Mondays 5pm

Wednesdays 6pm

Fridays 7am

Max 6 people per class to capitalize on both the group dynamic and personal attention.

• Strength training
• Endurance
• Sprints
• Stability & Mobility

Full body workouts for all levels! No matter where you are at with your fitness all of the exercises have progressions that will suit you. Doesn’t matter if you are pregnant, just had a baby, have never trained or are managing minor physical disabilities.

35$/class

We are prioritizing people who can attend at least 2 classes per week.

text or email for more info or to sign up!

514-730-6764

Joeyjreid@gmail.com

Whatever you can manage is worth it. There is no scenario where having a good fitnesscoach is a waste of money.

The minimum effective dose of exercise is ridiculously small. Studies suggest that if you exercise vigorously for as little as 15 minutes per week you can reduce all cause mortality by about 18%. There isn’t another thing you can add to your life that has such an effect with so low a commitment of time.

That said my recommendations line up similarly with those that come from most institutions – 150 minutes of moderate to intense exercise per week will get you to a place where you significantly improve your overall health and fitness. When thinking about the long game it is ideal (but not mandatory) to include exercise that improves or maintains strength, stability, mobility and cardiovascular health. Power is also often mentioned in the list of things I and other personal trainers want to add but it’s an after thought for me in most cases. Most trainers will hate me saying this but its just not as important for the vast majority of people I train and their overall wellbeing. I don’t train athletes much anymore so I focus more on the other parameters.

I gladly take on a client that wants to / can only train once per week because of these simple facts –

• very little exercise can lengthen your life.
• the optimal amount of exercise for you is the amount you can sustain.
• very few moderately hard sets (of strength training) can maintain muscle mass.
• habits beget habits – one day per week ill often lead to more.
• consistency of exercise can be a lifeline to other healthy choices.
• even one short bout of exercise has cognitive benefits including memory formation, processing speed and mood improvements.

Maintenance will often be a perfectly reasonable goal for people. I often tell my clients that maintenance is progress because if they were to stop training even at a very minimal level, then we would inevitably see decline. Progress through fighting entropy, even at a small scale is something.

There are approximately zero bodybuilders or triathletes in blue zones. At least none that were born there and continue to add to the lineage of old age. The activity side of the equation often looks like maintenance of functional ability. No big muscles no competitive levels of cardiovascular ability and no obsession with protein! They move everyday but it is more often than not simple activities that require low performance ability. They may partake in sport but it is not high intensity competitive sport.

To be clear there are a multitude of factors that define the probability of a population that tends to live a long time. I am not saying that working out once per week is the thing that will get you there. I am just suggesting that the minimum effective dose, be it one day per week of moderate intensity, daily low level activity or a mix of both can do a lot of good for the vast majority of people.

The social media horrorscape of wellness often uses maximum tolerance as optimal dose. Many of the studies we look at are very short and so when we are searching for a training effect in a short period of time we often have to increase the intensity or increase the dose under time to see an example of what works. Also “what works” is very limited in scope – usually muscle building or cardiovascular ability (V02max) etc. These are very useful parameters for fitness as they correlate well with general health. I think this is all very important research and I often cite it in my posts or use it in my training program development. But when you begin thinking on a longer time scale – as I do with the majority of my clients – I care less and less about maximal or “optimal” effects.

If I have a client who can only train once per week than I already know that we are trying to get more bang for their buck and I may try and push hard in those sessions to get the benefits we see in high intensity training research. But there are often other limitations than the schedule. So if we need to build a foundation of stability first, or coordination then the high intensity interval training or stremgth training takes a back seat. All of it is useful but none of this is what sells on TikTok or Instagram.

I said earlier that there is no scenario where having a good coach is a waste of money. The “good” part is important. Even a program that is performed once per week has to have some goals. Individual goals, like stabilizing a wonky joint is priority number one but keeping in mind a time scale of a year is going to set the tone of the program. Variety is less and less important the fewer the sessions. A good trainer will have a method of maximizing goals or maintaining function that takes into consideration the other kinds of activity the client partake sin throughout the week, if any.

Variety is overrated in general. I try and keep things interesting while focusing in on the same kinds of patterns each week, particularly with my clients that come more often. But you can do this with less sessions too. I just don’t think it’s important unless your client needs it.

Retention is key. Not just for business but for their health. A boring or bad impression with a trainer can be like cutting the lifeline to good health for people who have a really hard time self motivating. And there is no shame in that. It is not inherently easy to propel yourself into doing something challenging. There is a lot of background noise that directs this ability, no matter what the ding dong influencers try and spew at you about discipline. Discipline is a learned skill like every other trait, just because some twat with backwards baseball cap on a podcast says you just need to show up every morning and do it and not make excuses doesn’t make it right. I also wear a backwards baseball cap by the way but no podcasts just yet and no psych 101, life coach, BS idioms. Life is complex and everyone has their own journey towards healthy living. One session or one walk outside at a time is fine.

Data almost always counts more than ‘anecdata’ and so I will start with a bit of a study review before I talk about my personal experience. Data is a tricky thing to turn into real life training protocols so I do want to include both the science along with my observations. So first let’s look at what the nerds say…

* you can scroll down to the conclusion to get the gist of things but the “ my observations from the studio” section is worth the 2 minute read.

In a 2024 research review looking at the benefits and safety of weight training with pregnant women, the authors concluded that resistance training is “safe, beneficial and effective form of exercise for pregnant women to increase fitness and improve pregnancy outcomes…” Noting that the addition of aerobic exercise could enhance the benefit as well…

Resistance training, alone or together with aerobic exercise, can improve maternal symptoms of pregnancy, mediate the effects of gestational diabetes and obesity on maternal and fetal health, and improve labor and delivery outcomes for both mother and fetus. Resistance training during pregnancy can also improve fetal development and infant health from childhood well into adulthood.

We need more research to have strong quantitative conclusions on these benefits but as you will see the vast majority of research points towards advantages to both mother and baby.

A small control trial from 2017 looking at the effects of regular exercise on cholesterol and triglyceride levels during pregnancy found some interesting results. 50 Latina women were split into two groups, one that did three 60 minute workouts each week which comprised of both cardiovascular and resistance training. The other group maintained their regular activity level. What they found:

• significantly lower levels of LDL and triglycerides in the active group.
• less delivery issues (moderate postpartum hemorrhage) in the active group
• fewer complications in newborns in the active group – less issues with blood oxygen levels (cyanosis) and less respiratory distress.

Obviously we need a larger trial with a more expansive demographic to make any strong conclusions but the results do match other small control trials and epidemiological data.

While I am focusing on strength training here there is some interesting research looking at aerobic fitness level and labor duration. This observational study used maximum oxygen uptake levels to measure aerobic capacity in women who had spontaneous deliveries. They saw that higher aerobic fitness was correlated with shorter labor times. Though there are a number of factors that could impede the benefits of aerobic fitness on labor duration this is definitely something many of my clients would want to know about. No one wants a longer than necessary delivery and so I try and include one to two endurance workouts each week (depending on how often the person is training). These are focused on maintaining or improving aerobic capacity as blood volume increases. Not V02 max training, just simple aerobic/endurance workouts.

A 2006 literature review on exercise in the prevention of maternal-fetal disease also had promising findings –

• women who were the most active have the lowest incidence of gestational diabetes.
• prevention of gestational diabetes lowers the probability of type 2 diabetes in both mother and child.
• women who exercise have a lower incidence of pre-eclampsia.
• 4 mechanisms have been observed that may explain the above benefit: 1 – exercise in early pregnancy enhances placental growth and blood flow, 2 – exercise reduces oxidative stress, 3 – exercise reduces inflammation, 4 – exercise appears to correct disease related endothelial
• Exercise may combat reproductive issues due to obesity

Obesity and pregnancy

Women who are obese prior to pregnancy have increased risk of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), menstrual irregularity and infertility. Obesity may also be responsible for the increased risk of spontaneous abortion rates in women with PCOS. It is also found that fertility treatments are less effective for women who are significantly overweight,

During pregnancy women who are overweight or obese have an increasing (as weight goes up) risk of pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes. overweight women tend to give birth to larger babies even when pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes are not a factor. There is an increased risk of neonatal intensive care, caesarian section and instrument delivery.

Interestingly, a 2009 study suggests that resistance training while pregnant, even for moms-to-be who were overweight or obese during pregnancy reduced the incidence of high birth weights of the baby. The mothers weight did not have to change significantly for the effects of resistance training to benefit the baby.

Another study showed that resistance training performed 3-5 times per week showed correlations with increased fetal length and more lean body mass than the control group. In some research looking to see if there were any long term benefits for children who’s mothers engaged in vigorous exercise during pregnancy they found that these children had heightened attentiveness and discipline and were cognitively more advanced by age 5 than the control group. They concluded that increased blood volume, cardiac output, placental functioning and nutrient delivery were likely behind the benefits

As mentioned above this is new research, predominantly small studies but the results are significant and the mechanisms seem to line up with the results so we will have to keep our eyes on the field and see if repeated studies have similar findings.

Easier Labour

Exercise has been shown to reduce the incidence of a number of complications during labour, with resistance training having a significant benefit. Several studies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) have described decreased labour times, shorter hospitalization, and a reduced incidence of C-section, abdominal and vaginal operative deliveries.

In the last 17 years of training pregnant women I can vouch that it appears that the women who have trained consistently and vigorously during their pregnancy seem to have easier deliveries and postnatal recovery times in general. This isn’t some kind of guarantee , there are many factors at play. One of them seems to be duration of training. The clients of mine who have been with me prior to pregnancy seem to be easier off during labour. But again not every time. Age plays a role, the position of the baby plays a role, umbilical issues play a role, etc.

My observation from our studio

And now lets see what this nerd says…

The majority of studies looking at preventing or managing prenatal weight have used a mix of diet and aerobic exercise. But we know that exercise only has a minimal effect on weight management. The things that move the needle the most is calorie restriction and non exercise related activity. Exercise absolutely counts for energy expenditure but I think what we will see as the research continues is that a mix of both aerobic and resistance training is necessary or optimal while everyday activities outside of the workouts count much more.

quick side note –

A well designed strength program can assisst those who may have trouble moving around throughout the day. Asking someone to just be more active who has not been so for some time or struggles with joint pain or stability needs specific help to get there.

Weight management is only one aspect of the health benefits during pregnancy. If Aerobic and resistance training are going to both lead to minimal weight shifts we then need to determine what other benefits arise from both. That said, my clients who optimize their diet during pregnancy have not only had enjoyable pregnancies but they have improved their own health markers and weight profile. I want to emphasize that losing weight during pregnancy by managing calories is a serious endeavour. You need to make sure you are eating enough. This is easily accomplished with tracking but you need to be consistent. This isn’t the time to mess around with a low calorie diet all willy nilly. I do not recommend this. Just remember that adding moderate to vigorous exercise to your life will extend benefits to you and the baby regardless of weight loss.

A better approach would be to try and manage weight as soon as you start trying to get pregnant or even better – about a year before you think you might want to start. Not everyone knows that far ahead of time but if you do, it’s something to consider.

As mentioned above, there are studies that correlate decreased labor times and developmental advantages with aerobic fitness so we should make sure this is part of an exercise regimen. I don’t think anyone, pregnant or not, male or female, should choose aerobic over resistance training or vice versa. Both are equally important for health and longevity. But from my experience the benefits that strength and stability training have for overall pregnancy satisfaction, prevention of pelvic floor and back pain which leads to better sleep and ability to recover postpartum is what makes it a priority for my clients. If time is a factor I would prioritize resistance training or if there is a personal preference towards strength training I am happy to indulge and focus on the many benefits it has. If someone prefers aerobic fitness then that also works. Always make the most time for the thing that will keep the person happy and engaged…and then just slip in some weighted lunges…oops!

Hip mobility and shoulder/postural strength and stability are two major factors you won’t find in the research. The posture changes quickly as the belly expands outwards and this can have delterious effects both during pregnancy and afterwards while feeding. Mitigating these issues is a major focus in our studio and specific resistance training is what we use to do so.

There are a number of other things we tend to address depending on the individual, all of which are not included as specific benefits cited through research but can fall under the improved mood and sleep categories. This is because the increased strength and fitness lowers discomfort and upregulates hormones that allow for better moods and sleep!

The studies do a great job in defining safety and measuring the short term benefits of blood markers and disease reduction during pregnancy and delivery. But they miss out on what women need right after delivery, which is a strong, agile and stable body. They also often need postnatal abdominal recovery. Though the science is out on whether you can prevent diastasis recti (the thinning of the abdominal wall) through exercise, this is something that I have witnessed in the studio. I am the first to admit that this is anecdotal and not science.

We don’t focus solely on abdominal strengthening, we also work on diaphragmatic breathing to make a mind body connection during relaxation phase. Doing these types of exercises during a workout is great but we have a system that we try and employ with our clients that helps them engage with activation and relaxation throughout the day. Again, this is not hard science. I have simply been trying to address an issue with some ideas that make sense on a biological level. We are trying to plug the gaps in awareness that may lead to a weakening or an overuse issue.

There is a case that academics occasionally miss the mark when compared to professional trainers. It’s true that lab settings are not the same as real life and we need to take this into consideration when employing results found in studies. It is also true that not all trainers are created equal but good ones that actually train people in person (not instagram online trainers) usually have long records of trial and error and have found what works. They also pay close attention to the research and recognize what is useful vs what is a tiny “significant” result in a study that makes no difference in the real world.

A well rounded exercise program will increase mobility, stability, endurance and strength – all of which carry over nicely into life as a new parent. Aerobic exercise has clear benefits and it should very much be part of the regimen. I think it is important to note that the people who come to me that prioritize running or cycling tend to have the worst overall physical assessments (other than cardiovascular ability). This is not universal but it is common. So if this sounds like you, I implore you to try and include more resistance training. Pregnancy is a great time to try and get good general fitness, it will make the time even more enjoyable and the benefits will be very clear when you are trying to soothe a baby for hours or reaching down low to pick up a floppy infant and yet again when you’re wrangling a toddler.

Conslusions

The research may still be growing but there are some real takeaways that are important for the public, for doctors and for trainers –

• aerobic and strength exercise is not just safe but should be encouraged.
• both can can help lower maternal cholesterol levels during pregnancy.
• both have been seen in multiple studies to reduce labor duration.
• both can reduce the incidence of gestational diabetes and pre-ecamplsia and the reduction of gestational diabetes carries over to lower risk in type 2 diabetes for both the mother and infant as they age.
• strength training has been linked to better physical and cognitive development for the fetus that continue after birth up until the age of 5 (latest it has been followed up so far).
• some studies suggest that women who strength train have lower risks of C-sections and other delivery complications.
• mothers who exercise during pregnancy have babies born with less blood oxygen and respiratory issues.

There are very specific situations where exercise may be discouraged for pregnant women. Your doctors will let you know when you need to slow down or stop. But outside of extenuating circumstances the biggest takeaway here is that vigorous exercise is completely safe.

There are some small studies that suggest certain powerlifting movements are also safe. I still err on the side of caution when it comes to power training. While the exercises may be deemed safe for the ultra trained individual, I think introducing these movements shortly before or during pregnancy can be problematic. These exercises take a lot of coordination and body awareness. During pregnancy the body is changing at a more rapid rate than at any part of your life and subtle differences in center of gravity, joint mobility and breathing disturbances can affect peoples ability to perform explosive movements with precision. So this is out for me and honestly I think it is an unnecessary risk even for well trained powerlifters. It’s not so much about a risk to the baby or the pregnancy in general but more as a risk of injury to the mom. An injury can sideline you from all activity for the remainder of the pregnancy and then make being a new mom so much harder than it needs to be. You can take a 10-12 month break, its going to be fine.

If you or anyone you know needs some help designing a well rounded program that will optimize for many of the benefits listed above please fee free to contact me for help. We do online consultations as well as our in person training for those who live in the Montreal area.

I think we need to be weary of broadly criticizing studies simply based on who funds them. I stand by this statement despite examples of data fudging because we actually need industry funding, it is the ideal way things work as long as it is done well.

If you want to release a product, you should be responsible or at least partially responsible for proving that it works in the ways you advertise it. At the very least you should prove that it is harmless but I believe we should be aiming higher. We should also want third party, neutral institutions to research compounds and compound blends that exist in the market. It is important to have multiple sources of gatekeeping when it comes to health information and product development, be they medications or supplements. Testing is very expensive which is why its preferable that industry pays for it but neutrality is also important which is why government led programs have historically been responsible for it. As of late the general public has had diminishing trust in these organizations. People want neutral testing but they often poopoo the institutions that do it best. So what do we do about it?

A good ground rule for trusting results is to defer to the conclusions of multiple specialists or multiple institutions Are studies being repeated in different countries by different organizations? If yes, then we are approximating truth as best we can. The chances of negligence or corruption across the globe is virtually zero. The practice of empirical research has its own guard rails that will often catch the wrong doers, though it does take time.

We have this exact scenario for collagen supplements and despit emy first statement the results point toward industry funded studies being biased. The only studies that suggest a benefit for skin health are ones performed by companies that sell the product while independent institutional studies show no benefit. This brand new meta analysis looking at the effects of collagen on skin aging reviewed 23 randomized control trials. They found that collagen supplements improved skin hydration, elasticity and wrinkles. But in a subgroup review looking at funding sources, they found that the control trials with funding from pharmaceutical companies showed significant benefits while the ones who had independent funding did not. When separating high quality studies from lower quality studies they found similar results, with the lower quality studies being the ones that showed significant benefit.

Occasionally, outlier studies that show a large benefit can skew the over all results of a meta analysis or study review. Sometimes it is because of a larger study group or a stronger effect result. But if these outlier studies are of poorer quality then they will skew the average result in a way that creates the wrong “consensus”. This is why a sensitivity analysis as they did in the above review can be helpful in pointing out the more general picture.

As far as collagen having potential benefits for connective tissue synthesis, some of the best labs in the world have found little to no evidence for this.

In 2022 a narrative review outlined a clear benefit of protein supplementation on muscle synthesis yet no data has shown a link between dietary protein intake and connective tissue building. Up until this point, most studies looked at ingestion of essential amino acids through whey or dairy based supplementation. It was theorized that collagen supplements might stimulate connective tissue synthesis because of its high content of certain amino acids or through some sort of stimulatory mechanism of specific peptides.

But then in 2023 this study from Luc Van Loon et.al. showed that neither whey protein nor collagen supplements increased muscle connective tissue synthesis post exercise.

It’s fair to say that we need more studies to fully disprove any positive action on connective tissue from collagen supplementation. A couple other studies do exist showing a small potential benefit from doses of 15g/day. But there may be a funding bias and considering that the Van Loon study used 30g doses as compared to an equal dose of whey protein and a placebo group I am not convinced that we will see positive results when the study is well designed

My take on this is that so far it looks like it is a waste of money. I’m agnostic in that I am willing to change my mind but I don’t understand the mechanism by which consuming collagen would help build it. If you currently take a collagen supplement and feel like it is helping you then go for it. I would reassess that the brand you use is third party tested for safety but once that is determined these supplements seem to be harmless even at high doses.

Though the harm that might exist is that the placebo effect of a supplement or a procedure like acupuncture might get in the way of finding something that actually will help you in the long term. Placebo is not always a benign tool for relief.

Be kind to each other,

Joey

Toast is a great way to double the protein intake in what would normally be a mediocre meal as a closed sandwich. Sardine toast is also new for many people and it is a hard sell at first but trust me, it is so good and if need be you can replace the sardines with other protein choices. Though not included here I have great options in my nutrition plans with marinated tofu, pulled chicken, chickpea mash and a spicy deer steak slices, all of which can be prepared beforehand and used over the course of about 4-5 days.

I’m not going to tell you a whole story before getting to the recipe, so here you go!

This recipe is for 1 serving of about 20-30g/protein depending on your toppings choices.

INGREDIENTS

• 1-1.5 cans of sardines
• 2 medium slices of sourdough – toasted
• 4 slices of sweet tomato
• palmful of baby spinach, arugula or greens of choice
• 1 tsp of olive oil
• a few red onion slices/rings
• hot sauce (optional)
• quarter lemon for squeezing
• 4-5 forkfuls of kimchi
• pepper to tase

PREP

This is a simple toast and load recipe – it doesn’t really matter how you load it but …

• Toast the bread, put the greens, then tomatoes, then sardines, then onions, then kimchi.
• squeeze some lemon over it, drizzle your olive oil and sprinkle some pepper. Thats it!

This is just an intro recipe. The flavours are bound to entice and yet it is simple enough to not take up time or feel complicated. The sourdough has its benefits so try not to skimp on this part. I’m not afraid of carbs, they can play a role in a good nutrition plan but I do like to try and elevate the kind and be specific with the time of eating them.

In a pinch you can simply toast some bread and empty a can of sardines onto it. I do this sometimes and its still delicious and nutritious. Add some olive oil and its even better. I will add some other recipe options for you guys at some point but this is an easy one to be creative with. Trust nme that if you sign up for one of my nutrition coaching consults or programs you will get many more simple and nutritious ideas. Plant based options are available for everything, though you will hear no end ot my gentle prodding of supplementation haha.

I usually provide a full nutrition breakdown for my recipes as they all have a particular place in someone’s plan but this one is often used as a high protein, high omega 3 (about 2g!), probiotic rich meal or snack that is moderately micronutrient rich ( the recipe will vary depending on needs).

When you simultaneously demand proof while dismissing overwhelming evidence you are not a skeptic you are a denialist.

I have no skin in the game. I receive no funding from seed oil companies, nor from “Big Butter.” In fact I provide these articles for free simply because I work as a nutrition coach and I am a huge nerd. I want to help my community make the best decisions they can when it comes to their health and it makes no difference to me whether seed oils are healthy for you are not. I just want to know what the evidence points to.

Once again, this is an in depth look at the research so as always you can scroll down for the summary if you don’t want all the details. I have cited approximately 50 studies here some of which are meta analyses and so the cumulative research is much more.

Spoiler alert, the evidence is in and the overwhelming consensus among nutrition researchers and lipidoligists is that seed oils are good for you.

There is nuance to the above statement as is reflected in the studies and we will take a look at them but first a quick overview of what exactly we are diving into – seed oil and its content of polyunsaturated fatty acid.

Saturated, monounsaturated and trans fats are non essential, our body has everything it needs to make its own supply. Polyunsaturated fats on the other hand are essential. We need to consume these for optimal health and these include both Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids. Something being essential is often used amongst the wellness community to manipulate people into “intuitive thinking.” The keto and carnivore camps like to point out that carbohydrates are non essential while other such enthusiasts like using the fact that cholesterol is essential to our brain’s makeup and in the formation of hormones as proof that we should not be afraid of loading up on dietary cholesterol. Something being essential to our health is not enough information. When you come across arguments that are all or nothing using nutrients as essential or not, try and ask a few more questions…How much is essential? Are all sources of an essential nutrient equal? Is dietary intake of this thing necessary or can our body make it from other compounds? If it’s non essential, does that mean it’s not good for us? Can a non essential whole food also contain other nutrients that are essential or beneficial? This is the kind of nuance that is worthwhile when searching for answers on food choices.

So if Omega 6 fatty acids are essential, how much do we need on a daily basis? The answer depends on age and sex but somewhere between 11-22g/day is sufficient. Good sources of these fatty acids include, walnuts, almonds, flax seeds, flax oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, avocado oil, soybean oil and safflower oil. I know, you have heard that these oils are toxic or inflammatory, I had heard the same things. To be honest I used to avoid many of these oils but bare with me and I will show you why I changed my mind.

Omega 3s are universally considered as anti-inflammatory and also only come from foods or supplements we consume. Good sources of Omega 3s are fatty fish and algae. Plant based options are flax seeds, walnuts and chia seeds but the version of fatty acid you get from these foods – Alpha Linolenic Acid (ALA) – needs to be converted to DHA and EPA. The conversion of ALA is not always great and so for most people this fatty acid is not as bio-available as EPA and DHA. This is not universally agreed upon but the general consensus is that ALA is the lesser form of Omega 3. I usually suggest to my vegan and vegetarian clients to supplement with fish oil or algae capsules. You can get blood Omega 3 tests done to see where you stand in the absorption spectrum if you want to avoid EPA and DHA supplementation.

The recommended daily dose for Omega 3s is approximately 1-1.5g/day but this can vary depending on age, sex and heart condition. For reference, my average recommendation is about 2g/day leaning heavier towards EPA content but again this will change depending on the client and their situation. I have some clients on 5g/day for a couple months just to sort out some inflammation issues.

I am not going to get into the nitty gritty of the Omega 3 (O3) and Omega 6 (O6) ratio because I fear it will take up too much time. But we do need both of these fatty acids and we need some kind of ratio for balance. There is some consensus on a 2:1 (O3:O6) ratio but it appears that this may be less accurate than previously assumed.

COMPARISONS TO SATURATED FATS

We know that fats are a necessary part of our diet, particularly Omega 3 and Omega 6 but the vast majority of our diets in western culture consume saturated fat as our main fat source. This is true for most people on a ketogenic or carnivore diet as well, in fact it can be much much higher. Obviously this has variability within populations and between cultural norms but globally there tends to be more calories eaten through saturated fats rather than polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats. Saturated fat sources being; beef, pork, lamb, poultry, butter, ghee, lard, full fat dairy, coconut oil and baked goods. There has been a backlash away from the low fat diets recommended from doctors and government institutions through the last several decades. It has come under question whether saturated fats are actually problematic at all. Do they cause cholesterol increases? Is cholesterol increase an issue? Is high cholesterol (as tested by doctors) the cause of heart disease, obesity and metabolic disease? Carbohydrates and seed oils seem to be the new target in the fight against growing health issues in North America and across the planet but which is the true culprit? Or might it be a bit more complicated than just one food source?

The saturated fat enthusiasts will have you believe that you can eat butter and meat to your hearts content and not pay any price but what does the research say? When looking at the health effects of ingredients, food or food groups one of the best ways to determine their impact is through comparative study.

Studies looking at liver fat and liver inflammation markers suggest that consuming saturated fat while in a caloric surplus increases both liver fat and inflammation, while eating polyunsaturated fats in a caloric surplus decreases liver fat, inflammatory markers and oxidative stress.

One particular study shows the degree of liver fat that accumulates when overfeeding with various sources of foods including simple sugars. The researchers controlled for total calories of each food group and they saw an increase in liver fat from overfeeding of both sugar and fats but the increase is highest when overfeeding with saturated fats. The amount of liver fat accumulation went like this – 55% from group fed saturated fat, 33% from group fed sugar and 15% from group fed unsaturated fat.

Another interesting study took participants and overfed them to reach an increase of 3% bodyweight. One group was overfed using saturated fats and the other group was fed Omega 6 linoleic acid. After 7 weeks of overfeeding both groups gained the same amount of weight but the saturated fat group gained 58% liver fat and the linoleic acid group gained 5% liver fat. Interestingly there was more lean mass gains with the polyunsaturated fat group.

Some studies looking at stable caloric intake also see a tip towards liver fat with people who consume a majority of their calories through saturated fats yet we do not see this with a high intake of polyunsaturated fats. One of the reasons for this is that polyunsaturated fats are preferentially oxidized.

Oxidation is a buzz word that has a lot of negative connotations attached to it but it is a necessary and mostly regulated process. Compounds are most often oxidized so that their metabolites can be used by the body. It can become a problem when it occurs too often and the body can not neutralize excessive free radicals. But this is not an inherently bad process.

Research has shown that saturated fats on the other hand are less prone to hydrolysis and oxidation so there is a higher probability of transportation of dietary saturated fats and triglycerides to the liver. They also stimulate lipogenic pathways – the breakdown and release of stored fat into circulation which may also end up in the liver.

Saturated fats from dietary intake are absorbed in the small intestine and repackaged in lipoprotein particles called chylomicrons. These lipoproteins become the primary vehicle of triglycerides into the bloodstream. Studies show that chylomicrons enriched with polyunsaturated fats are less harmful as they tend to be broken up earlier in the digestion process and released as free fatty acids for tissues to utilize. This so called preferential oxidation ends up lowering the triglyceride count in our blood.

A fatty liver is a serious problem when it comes to diabetes and metabolic disease as the liver stores fat it loses its ability to regulate blood sugar levels. On top of the harm from extra calories ingested via saturated fats another issue can inhibit insulin sensitivity. Ceramide is a compound derived from saturated fats that inhibits glucose transport into cells and play a role in B-cell death. Increasing saturated fat intake has the potential in overloading the blood with ceramide yet studies like this one show that diets high in polyunsaturated fat lower circulating ceramide levels.

The above listed research along with many others point to insulin resistance as a downstream effect of overloading on the wrong kind of fat and storing fat in the wrong place. Professor Roy Taylor, diabetologist and professor of medicine and metabolism at the University of Newcastle has coined something called the Twin Cycle Hypothesis (diagram pictured below). A simplified description of this hypothesis goes a little like this –

High saturated fat intake, particularly with an excess of calories leads to fatty liver and a lessened sensitivity to insulin. Muscle insulin resistant individuals could not store a large part of their glucose as glycogen while healthy people could store upwards of a 3rd of what they consumed from an entire meal. When this glucose is not being stored in the muscle the liver will then turn it into fat and store it as fat in and around itself. As the liver retains more fat it increasingly loses its ability to manage insulin response. Instead of dampening blood glucose levels through the insulin response the liver will now release more glucose into the blood. Here we begin to see this liver cycle worsen as the pancreas increases insulin once again to try and deal with spiking blood glucose. As this first cycle runs on the liver will also begin to release more fat into the blood as well in the form of triglycerides. This extra fat is spread out into other tissues including as subcutaneous fat. This is not inherently harmful but once subcutaneous fat stores have reached capacity the extra fat begins to store around other organs, including the pancreas. This is where the second cycle begins. Fat storage in and around the pancreas slows the insulin releasing mechanism in response to dietary glucose and so blood sugar continues to rise, reinforcing both cycles.

This theory explains why some slim people get type 2 diabetes. Certain individuals exhibit a low threshold for fat storage below the skin but will store it around the organs. This is less visibly noticeable and so it is less likely for doctors to do any metabolic testing. The epidemiology also suggests that when large populations are overfed we see a sharp increase in type 2 diabetes. When we reduce calorie intake, we see a reversal of this disease. So genetics play a role in your capacity to store fat under the skin but overfeeding, especially with saturated fats can have a devastating effect on your liver and pancreas. Obviously if you add high caloric foods including refined carbs or sugar this will make things worse. Its not that it is just the saturated fat but it is a major catalyst.

A large epidemiological study looking at fatty acid levels and the incidence of insulin resistance amongst otherwise healthy individuals showed a protective effect from polyunsaturated fatty acids. But even more interesting than that is a meta-analysis including over 100 random control trials (RCT) looking at metabolic health when replacing calories from saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats. What they found was that replacing calories with polyunsaturated fats significantly reduced insulin resistance and improved blood glucose control. It is true that elevated blood sugar can damage artery walls making them more susceptible to plaque build up. And while this may look like just a glucose intake issue it seems as if it is more likely a downstream effect of a calorie surplus from saturated fats and storing fat in the organs. Once this process has begun, having a high intake of sugars will only exacerbate the problem.

Another RCT looking at calorie replacement, this time using rapeseed oil instead of ghee showed that liver fat was reduced as well as liver enzymes. On top of that blood glucose control was improved, fasting glucose was lowered, insulin levels diminished and LDL numbers dropped.

On a calorie per calorie basis, saturated fats tend to increase insulin resistance compared to polyunsaturated fats

Some people may argue that the majority of these studies show a relatively short period of oil consumption and that it may be a slow decline in health from these “dirty”, heavily processed foods. luckily enough we do have a bunch of long term studies exploring this exact question. This meta analysis looked at 38 studies, involving close to a million participants. The conclusion suggests that a higher intake of LA over time correlates with lower inflammatory markers but also a moderately lower risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and mortality by all causes.

Let’s be clear, you don’t need to eat or cook with seed oils. Avoiding excessive amounts of them is not necessarily harmful for your health, especially if you are focused on eliminating the ultra processed, packaged foods that contain these oils. Avoiding these foods will be beneficial if you are replacing the calories with a balanced whole food approach but it is important to make the distinction that the seed oils in these products are probably not the problem.

Knowing the potential protective effects of polyunsaturated fatty acids is key to understanding the idea of balance. Misinformation suggesting that the compounds in seed oils are inherently bad leads to decisions about food that lack nuanced understanding. For seed oils in particular this may or may not be problematic – If you end up excluding monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats or substitute saturated fats in for them then you might end up with some problems. But importantly, leaning into all or nothing thinking about a food or ingredient can lead to worse decisions in other areas. If we fall into habits of bad heuristics then we are susceptible to disinformation. The same influencers that demonize seed oils also chew on bricks of butter. This substitution is most probably harmful, while a nuanced decision to avoid an abundance of seed oils in certain forms is not. Key word here being abundance seeing as keeping polyunsaturated fats, including linoleic acid clearly has some health benefits.

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE

The above mentioned studies were mostly specific to comparing polyunsaturated fats from vegetable oils to saturated fats and the effect on the liver and insulin resistance. But I want to expand a little bit and look at a few studies examining cardiovascular disease risk that include comparisons with saturated fats as well as carbohydrate intake.

A couple clinical trials looking at this question are the Predimed and cordioprev studies. These trials looked at people eating a Mediteranean style diet with about 40% calorie intake through carbohydrates (moderate) enriched with olive oil and nuts compared to people on a low fat diet plan. The basic take away was that a reduction in refined carbohydrates and saturated fats along with added calories from unsaturated fats significantly lowered the participants risk of cardiovascular disease.

If you read my article on cardiovascular disease risk and prevention then you are familiar with the evidence showing that ApoB is the very best marker for cardiovascular disease risk that we have. It would stand to reason that if polyunsaturated fats were showing reduced mortality from cardiovascular disease then adding them to your diet should directly lower ApoB levels and they do. Replacing saturated fats or refined starches with polyunsaturated fats tend to reduce ApoB more than the reverse. Even replacing whole grain intake with polyunsaturated fats seems to reduce numbers though more moderately.

We need to keep in mind that the dietary guidelines we have been given are not being followed. Many social media health personalities trash talk the guidelines and assume conspiracy to keep people sick by promoting low fat diets and high carbohydrate diets. While it is true that the calorie intake from these guidelines did skew a bit heavy towards carbohydrates it is also true that they did not suggest the intake of added sugar or the lowering of polyunsaturated fats. Regardless, the vast majority of North Americans did not comply, eating diets very high in saturated fats and refined sugars. So demonizing the guidelines is at best incomplete if not a sad attempt to prop up an ideology around nutrition. Jordan Peterson is famous for this exact problem in what looks like an attempt to promote his carnivore diet.

Storytelling is a very effective way to sell an idea. We are much more attracted to individual anecdotes than we are widespread evidence. So be careful of anyone making sweeping claims based on their personal story.

An interesting 6 month long study used a low carb vegan protocol coined the Eco-Atkins diet to see effects on cardiovascular risk and body weight in hyperlipaedhemic adults. The diet was low in carbs and saturated fats and was enriched with fats from soy, nuts and vegetable oils. They compared results with participants who had a high carb/low fat diet. The Eco-Atkins group showed reduced LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, thus lowering heart disease risk.

Another study replacing a higher carb/lower saturated fat diet with corn oil reduced LDL cholesterol by about 10.5% while replacing it with olive oil reduced it by about 3%. Olive oil also reduced heart rate and blood pressure.

This meta analysis reviewed approximately 40 control trials looking at the cardio-metabolic response to canola oil intake. While CRP levels (inflammation marker) were no different between canola oil intake and comparators, many other cardiometabolic risk factors were reduced in the canola oil groups. More specifically, canola oil reduced total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, LDL to HDL ratio, ApoB and ApoA-1. Even compared to olive oil, canola oil reduced total cholesterol and triglycerides from vldl (very low dense lipoproteins).

But we don’t only see benefits with liver function, insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease. We also have evidence that replacing calories from saturated fats and added sugars can reduce mortality risk from neurodegenerative disease and cancer. This study review looking at 2 studies involving almost 125,000 participants over multiple decades had participants replace 5% of calories from saturated fats to unsaturated fats and they saw reduced risk of dying from cvd, neurodegenerative disease, diabetes, cancer.

How many people can sustain a low carbohydrate diet for life? Many low carb diets are usually considered to be around 50g/day. For reference this is about 2 bananas. For those of us who are not the hyper disciplined influencers, maintaining. a very lean body mass and staying very active the high fat meal plans can slip into weight gain and insulin issues fairly quickly, especially if you re-introduce carbohydrates along the way.This is what I see a lot of. People who are used to a life of moderate to high carbohydrate intake looking to lose weight and grabbing onto ketogenic style diets in hopes of reducing caloric intake with regards to refined carbs. They may see a big change at first by reducing their caloric intake having got rid of a lot of the snack foods and sugary drinks. But social gatherings, busy schedules and a lack of balance in input and output with activity can lead to adding some carbohydrates back in the mix. Now we have high caloric fat foods added with sugar and maybe a lack of activity. The extra weight comes back fast. The added saturated fat makes blood glucose regulation harder and this can lead to weight gain but also metabolic disease, especially once the carbs come back into the picture.

When you compare food sources you have to really take a look at what is being substituted for what and when you compare that to society at large you need to see if people actually subscribe to guidelines or not. When we look at calories of saturated fat substitution for calories from whole grain carbs, polyunsaturated fats or monounsaturated fats we see a decrease in negative health outcomes. When we look at substitutions of calories from saturated fat with refined carbs we see similar outcomes So when you reduce saturated fats, what are you eating instead? In reviews that compare saturated fats to carbs they suggest that there is no harm done by saturated fats, but these reviews don’t differentiate between refined and unrefined carbs.

Another complexity in looking at the evidence is what source of saturated fat we are looking at. For example, Dairy fat seems to look favourable over fat from red or white meat when looking at cardiovascular risk. But it does not look favourable when compared to vegetable fat or whole grains. Yogurt and cheese seem to do a bit better in cardiovascular health outcomes and ldl cholesterol numbers compared to milk, meat and butter. But the benefit of vegetable oil is significantly better than those. The degree of improvement can be slight or it can be significant depending on what you are substituting. The nuance is important when you are bombarded by health gurus trying to sell products or services. Their ability to convince us to buy their products is increased if they get us to ignore the nuances of the food matrix.

Much of the vilification of seed oils comes from the idea that Linoleic acid (an omega 6 polyunsaturated fat found in different oils to varying degrees) is highly inflammatory as is its substrate arachidonic acid. Arachidonic acid plays a role in many functions, including inflammatory actions like thrombosis. So driving its synthesis upward through a high intake of Linoleic acid seems problematic and this is what the messaging is by health gurus like Paul Saladino, Dave Asprey, Ben Greenfield and Casey Means. But there are three things missing from the messaging.

• First is that arachidonic acid is crucial for many beneficial processes including as a precursor for signalling molecules, roles in brain development and cognition, blood clotting and well, inflammation – because inflammation is not all bad.
• Second is that arachidonic acid is not the only metabolite of linoleic acid and is itself broken down into more substrates that have various functions. Some of which include lipoxins and epoxyeicosatrienoic acids which are known to have anti inflammatory effects. This is why posting health information with claims related to a single mechanism is myopic.
• Third, though we may indeed want to keep arachidonic acid below some threshold to maintain good health it appears that lowering linoleic acid intake is not the best way to do so. You have to limit linoleic acid so drastically as to effect arachidonic levels that it becomes both difficult and potentially harmful to your health. Omega 3 intake seems to do a better job at limiting the negative effects of arachidonic acid than simply not ingesting it. Indeed the inflammation problem we may see in many countries that have a hight intake of processed foods may also be a low average omega 3 intake rather than a high average omega 6.

Indeed the wide variation of linoleic acid (LA) intake does not seem to affect tissue levels of arachadonic acid (AA). You can decrease your intake of LA by 90% and the AA does not change significantly. Increasing intake by 6 times also has no effect on tissue levels of AA.

Let’s remember that the ultra processed foods that have seed oils as an ingredient have been designed to over consume, they are high in sugar, low in fibre and calorie dense. Demonizing a single ingredient tends to show a lack of understanding of the complexities of human nutrition.

This 2012 meta-analysis of 15 RCTs concluded that ” virtually no evidence is available from randomized, controlled intervention studies among healthy, non infant human beings to show that addition of LA to the diet increases the concentration of inflammatory markers.”

But since inflammation seems to be the thing everyone is pointing at as an issue with these oils, let’s take a closer look.

INFLAMMATION

There are a number of studies looking at mechanisms of seed oil metabolites that suggest there is a problem with inflammation. While I do think that these studies are important and add to the conversation of overall health outcomes I don’t think that they are necessarily primary to the conversation. In the interest of saving you time I will just list many of the studies and their conclusions. I will also provide some of the mechanistic studies that point at certain metabolites being inflammatory because I want you to have as much of the information as possible. Just keep in mind that we can find mechanisms going in every direction. The complexity of everything at work within the human body is why we have to also look at outcomes to see if these mechanisms are predominant or neutralized somewhere along the way. I will present this list in sections of different kinds of seed oils.

Flax seed oil

Flax oil is high in ALA omega 3 and about 14% of its calories are from Linoleic acid .

A meta analysis of randomized control trials looking at flax seed oil and C-reactive protein (CRP – an inflammation marker) found no effect.

Another meta analysis of 12 randomized control trials looking at biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress found no effect on CRP, a significant reduction in Interleukin 6 (IL-6 – an inflammatory marker) and malondialdehyde (MDA – an inflammatory marker) with no effect on oxidation properties.

From all the trials in the above meta analyses only one study found elevation of the inflammatory marker tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a).

Canola Oil –

Canola oil is high in monounsaturated fats with about 18% of its calories from linoleic acid.

This randomized double blind placebo trial found no increase in CRP. It cactually oncluded a potential protective effect from CRP.

This randomized control trial (RCT) had participants double their omega 6 intake and found no differences in Il-6, CRP or TNF-a

This study is already mentioned above but I wanted to also mention that both olive oil and canola oil had a reduction in CRP

This meta analysis was also mentioned above with regards to flax seed oil but no difference in inflammatory markers were found with canola oil either, even when compared to olive oil!

Sunflower seed oil

Sunflower seed oil is mainly made up of triglycerides and is about 59-65 percent linoleic acid.

This RCT using refined oil with its participants found no significant change in CRP and total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol were both lowered.

This RCT also found no changes to participant’s’ CRP levels

In this randomized control trial they compared sunflower oil to butter intake and some inflammatory markers were lower in the sunflower oil group. No oxidative stress was found and liver fat was also lowered without weight loss.

In this meta-analysis including 9 trials, no significant change was found in several inflammatory markers, including; CRP, TNF, IL-6 and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1).

Soybean oil

Soybean oil has about 50% of its calories from linoleic acid

In this RCT intravenous feeding of a soybean lipid emulsion compared to olive oil intake showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups

This RCT comparing soybean oil to flaxseed oil and fish oil using capsules for two months saw no significant change in inflammatory markers in any of the groups.

In this evidence review the authors conclude that soybean oil is the leading edible oil consumed globally and that there is no evidence that it increases inflammation or oxidative stress.

Corn oil

Corn oil has approximately 52% of its calories from linoleic acid.

In this RCT participants took 4 tbsp/day and they saw no significant effect in CRP

Similarly, in this RCT researchers compared flax seed oil to corn oil feeding participants 2 TBSP/day for 3 months. They concluded that flax seed lowered IL-6 and corn oil had no effect on inflammatory markers.

In this RCT they compared corn oil to fish oil and found no difference in inflammatory markers in either group.

Safflower oil

Safflower oil has about 70-80% of its calories from linoleic acid.

This clinical trial using 1 TBSP/day for 3 months showed no significant change in CRP or IL-6.

A randomized control trial increasing the intake to 2 TBSP/day for 3 months also saw no significant change in inflammatory markers.

One inflammatory marker was decreased in this trial using 1 TBSP/day for 3 months.

A RCT using a massive dose of 8g/day saw a decrease in CRP and inflammation, glycemia and blood lipids!

What about Dose? Does an even higher daily dose show inflammation issues? Well this trial comparing olive oil, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil had participants consume 500 calories of oil per day for one month. No increase or decrease in inflammatory markers was found on any of the diets.

What about time? What if people consume these oils for a much longer period of time?

This meta-analysis as mentioned earlier showed longer intakes of linoleic acid is associated with lower cholesterol, lower levels of CRP, IL-6, Il-1B (a cytokine protein that plays a role in inflammation) and an increase in insulin sensitivity. This research is based off of survey information so we need to take the data with a grain of salt. But we can measure blood level omega 6 fatty acids to make sure we see the relationship between high blood omega 6 fatty acids and inflammatory markers and this study did just that. The data was reviewed from clinical trials and meta analyses and the results show an inverse relationship – the higher the Omega 6 levels in the blood/tissues – the lower the inflammatory markers.

THE EFFECTS OF LIGHT AND HEATING SEED OILS

Another claim is that the oils are highly unstable with regards to light and heat and that exposure to either causes chemical changes that are harmful to our health.

This study looked at light oxidation in fresh canola oil and found that these oils can become rancid under prolonged light exposure. They did this by looking for particular triacylglycerol isomers under certain wave lengths of light and between different temperatures of heating. They found higher amount of isomers with longer exposure of light and heat. Both taste and smell was affected by light oxidation. They concluded that dark containers can extend the shelf span of canola oils.

Another study looking at oxidation process of rapeseed oils concluded that red light seems to have a stronger effect in the production of oxidative radicals and that strong fragrant rapeseed oils are at a higher risk of oxidation.

This study compared the peroxide value and other reactive substances found in sesame oil, soybean oil and mahua oil. They concluded that the oil with the most oxidative stability was mahua oil. They suggest that the oxidative risk is associated with both the amount of linoleic acid as well as the amount of natural antioxidants within the oil. So the higher the linoleic acid the higher risk of oxidation but also the higher amount of antioxidants the lower the amount of oxidation.

Here are some health outcome studies…

In this RCT – researchers replaced normal cooking oil with corn oil or peanut oil for one year. No difference was found in CRP, blood lipids, blood glucose or insulin levels.

This study that was mentioned earlier was a comparison between coconut oil and sunflower oil for cooking. After 2 years no differences in CRP or other cardiovascular health risk markers were found.

In this 2 month RCT participants cooked 3 meals a day in soybean oil many of which were fried. Researchers sae a decrease in CRP as well as in oxidative stress. None of the other inflammatory markers changed.

RCT – A very unique study looking at heated oil consumption gave one group of participants capsules with oil that was heated for 2 hours at 240 degrees. The other groups were given olive oil, non heated safflower oil, and a conjugated linoleic acid mixture. Participants consumed about 4.5g/day for 4 weeks. No difference in inflammatory markers were found in any of the groups. There were also no changes in lipid profile, insulin indices, oxidized ldl, paraoxonase or other cardiovascular risk measures.

What about long term frying? Does it make a difference if we heat the oil for long periods of time or through many reheating cycles?

In this study 20 men with coronary artery disease and 20 healthy men were given a meal using sunflower oil heated for 1 hour at 180 degrees vs a meal with no heated oil. No change in inflammatory markers were found.

In this study – 20 obese people were given 1 meal with the foods cooked in olive oil, sunflower oil or a mixture of seed oils that had gone through 20 reheating cycles. The researchers did not look at blood markers for inflammation but some cellular mechanisms for inflammation were showing increases. The olive oil group did better. No major differences for the healthy men but the ones with Coronary artery disease showed that the unheated oil lowered some of the inflammatory pathways and the heated oil raised some of them.

CONCLUSIONS

Human studies on health effects of diet substitutions is our best way to discover whats happening at a practical scale. Together, randomized control trials and long term observational studies give us a more nuanced look at health outcomes. Whereas studies on Isolated molecules or metabolic pathways do not necessarily allow for leaps towards conclusions on the net effects on human health. They do however add significant details to the discussion, like which levels of processing increase the likelihood of inflammatory compounds or how to best store these oils to minimize such compounds. You can choose to only used cold pressed oils or oils that use tinted bottles so that the potential oxidation is reduced.

One study is not enough to back up claims on health outcomes but it can be a good start. If you see health practitioners using single studies to vilify a food or ingredient you should be weary. The quality of the study should also be looked at. This goes for meta-analyses as well. A study review is only as good as the studies it is reviewing and so I like to err on the side of caution and look for a vast amount of data that points in a similar direction.

There are a few studies commonly cited to back up claims that polyunsaturated fatty acids are bad for our health, one of which is the Minnesota Coronary Experiment. This study, while well designed had some serious flaws and thus the results are not of much use. One of the problems is that approximately 75% of the participants left the study before the first follow up at 12 months. This is a huge drop in participation and lessens the strength of the data. Another issue is that the cohort who was given unsaturated fats was unknowingly given trans fats through the margarine they were fed. We are all very well aware of the danger of trans fats and this probably skewed the results significantly.

We should all expect a higher degree of certainty before making any conclusions, especially when it comes to our health. But if we did want to play at their game, we could look at the Veterans study which followed less people but for a much longer period of time and had more reliable data. The people in this study eating more seed oil instead of saturated fats had 30% less occurrence of heart disease.

Better yet something like The Cochrane Review which is a meta analysis of 10 trials covering over 53000 participants also shows a reduction in the risk of cardiovascular events with people who eat more unsaturated fats vs those who eat more saturated fats. This health outcome data is very valuable for making better food decisions, particularly if you are at risk for heart disease or metabolic disorders.

Stories are intriguing but they don’t tell us much about truth. Just like mechanisms, you can find anecdotes pointing in every direction with regards to what might be an optimal way to eat. I recently saw a very popular youtube health guru try and debate for the consumption of raw milk based on his and his families personal history with it. Just because you have not experienced harm in something does not mean it does not cause harm. How many people have smoked cigarettes and lived to their 90s? Does that point towards cigarettes being good for everyone? Of course not.

having a high intake of omega 6 through ultra processed food is also not ideal. Not so much because of the fats but because of the tendencies to overeat these foods and the other ingredients that come along with it. Other issues can compound the problem such as not getting enough omega 3 fatty acids. It might be that high quantities of omega 6 without sufficient EPA and DHA may obstruct the building of these fatty acids from ALA. So this would be another compounding issue for those who eat a predominately vegan diet without omega 3 supplementation. In this particular case you may want to avoid an excess of linoleic acid intake.

The general conclusion though is that polyunsaturated fats have benefits to human health. Including them in the form of nuts and oils can help reduce fatty liver, cardiovascular disease and metabolic issues. But to stay on the safe side you can avoid oils in clear containers and reheating these oils at very high temperatures. Chances are if the oils have been oxidized you will be able to smell and taste it so you can avoid ingesting it if you notice a rancid scent. Make sure you eat enough omega 3 fatty acids regardless of your omega 6 intake as they are very good for you but if for some reason you are eating a lot of foods containing linoleic acid you can add more omega 3s to fend off on a build up of potential inflammatory compounds.

SUMMARY

• Saturated fats are non-essential while polyunsaturated fats are.
• All or nothing statements about foods or ingredients require more nuance, the food matrix is complex.
• We need about 1.5g/day of Omega 3 and about 11-22g/day of Omega 6.
• Saturated fats used to be the bad guy in nutrition, now it is sugar and seed oils but as we know, back and white statements about a food group usually points towards a red herring.
• When in a calorie surplus, consumption of saturated fat increase liver fat and inflammation, while polyunsaturated fats like seed oils reduce both. Saturated fats increased these more than simple sugars as well.
• Oxidation is a necessary process. Most often it is a controlled metabolic pathway allowing the body to use or get rid of the broken down parts of the compound.
• Saturated fat is less prone to oxidation and so the transport of its lipids for storage is more probable.
• Insulin resistance can be a downstream effect of storing the wrong kind of fats in the wrong places, like saturated fats in and around the liver.
• The twin cycle hypothesis explains how this might happen, including for those who are skinny or not overly obese (see diagram and explanation above).
• A large meta analysis shows that replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fast reduces insulin resistance and blood glucose control.
• Long term data shows that replacing fats also reduces all cause mortality, including cancer and cardiovascular disease.
• Many social media health influencers suggest that the dietary guidelines are flawed and have been designed to keep people sick, yet when you look at the data, very few people actually follow the guidelines and populations who do have lower rates of obesity, metabolic disease and cardiovascular disease.
• Much of the vilification around seed oils comes due to its assumed inflammatory properties. More specifically its linoleic acid content and its substrate arachidonic acid.
• arachidonic acid is crucial for many health processes, including inflammation which is a necessary and beneficial process as long as it is does not go haywire.
• Linoleic acid has other metabolites that are anti-inflammatory.
• Dropping arachidonic acid levels requires adrastic cut in linoleic acid ingestion which may have downstream issues. A better approach is to make sure we are also getting sufficient omega 3s.
• Best to focus on the real issue which is that foods that contain seed oils as an ingredient have other problems. They are designed for overconsumption which leads to calorie surplus and too much of other things like added sugar.
• One meta analysis concluded –  ” virtually no evidence is available from randomized, controlled intervention studies among healthy, non infant human beings to show that addition of LA to the diet increases the concentration of inflammatory markers.”
• Above is a lengthy overview of around 30 studies including meta-analyses that cover the inflammation issue with linoleic acid and seed oils. I list them pertaining to various different kinds of oils used in foods and cooking as well as in different heating circumstances and long term consumption vs short term consumption. The vast majority show no inflammation issues and indeed suggest a lowering of inflammation depending on the oil and comparison foods.
• The one major red flag would be for those who have a serious case of cardiovascular disease, they should avoid reheating their cooking oils.
• As a general conclusion, the addition od polyunsaturated fats to the diet is highly beneficial for most health markers, seed oils included. You don’t need seed oils to get your omega 6 content but having it as a source is totally fine. Like any other food or ingredient, you should not overdo it and one of the ways to avoid doing so is to eat less highly processed foods. If you want to be extra careful and avoid oxidation of ingredients in seed oils then you can opt for bottles that are tinted and try not to reheat your oils too often.
• Most of the time you can tell if an oil has been reheated too much because it smells rancid and looks off.
• The food matrix and human digestive system is very complex and demonizing foods does nothing but create unnecessary fear. Mechanistic studies can be found pointing in any direction you want to search for but overall health outcome studies is our best pool for useable data.

Thats it! Even the most complicated situations call for simple choices when it comes to food. If for some reason you are still not convinced then obviously it is your choice to avoid seed oils. It won’t necessarily do harm as long as you are not replacing the calories with saturated fats and refined carbs. I on the other hand feel fine using canola oil to cook with and no longer put a particular food item down if I see seed oils as an ingredient. The bigger picture of my complete diet is most important.

Joey

The organic food industry is worth about 65 billion dollars in the US, 10 billion in Canada and growing. The demand for organic food has increased dramatically as “health experts” claim its superior nutritional value, safety and environmental impact. The claims have driven up demand, prices and profits. While it does cost about 8% more to produce organic foods due to the National Organic Programs (NOP) criteria for certification, it is also around 30% more profitable.

When clients ask me which foods to choose for health and safety purposes I want to be able to give them a nuanced answer. The sheer volume of hyperbolic statements from wellness gurus on organic food and pesticides had me seeing red flags so I wanted to dive into the literature to try and get a look at the reality.

This is a lengthy dive into the research. For a summary scroll to the end.

As with most content found social media, we tend to see black and white statements. This kind of information appeals to our brains. It feels easier to navigate the world when we can put things into easily defined boxes like “traditionally farmed foods are full of pesticides“, “pesticides are toxic” or “Organic food is healthier.” But there are a few problems with these claims, one being that the criteria set for certification by the National Organic Program do not include oversight into nutrition quality nor do they regulate the pesticides and fungicides allowed for use. They use the perception that anything natural is safe without testing the health and environmental impact of the chemicals they use. The other major problem is that the studies we have do not show significant improvements in nutritional value. Studies have been done testing individual foods, testing health markers in humans with individual food substitutions as well as with whole diet substitutions. To be clear, it’s still not black and white. While I think the following overview of the research should help you understand the current science you will see that its complex and ongoing.

A recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine reviewed 223 studies looking at whether foods grown on organic farms were safer with regards to human health and provided more nutritional value than foods from traditional farming. Surprisingly, the only slight advantage organic foods had was phosphorous content and higher amounts of omega 3 in milk and poultry. A far cry from the grand claims we often hear on social media and marketing from Big Organic. I’m just joking, I don’t really call it Big Organic but it is a massive industry that needs to be held accountable, just like any other. As far as safety goes, the authors stated an absolute risk difference of pesticide residue at approximately 30%. This being the difference of 38% risk of non organic foods and 7% risk of organic foods.

One of the major critics of the above meta analysis was Dr. Charles Benbrook an agricultural economist working out of Washington State University. His detailed critique was published by the same publication of the study and is available to read here. His main beef seems to be with the calculation of risk with pesticide residue. He states that “Pesticide dietary risk is a function of many factors, including the number of residues, their levels, and pesticide toxicity,”  He then goes on to claim higher risks when looking at certain fruits as well as higher general risk when calculating for relative risk. Relative risk is, for most cases very confusing and not a great way in communicating data to the public. Benbrook’s preference in its utility is curious and though I don’t want to jump to any conclusions it makes me weary of the intent of the message. He has deep financial ties to pro organic organizations which does not necessarily mean malicious engineering of data but it is dubious.

When looking at herbicide and pesticide toxicity you need to remember that residue presence is not a signal of risk. We have technology that allows for detection at minuscule levels – levels that are much much lower than what has been deemed unsafe. Similarly, number of residues, are not an issue in themselves but can be if the levels are of a high enough magnitude. With regards to the meta analysis, pesticide residues were found to be below the regulated limits in the vast majority of the research. This should be a big takeaway.

Detecting residues is not a problem if regulations are in place to minimize use (they are), to remove all or most of the residue (they are) and to keep monitoring the health safety of each compound (they are). I’ll get a bit more into pesticides and herbicides a little later but for now let’s look a bit more into the nutrition differences of organic and non organic foods.

Another review study called Agroecosystem Management and Nutrition Quality Management: the Case of Organic Fruits and Vegetables suggested slightly higher values of vitamin C and other “defense related secondary metabolites.” These include phenolics, carotenoids, terpenes and alkaloids. The authors suggest that these metabolites may play important roles in immune function and so the average 12% reduction found in conventionally farmed foods may be significant. They weirdly go on to try and estimate the added life expectancy for humans if they eat organic foods with the increased secondary metabolites, estimating a gain of 17 days for women and 25 for men. This is silly nonsense, you can not make calculations of this sort without any kind of control data and boat loads more science on the mechanistic factors of secondary metabolites on longevity..and even then it would be worthless.

As with the first study mentioned, similar claims have been made about problematic methodology of this meta-analysis and so the conclusions have to be taken lightly. Nevertheless, I think it is important to include all the relevant data and make our food choices with the evidence and its limitations. A 12% increase in some nutrient qualities for organic produce is statistically significant but also not very impressive. When making food choices that may require major budget increases I think it may be worthwhile to focus on the other number – that you can still get at least 90% of the majority of nutrients, if not more, from non organic foods.

There is not a ton of data out there but when you comb through individual studies, you see not only that the differences in nutrient quantity (between organic and non organic) is generally low but that it swings in both directions. The use of fertilizers, genetic modification and herbicide and pesticide use have allowed for nutrient increase in certain foods in certain areas. This is very important tostabilize yields and sustain food availability for some communities.

But some individual studies, such as this one show that organic farming, while reducing the size of the tomatoes may drastically increase levels of vitamin C and phenolic compounds. It is theorized that certain fertilizers help stabilize yield and fruit size but drop some nutrient values, something called an environmental dilution effect.

What makes studying nutrient quality and quantity difficult is that you have to take into consideration soil quality, climate, yield size, farming practices and the use of organic pesticides – which is left out of almost every study.

You can’t simply compare organic foods from the Uk to conventionally farmed foods in Canada – the variables will not match up closely enough to make any real conclusions. So you need to compare samples from neighbouring farms, where cross contamination of organic and non organic pesticides may taint the samples. Another factor often overlooked is genetic dilution – a gene based degradation of nutrient density within certain hybrids of vegetables and fruits. Some types of broccoli have been found to increase in dry weight but yield fewer nutrients. So in seeking greater yield, there may be a ceiling at which nutrient density suffers. In this case hybrid type needs to be taken into consideration when looking at nutrient differences.

One theory suggests that organic farming practices induce a stress component to the plant, signalling for more of the “protective” compounds to be created. I find this idea very interesting but I would be curious if this effect is thwarted by organic pesticides like Neem oil, acetic acid, boric acid, potassium bicarbonate and pyrethrins (amongst others).

I found one more study review focusing more on health outcomes – A Systematic Review of Organic Versus Conventional Food Consumption: Is There a Measurable Benefit on Human Health?. Let’s take a look at some of the results. All the individual studies mentioned below can be found in the above link.

Some of the studies in this review compared single food/drink substitutions- so one group would eat organic tomatoes while another group would eat non organic tomatoes and then they would check for differences in nutrient levels. No differences were found in blood or urine levels. In other studies looking at single food substitutions they looked at DNA damage and antioxidant capacity between the organic and non organic groups – no differences were found there either.

Several studies in this review looked at whole diet substitution either in children or adults. The duration varied from 4-5 days (children) to 3 weeks (adults). 4 of these studies ,measured pesticide metabolite excretion during the different treatment diets. All of the studies noticed a substantial reduction in pesticide excretion during the organic food phase of the trial. This means that once the participants were put on the organic food phase the researches noted little to no pesticide excretion (for the pesticides they were looking for), Some of these studies have made waves on social media platforms as of late and I understand why. It is alarming to see that after just a few days on organic foods, children are peeing out much less pesticide metabolites. The problem with making hasty conclusions about this is that the amounts of pesticide metabolites found in the urine samples do not speak to toxicity levels. Detection of pesticides also existed in the organic food phases and yet his doesn’t mean that organic foods are toxic it just means that these highly effective devices can detect tiny amounts of metabolites. The other missed conclusion is that this shows just how effective our bodies are at getting rid of barely traceable levels of these compounds. This is the nuance missing from the fear laden narrative on social media and mass media platforms. Again, no organic pesticides were tested in these studies.

The adult studies looked at flavonoid and carotenoid excretion levels, antioxidant capacity, changes in body composition, lipids and other biomarkers. No major differences were found between the feeding phases. Quercetin and kaempferol levels were slightly higher in the organic feeding phase but the authors suggested that food variety differences may have accounted for this.

Several observational studies were also reviewed. These studies looked at health variables such as sperm quality, fertility, cancer incidence and changes in nutritional biomarkers.

One Danish study comparing the sperm health between organic farmers and non organic farmers showed a lower rate of morphologically normal sperm in non organic farmers but no difference in 14 other sperm health parameters. Farmers are known to have much higher exposure levels to pesticides. Farmers and pesticide production employees tend to be the ones who do suffer from toxicity issues. While I would take note of the above study I think it is most valuable in speaking for tighter regulations for farmers.

The Environment and Reproductive Health (EARTH) study looked at dietary pesticide exposure with women using assisted reproductive technology.They found a significant correlation between higher pesticide intake scores and lower birth probability as well as lower live birth rates, Due to many confounding factors this study is considered to be too flawed to be conclusive. The recent increase in fertility issues does warrant more study in this area. Even flawed, if women who are predisposed to fertility issues are possibly more sensitive to very low pesticide levels than we should keep looking into it.

The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study showed a reduced risk of pre-eclampsia with a higher organic vegetable intake. No association was found with organic fruits or dairy. The data came from a food frequency questionnaire which is not a very accurate measure. Many other prenatal health studies have relied on food or behaviour questionnaires and have later been deemed inconclusive. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to take note and continue studying this.

In one study looking at glyphosate and AMPA levels in lactating women, no levels of these chemicals were found in breast milk from either organic or non organic cohorts.

The KOALA birth cohort study looked at organic food consumption in pregnancy and early childhood. A mild association was found between organic dairy intake and lowered risk of eczema but there was no correlation with any other food types or overall organic food consumption. This cohort study also has some serious limitations due to confounding factors, namely that other dietary measures were adopted on top of organic foods, including added fermented foods, high plant food intake etc.

The Million Women Study out of the UK looked at cancer rates and organic food intake with a 9 year follow up. No reduction in cancer occurrence was found with an organic diet other than a small reduction in Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. A similar finding came out of a 4.5 year French study looking at 69,000 people where high organic food intake was negatively associated to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma risk as well as a slightly reduced risk in postmenopausal breast cancer. The Million Woman study found no association with post menopausal breast cancer. Observational studies are not ideal to make any grand conclusions from but I do think repeated findings suggest that a closer look into the negative correlation of organic vegetable intake and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma is warranted,

You might feel like this is a mixed bag of evidence for organic foods being healthier and I would agree with that. I do think that there are some important factors to take into consideration when making your food choices. One major confounding factor for many health studies concerning organic food intake is healthy user bias. In general, people who choose organic foods tend to do other things that benefit health outcomes. They exercise more, they have a more varied diet, they choose leaner meats, more plants, etc. They also tend to come from more comfortable economic situations. These variables are very hard to control for and make any conclusions difficult to stand by.

As mentioned earlier, pesticide studies ignore two things- that pesticides are still found in non organic foods (though at lower levels) and that none of these studies consider organic pesticides. Organic pesticides, due to their less effective nature are used at much higher quantities and are far less regulated. These compounds, though labeled “organic” are still toxic at high amounts. Studies need to be done looking at residue levels of these compounds as well and see if they are associated with health concerns . In addition, the health gurus trying to extrapolate conclusions from studies looking at pesticide residue need to take into consideration just how low the amounts are.

If you read my piece on Aspartame health risks then you will have heard me speak about these two important facts of chemistry – the dose is what makes the poison and everything natural is a chemical. We think of formaldehyde as a toxic chemical, indeed it can be. And yet we all produce 1.5 ounces of formaldehyde in our bodies each and every day. Not only that but bananas, pears, grapes and apples all have relatively high amounts of formaldehyde in them and when we eat them, we break them down and metabolize it directly. The carnivore cult isn’t safe either as meat, poultry and fish all contain this ‘toxic chemical’.

I understand the reflex to assume that organic is always better. I also understand the cognitive dissonance when trying to figure out if pesticides are safe. You may think you intuitively feel inclined to choose organic, that your gut is telling you what is true. I also get that. But what I think is probably also happening is that a narrative has been built around a 65 billion dollar industry. For over 35 years the organic farming industry has been ramping up its stake in your mind, trying to work on the appeal to nature fallacy. People who study intuition suggest that it is still based on learned behaviour patterns. That much of our brain processing happens subconsciously and that intuition is built over time through advertising, snippets of conversation we aren’t paying attention to and other cues. This is why sometimes we need to break our algorithms to see if we are missing some key information, I don’t necessarily agree with supporters of traditional farming that there seems to be no risk. I think the science so far points towards low risk and low nutritional benefit. I think theres a tendency towards too much bravado when saying things are definite. There isn’t that much data to rely on.

From the evidence cited above I would bet that there are some mild benefits to eating organic foods. But by no means is there solid evidence for a significant difference. For the vast majority of us, making the choice for organic fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy means a sizeable increase in budget. For my clients this may make the difference towards omitting certain fruits or vegetables entirely and this is the reason I spent dozens of hours combing these studies. By no means is the science finished, it never is. As we learn more my understanding may change but for now it appears that the benefits of eating any type of whole food outweighs the slight advantage organic foods may have. My advice is to buy organic if you can and want to. Look for frozen organic foods as a cheaper alternative and buy non organic for the rest. Or if you can’t afford it, don’t worry about it. You will get the vast majority of the nutrients found in organic produce and the health risks are low to none. You will have a much bigger impact on health and longevity by focusing on a balanced diet, exercising enough and managing your sleep and stress.

SUMMARY

• The Committee of Nutrition, Council on Environmental Health and Academy of American Pediatrics have concluded no meaningful deficit or gain in nutritional value or health benefit or disease when eating an organic diet.
• The organic food industry is worth 69 billion dollars in the US and climbing.
• A meta analysis of 223 studies showed trivial nutritional benefits in produce and a slight improvement of Omega 3 in organic in milk and poultry.
• The same study suggested a 30% absolute risk difference with regards to exposure to pesticide residue. 38% risk with non organic and a 7% risk with organic foods. This is an exposure risk to”detectable levels’ not toxic levels.
• Critics of this meta analysis suggest poor methodology and problems with the statistical analysis of risk. Some critics point to another meta analysis as a better source.
• This other meta analysis suggests that some organic foods contain more vitamin C and a 12% increase of defence related secondary metabolites. Critics suggest similar issues with the methodology in this study.
• Some non organic foods contain slightly more nutrients and some organic foods have more. Comparing the two has proven difficult as you need to control for variables such as climate, soil health, fertilizers, environmental dilution and genetic dilution.
• Studies looking at single food substitution from organic to non organic or vice versa have shown no difference in nutrient levels through blood and urine samples.
• SImilar studies looking at antioxidant capacity and DNA damage also showed no difference.
• Research on whole diet substitution had some interesting results. Children fed organic foods for 4-5 days showed a substantial decrease in pesticide metabolite excretion. This makes sense with the above meta analysis assessment of increased pesticide exposure risk.
• Importantly, the metabolite excretion does not speak to toxic levels of pesticides, only to detection and efficient excretion – even at minute levels.
• Adult research on whole diet substitution showed higher blood or urine levels of Quercetin and Kaempferol in the organic feeding phase. Unfortunately food varieties were not adequately controlled for and could account for the differences.
• An anomaly in 1 out of 15 sperm health parameters was found in a study looking at organic vs non organic farmers.
• A study looking at women with fertility issues showed lower rates of live births and clinical pregnancy probability with women who scored higher on dietary intake of fruits and vegetables considered high pesticide residue foods. No pesticide metabolites were tested for, the data was collected through a questionnaire after the outcomes of the assisted reproductive treatment.
• Organic vegetable intake was associated with a lowered risk of pre-eclampsia in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study. Methodological issue make these conclusions iffy.
• Two large studies looking at organic food intake and cancer incidence showed lower risk for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma with people who ate more organic. No other reduction in cancer occurrence was found. One of the studies showed a negative correlation with organic diet and post menopausal breast cancer but the bigger study did not.
• Healthy user bias is a major confounding factor for large studies on the health benefits of organic foods. People who tend to eat organic foods also tend to eat a more balanced diet, exercise and prioritize other health measures.
• Studies looking at pesticide residue exposure need to clearly communicate that the vast majority of levels these studies look at are much lower than the regulated risk levels.
• We need studies looking at the risk of organic pesticides as well. They tend to be less effective and so are used in much higher quantities. Just because something is labelled organic does not mean it is safe at all exposure levels.
• The evidence is a mixed bag but predominantly points to non organic foods being safe and healthy.
• The science will continue to roll out, looking at nutrient quality and quantities as well as more specific possible mechanisms of harm with low level exposure to pesticides. This is great. Science is a self correcting methodology and our best bet in understanding the complexity of this issue.
• In the meantime, making food choices when on a budget should be easier than it is these days. lMany people look to health personalities online and are overwhelmed by the hyperbole surrounding organic foods and pesticide use. Knowing that you can get the vast majority of your nutrients from cheaper, traditionally farmed foods should be a relief. This is good news! Yet the gurus will deny and try and sell you their unregulated supplements.
• You should feel at ease buying organic when you want, if you can but otherwise just stick to what is affordable and available.

If you would like to set up a consultation for help with a nutrition program, my contact information is here. I would love to help and you can rest assured I will bring as much nuance as I can to the table. I strongly believe that sitting too firmly in one diet camp is unnecessarily limiting.

Louis Pasteur performed the the first successful pasteurization test in 1862. This test was performed on wine because clearly they had their priorities straight. This process was then used on eggs, milk, juice and beer: all products that had microbial overgrowth issues.

Pasteurization is the application of heat in order to destroy yeast pathogens and mold without affecting the taste or make-up of the product. The intensity of the heat and the length of the process depends on the acidity level of the food or drink being processed. This heating along with refrigeration increase the safety and the shelf life of the product. Yes, part of the ingenuity allowed for more product to be sold to more people. Widespread availability of safe nutritious food/drink while making a profit. This is ideal.

The most commonly used process is called High Temperature Short Time (HTST) Pasteurization. This involves high heat for 15 seconds or longer followed by a cooling.period. There are several other kinds of pasteurization methods that involve different ways to heat and package the products to increase the shelf life or avoid refrigeration. Some take under 1 second to heat.

Mandatory pasteurization laws were first implemented in New York city in 1910 and after clear evidence of reduced illness and deaths more cities and states began implementing similar laws. In 1973 the U.S. federal government made pasteurization of milk compulsory for any interstate commerce. Canada introduced similar laws in 1991, lowering the rates of food poisoning dramatically.

Raw milk can carry dangerous bacteria including Salmonella, Campylobacter, E coli, Listeria and others which cause food borne illnesses. Recently, wellness influencers use the presence of some of these germs on produce as a sign that it is normal and so it is safe to drink raw milk. They will often cite stats showing the number of listeria outbreaks from pasteurized milk as much higher than that of raw milk. But the data shown does not represent percentages. Because raw milk is illegal to sell in most places in the U.S. so the opportunity for outbreaks is drastically lower. We would need to see percentage of outbreaks matching with product sold to get a clearer picture and when we do this, we see that the risk is higher with raw milk.

The germs mentioned above can cause serious illness or even death. People with weakened immune systems are at a much higher risk, so pregnant women, the elderly, children and those suffering from chronic illness should all steer clear of raw milk. Indeed the vast majority of food borne illnesses from the 202 outbreaks between1998-2018 (in the U.S.) were in children.

In all the single state outbreaks recorded between 2013-2018 ,78% of them occurred in states where sale of raw milk was expressly allowed. The chance of outbreak was 4x higher in states where sale was allowed in retail stores vs states where sale was solely permitted on farms. Clearly, the more lax the laws, the greater the number of outbreaks. But for some reason, the risk of food borne illness is not enough to deter some from drinking it while pregnant and giving it to their children. Much of the fervour for raw milk seems to lay in some common myths circulating the social media sphere. Let’s look at a few of them.

MYTH #1 – RAW MILK CURES LACTOSE INTOLERANCE

All milk contains the disaccharide lactose. The lactose concentration in cows milk is about 4.8% and raw milk does not contain any lactase within it to help breakdown the lactose. The claim you will find on social media is that naturally occurring probiotics in raw milk produce lactase, allowing lactose intolerant people to drink it. This is a far cry from curing lactose intolerance but it is also wrong. The confusion may come from data showing that yogurt eases lactose malabsorption in subjects with lactose intolerance. The mechanism appears to be lactase secreted by microorganisms, specifically Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus. But raw milk does not contain the same types nor the same amounts of bacteria and so it does not have this affect of lowering intolerance. The bacteria in raw milk are NOT considered probiotics because they are pathogenic. The bacteria in raw milk are often from infected udder tissue, the animals environment or from equipment used to milk them. If bacteria exist it is often because the animal is ill or the environment is contaminated.

The two bacteria found in raw milk that are of human origin are Streptococcus pyogenes and Bifidobacteria. The former is sometimes transmitted from humans to animals and then retransmitted to humans as a pathogen which causes strep throat. The latter is often excreted in animal feces and so if your raw milk contains Bifidobacteria then it is most likely contaminated with fecal matter and the farm you are buying milk from practices poor processing hygiene. Yet this is the “good bacteria’ that raw milk enthusiasts persist is what cures lactose intolerance.

MYTH #2 – RAW MILK IS MORE NUTRITIOUS

If you google nutrient differences you will find a myriad of blogs suggesting that pasteurized milk is lacking in beneficial microbes (nope. see above section), minerals, vitamins, fat, protein, immunoglobulins, etc. But if you actually dig to see what the studies have shown you find that there is no evidence that these claims are true. As seen in this study, the heating process of pasteurization does not effect the nutritional quality of milk. Minor denaturation of whey protein (less than 7%) occurs in heating but no changes to protein quality. A slight diminishing of some vitamins occurs during pasteurization but the only vitamin that has any significant concentration level to begin with is b12. Again the loss of b12 is minimal, usually under 10%. For reference, one glass of pasteurized milk holds about 50% of your necessary daily intake of b12. If you eat 2 eggs with your glass of milk then you have reached your daily quota. The risks of raw milk do not warrant the bump in b12 of maybe 10%.

Minerals are very stable and do not change under heat processing. Nor do the fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A and E..The most likely culprits of any nutrition losses are packaging materials, light exposure, storage time and temperatures as well as feed choices. People who prop up raw milk as a superior form probably confuse the fact that pasture raised cows or goats produce different nutrient quality than those in common farming practices. If you get pasteurized milk from farms that follow pasture raising practices then you will see a nutritional bump. It’s not the processing but rather the feed methods.

MYTH #3 – RAW MILK CONTAINS IMMUNOGLOBULINS THAT IMPROVE IMMUNE FUNCTION

Immunoglobulin concentrations in cows milk re inconsequentially low with regards to human health. They sit somewhere between 0,6-1.0mg/ml (reference). Interestingly, the main immunoglobulin found in milk (igG) is quite heat stable and a study using HTST pasteurization method showed only a 1% denaturation. Other researchers have even suggested that the heating process may improve the binding potential of immunoglobulins in humans.

MYTH #4 – FOLATE BINDING PROTEIN IS DENATURED DURING PASTEURIZATION

If you want to increase your folate, milk is a bad choice. 1 cup gets you about 10-16 micrograms and you need roughly 400 micrograms per day. So unless you want to drink 25 cups of milk every day…maybe this isn’t the argument you should be standing behind. Either way, studies have found that moderate heating levels show very little to no folate or folate binding protein loss.

The mythology does not end here. There are several other lies including raw milk being better at preventing osteoporosis, that it cures asthma and that it contains more enzymes and lipases that aid in digestion. None of these are true, in fact when the so called helpful lipases are present in raw milk, it is due to contamination and is usually associated with elevated pathogens.

I just want to be clear, I am not saying that raw milk is always bad for you or always going to contain pathogens. Healthy cows under sterile environments and clean storage practices can be safe and healthy. The question is, given the elevated health risk, does the potential benefit warrant taking it? I have yet to see any solid evidence that it is., not for myself and definitely not for my kids.

I am an advocate for science literacy and this includes knowledge on farming practices, processing and storage methods. The message that people have fear attached to the lack of general education on how foods are processed is not inherently bad. But we can use nuanced, science driven conversation to quell most of these fears. At times, the drive to profits may lead to unnecessary risks in product placement and this is one of the reasons we need out institutions. The food babe is not qualified to monitor this complex system of chemistry, farming, nutrition, health and safety, never mind educate the public. I am not either. But I try hard to stick to the science and I reference those who are qualified.

