Hey y'all and welcome to the everyday athlete podcast recorded live from Omaha, Nebraska and I'm your host, Katie danger U S army veteran and founder of Red H Nutrition providing everyday athletes just like you, clean, effective nutritional solutions, custom formulated to help you reach your absolute potential every single day.
Hey athletes, how are y'all doing today? Welcome to episode number 22 of the everyday athlete podcast. I've got some really cool information. Yes,
(00:29): I share with you today and it's all about anti-nutrients. We know about nutrients, we've heard about vitamins and minerals, but what do you know about anti-nutrients? After this episode, you're going to know quite a bit more. I can promise you that, but first I wanted to tell you about how this episode came into existence. Every other year I take a trip down to Memphis, Tennessee and I see my relatives over the Christmas holiday. It's a one day trip we take by car. We usually leave Omaha at 6:00 AM and we get to Memphis around 7:00 PM so it's an all day trip. It's usually 1314 hours and naturally we always end up having some really good conversation along the way to now. Also before any good road trip, you got stuck up on some munchies. I have this silly rule and I have a lot of silly rules, but this particular rule applies to road trips and I give myself a free pass to basically just eat like a complete slob during these road trips.
(01:23): I do not put any limits on what I eat and I guess I just, I love doing it. I feel that I've got enough discipline. I know it's just a small temporary indulgence and it's vacation. It's just one day, so I know it's not going to make me fat and it's vacation. So like I said, I've got some weird rules, but they all work for me. Now. One of the essentials that I stocked up on and one of my favorite snacks are pretzels. So I got these pretzels. I think they were fresh time brand and they were crispy. They were amazing and they were from fresh time. And if you're not sure what a fresh time is, it's an organic, natural food grocery store in the Midwest. It's like a whole foods. It's just a bit smaller and less corporate. Anyways, let's get back to these pretzels.
(02:03): They were the best pretzels I have ever had. They were crispy and they were buttery and there weren't even any butter ingredients in these pretzels, but they were just so good. They're like crap pretzels. I could not stop eating them and I will admit I ate the entire bag in one city, but it is my rule. I can do what I want on road trips. So anyway, I just like to know what I'm eating. I want to know why these pretzels were basically the most addicting things I've ever had. I looked at the ingredients and canola oil was on the ingredients and you know, I realized after I read that like I'm not even really sure what canola oil was like, is it from corn? Is it from a plant? What is canola oil? So we decided we were going to Google it. That's what you do when you don't know something.
(02:43): Right. You Google it. So I Googled canola oil and it led me down this rabbit hole of anti-nutrients. I'd heard of the word anti nutrient before, but I just didn't know a lot about it. It's something you've heard before, but don't look into. Well, canola oil led me to anti-nutrients and here's a little bit about canola oil and it's really important that you know this cause it just builds on the rest of the episode. So canola is an oil seed crop created through plant crossbreeding. Scientists in Canada developed an edible version of the rapeseed plant and the rapeseed plant on its own also harbors toxic compounds. Now the name canola comes from Canada and the suffix Ola, which denotes oil. So Canada oil, canola oil. Although the canola oil or the canola plant looks identical to the rapeseed plant, it contains a different molecular structure and its oil is safe for human consumption.
(03:34): And I put safe in air quotes, safe for human consumption. Ever since the canola plant was created, plant breeders have developed many varieties that have improved the seed quality and it's really led to a boom of canola oil manufacturing. Most canola crops are genetically modified and they're GMO, they're genetically modified because they want to improve the oil quality, and it also increases the plant's tolerance to herbicides. And if you can increase the tolerance to herbicides, you can grow more, produce more, and ultimately it's about profit. Right? In fact, over 90% of canola crops grown in the United States are genetically modified. We'll say that again. Over 90% of the canola crops grown in the U S are genetically modified. Canola crops are used to create canola oil and canola meal, which is commonly used as animal feed. Canola oil is also used as a fuel alternative to diesel, and it's a component of items made with plasticizers such as tires.
