The Ancestral RDs Podcast

We have another Q&A episode this week! Thank you to everyone who has submitted questions so far, and we hope you’re enjoying the podcast. Here are the questions that Laura and Kelsey address in this episode: I would like to know more about cravi...

We have another Q&A episode this week! Thank you to everyone who has submitted questions so far, and we hope you’re enjoying the podcast. Here are the questions that Laura and Kelsey address in this episode: I have read a lot lately about the be...

Thank you to everyone who has submitted questions so far, and we hope you’re enjoying the podcast. Laura is also very happy to announce that she has finally earned her RD degree and will now be taking private clients. Now we have two RDs in our “Ask the RD” podcast! Here are the questions that Laura and Kelsey address in this episode: I would like to ask whether chia, flax, sunflower and pumpkin seeds fall within the paleo diet. Can I harm my health by eating a few tablespoons of these seeds on a daily basis? I usually put them into a breakfast smoothie. There’s a lot of talk in regard to exercise about ‘minimum effective dose’ or how to achieve the best results with limited time. I would be really interested to hear you discuss the ‘minimum effective dose’ of animal products. I think this would open up the paleo diet to a broader audience, including those that don’t want to eat a lot of meat for various personal reasons, whether that be ethics, spirituality, environmental values, or simply personal preferences. If you were to design a diet that is mostly vegetarian (so includes dairy products and eggs), but adds just a few key animal products that fill in the gaps normally left by a vegetarian diet. What would be the, say, five key animal products that you would add that would give the most bang for the buck and also be palatable for someone with more vegetarian sensibilities? Links Discussed: Chris Masterjohn: Understanding Essential Fatty Acids Chris Kresser: Why fish stomps flax as a source of omega-3 Chris Kresser: Essential fatty acids: not so essential after all Go Raw Sprouted Pumpkin Seeds 3-Ingredient Chia Pudding Recipe Great Lakes Gelatin Hydrolyzed and Regular Fermented Cod Liver Oil/Butter Oil Blend TRANSCRIPT Thanks again to Amy Berger of TuitNutrition.com for the amazing transcription! LAURA: Hey everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of Ask the RD. I’m Laura, and on the other end of the line is Kelsey. How are you doing this week, Kelsey? KELSEY: Doing pretty well, how about yourself, Laura? LAURA: Good, I’m just preparing to take my RD exam finally, so… KELSEY: Yikes! LAURA: So hopefully the next time I’m on this show, it’ll be actually legitimate Ask the RD. KELSEY: Right, double RDs. Excellent. LAURA: We can change it to Ask the RDs, plural! KELSEY: Perfect. Well, good luck! LAURA: Thanks. All right, well, are you ready to get started with our first question? KELSEY: Yeah, and this one’s for you. LAURA: Cool. KELSEY: I would like to ask whether chia, flax, sunflower and pumpkin seeds fall within the Paleo diet. Can I harm my health by eating a few tablespoons of these seeds on a daily basis? I usually put them into a breakfast smoothie. LAURA: Okay, so I actually think it’s a really good habit to have a few nuts and seeds every day. And it’s generally not something that will harm your health unless you have a condition that is sensitive to nuts and seeds, such as an autoimmune disease. And even though seeds are somewhat higher in omega-6 fats, they do have a lot of health benefits to them that I think make them worth eating. They’re generally pretty high in a lot of different nutrients, and a few of them are really high in omega-3 fats, but we need to talk about the various nutritional benefits of eating seeds, since I think there’s a slight misconception that they’re not healthy for you because of their omega-6 content. And I do want to address the omega-3 issue, because as many of our listeners probably know, the omega-3s that come from seeds is different from the omega-3 that comes from fatty fish, eggs, and that kind of thing. So, one of the major fats in these seeds is called alpha-linolenic acid, which is the plant form of omega-3, and it is an anti-inflammatory fat that does lower levels of C-reactive protein in the blood. And like I said, it’s important to remember that alpha-linolenic acid, which I’ll refer to as ALA,