More damage is done when influencers post sensationalized information that drives more fear and distrust. Even more harm is done when this information includes propping up foods or supplements that are clearly more hazardous to peoples health than the alternatives. Lets not forget, the wellness industry is bigger than “big pharma” now. These influencers are making a profit too and the less regulation, the easier it is for them to rake it in.

Many of the same lies attached to pasteurized milk are attached to seed oils. We don’t have a complete understanding of nutrition and health, we probably never will because it is very complex but when making food choices it is best to look for evidence based information. Sometimes you will fall short of certainty and then going with an educated guess from a qualified practitioner along with your intuition should make you feel good about your decision. Avoid the camps. Food does not need to be an ideology and remember that most healthy practices lay in the middle ground, the boring old middle, far away from the butter brick chewing internet dorks.

If you are lost and need some help putting together an individualized nutrition plan that is based off of science, experience and common sense , contact me here and I would be happy to set up a consultation.

Much love,

J

Our Longevity Designed Classes encompass training programs that enhance cellular function, improve stability & functional movement patterns, increase blood-oxygen capacity and build strength and power. This is a far cry from Cross Fit. We are not trying to maximize muscle mass, strength or power. We are trying to optimize function and capacity. We do away with redundancies and focus on the incremental steps it takes to increase lifespan and thrive our way through it.

Building muscle is part of this, but we focus more on strength and performance, rather than size or aesthetics. Yo really impact hhealth span and lifespan you need to address other aspects of life – nutrition, sleep, stress, everyday activity levels, relationships, etc. We do offer full nutrition programs as well (see here) and can advise on stress management and sleep tools but we prefer to refer out to other professionals while we focus on your exercise regimen. If you need help outside of this we have a network of people we respect.

The 3 day/week classes are split so that we can address all aspects of training. Homework programs are also offered.

EXAMPLE WEEK

Monday – Stability day – each week will look slightly different so that we can address each stability driven joint – 45 minutes

Wednesday – VO2 max day – High Intensity cardio intervals 30-40 min

Thursday – Strength day- Full body workout that alternates between eccentric/isometrics, slow moving day and balistic strength days – 60 minutes

Classes are designed 1 month at a time. If you miss a class then you miss out on that program, there are no make-ups unless a trainer needs to cancel. This allows us to plan the classes so they evolve functionally and so we can track progress accordingly. It also keeps everyone accountable!

Groups are a maximum of 5 people for 1 trainer. We want to make sure everyone gets ample one on one guidance.

SCHEDULE

Monday 8am

Wednesday 8am

Thursday 8am

If you are only available in the evening, contact us and we will start a waiting list.

RATES

$300 per month (12 sessions)

Contact us for more info or to put your name on the list.

You might argue that we can understand context without explicitly mentioning it. But this is an assumption that goes against what we know about the strength of cognitive biases and black and white thinking patterns. Indeed because of this kind of thinking and slogan chanting we lost 70 years of research into the potential of psychedelics for the treatment of conditions such as PTSD, depression and addiction.

Another all or nothing phrase I have begun to see as problematic is “chemical free” or “chemicals are toxic”. I wrote about this about 12 years ago when I did a piece on aspartame. Unfortunately it has been lost to the data cloud gods and so I can’t quote it directly nor provide a link. But I began with a breakdown of the chemical composition of the baddie sweetener. Let’s start there. This is the chemical makeup –

N-l-α-aspartyl-l-phenylalanine methyl ester or 3-amino-N-(α-carboxyphenethyl)succinamic acid N-methyl ester

If your hackles are up already because of this long, hard to pronounce name take a breath and look at the chemical name of Vitamin C –

5R)-[(1S)-1,2-Dihydroxyethyl]-3,4-dihydroxyfuran-2(5H)-one

Or vitamin A –

(2E,4E,6E,8E)-3,7-dimethyl-9-(2,6,6-trimethylcyclohex-1-en-1-yl)nona-2,4,6,8-tetraen-1-ol

Just because it has a complex name does not make it inherently toxic and everything is a chemical. The toxicity for aspartame, as for vitamin A (or any other compound you can ingest) depends on the dose. But let’s table that for now and look at the different parts of aspartame. Aspartame is made up of 2 amino acids; phenylalanine and aspartic acid, both of which occur naturally in our body and in food. A slight modification has been made to the phenylalanine by adding a methyl group. This is what gives aspartame its sweet flavour and is approximately 200x sweeter than sugar. Methyl groups are highly stable consisting of one carbon atom bonded to three hydrogen atoms (CH3). You usually see it as part of a larger molecule but can also be found alone in nature. It is indeed, natural.

When ingested, aspartame is broken down in the gut by enzymes. These enzymes break down the proteins into smaller molecules called peptides (phenylalanine and aspartic acid) which are then absorbed into the gut and used as building blocks to make protein somewhere else in the body or used for energy (this is really simplified but suffice for this conversation). So far so good, but what happens to the lab modified methyl group? This sweet sweet methyl group gets broken down into methanol. Methanol is made in the body when we eat certain foods, including fruits and vegetables but mainly citrus fruits. sounds innocuous, however we do know that methanol can be toxic at high levels such as from ingesting large quantities of home distilled alcohols. We also know that one of methanols oxidation products is formaldehyde, which is not something we think of as healthy . But before we can nix the sweetener due to its methanol content we need to go back to the earlier principle of the dose is the poison. What kind of exposure do we have when we ingest aspartame at normal levels and can our bodies remove the methanol byproducts or not?

Some of you who have a strong bias towards not adding chemical compounds to your diet are probably already leaning into your bias. Try and hold off. Remember that vitamin A is also a chemical, a set of molecules bonded together to form a larger molecule. We have use for some of its byproducts and we excrete what we don’t need. But if we ingest too much vitamin A, our filtering system becomes overloaded and we have abdominal pain, irritability, drowsiness and vomiting. The toxic overload consequences of some essential nutrients -nutrients we need to survive – includes death. Bare with me for a bit longer and let me woo you to the dark side…the sweetest side of all the sides…

We humans have an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) that functions to break down ethanol into aldehyde, ketones and other alcohol metabolites. For Methanol, ADH first breaks it down into formaldehyde and then aldrohyde dehydrogenase breaks it down further into formic acid. Formic acid is benign in small quantities but can be toxic in large amounts and is part of the animal kingdom and plant world’s defences as is seen in bee venom, fire ant bites and stinging nettle. It has a low toxicity grade, meaning the quantity required to produce adverse affects is quite high, way above any quantities seen through food additives.

Formic acid is easily metabolized and excreted by the human body as long as we avoid concentrated doses. AT such high concentrations formic acid can cause damage to the optic nerve and blindness as is seen in methanol poisoning. There is some evidence that chronic occupational exposure to concentrated formic acid may result in kidney damage. This is not related to ingestion quantities but rather people who are exposed to this compound as part of an industrial solution. It has no bearing on health safety with sweeteners but I want to cover all bases so we have a deep understanding of the compounds we are dealing with. We should be able to fully accept that one compound can nutritious or benign and yet also toxic at high enough concentrations.

Let’s look at an example of human ingestion safety levels based off of a 3 month controlled/blind study on 43 individuals with type 2 diabetes. A person weighing approximately 200 lbs. is fed 1.8 grams of aspartame (this is the equivalent of 6.8 litres of diet soda) in one sitting. Blood levels show no remaining aspartame or metabolites but urine samples do show clear levels for up to 8 hours after ingestion. No evidence of toxicity found as all the metabolites were eliminated at the usual pace of liquid metabolization and nothing was found in the blood. No negative symptoms were reported by the participants.

In over 100 other studies performed after product approval, no negative symptoms have been shown any causal relation to aspartame use at the regulated dosage.

2 small case studies suggested a link between contact dermatitis and aspartame as well as migraines and aspartame. The theory for both is that a tiny percentage of the population may have a sensitivity to one of the metabolites. Possibly formaldehyde. But in no way is this a general conclusion as the vast majority of studies on the safety and metabolism of aspartame show no negative symptoms at and much beyond the regulated doses. Just like for vitamin A, C, K and many other essential nutrients, once you overload the elimination system, things get sticky. It is very important to understand this when making food choices.

Even phenylalanine can cause harm in people who are unable to digest it properly. We see developmental issues in the foetus of mothers who take in high doses of this amino acid if they can not process it. But this is a disease that approximately 450 000 people have worldwide. The same doses for the rest of the population have no effect on the mother nor the baby. Almost every food that you can think of that has protein in it contains this amino acid. So once again, it is both nutritious and possibly toxic. These are not mutually exclusive things, it depends on the dose and or sensitivity.

It makes sense to be asking yourself, why is this guy trying to convince me to drink Coke Zero? I’m not. When I work with clients with nutrition programs, I often have to begin with trade-offs. If someone is in a desperate situation and they need to lose weight quickly in order to stave off cardiovascular damage, metabolic issues, diabetes etc., then we may need to take the path of least resistance in order to make some quick progress. One of these paths has been to switch from regular soda to diet soda. Somewhere down the line, we work on weening off of all sodas or transitioning to plain soda water with lemon. The diet sodas may not be calorie dense or have the same effect on your blood glucose but they do stimulate your brain in similar ways to sugar and so the sugar cravings may continue. This is just a temporary trade-off for an important win in the weight loss category.

The other reason I am writing this is to continue in the vein of science literacy. Though I have not listed many studies in this post I am trying to give nuance to the conversation being had online right now about the burden of “toxic foods.” You may see such personalities as Casey Means, Mark Hyman, Rhonda Patrick, Joe Rogan or Ben Greenfield use words such as poison or toxin when speaking about foods or ingredients. And while some highly processed foods may contain ingredients that are not necessarily good for you, understanding that the dose is the poison can relieve the fear factor.

Recently I cam across a video published by Rhonda Patrick (whom I have much respect for and still follow closely) citing a huge list of “toxins” that are found in food or food containers. She offered some evidence for a few select compounds but mainly stuck with conclusions based on research that I saw no references for. A closer look at the reference of Aspartame as a possible carcinogen found it to basically be the opposite. The IARC has listed it as 2B – a possible carcinogen. The same category as Aloe. Because there are some animal studies that at very high doses have some inconclusive evidence of cancer causing mechanisms they need to make this classification. But they specify that this does NOT mean it is cancerous and are not concluding that it is. I understand the confusion but the deeper dive is necessary before alarming your audience. What does the person who has switched to diet sodas for the last 2 years to lose weight think after seeing her video? No one can get it right all the time. I sure as hell have not. But we can produce less content and be better at making our statements when we are unsure. Avoid sitting in any one “camp” when it comes to nutrition science or diet fads. Just take the information as it comes and adapt if need be. We don’t need to identify with how we eat.

Would it be better if these foods were not so widely available for cheap prices? It would be. But they are not going away any time soon so we need to clearly and calmly educate each other on how to navigate the food world. I feel zero guilt having a diet soda if for some weird reason I get a random craving a couple times a year. I would still have no guilt if it was every month because I feel safe in knowing that though I am not maximizing my nutrition intake, I am also not being pumped full of poison. I may change my mind if new evidence comes about. But so far aspartame is not the evil sweetener it has been made out to be. It is not cancerous at the tiny dose we get in foods, especially if our diet is mostly comprised of whole foods.

If you have comments or questions, please feel free to leave them here. Or if you would like to set up a consultation for a nutrition program contact me here. I have worked with people with all sorts of chronic illnesses as well as competitive athletes that need highly individualized programs. I bring nuance and science to each program. No fads, no non evidence based restrictions or supplements.