(04:31): So not only are we eating this, it is given to animals as feed. It is used as a fuel alternative and it is used in tires. How is canola oil made? There are a lot of steps in the canola oil manufacturing process. It is a highly refined oil and involves the following seven steps. First, the seeds are cleaned, then the seeds are conditioned and flaked. And what this means is they're preheated and then flaked by roller mills through rupture, the cell wall of the seed. Then the seed is cooked by a steam heated cooker. The process is about 15 to 20 minutes. Then the seed is pressed and they are pressed in two small see flakes. And what this does is this is the action that removes about 50 to 60% of the oil. The rest of the oil is I'm going to be extracted by other means.
(05:17): The rest, 18 to 20% is extracted by a solvent or a hexane chemical. It obtains the remainder of the oil. Then the hexane is stripped from the canola meal. It's heated again and more oil is extracted. So as this oil is extracted, it's refined by varying methods, steam distillation, exposure to phosphoric acid, and then filtration through acid activated clays. Okay, so can you see how heavily refined canola oil is and the steps and processes that are gone through in order to just get the oil from the seed? So in addition, canola oil is made into margarine and shortening goes through hydrogenation. Now if you know anything about hydrogenation, this prevents the oil from getting rancid, but it is highly, highly oxidative in the body and can create mutations in cells and genetic structure which we'll get to. So the process makes it real solid at room temperature.
(06:14): It extends the shelf life but it creates that artificial trans fat and trans fat is something that is really, really toxic to the body. Artificial trans fats are harmful to health. They've been widely linked to heart disease and in many countries they've been banned as use and additives in their food product. Now, the reason that I wanted to dive into how canola is made is because it was just mind. It was shocking to me. Okay. How highly refined canola is all of the steps this tiny little seed has to go through just to get the oil from the seed. Canola is the second largest oil crop in the world and its use in foods is increasing rapidly as its food usage increases. There is also an equally large and growing concern over its implications for human health and longevity. I already mentioned before that canola is genetically modified it is not natural in nature and is not normal or natural to the human body and its digestive processes.
(07:08): It's highly refined. It's also really high in Omega sixes which can lead to inflammation if consumed heavily. Now as for its nutrient content, if you take one tablespoon of canola oil, it contains about 124 calories and 12% of your recommended daily allowance of vitamin E and vitamin K. Besides that though, it's got nothing to offer. It is fairly empty in its caloric and nutrient content. The whole education that I just gave you on canola oil led me down to the further path of anti-nutrients. I wanted to find out more of what is in our food and what are all anti-nutrients bad are all anti-nutrients manmade. The deal with anti-nutrients is and by definition that they are synthetic or natural compounds that interfere with the absorption of nutrients. Anti-Nutrients are found at some level in almost all foods. However, their levels are higher and processed and refined and genetically modified foods. So in short, I want to encourage you to stay away from those tasty cookies. Stay away from the crackers and pretzels from fresh time I guess, but really it's those middle aisles of the grocery store. If you're doing your due diligence and shopping on the edges of grocery stores, staying away from them,
(08:19): Middle of the pop tarts, the cookies, the crackers, the cereals, you're probably going to also stay away from a lot of anti-nutrients ever heard the same. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. A major component to your competitive success will be your nutrition prep and I create a competition nutrition guide to help you utilize pre-internet and post-competition nutrition protocols. Boost your confidence heading into a competition, recover quicker post comps. You get right back to training and increase your power output and max capacity so you can own that podium. I created this guy just for the everyday athlete and you can get your free copy at competitionnutritionguide.com. I'll say again, competitionnutritionguide.com. Now there are anti-nutrients found naturally in foods too and I want to talk about those.
(09:10): The great thing is though, the way we cook and process these natural foods can greatly, greatly reduce the anti nutrient content. For example, the most widely studied anti-nutrients are phytate or fighting acid. They are mainly found in seeds, grains and legumes, and phytate reduces the absorption of minerals from a meal. Specifically, it hinders the absorption of iron, zinc, magnesium, and calcium. There's tannins. Tannins are a class of antioxidant polyphenol, and they impair the digestion of various nutrients. Lectins. Lectins are found in all plant foods, especially in seeds, legumes, and grains, and in high amounts, some of these lectins can interfere with the absorption of nutrients. There's also protease inhibitors. These are widely found in plants, especially seeds, grains and legumes like our other anti-nutrients, and they interfere with protein digestion because they inhibit the digestive enzymes that help break down protein in the body. And one of the last natural anti-nutrients is calcium oxalate.
