The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 36. How to Read Ingredient Labels & What To Avoid | Ultimate Human Short with Gary Brecka

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brekka, where we go down the road, everything anti-aging, longevity, biohacking, and everything in between. You know, over the past few weeks, we've gotten thousands of requests about food labeling. People want to know how to better read food labels. So what I decided to do is insert a quick short on my top four no-nos that you can find on the back of food labels not because you haven't heard of these ingredients but because how these ingredients hide on food labels because the food industry is getting very crafty about using category summaries to avoid listing the direct ingredients so by no means is this meant to be an exhaustive list of

Starting point is 00:00:43 everything that's going to harm you cause cancer cancer, rip your gut apart, or give you dementia. This is meant to give you some solid basic ingredients that we can look for on the back of packaging so that we can make more informed choices. And we very often are not going to increase $1 in our budget and not going to change the flavor options, but have demonstratively better outcomes for our health. Again, the food industry has gotten really crafty using category summaries rather than direct ingredient names and labeling questionable ingredients

Starting point is 00:01:14 under terms like all natural or heart healthy or whole grain, and they're used in place of highly processed names. So I'm going to identify my top four no-nos on the ingredient labels. You can search for these, find healthier food options, and then stick to those brands in the future when you're back at the grocery store. This is not something you're going to have to do every single time you go into the grocery store. Once you learn which food choices have the best ingredients, you just continue to go back to those food choices, keep those in your pantry.

Starting point is 00:01:44 Number one, and I think everyone is gonna agree with this one, is high fructose corn syrup. 99% of you are already aware, but sometimes the abbreviations used to sneak this into food labels are ingredient labels that people are unaware of. High fructose corn syrup, by the way, has been chemically altered

Starting point is 00:02:02 to have very high concentrations of fructose and is labeled as, quote, all natural. So on the label, it will say all natural sugars, but in the ingredient list, you will see HFCS or the entire thing written out, high fructose corn syrup. And this is, again, the ironically very high levels of fructose, which rapidly increases the absorption rate. Remember, there's something called the glycemic index, which tells us how quickly something raises our blood sugar, not just whether or not it shows up in the blood as sugar. Yes, you also find fructose in natural forms in fruit. So when we find this in highly processed foods in the form of high fructose corn syrup, it does not stimulate insulin secretion the way that glucose does, and it doesn't impact

Starting point is 00:02:50 leptin production, which also controls our appetite. The combination of these two things leads to increased caloric intake and to weight gain. Remember also that sugars are not processed equally, and fructose is converted into the liver, into triglyceride, far more easily than other sugars. So the bottom line is that fructose and high fructose corn syrup can lead to overeating and weight gain. It can also sneak into the label as corn syrup, corn sugar, natural fructose flavoring, or natural flavoring. Hey guys, if you've been watching the Ultimate Human Podcast for any length of time, you know that one thing I do not do is push products. I do not just let any advertiser into this space because I believe that the products that appear on the Ultimate Human Podcast should be things that I use every day in my life to improve my own physiology. One of them

Starting point is 00:03:39 is something called the Echo Go Plus. The Echo Go Plus is a hydrogen water generator that you can take on the go. You essentially take the top off of this bottle, you pour bottled water in this, and repeatedly it will make high part per million hydrogen water. You press this little button, you'll see these bubbles going up in the water. That's hydrogen being created in the water. There are all kinds of peer-reviewed published clinical studies on the benefits of hydrogen water including reduced inflammation better absorption of your supplements better absorption of your foods better balance of the stomach acid and it feeds an entire class of bacteria in your gut hydrogen water in my opinion is the most beneficial water that you can drink. And now you can take it wherever you go. You can go to

Starting point is 00:04:25 echo, E-C-H-O, H2O.com. That's echo, E-C-H-O, H2O.com. Enter the code ULTIMATE10 for a discount. Echo H2O, enter the code ULTIMATE10 for a discount. Number two, sodium nitrates. The reason why I talk about sodium nitrates is that this is very often considered a sodium chloride, which is table salt. So a lot of people that are reading the back of a label think there's just a salt preservative in there, but this is a sodium nitrate. This is actually a preservative, is not table salt. They're not at all the same thing. And sodium nitrates are common preservativesatives which the World Cancer Research Center concluded are not safe for humans at any level. I will put a link to that research paper below so that you can read the

Starting point is 00:05:13 paper for yourself. I want you to look for labels like grass-fed, uncured, free range, or nitrate free. Even deli meats and bacon come in nitrate-free versions. Once you find the nitrate-free version, go back to that brand over and over. Number three, aspartame. I am shocked how many thousands of products still contain aspartame and contain it in relatively high amounts.

Starting point is 00:05:40 2018, there was a study published in the Journal of Nutritional Science entitled, Neurophysiologic Symptoms and Aspartame, What is the Connection? I will also put a link to this study in the show notes below, and I'm going to read directly from the abstract. It says, Aspartame, an artificial sweetener, has been linked to behavioral and cognitive problems in humans. Possible neurophysiologic symptoms include learning problems, headache, seizure, migraine, irritable mood, anxiety, depression, and insomnia. The consumption of aspartame, unlike dietary protein, can elevate the levels of phenylalanine and aspartic acid in the brain, and these compounds can inhibit the synthesis and release of neurotransmitters

Starting point is 00:06:22 dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. That is a quote directly from the abstract. So I don't think the jury is out any longer on aspartame. There was a second study published later that same year in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This was entitled The Debate Over Neurotransmitter Interaction and Aspartame Usage. Again, I'll read directly from the abstract. This is under the brand name NutraSweet and Equal, but aspartame is a widely used artificial sweetener, has been reported to be accountable directly for neurological and behavioral disturbances in people.

Starting point is 00:06:58 In pot ingestion, aspartame is hydrolyzed in the gut and provides its metabolite, which is an amino acid called phenylalanine, which is an essential amino acid, aspartic acid, and methanol, but altered brain neurochemical compositions such as dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin have long been a concern and being involved in observational neurophysiologic symptoms such as headaches, memory loss, mood changes, and depression. So aspartame is a no-go. In my mind, this one is closed, this debate is over, and this is a no-fly zone on any of our food labels. Most of us have a very difficult time

Starting point is 00:07:37 meeting our protein needs, and certain protein sources like whey protein and others can be as little as 20% absorbable. This is 99% absorbable, and it has all of the essential amino acids that the body needs to build lean muscle, to recover, to improve our exercise performance, and most importantly, to repair after we have intense exercise. So this is called Perfect Amino by Body Health. It's, like I said, 99% absorbable.

Starting point is 00:08:04 It only has two calories eventually the caloric intake has virtually no caloric intake it will not break a fast it tastes amazing you mix it in water i take this literally every single morning if you're working out in a fasted state you have to take a full spectrum amino acid prior to your workout to preserve your lean muscle and make sure that you're recovering properly and again it will not break your fast so the caloric impact is virtually zero you get all of the full spectrum amino acids it tastes wonderful i use it every single day you can go to bodyhealth.com forward slash ultimate that's bodyhealth.com forward slash

Starting point is 00:08:43 ultimate and look for the perfect aminos they actually come in capsules if you're on the go or it becomes in several flavors that they make in a powder which i love it's flavored with natural um uh means of flavoring so there's no artificial sweeteners in here so this is one of my absolute favorite products give it a try if you're working out at all you need a full spectrum amino acid. Go to bodyhealth.com forward slash ultimate. That's bodyhealth.com forward slash ultimate. I love their lab tested products. You can actually see the absorption rate for all of their products. They've got great electrolyte protein combinations. My favorite is the perfect aminos. Bodyhealth.com forward slash ultimate and now back to the ultimate

Starting point is 00:09:27 human podcast number four hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils this is one where the food industry is getting particularly tricky because food labels are not required to state whether or not they have trans fat so long as there's less than half a gram per serving so you actually have to go down into the ingredients and look for the words hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated and then put it back on the shelf. These types of fats are absolutely the worst fats for your metabolism. They significantly increase inflammation.

Starting point is 00:09:58 They link directly to obesity, lower levels of cholesterol, meaning lower levels of good cholesterol, increased levels of bad cholesterol, increased levels of bad cholesterol, and several other health risks. So look for the words hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated in front of the oil name. That's going to identify whether or not there are trans fats in that food. Hey guys, I hope you find these four no-fly zone food ingredients helpful. Not trying to scare you or fearmonger you, but you can get these four things off your labels

Starting point is 00:10:28 and then go back over and over again to the brands that don't contain any of those four compounds. And as always, that's just science.

The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 36. How to Read Ingredient Labels & What To Avoid | Ultimate Human Short with Gary Brecka

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