile of donuts. How can she make it stick – or should she? Next, I extoll the merits of freezing your freshly homegrown produce rather than rely on under-ripe fruits and vegetables from half a world away. Finally, I discuss what to do when you feel your performance in the gym diminishing.

Let’s go:

Dear Mark,

I have been an avid reader of your blog for over a year now. I have read the PB and other books from members of the paleo/primal community. I have seen first hand how much better I feel after even just a short period of time eliminating grains, sugars, and processed foods from my diet. However, it seems as if I can get through a week or two of primal eating and then my conscious, intellectual mind shuts down and I find myself face down in a pile of donuts. What gives? Why can’t I seem to make this stick? Any help or advice you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Nicole

I might get some flack for my response to this question. You may find what I say to be sacrilege, or heresy. Just remember that it’s neither of those things, because this isn’t a religion. There is no dogma, just a series of choices. With that said, let’s get on with it.

If this keeps happening, if you can’t seem to suppress the urges to eat some junk, you should consider adopting the 80/20 rule. You’re already following it, let’s face it. You just don’t know it. For the most part, you eating the donuts every couple weeks is an inevitability. It’s going to happen. It’s happened every time so far. Sitting down and telling yourself “Let’s try the 80/20 rule, huh?” will change how you emotionally respond to the binge. You’ll accept the situation, not struggle in vain against it. And although there are physiological consequences to binging on junk food, I’d wager that most of the damage comes from the fight, the refusal to accept an inevitable situation, and the guilt you’re heaping on yourself for losing that fight.

Here’s what a formal adoption of the 80/20 rule gets you:

Acceptance: You’re no longer fighting something you can’t hope to win. I can’t think of anything harder or more stressful than struggling against an immovable force. Sure, you eating that donut may not be inevitable on a cosmic scale, but it’s happened every single time before like clockwork.

Freedom from guilt: Guilt about eating junk food can actually impair your immune system. By making occasional junk food dalliances part of your regular schedule rather than a betrayal of your body, you remove the guilt.

Most of the benefits of going Primal: You’re eating Primal for the better part of two weeks, having a binge meal or binge day, and then getting back on the horse for another two weeks before it happens again. That meal, that day isn’t undoing all the good you’ve done. This is the basis for the 80/20 rule.

Consider the post I wrote last year about how reframing our perception of stress can alter the physiological effects it has on us. If by telling ourselves that the stress response is a means of preparing our body to face the stressor we render the stress innocuous and even helpful, accepting and occasionally indulging the urge for junk food will soften the blow eating it deals to our health. If you’re going to eat it, eat it. There’s no sense in beating yourself up over it. I mean, you’re already eating the food, which may or may not cause problems, but then you’re feeling bad about it and wallowing in guilt, which absolutely will cause problems.

Eventually, acceptance that you’re going to mess up once in awhile and the realization that it’s not the end of the world may even take care of the situation and stop your fixation on junk food altogether. Let me know how that works out.

Hi Mark,

From reading MDA and PB I understand you are originally from Maine. That being the case I think you may understand my quandary.

I live in Canada and once the fall hits growing season is over! Access to local fresh produce is non-existent. I have an abundant garden and would like to freeze much of the produce.

What is your feeling on frozen organic produce vs produce which as made the long trips from southern climates? Is there much difference?

Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you for your books and blog, they have changed my life!

Kind regards,

Pamela

Ontario, Canada

Frozen produce usually beats trucked-in produce.

Produce from afar is often picked in an unripe state to increase durability during travel. A ripe, taut tomato whose fragile skin barely contains the juices within will taste better than almost anything, but it won’t make a cross-country trip in the bed of a truck.
As soon as a piece of produce is picked, nutrients begin to degrade. Produce frozen at the peak of ripeness lasts for a year or more with very little nutrient degradation. Minerals and phytochemicals are almost completely preserved. Vitamins are a little more vulnerable, but not enough to make freezing useless.

So yes, freeze your produce, but do it the right way. Don’t just pull broccoli from the ground and toss it in the freezer. Even though that’s freezing the vegetable in its freshest state, technically, it will degrade in the freezer without adequate preparation. You have to turn off the enzymes that convert sugars into starches, use up nutrients, and ruin the flavor and texture of the produce. How? By blanching.

There are two ways to blanch: with boiling water or with steam.

Water blanching involves submerging the vegetables in boiling water for a set amount of time; check this chart of blanching times and instructions for various vegetables. Steam blanching involves steaming the vegetables for a slightly longer time than boiling; refer to the previous chart and multiply the boiling times by 1.5 to get the proper steaming times. After boiling or steaming, the vegetables are placed in ice water to stop the cooking process, dried completely (use paper towels to get every last drop of water; this will prevent icing), placed into freezer bags with excess air sucked out, and frozen.

And yeah – it takes some time to do it. It’s not as simple as just freezing everything outright. To make this bearable, I suggest you make a day of it. Have your harvest laid out in front of you, get a cutting board ready, and get a bag for your trimmings. Prepare your freezer bags. Get a few big pots of boiling water going (or steamers, if you’re going that route) so you can do several batches. Assemble kitchen timers. Invite a helper or two (this is the perfect opportunity for kids to learn their way around a kitchen). You’re probably well-stocked with patience, seeing as how you’re a gardener.

Freezing may not always preserve everything perfectly. For instance, the blanching process makes sulforaphane, the broccoli compound with anti-cancer effects and the ability to improve detoxification pathways in the body, less bioavailable. Blanching at the slightly cooler 76 degrees ºC instead of the normal 86 degrees ºC can counteract this reduced bioavailability. And folate is a little more susceptible to degradation compared to other nutrients, especially if you upset the natural form of the vegetable with excessive cutting, slicing, or shredding. But for the most part, frozen produce is fresher and healthier and better-tasting than under-ripe produce that’s spent a few days in transit only to sit in a store for another few days.

Another benefit to freezing your own produce instead of relying on outside stuff: the satisfaction of consuming your hand-grown, hand-picked bounty all year long. Food tastes better and provides greater satisfaction (if not nutritional satiety) when you grow it yourself.

There’s also a school of thought that claims freezing by itself is enough to deactivate enzymes and preserve nutrients. These are the non-blanchers, and I’ll admit that their premise is attractive. However, since frozen food producers invariably blanch their vegetables before freezing, I’d lean toward blanching as an important and perhaps even necessary step for truly delicious, nutritious produce.

Dear Mark,

I am currently training with weights 3-4 times per week…usually 3. On off days I do about 20-30 minutes of interval training. I am also using the 50-100 gram of carb approach. I have lost about 25 lbs in 6-8 weeks from 251 down to 226. The only problem I have had recently is that my weights on my lifts seem to be going down a bit. It may be due to stress as I have a new job to adapt to, but I wonder also if I need to increase carb intake around training. Do you have an opinion on this kind of scenario?

I am suspicious that it is a little of both and I am considering adding some carbs, 30 grams or so of fruit or sweet potatoe, before AND after as an experiment…

Sincerely,

Jason

I’m inclined to agree with you, Jason. It sounds like you’re dealing with an increase in stress and intense activity that a small increase in carbs could mitigate.

Intervals consume a fair bit of glycogen, especially 20-30 minutes of them. And if you’re doing 20-30 minutes of intervals on your off days, they cease to be off days. Those are on days, my friend. There’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s what you want to do and accept the consequences. But you have to support your body with ample fuel. You have to replenish that glycogen you’re burning up; the 30 grams pre- and post-workout from fruit and sweet potato will probably do it.

Some would have you up the carbs to 300-400 a day, and I think that’s really overdoing it. We often overestimate just how many carbs we need to fuel our activity. You need some, particularly on a heavy schedule like your own, but a little bit really does go a long way. Fat adaptation, which lowers the use of glycogen during a workout (but doesn’t completely abolish it), helps your glycogen last even longer so you need fewer carbs to get the same effect. The beauty of doing high intensity intervals (or sprinting) is that your muscle’s ability to burn fat and carbohydrate are both enhanced, so there’s no problem consuming both.

That’s it for today, folks. Thanks for reading!

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Published on July 28, 2014 08:00

Dear Mark: Constantly Falling off the Primal Wagon, Frozen Produce, and A Few More Carbs