(10:13): Calcium oxalate is the primary form of calcium found in many vegetables like spinach and this particular type of calcium. The calcium oxalate is poorly absorbed by the body. Now, if you're cooking with dry beans, which many of the anti-nutrients are found in, there's plenty of ways to prepare your beans, your legumes and your seeds that decrease the anti-nutrients and ultimately improve the nutritional content. You've heard of these methods before boiling, soaking fermentation, any of those ways of preferring foods like beans and legumes, they're going to make it better for human consumption. Now, most of the time these anti-nutrients are found naturally in food. They're not going to harm us. It's during periods of malnutrition or people whose diets are primarily grains and legumes where most of our problems arise or it's the manmade, highly refined anti-nutrients like canola oil added to food that are going to lead to further health complications over time.
(11:07): There's been research done on the effects of these non-natural anti-nutrients and the long term outlook is not positive anti-nutrients like canola oil. They lead to a high amount of oxidative stress and if you exercise enough, what happens in our body when we break down our muscle tissue, we release free radicals in the body and antioxidants, high levels of antioxidants of body combat, these free radicals, this oxidative stress which can damage cells as they repair. So if you are exercising, why this is important is if you're exercising and working out and you want to recover the best that you possibly can. When you start adding in food additives like canola oil and other anti-nutrients, what you're doing is you're creating additional oxidative in your body. This damages new cells, new muscle tissue, and it creates mutations that is not an optimal form of the cell that you had before.
(12:02): So it hinders that replication process. It hinders recovery ultimately. And a study on rats showed that a group of rats was fed 10% canola oil as part of their diets. So it was 90 10 10% of their diet, their calories they consumed was canola oil. They had shorter lifespans, the control group, and they had overall higher blood pressure throughout their lifespan. In 2018 there was a year long human study that was completed and it was done on 180 older adults, older implicating there were 65 plus. They were randomly assigned to a diet of either rich and refined oils or a diet rich in extra Virgin olive oil and they had 20 to 30 milliliters extra a day. And guess what, as you guessed it, this olive oil group, they experienced higher brain function. So when the study looked at brain function, cognitive function memory, they found that adding over a year adding canola oil reduces brain function and those who had an olive oil improve their brain function.
(13:00): So the oil you use in your food matters. Remember that athletes, there you have it. Anti-Nutrients one one-on-one. I thought it was really, really important that you knew what's in your food and you know how it's processed. It's important because if you want to be the best athlete that you can, if you want to recover properly, if you want to live the best life that you can, it is really, really important. You know how anti-nutrients especially canola oil, because it is used so much in food that you know how it works in the body. And also as you've learned, you've learned that some natural plant foods contains anti-nutrients, but now you know like beans, legumes, nuts. Now you know how to prepare them so you can improve the nutritional quality of your food and decrease the number of anti-nutrients in them. Ultimately, anti nutrients reduce our body's ability to absorb the good stuff from food.
(13:46): One way to combat this is to make well one just not eat anti-nutrients, but if you're gonna indulge in some tasty treats that aren't necessarily good for you, or if you've got canola on your diet, you got to make sure your gut health is on point. You got to get your fiber and specifically your prebiotic fiber so you can feed the good bacteria in your gut. The good bacteria is going to help with the proper absorption of vitamins and minerals from the foods you eat. It is bridging the gap between what you eat and what you should be eating. That is what a good probiotic will do for you. I highly suggest you think long and hard about adding a probiotic into your diet if you have not already. In my go to my go to the one I use every single day is ready to nutrition is adaptogenic symbiotic. It's a fancy name, but its simplicity is what makes it the best probiotic on the market. It has the three most abundant strains of gut bacteria. It has prebiotic fiber because it got to feed the good bacteria and it also has the adjustive enzymes to help further with the adequate breakdown into a food, into digestible absorbable forms for the body to optimize, and as a listener of today's episode of this podcast, I want you to check
(14:52): Out the new Redditch nutrition.com website. Grab a bottle of adaptogenic symbiotic and always remember to use code podcast 20 and you can save 20% athletes. Thank you so much for tuning in with me today. I hope you're a wiser athlete because of it. And next week. As always, I've got another great episode plan in episode number 23 we'll be discussing how you can use your heart rate zones to create a new training stimulus, become more aware of your body and significantly use heart rate zones and that awareness to improve your fitness exponentially. You guys athletes, we will talk again next week. This is Katie D.
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