We have another Q&A episode this week! Thank you to everyone who has submitted questions so far, and we hope you’re enjoying the podcast. Here are the questions that Laura and Kelsey address in this episode: My question is regarding Paleo Weight Gain. I have been Paleo for few years but don’t do any of the Paleo dessert cheating with nutbreads, muffins, sugar substitutes etc. No grains or sugar including honey or other substitutes. No fruit or nuts as these make me gain weight. I do include bone broth, cheese and butter and other good fats. In fact I have increased the fats in my diet significantly – coconut oil, coconut milk, avocado, olive oil, butter. Lots of vegetables and meat – everything is organic and/or grass fed as this is easy to get in Australia. I do have a couple of coffees every day with coconut oil/MTC blended. I eat 3 meals a day with no snacking as I don’t feel hungry between meals with the increased fats. I walk at a moderate pace for 1 hour a day, and I do yoga about 3 times a week. No intense cardio. 

My problem is that I am gaining weight. If these foods don’t spike insulin then why am I gaining weight, because all the low carb podcasts seem to agree that its insulin spiking foods that trigger fat storage. My fasting blood sugar averages about 80 mg/dL and goes up to about 90 mg/dL after eating – so its not spiking. I’m really confused and starting to think I have to go back to a more conventional calorie counting method, but this would mean cutting out the fats as they are so high. Is there a supplement I can take when eating gas producing foods? I have trouble with many of my favorite foods such as broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cabbage. I don’t want to eliminate them from my diet. Links Discussed: Stephan Guyenet on the Carbohydrate Hypothesis of Obesity Calorie Needs Estimator Calorie Counting Website List of Paleo FODMAPs TRANSCRIPT Thank you again to Amy Berger of TuitNutrition.com for the excellent transcription. LAURA: Hey everyone! Thanks for joining us for this week’s Ask the RD podcast. I’m Laura Schoenfeld and on the other end is Kelsey Marksteiner. How are you doing today, Kelsey? KELSEY: Doing well, Laura, how about you? LAURA: Good! A little cold…we’re about to enter a cold front for the second time this year. KELSEY: Oh, yeah. I know, here, I’m in Massachusetts now and we just had a nice, lovely snowstorm that coated all the trees, so the nature is just beautiful. LAURA: Yeah, well I’m about to head to North Carolina, so I’m excited to escape, hopefully, snow for a long time. KELSEY: Yeah, lucky you. LAURA: Yeah. So, okay, I think we’re ready to get started with our first question, and the first one’s for me, right, Kelsey? KELSEY: It is. All right, so here we go. “My question is regarding Paleo weight gain. I have been Paleo for a few years but don’t do any of the Paleo dessert cheating with nutbreads, muffins, sugar substitutes etc. No grains or sugar including honey or other substitutes. No fruit or nuts, as these make me gain weight. I do include bone broth, cheese, and butter and other good fats. In fact I have increased the fats in my diet significantly—coconut oil, coconut milk, avocado, olive oil, butter. Lots of vegetables and meat – everything is organic and/or grass-fed as this is easy to get in Australia. I do have a couple of coffees every day with coconut oil or MTC oil blended. I eat 3 meals a day with no snacking, as I don’t feel hungry between meals with the increased fats. I walk at a moderate pace for 1 hour a day, do yoga about 3 times a week, and no intense cardio. My problem is that I’m gaining weight. If these foods don’t spike insulin then why am I gaining weight? Because all the low carb podcasts seem to agree that it’s insulin spiking foods that trigger fat storage. My fasting blood sugar averages about 80 mg/dL and goes up to about 90 mg/dL after eating – so it’s not spiking.

