You can have anything you want to have; our goal is not to be the Food Police or Diet Dictators
but to simply point out the consequences of your choices. Sure, a single slice of bread isn’t going to kill you. But the daily ingestion of lots of grains (toast at breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, bread basket at dinner) isn’t doing you—or your waistline, or your heart—any good.
Commercially made bread is a high-GL food that generally has little nutrition, except for the paltry amount of vitamins that manufacturers throw back in to “enrich” it. It’s not a great source of fiber, despite what you’ve been told, and there are no nutrients in bread that you can’t get elsewhere.
That said, both of us occasionally have a slice, particularly when it’s homemade or rich in fiber—or particularly luscious. But we don’t recommend bread as part of your daily diet, and it’s certainly not part of the overall Smart Fat Solution blueprint for health.
You recommend steel-cut oats. Does that mean I can’t have “regular” oatmeal? Steel-cut oats take so much longer to cook.
There are four kinds of oats in terms of cooking time: instant, or the kind you pour boiling water over and don’t cook; quick-cooking, which take a few minutes on the stove or in the microwave; old-fashioned rolled oats, which take longer; and steel-cut oats, which take the longest, though we both believe they’re worth the extra few minutes.
Instant oatmeal has very little fiber and is often presweetened with chemical additives, like artificial maple flavoring, which contain loads of added sugar (most often brown sugar, which is not any better than regular white table sugar). You might as well be eating a sugary kids’ cereal if you eat the sweetened variety. Instant oats are pulverized, precooked, and processed so that they don’t require cooking—you just pour hot water over them. Even if you go for the plain variety (and they are utterly bland, which is why manufacturers add phony flavorings), the manufacturers may have added sodium and other things you don’t need. Convenient, yes, but they’re a quick-release, high-GL carb compared with their more natural cousins, quick-cooking and old-fashioned oats.
Old-fashioned rolled oats have more fiber than instant oats (4 grams in a half cup, uncooked) and have a lower GL as well. Quick-cooking oats also have 4 grams of fiber, but because they are essentially smaller, chopped-up pieces of old-fashioned rolled oats, they may not have a lower GL than instant oats. Both taste a lot better than bland or artificially flavored, gummy instant oatmeal.
Yes, they take longer to cook than instant oatmeal, but you can prepare rolled oats in the microwave in four to five minutes. By the time you’ve made a cup of coffee, the oatmeal is ready.
Steel-cut oats have the most fiber (5 grams in a ¼-cup, uncooked serving) and the lowest GL of all, which is why we like them the best. They also taste good—nutty, hearty, and genuinely oaty! Stir in some protein powder, top them with a handful of almonds or walnuts for some smart fat, add berries for more fiber and flavor, and they’re a great way to start the day.
Steel-cut oats can cook in fewer than twenty minutes, or ten minutes if you’re making a single serving. You can cook them on the stovetop, but they take only eight minutes in the microwave. If you prefer stove-top oats and want to shorten the cooking time, you can soak the oats in hot water (or almond milk) for about four minutes before you cook them, which softens them and shortens the cooking time. You can also get a head start and soak them overnight in water in your fridge.
If you prefer old-fashioned to steel-cut oats, go for it—just don’t forget to add some protein powder, fresh fruit, and smart fat (walnuts or almonds taste great). If you are used to sweetening your oatmeal with lots of brown sugar and maple syrup, it’s time to rethink that practice. Our recipe for steel-cut oatmeal is so delicious that you won’t miss the sugar. If you can’t bear eating oatmeal
without a little sweetness in it, drizzle a small amount of organic honey or pure maple syrup to satisfy that “sweet tooth,” but try to keep that drizzle to 1 teaspoon or less, especially now that you know about their effect on glycemic load! We hope that you’ll find you won’t need to sweeten, especially if you use enough berries.
What about sugar alternatives? Aren’t “natural” ones better than artificial varieties?
Few subjects provoke more heated debate among nutritionists and health experts than the class of sugar alternatives called artificial sweeteners. You can find studies to back up nearly any position you take on these controversial substances. The reality is if you drink sodas daily, then you will lose a small amount of weight if you choose a diet soda over a regular soda, which has on average seven teaspoons of sugar. To make things even more complicated, artificial sweeteners are frequently used in diet beverages, and a whole body of emerging research suggests that artificial sweeteners in beverages confuse the appetite centers in the brain, accounting for the link between diet soda and obesity. Plus, artificial sweeteners appear to injure the healthy bacteria in our gut that provide us with powerful health benefits, so we don’t think the long-term risks are worth the tiny benefit you may get from exchanging a sugar-loaded soda for an artificially sweetened one. But are “natural” sweeteners really any better? (See Chapter 3 where we discuss agave nectar, one of the worst offenders and most popularly hyped in recent years.)
Whether artificial or natural, sugar alternatives behave in the body just like regular table sugar, and there are plenty of reasons why—despite the hype—they’re no better than the white stuff (and may, in fact, be worse). Here are the ones you’ll encounter most frequently.
Aspartame (found in NutraSweet and Equal): Aspartame is perhaps the most controversial and politicized of all the artificial sweeteners. Although plenty of industry-supported animal studies claim to show that aspartame is safe, many experts are not convinced. Russell Blaylock, for example, a retired neurosurgeon, has been outspoken in his criticism, calling aspartame a brain cell toxin. We think there are plenty of reasons to avoid this one. If we were ranking artificial sweeteners from good to bad, this would be at the very bottom of our list.
Sucralose (found in Splenda): Although sucralose is made from sugar, it is hardly natural.
Sucralose is sucrose processed with chlorine, and there’s evidence that it’s passing through our bodies and winding up in our water systems. One research review published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health suggests that sucralose may cause a variety of harmful biological effects in the body. We’ll take a pass.
Saccharin: Saccharin was the favorite artificial sweetener of our parents’ generation until it got tagged with the reputation of causing bladder cancer in rats. Only in the past twenty years or so has it been found that saccharine is unlikely to have any negative effects in humans even at the highest concentrations—but we still can’t shake the feeling that it just isn’t good for you. Probably safe, but again, we’ll take a pass.
What about natural sweeteners?—stevia, erythritol, and xylitol? Although we don’t have any health concerns about using one to two servings per day of these three natural sweeteners, if you are trying to lose weight, stimulating your sweet taste buds without providing any calories will probably stimulate cravings and hunger. Each time you use these natural sweeteners, you will be compelled to eat more food within the next twenty-four hours to offset the noncaloric sweet your brain feels is its due.
The bottom line: For weight loss, we feel the best approach is to avoid using sweeteners of any kind, including items such as raw, unprocessed honey; maple syrup; and blackstrap molasses. These are real foods with actual minerals, but still, the body treats them the same way as it treats sugar.
If you are at your desired weight and are looking for healthier sweetener options, here’s some more information.
Stevia is an herb that can be dried and used for sweetening. Commercially, it can be purchased in a powdered form. However, it has two shortcomings: It’s not good for baking, and it can have a strong aftertaste that’s reminiscent of licorice, a flavor that not everyone appreciates.
Erythritol is a sugar alcohol and is the main ingredient in the sweetener marketed as Truvia. It has no negative effects that we know of, although, as with all sugar alcohols, too much can cause diarrhea. Erythritol also stands up to heat and can be used in baking and in hot beverages like coffee.
This is another acceptable choice.
Xylitol is a sugar alcohol naturally found in the fibers of many vegetables and fruits. It is frequently extracted from corn husks or birch. It has the property of helping to prevent the adhesion of bacteria onto mucous membranes, which is why it is so often used in what are touted as “healthy”
chewing gums. Xylitol is much sweeter than sugar but contains only 2.4 calories per gram. If you want a natural sweetener, this is a healthy choice. But go easy, because like other sugar alcohols, too much can cause frequent trips to the bathroom.
What kind of milk can I put in my coffee?
Milk is one of the rare things that we do not agree on 100 percent. Jonny drinks only raw, whole milk (which is still available in California and through farm collectives); Steven is more cautious because of concerns about bacterial infections associated with raw milk (Listeria, E. coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter). But both of us agree that ordinary, homogenized, pasteurized milk (from factory-farmed cows) has the same problem as factory-farmed meat: Toxins are stored in the fat, so regular milk becomes a mean protein rather than a clean one. The solution? If you like milk, go with organic. Best of all, some brands now sell pasteurized organic milk from grass-fed cows. If you can find it, go for it. If you like milk in your coffee and can’t find organic, do the next best thing and get skim milk. Or, learn to drink coffee black—it’s actually pretty good!
And what about that creamy half-and-half? As long as it’s organic, sure. You can also use organic (non-GMO) soy milk, unsweetened almond milk, and coconut milk.
But whatever you try with your coffee, don’t put chemically enhanced creamers in it. They are basically embalming fluid. If you see multiple sugars and partially hydrogenated fats in the ingredients list, avoid them! As for those little individual containers of flavored “creamers”? Pure trans fat. Stay away!
What about making my own yogurt?
Why not? There are enormous joys and rewards involved in making your own food. So if you’ve got the time, patience, and interest, by all means go for it. But the same caveat applies here as everywhere else: Use the good stuff for ingredients. Remember the old saying about computers:
Garbage in, garbage out. As with all food we prepare, it’s all about the ingredients. Use organic milk and you’ll have a terrific result. The benefits of naturally fermented foods like yogurt are legion. The naturally occurring probiotics support the immune system and may even give you an extra boost in
your weight-loss efforts.