Nectar of the Gods?

Continuing the discussion of sugars and Glycemic Index, I've recently been looking at agave nectar as a sweetener. Apparently I'm a little slow in finding this sweetener. I first became aware of it last summer I came across this article Making Your Own Power Gels For Less. At the time I didn't realize the significance because I wasn't in the market for an all-around sweetener.

Lately I decided to make my own gels again with all of my new knowledge of Glycemic Index and insulin response. My theory is that a gel should contain a hi GI component and a low GI component, that follows the recipe of most major manufacturers, and by varying the hi GI ingredient I can control when the sugar hits the bloodstream. I'll post more results on this experiment as I get results.

So I pulled out the article above again and noticed agave nectar and started reading that it affects blood sugar so minimally that it is considered safe for diabetics and can be used by low-carbers. But what does it mean for a sweetener to be low GI? Doesn't that really mean less evil than, say, table sugar? Well, not really. Let's look at some numbers:

Maltodextrin: 105
Glucose: 100
Plain bagel: 72
Honey: 62
Banana: 56
Oatmeal: 48
Yogurt (fruit): 36
Agave Nectar: 27
Yogurt (plain): 14

Strangely enough I happened to be at the grocery store recently (something I try to avoid at all costs) and happened to notice they carry an organic agave nectar! I figured WTF. I'm going to make gels with it, and it has such a minimal impact on blood sugar maybe I should use it as a sweetener and dump the artificial stuff.

My first reaction is that agave nectar has a very sweet taste, sweeter than honey. It is also much thinner than honey and pours very readily. So far I've only used it in my coffee and it seems to taste very similar to sugar. As I use it more I will report more experience.

MCT Oil - The Importance of Being Medium

I came to a realization a few years ago. I'm a Medium. I don't mean I'm one of those people that talks to Elvis and your dead aunt Petunia. I mean everything about me is "medium." I wear medium T-shirts, 32x34 jeans - the most popular men's size, 10 1/2 shoe - again, the most popular men's size. I even eat my steak cooked medium. I'm not just medium, I'm extra medium. So maybe it is poetic justice that I write an article on Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs).

What exactly is a Medium Chain Triglyceride? Put bluntly, an MCT is a type of fat. Fats are organized into chains - the gory details of which are outside the scope of this article (which is a fancy way of saying I don't understand it) - and as the name implies, a "medium" chain triglyceride is a smaller molecule than long and very long chain triglycerides.

Some examples of LCTs are corn, safflower and soybean oil. Some examples of MCTs are coconut oil, palm kernal oil and butter.

OK, so why do we care about the length of our fats? This is the really brilliant part! You know how regular vegetable oil floats on water? "Oil and water don't mix," you might say. To this I would say, "Ha!" MCTs are water soluble. This is extremely significant in the fact that MCTs require no special processing to get into the blood stream, and, bile is not needed to digest MCTs. This means, and here's the good bit, the body processes and uses MCTs exactly like it does carbohydrates!

There are two other advantages which are very significant.

1. Research suggests that while any fat helps to cause satiety (a feeling of being satisfied) and thus tend to limit caloric intake, MCTs cause satiety faster than LCTs. This means when MCTs are a significant component of the meal, people tend to eat less than when LCTs are used!
2. Research also suggests that MCTs help in weight loss, possibly by increasing metabolism.
   

What does all this mean? In simple terms, butter is back, baby! That's right, putting real butter on your veggies not only helps them taste better (and let's be honest, anything that helps us eat more veggies is a good thing, right?), that butter gives quick energy, speeds up your metabolism, and helps to burn fat.

This is all even more significant for the endurance athlete. Medium chain triglycerides represent the best of both worlds - the quick energy boost of a simple sugar but the caloric density of a fat.

You want a "superfood?" Forget the blueberries and start using butter again.


References:
Marie-Pierre St-Onge and Peter J. H. Jones, "Physiological Effects of Medium-Chain Triglycerides: Potential Agents in the Prevention of Obesity"

Marie-Pierre St-Onge^*, Robert Ross, William D. Parsons^* and Peter J.H. Jones,

"Medium-Chain Triglycerides Increase Energy Expenditure and Decrease Adiposity in Overweight Men"

Insulin, Glycemic Index and Low Carbing

A few days ago I posted an article on Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load and the question that I'm sure is in both readers' minds is, "Who gives a shit?" In the interest of my own education, I hope this post will tie it all together.

Let's start off with a quick quiz:

1. What is the goal of reducing carbohydrate consumption in a Low Carb diet?
2. What is the state of ketosis?
3. What is the purpose of insulin?

And here are the answers, in short form:

1. Reducing carbohydrate consumption has the goal of regulating insulin production (decreasing or almost completely eliminating).
2. Ketosis occurs when the body no longer is able to use sugars (specifically glucose ingested from food and glycogen, the stored form of glucose) and must resort to burning fats as the main fuel source.
3. Insulin is secreted by the pancreas in response to a spike in blood sugar levels. Insulin's purpose is to regulate blood sugar levels by storing excess glucose (more on this below).

Typical protocol for a Low Carber in an Active Weight Loss phase is to reduce total carbohydrate intake to some threshold amount, typically this is around 20 or 30 grams of carbohydrate per day. The purpose of this is to drive the body into a state of ketosis in which the main fuel source switches from sugar to fat. Most Low Carbers will stay in ketosis for the entirety of their weight-loss phase.

Insulin

Let's look again at the role of insulin in the body. Insulin plays a role in both carbohydrate and lipid (fat) metabolism.

In carbohydrate metabolism, insulin has two main functions:

• Store sugar in muscle and adipose cells,
• Stimulate conversion and storage of glycogen in the liver.

In lipid metabolism, to put it simply, insulin's main function is to spare fat. Insulin makes the body prefer burning sugar to fat as a fuel source and it indirectly stimulates storage of fat in adipose cells.

So, to summarize: For those of us trying to reduce body fat stores, insulin is bad.

The Low Carb Lifestyle

So where does that leave us? Traditional Low Carb diets ask us to cut out all carbohydrates (except fiber - I won't go into that here), however let's re-examine that idea. The goal of LCing is to limit insulin production. We know that Low GI/GL foods also limit insulin production. So do we really have to cut out all carbohydrate?

Thanks to Dr. Dean Ornish and popular-press making fat into the villain, many people interpret "Low Carbohydrate" as being the same thing as "High Protein." Unfortunately that is not the case. There is a condition known as "Rabbit Starvation" in which the body is given too much protein and it is not able to synthesize proper nutrition.

At most, only about 40% of macro nutrition should come from protein. The rest should come from fats and carbohydrates. In my own personal experience, it is very difficult to eat 60% or more of ones' calories from fat.

Connect the Dots

Low Carbing and Low GI/GL are made for each other. I consider the textbook diets of Dr. Atkins, et al. to be much like the "Dummies" guides. For most Americans who have little or no real understanding of what goes in their mouths, off the shelf LC diets are great. People are told what to eat, what to avoid and when to eat in very explicit, definite terms. Unfortunately, most people get tired of the rigidity and never make the final leap to go from "diet" (which is popularly considered a short-term fix for a long term problem) into "nutritional plan" or "way of eating."

From that point of view, I am not a Low Carber anymore. I'm just a person who makes nutritional choices based on what I know works for me.

References:

"Physiologic Effects of Insulin," http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/endocrine/pancreas/insulin_phys.html

"Rabbit Starvation," http://www.medbio.info/Horn/Time%201-2/vilhjalmur_stefansson1.htm

"Ketogenic Diet" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet