How to Read Ingredient Labels & What To Avoid with Gary Brecka | TUH #038

Foreign. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brecker. 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 no's 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 everything that's going to harm you, cause 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 under terms like all natural, all 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 no's on the ingredient label so 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, continue keep those in your pantry. Number one, and I think everyone is going to 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 to have very high concentrations of fructose and is labeled as 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, 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 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 the 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.

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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 preservatives and 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 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. 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 and 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 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 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 upon 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 gout. In my mind. This one is closed. This debate is over. And this is a no fly zone on any of our food labels.

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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. They've been linked directly to obesity, lower levels of cholesterol, meaning lower levels of good 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 fear monger you, but you can get these four things off your labels 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.