We have another Q&A episode this week! Sorry about the double intro, but we didn’t realize our new and improved introduction would be ready for this episode! (And Laura apologizes for being a bit spacey this week, since she stayed up watching the BCS bowl game the night before recording and was running on a sleep deficit. Just goes to show you the power of a good night’s sleep!) Here are the questions that Laura and Kelsey address in this episode: I’ve been doing paleo for 12 years and take magnesium supplements, as well as some others, but I still get some cramps in my legs and feet every so often, even when just walking around the house. I’m wondering if I’m not absorbing the magnesium well? Thanks. I have been suffering from Laryngophosageal [sic] Reflux (LPR) for two years and have tried everything. A friend suggested Paleo and I have been following it for several weeks without any change in my LPR symptoms. Do you think I should continue on with Paleo or do you have any other ideas? Links Discussed: Chris’s podcast on nighttime cramps Magnesium Malate Bone meal powder Cramp Bark tea (check with your doctor, don’t take if pregnant) Epsom salts Anti-GERD diet  Why Stomach Acid is Good for You (Book Review) TRANSCRIPT Thanks to Amy Berger for working so hard on these transcripts! She has a great article on the role stomach acid plays in GERD, so check it out if you’re interested. LAURA: Hi everyone! Welcome to this week’s episode of Ask the RD. I’m Laura. I have a Master’s in public health nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill, and I’ll have my RDat the end of 2013 (hopefully soon!). KELSEY: And I’m Kelsey, a Registered Dietitian with a Master’s in nutrition and functional medicine. LAURA: Thanks for joining us for this week’s Ask the RD podcast. We’re excited to be here and we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about nutrition-related topics. Remember to submit your nutrition-related questions through the online submission form, which we’ve linked to on Chris’s site. We’ll be answering your questions on the show, so feel free to submit as many as you’d like. And as a reminder to everyone, this is just general advice and should not be used in place of medical advice from a licensed professional. So are you ready to get started with our podcast, Kelsey? KELSEY: Yeah, and this first question’s for you, Laura. “I’ve been doing Paleo for twelve years and take magnesium supplements as well as some others, but I still get some cramps in my legs and feet every so often, even when just walking around the house. I’m wondering if I’m not absorbing the magnesium well. Thanks.” LAURA: Okay, so first I want to just give a little disclaimer if my voice cracks, as you might have seen in the intro, I was up kind of late watching the BCS Bowl last night, so I have a little sore throat this morning but I’ll do my best to plow through this question. Okay, so I do think this is a really good question because it’s a common problem for people that are new to Paleo, and muscle cramps are generally caused by an imbalance of electrolytes, such as potassium, calcium, magnesium, or sodium, and this can be from dietary deficiency, illness, or excessive exercise, which are the most common reasons. However, muscle cramps can also be caused by a number of other problems as well, and when I was doing some research, I came up with a list of all the issues I could find that can cause muscle cramping, and this includes sitting or standing in one position for too long; certain medications; anemia; inactivity; fibromyalgia; hormone imbalances; allergies; arthritis, atherosclerosis; dehydration; hypothyroidism; varicose veins; and ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. So you can see that there are many different factors that could be playing into this particular person’s cramps. However, I’m going to focus on the most common treatments that should be tried first if people are suffering from frequent cramps,

Laura and Kelsey will be addressing the following topics in this podcast: Are there things I can do nutrition-wise that will help promote better sleep habits? I have started doing the Paleo diet but I need to gain about five pounds so what can I do to gain weight? I’ve only been on Paleo about 3 weeks and haven’t lost anymore weight, but I am underweight so really need to gain about 4-5 pounds. Links discussed: Mark’s Daily Apple: 7 Ways You Might Be Inadvertently Sabotaging a Good Night’s Sleep Balanced Bites: Dense Carb Sources on a Paleo Diet (includes PDF chart) Effects of food on cortisol and mood in vulnerable subjects under controllable and uncontrollable stress. High-glycemic-index carbohydrate meals shorten sleep onset. New therapeutic strategy for amino acid medicine: glycine improves the quality of sleep. Regular Gelatin and Hydrolyzed Gelatin Whole Health Source: Stephan Guyenet’s articles on the “Food Reward Hypothesis” TRANSCRIPT Thanks to Amy Berger of www.tuitnutrition.com for volunteering to transcribe this episode! LAURA: Hi everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of Ask the RD. I’m Laura; I’m a graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill, studying public health and nutrition and I’ll have my RD at the end of 2013. KELSEY: And I’m Kelsey, a registered dietitian specializing in whole food ancestral diets, and I’m working on my master’s in nutrition and functional medicine. LAURA: Thanks for joining us for this week’s Ask the RD podcast. We’re excited to be here and hope you enjoy learning about nutrition-related topics. Remember to submit your nutrition-related questions through the online submission form, which we’ve linked to on Chris’s site. And we’ll be answering as many of your questions as we can on the show, so feel free to submit as many as you’d like. And as a reminder to everyone, this is just general advice and should not be used in place of medical advice from a licensed professional. So, you ready to get started with our podcast, Kelsey? KELSEY: Absolutely. So the first question is for you, Laura. LAURA: Cool. KELSEY: Are there things I can do nutrition-wise that will help promote better sleep habits? LAURA:  All right. Well, I really like this question because I think sleep habits not only are something that a lot of us need to work on, but they’re also a topic that, if you can get your sleep under control, then it can make a huge difference in your health. So I think doing nutritional strategies to improve your sleep is a really good idea for everyone. And in my opinion, the most important thing in promoting sleep for most people is trying to keep their stress hormones down, which I think is a huge factor that prevents many people from getting to sleep and staying asleep throughout the night. We already have a bunch of environmental or lifestyle factors working against us when it comes to our circadian and cortisol rhythms, such as bright and artificial light at night, not getting enough natural light during the day, exercising too close to bedtime, and simply getting in bed too late. And this is really common for most people. In fact, I’ll admit that I’ve struggled with all of these issues at some point in my life. KELSEY: Oh, me too. LAURA: And as you know, Kelsey, recently I was in an internship at a hospital, and I’m pretty sure that clinical dietitians have it written into their contracts that they’re not allowed to have an office with a window, because I was spending about 40 hours a week in complete artificial light from 9 to 5, which really wore me down after a while when I was at the hospital. KELSEY: Same for me. It’s terrible. I would never…well, I shouldn’t say never, but I would not like to work in a hospital ever again, just honestly because of that. I felt so crappy all the time. LAURA: Yeah, I agree. I mean, if I don’t get enough sunlight, I really don’t feel well. And it tends to be a serious issue for me.

This week in our Ask the RD podcast, we’re answering not one but two separate questions! We sincerely appreciate everyone submitting their great questions. Laura and Kelsey will be addressing the following topics in this podcast: Should I take probiotics on an empty stomach or with a meal? What do you think about the “eating for your blood type” diet? Links discussed: The impact of meals on a probiotic during transit through a model of the human upper gastrointestinal tract. Blood type diets lack supporting evidence: a systematic review. Probiotic chart ($15 for purchase, but lots of free resources too!) ABO Genotype, ‘Blood-Type’ Diet and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors (Published in 2014) TRANSCRIPT Thanks to Noelle Kahne for volunteering to transcribe this week’s podcast. LAURA: Hi everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of Ask the RD. I’m Laura; I’m a graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill studying public health and nutrition and I’ll have my RD at the end of 2013. KELSEY: And I’m Kelsey, a registered dietitian specializing in whole food, ancestral diets, and I’m working on my master’s in nutrition and functional medicine. LAURA: Thanks for joining us for this week’s Ask the RD podcast. We’re excited to be here and we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about nutrition-related topics. Remember to submit your nutrition-related questions through the online submission form, which we’ve linked to on Chris’s site. We’ll be answering your questions on the show, so feel free to submit as many as you want. As a reminder to everyone this is just general advice and should NOT be used in place of medical advice from a licensed professional. So let’s get started with our podcast. Kelsey, I think the first question that we have is for you. KELSEY: All right. LAURA: Should I take probiotics on an empty stomach, or with food? KELSEY: Excellent question. So first, I just want to talk a little bit about probiotic supplements in general and then move on to the crux of the question because I think a little bit of background information is useful here. First, it’s really important to think about probiotics in terms of what strains you’re introducing. And when I say strain I don’t just mean Lactobacillus acidophilus, I mean Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-5. That third letter number or name is really important. Just saying Lactobacillus acidophilus is just like saying ‘dog’, but what we’re looking for is the particular breed of dog, which would be equivalent to that strain of bacteria. And, the point being that we’re looking for something more specific. So once you know the actual strain of bacteria, you can look at research on it to see it’s survival in the gut, and it’s specific effects on body systems. The reason I bring this up is because if you buy a supplement that doesn’t specify that strain of bacteria, you really have no idea what the supplement is going to do because different strains have completely different effects on the body and completely different survival through the gastro-intestinal tract. So I really only recommend supplement companies that are willing to disclose which strains their products contain, because that means that they did the research, saw that those are really good strains to be using, that they’ve survived through the GI tract, and they’re being used for a particular purpose, and put them in a product. So if a supplement company doesn’t disclose that information, to me that means that either they don’t know that strain is important, or they know it’s important and they don’t put the best strain in or most researched strain in order to keep the price down. So they’ll use just a general lactobacillus acidophilus strain that they don’t even know what it is because it’s cheaper than lactobacillus acidophilus LA-5 or some well-researched strain. Either way, you know, whether they don’t know it’s important or they know it’s important and choose not to put it in there,

This week in our Ask the RD podcast, we’re focusing on food combining diets and whether or not there’s any science supporting those recommendations. We’ve received many questions about this topic so we’re going to cover the topic completely in today’s podcast. Laura and Kelsey will be addressing the following question in this podcast: 1. Is there any science behind the food combining diet? Links Discussed: Oil and salad study Stephan Guyenet on Food Reward Mark Sisson on Food Combining Paleologix Adaptagest Supplements TRANSCRIPT A big thank you to Amy Berger of tuitnutrition.com for the transcription of this episode.  LAURA:  Hi everyone. Welcome to the second episode of ask the RD. I’m Laura; I’m a graduate student at UNC Chapel Hill studying public health and nutrition, and I’ll have my RD at the end of 2013. KELSEY:  And I’m Kelsey, a registered dietitian specializing in whole food ancestral diets, and I’m working on my Master’s in nutrition and functional medicine. LAURA:  Thanks for joining us for our second edition of Ask the RD. We’re really excited that this is a new feature on Chris’s website and we hope that you’ll enjoy learning about nutrition-related topics. And just as a reminder, as always, this is just general advice and should not be used in place of medical advice from a licensed professional. Are we ready to get started with our podcast, Kelsey? KELSEY:  Sure! Okay, so I’m going to ask you this question. I know you’re going to do a of of talking about it but I’ll do some interjections here. So here we go. Is there any science behind food combining diets? LAURA:  Okay, so first what I want to do is explain to everyone what a food combining diet is. It’s not something that everyone’s always familiar with, and honestly, being an RD, we don’t often learn about this kind of stuff in school, so I had to do a little research for myself about what a food combining diet is. So the basic principle behind a food combining diet is that different foods require different pH levels to digest properly, and they all have different transit times in the GI tract. And the belief is that eating certain food combinations—specifically, protein-rich foods combined with carbohydrate-rich foods—these combinations are harder to digest, which supposedly decreases nutrient absorption, and also the combination of the foods supposedly would cause food to sit longer in the GI tract, which could promote gas, bloating, and the buildup of toxins from food not moving through quickly enough. So people who recommend food combining diets usually have specific recommendations for what type of foods to eat at the same time, and which foods to eat separately. One example of one of the more original food combining diets is called the Hay Diet, and that one has three different types of food. They’re  either acid, alkaline, or neutral. And this particular diet suggests that combining acid foods like meat, fish, and dairy, with alkaline foods like potatoes and rice, would lead to a buildup of toxins. Some people even suggest that the reason this would occur is because these foods require different types of enzymes that end up canceling each other out when used in the same meal. So, there are four common rules in food combining, depending on which food combining diet you’re looking at. Number one is to always eat fruit—and especially melons—on an empty stomach, or at least twenty minutes before eating anything else. Number two is to eat starches alone, or with cooked non-starchy vegetables. Number three is to eat meat, dairy, fish, and eggs, and other high-protein foods alone or with cooked non-starchy vegetables. And number four is to eat nuts, seeds, and dried fruit with raw vegetables. And these are all recommendations that aren’t really supported by any evidence, and most of them are actually myths. KELSEY:  Right. And I have to say, I tried to find research on this stuff, and there’s really just nothing, to be honest,

This was our first ever Ask the RD podcast. In it, we focus on adrenal fatigue. We've received a lot of questions about this topic so we tried to condense it into one podcast. We have two major questions that have come up frequently that Kelsey addresses in this podcast: What is adrenal fatigue and how do you get it? What are the dietary recommendations for treating adrenal fatigue?