Torwen:
Hello and welcome back to the Ideal Nutrition Podcast. Today, Aidan and I are going to be doing a part two rapid fire of our thoughts on five current diet trends. Now you guys loved part one. So we thought we’d give you a part two. We’re going to start with low inflammation diets.
Now the low inflammation diets that have been popping up for me on my feed are largely focused on cutting out certain foods. In some cases, a lot of foods. There was one particular video that came up for me. It’s actually so ridiculous. This lady was saying no dairy, no gluten, no processed meats, no caffeine, no sweetness, no alcohol, no iodised salt, no honey, no beef, no shellfish, no nuts and seeds.
That was probably like one tenth of her list. And it went on and on. So my thoughts are then like, generally, what is left. This is not how I like to think about information. So I’m going to get Aidan’s thoughts. Then we’ll chat about my thoughts on this.
Aidan:
Yeah. Similar kind of camp. A lot of it is focused on what to avoid. I’m just a positive guy. I take a positive lens on a lot of things, right. I do see negatives. If we’re going to look at pros and cons, I see negatives when blanket statements are put out there. Common ones I see are gluten-free, dairy-free and sugar-free.
It makes it seem like doing that is the move for everybody. So, the sugar one is nuanced. It depends on the positivity lens I have to the world. But the evidence absolutely does not support the gluten-free and dairy-free side of things. It being pro-inflammatory for the majority of people without context.
That’s not saying it’s not pro-inflammatory for anybody. Of course it is, right. But there are blanket statements. Like, avoid these things for inflammation. That’s not what the research supports. If you did want an evidence-based look from a population level. Individual stuff is individual, right. The closest one I’m aware of is a thing called the Dietary Inflammatory Index. Have you seen this before?
Torwen:
I have, yes. And it gives every nutrient a score. It’s based on whether it tends to increase inflammatory markers or lower them. So pro-inflammatory or anti-inflammatory. Or foods that sit somewhat in the middle.
Aidan:
Yeah. And it’s based on over 2000 studies. It looks at how the dietary components affect inflammation. It looks at individual markers. This is common in the evidence-based world. People ask, how are you measuring inflammation. A lot of people point to things like swelling or puffiness or pain. But there are markers we can use to measure inflammation. So CRP is one of them. There’s a bunch of different interleukin factors we can measure.
Then there’s TNF alpha as well. And the dietary inflammatory score is based on those markers. Going deeper on that, among the most anti-inflammatory foods on this list. We’ve got fatty fish like salmon, nuts, berries, ginger, leafy green vegetables, green tea, turmeric, tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil. Dark chocolate, antioxidants, and just fibre in general as well. A lot of those things are non-controversial.
Possibly the only controversial one on that list is tomatoes. Some anti-nightshade approaches put that into an inflammatory category. Everything else is, in most cases, not controversial. I think you were saying off air, seeds was on that list.
Torwen:
Yeah. Nuts and seeds. Then things like iodised salt. Very specific things. Things that were supposedly causing this inflammation.
Aidan:
So this is one of the only contradictions from this list versus that list, right. Among the most pro-inflammatory stuff, we’ve got processed meats, sugar, sweetened beverages, refined grains, fried foods, foods high in saturated fat, trans fat, high sodium foods and alcohol. Some of that is, once again, non-controversial.
One of the few non-controversial things in nutrition is this. No one’s out here saying eat more trans fats. It’s one of the things we’ve got left. Some of it could get more specific. Like, should people be avoiding refined grains. But that’s what the list has come to.
Torwen:
And if you’re listening and you’d like to support a reduction in inflammation. A great place to start is eating a whole food diet. It cuts out a lot of those high inflammatory foods on the list. Focus on what you can add in. Focus on adding in those anti-inflammatory foods instead. Fatty fish, chia seeds, walnuts, leafy greens. All of those things. Rather than excluding every food ever. Should we move on to the next one then?
Aidan:
Absolutely. Let’s go controversial. Next one, we’ve got seed oils.
Torwen:
This feeds into a similar sort of trend. For me, it’s swung completely out of proportion. The fear mongering online with seed oils is huge.
Aidan:
I’ve previously been on record saying the average person consumes seed oils too much. The main stat I point to is this. Apparently seven to 8% of calories consumed in the US come from seed oils. I don’t normally want to use US-based stats. They’re the only stats I’ve got. So that’s what I’m going with. If I go through my more neutral lens. The minimum thing I’d say is this. It’s still a high-calorie oil. It happens to be low in micronutrients. Because if it has been refined that much, which most seed oils have. You can have unrefined seed oils.
It’s possible. It’s just that if you’re looking at what people consume on average. And if we’re looking at that seven to 8% of calories. The majority is coming from mostly processed foods. I can see logic in some of the criticisms. That relates to how they’re made. But when looking at outcomes, a lot of the problems they link to don’t often show up. They’re not linked with inflammation research. They aren’t increasing the risk of CVD that much in research either.
I say that much because there’s some caveats. If you go down some rabbit holes, you can find some links. If you look at broader research, there isn’t a link. The omega-3 to omega-6 ratio doesn’t seem to be important. If you look through the lens of refined seed oils, you will find a link. If you look through the lens of getting it from nuts and seeds, you don’t find a link. That makes it seem like, is this about omega 6 versus omega 3.
Or is this other kind of ratios. I also think it’s worth getting more omega-3s. If we were to have a practical takeaway. I think we’re on the same page. I don’t think avoiding them completely is necessary. I think a lot of people should potentially reduce their intake. Doing a more whole foods diet will naturally lead in that direction too.
Torwen:
Yeah. I honestly don’t think I have much to add there. There have been studies where they replace saturated fat. That naturally lowers cardiovascular disease risk. So in that sense, potentially it is a better option than things like butter. Or saturated fats, that sort of thing. In terms of cardiometabolic health. Am I saying go out of your way to add them in. Absolutely not. I’m very much on the same page. Maybe we consume too many. But do we need to be checking food labels for very minute amounts. Probably also not.
Aidan:
Yeah. And if you want even more nuance. Flaxseed oil is technically a seed oil. In its unrefined or minimally processed state, it’s linked with a lot of positive health outcomes. So once again, blanket statements could be an issue there too. Okay. Protein-sparing modified fast. I don’t know if you’ve been in that world.
Torwen:
I don’t see this so much. I’d actually written down this. This is not something that pops up for me. Not in my recent trends. But take it away.
Aidan:
So the idea of a protein-sparing modified fast is this. It’s an extreme short-term, very low calorie diet. It’s designed to maximise fat loss. It aims to minimise muscle loss, right. You can see the appeal. You get the benefits of fasting. You avoid losing muscle. The core features are high protein. Usually around 1.5 to 2.5 grams per kilo. 2.5 is quite high.
The reason for not going above that is this. It still contributes calories. Very low calories overall, obviously. Often around 600 to 800 calories depending on size. This scales based on total protein amount. Almost all of that is coming from protein. Minimal carbs, minimal fat. Just enough to avoid essential fatty acid deficiency.
Plus you try to keep micronutrients as adequate as you can. That’s on a tiny amount of calories. Vegetables are allowed. Ideally just low calorie ones. You want high volume for satiation. You also want fibre and micronutrients. Supplementation can be beneficial too. Electrolytes and stuff like that as well. I’ve got thoughts. You got thoughts?
Torwen:
Let me give a little bit of background. I had a look at a study. I haven’t got the name. So I’ll link it in the show notes below. They had 12 subjects who did this. Honestly, I don’t know if I was blown away by the results. They had them eat less than 20 grams of carbs. It was 1.5 grams per kilo protein.
Then it was just whatever fat was in the meat. That is what they could have. They also had supplementation of essential vitamins and minerals. Most people lost about 10% of body weight in three months. Initially I’m like, wow. That’s pretty impressive. That’s great. Then they followed them on for another three months after that.
There was barely any further weight shift after. So, it seemed easy enough for three months to follow through. After that, clearly, it’s very restrictive. It’s hard to stick to. A lot of clients didn’t end up doing that shift. They didn’t increase calories again slowly. This is not something I would recommend. I think we normally, in a deficit, would push protein a little higher anyway. That’s if we’re wanting to preserve muscle mass. For me, it’s probably a no.
Aidan:
Yeah. And it’s interesting they did three months. Three months is a long time to do something this aggressive. A world in which I’ve seen this more is this. People in the recreational bodybuilding world. It’s a subcategory of that. People like lifting. Maybe they haven’t been super dialled in on diet. Then they have an event.
They have a wedding. Or they have whatever. It might be four to eight weeks away. If I was going to go through pros and cons. It’s really effective for fat loss. Technically it is borderline the quickest you can lose body fat. I’d also much rather this over fully fasting. You can preserve a bit more muscle mass.
So, if you had four weeks, theoretically there’s a world this could make sense. Muscle retention is surprisingly good. That’s if people still keep training hard. That’s if they still keep lifting. It’s incredibly hard to do on that low calories.
Torwen:
That was going to be my question. Is it impacting your training. If you’re someone who is a bodybuilder doing this. You haven’t got much energy. That’s on that small amount of carbs either. I guess the idea is this. We didn’t mention that at start. You switch into ketosis to use fat as fuel.
Aidan:
Yeah, absolutely. And you would 100%. I think if someone is like a psychopath. They’re willing to train hard regardless of how they feel. Their performance would still be impacted. But they would be able to help retain muscle surprisingly effectively. Big thing here. It should not be done long term. That’s obvious for a few reasons.
It’s going to be inadequate in a lot of areas. Even if we go back to micronutrients. If somebody’s not using a multivitamin, it’s an issue. Even if you are, you’re missing polyphenols and stuff like that. There’s stuff you’re very likely to miss regardless. It’s also inadequate in fibre. Forms of fibre impact gut health. It also tends to be unsustainable. I’ve rarely seen people do this. Then they go into having good progress long term.
I’ve seen people do this phase well. Nearly 100% of them struggle longer term. There was a push in the evidence-based community. Maybe a year or two ago. I was seeing aggressive diets gain more traction. Even amongst the people promoting that, I’ve seen many still struggle later with their own nutrition. They were in a certain position before this. They benefited from it. They did it. Then a year later, they’re back in the same position. It’s possible to transition out of this world. It just seems rare.
Torwen:
Yeah. I think we’re both on the same page there. Let’s move on to the next one then. So calorie cycling. It’s funny how we’ve ordered these. It kind of flows into the next. This is a flexible dieting strategy. You alternate between higher and lower calorie days. You don’t eat the same amount each day within a deficit.
That could look like having a calorie deficit five to six days a week. Then you go back to maintenance. Or you go to a slight surplus on a refeed day. Potentially you have different calories on different days. It depends on training needs. So more calories around training. Less on rest days. Or you have more calories on certain days for food flexibility. So five days in a deficit. Then two days on the weekend. You might have a bit more calories to play with.
Aidan:
Pros and cons, as always. I want to make this clear. This can work well. Let’s start with the positive. So, a gym challenge I work with drove this for me. I still work with them to this day. It’s been a long time. It’s been a good relationship. They do have people track calories. They had a calculator. It’s like this.
If you take away 50 calories per day, keeping protein the same. It comes from carbs and fats. It barely reduces carbs and fats. It wasn’t a big deal. It would give people 300 calories extra on a Saturday. You take away 100 calories. You give them 600 extra on a Saturday. The challengers loved that. You can see how it works well.
Torwen:
It makes sticking to a deficit more sustainable. This is one reason I recommend it occasionally for clients. If they have concerns about weekends, factor it in. Otherwise it ends up being 600 or 300 calories over anyway. Why don’t we just factor it in?
Aidan:
Something I don’t know if this comes across in my content. I do talk about calories a lot. Everything I say about calories applies whether you’re tracking them or not. You could eat a tiny bit more on weekends. That’s calorie cycling. It’s not precise, but it is calorie cycling. A lot of people naturally do this.
That can be done in a positive way. It falls apart at extremes though. If somebody ate heaps more on Saturday. Or they ate heaps more on Saturday and Sunday. Plus Friday evening. Then they try to balance it out. It leads to underfueling on certain days. The more extreme you go, the more severe the underfueling is. It also needs more days to “balance” it.
And typically the high calorie days aren’t the most nutrient rich days. It doesn’t usually scale proportionally. Usually there’s other reasons it’s higher calorie. So it ends up reducing the overall nutritional quality of the diet. That’s if you go down that route.
Torwen:
And generally, if you’re doing it for fat loss, calories in versus calories out matters more. So this is more an option if it works better for you. I’m pretty neutral on it.
Aidan:
Yeah. I didn’t flag this at the start. Obviously these aren’t super rapid fire answers. I looked at my notes. I was like, this is not going to be rapid fire. But that’s fine. We’ve got one more. We’re going to talk about stable blood glucose levels. We’ll cover trends associated with that.
Torwen:
Before we dive into what we’ve been seeing. I want one thing to note. For most healthy people, obsessing over perfectly flat blood sugar isn’t necessary. It naturally does rise and fall after meals. The focus should be more on overall metabolic health. It shouldn’t be about eliminating spikes. But the trend we’re talking about is this. People are looking at stabilising every single little spike.
Aidan:
A lot of people do this with vinegar. Or apple cider vinegar. It works equally well pre-meal. They also do meal order. For example, vegetables, then protein, then carbs. People also walk after meals. Then they do anything else that helps to, quote unquote, flatten the curve. We can go through one by one. Let’s start with vinegar. Vinegar pre-meals has good evidence. It reduces blood glucose levels. In my notes, I put a little question. It’s like, it doesn’t matter.
Torwen:
Does it matter in those with insulin resistance, potentially?
Aidan:
Yeah. And for somebody with diabetes, I can see benefit. I actually have somebody with diabetes right now. I’m using it with them. So I go out of my way to use this with certain people. I don’t do that with everybody with diabetes. You’ve got to take a specific type of person. That’s for me to want to go down this route.
I’ve put something in brackets. Mechanisms are too complicated for podcasts. I wrote down all the mechanisms. No one wants to hear this. If you do, message me on Instagram. Or Google it yourself. But it’s also pretty short term. The reduction in glucose levels is short term. Some studies conclude it’s not clinically meaningful.
Even in diabetes, it’s a small reduction. If you didn’t enjoy doing this, there are other ways. You can use your willpower in ways that have more effect. But it is the most evidence-backed one. Or it is evidence-backed. I suppose all of these things are evidence-backed. Do you want to talk to the next one?
Towen:
Yeah. Let’s go for it. So meal order. The claims here are that when you eat your veg first, it forms a barrier of fibre in the gut. That can reduce blood sugar spikes. Fibre and protein do slow gastric emptying. That can reduce the rate of carbohydrate digestion. It can reduce the spike.
Again, is it something we need to be concerned about? Potentially, if you’ve got type two diabetes. Or type one diabetes. Otherwise, is the spike necessarily a thing? That’s if your body can respond naturally. That’s sort of how I sit with that one.
Aidan:
Yeah, so it’s another slight reduction. Another one is walking after meals. It is genuinely a solid idea. That’s if it’s feasible and very easy for you to do. It helps burn through some of the glucose coming in. It also shuttles some of that into the muscles. But it depends on how much glucose matters to you. That leads us back to what you were saying earlier. The whole idea of flattening the curve isn’t super relevant for a lot of people.
From a body composition perspective, it doesn’t matter. We have very clear evidence on that. There’s a deep rabbit hole you can go down. It still concludes it doesn’t matter. From an appetite and cravings perspective, it also doesn’t matter that much. I’ve got a thought experiment for you. Think about this if you disagree with me. If this matters, we can use it in other areas. There are cases where people have limited appetites. There are ways we can get around this.
The most common one I’ve heard people trial is this. Have simple carbs before a meal. Say 15 grams of simple carbs. Do it 30 to 60 minutes before you need a large meal. This is for somebody like a hard gainer. They struggle to eat enough food. This could help them. You can see relevance for malnutrition. Or for older people who struggle to eat enough. You’d have this before a meal. It helps them get the full meal in.
It doesn’t work in that space. It does get you thinking in reverse. Does this work to limit cravings and stuff like that. For diabetes, you could say this matters. But then you can point to how much it matters. The walking one is huge. I had one guy in particular. It was my second or third year as a dietitian. He went for a morning walk every second day. It was after his bowl of oats. He experimented with a few things. Sometimes he did quick oats.
Sometimes he did whole oats. I could see from his blood glucose every day. Did he go for a walk or did he not. He even tried to trick me sometimes. He’d do it on the third day instead of the second. And I was like, that’s the day he went for a walk. So this has some meaningful things. But then I also like to point out this.
What if you work a regular job. After lunch, you can’t go for a walk. And you don’t have diabetes. Is it worth doing this. There are behaviours that can have a bigger impact overall. That’s a big point. I wouldn’t overly focus on this. There are a lot of things we can do. They move the needle more overall.
Torwen:
That’s exactly what I would say. If we’re going to focus on something to support metabolic health, eat foods like whole grains. Pair them with vegetables and protein. Then across the day, you’ve got pretty steady blood glucose. We occasionally talk about fast digesting carbs pre-workout. That’s for a specific reason.
There’s a reason we do that. It’s to get that blood glucose spike. Otherwise, these strategies for the general population are not that important.
Aidan:
Cool. We’ll jump off there. So that has been episode 240 of rapid fire diet trends. It was harder than we thought to come up with stuff. I was still pretty happy with what we came up with. If anyone has ideas of things you want us to talk about, let us know. But apart from that, as always, if you haven’t left a rating review, we would massively appreciate it.