WHAT TO EAT ON MMT: THE CLEANEST, MOST EFFICIENT FUEL FOR YOUR BODY
As I covered in Chapter 1, one of the greatest powers of MMT is that you can use it to avoid overproduction of ROS in your cells. MMT achieves this balance in three primary ways: the food you eat (which I’ll outline in just a moment), when you eat it (which I will cover in Chapter 10), and keeping tabs on your iron levels (which I covered in Chapter 4).
In this chapter I’ll discuss the three major categories of foods—carbs, protein, and fats—called “macronutrients” and provide examples of specific foods that work best on MMT within each of category.
Use this chapter to start reorienting your thinking on what to eat and to make grocery lists. You can begin incorporating more of these foods now, even before you’ve officially started MMT, thereby giving your palate some time to adjust. Although all the foods on this list are delicious in themselves and when used in recipes, it can be a process to wean yourself off processed foods and high-carb staples such as bread and pasta. Let this chapter inspire you to start making different food choices right away.
CARBOHYDRATES
The most efficient way to train your body to use fat for fuel and reduce your exposure to free radical damage is to limit the number of net carbs you get from your diet.
Limiting net carbs is a crucial part of MMT not just because glucose is a “dirty” fuel that produces an excess of ROS, but also because excessive net carbohydrate consumption suppresses fat burning. Notice that I say “net carbs”: that’s total carbs minus fiber. Thus MMT is not a low-total-carb diet—because fiber is an important carb that actually converts to beneficial short-chain fats in your intestine. Rather, this is a low-net-carb diet.
If you look at the nutrition facts label on a processed food package, it will list total carbs—that figure is not what I’m talking about. You need to also look at the fiber content and subtract that from the total carbs. This is important to understand, or else you may end up feeling that your choices are too limited to keep to your MMT food plan.
By dramatically reducing the number of net-fiber carbs that you eat, you will need to fill the calorie void with other types of foods. On MMT, you will replace those nonfiber carb calories (from foods such as sweets, sugary beverages, breads, pasta, crackers, chips, and fries) with organic vegetables and healthy fats. This will transition your body into primarily burning fat for fuel while radically reducing your risk for most chronic diseases.
In general, the high volume of vegetables, together with the nuts and seeds you eat while following MMT (which I’ll cover just a few pages from now), will provide you with more daily fiber than the average American typically eats.
The vegetables you want to prioritize are the low-carb kinds. Think celery, greens, and cauliflower (relatively few carbs) versus carrots, sweet potatoes, and potatoes (relatively high carbs). Although sweet potatoes, for example, are whole foods and have many nutritional benefits in terms of vitamins and minerals, they are simply too high in carbohydrates—which, remember, your body converts into glucose—to comply with MMT. Particularly when you start on the program, the number of carbs in a sweet potato can prevent you from making the shift to fat burning.
The same is true for fruit, which typically contains natural sugars that are then converted to glucose once you eat them. (However, there are a handful of fruits that have low levels of naturally occurring sugars, which you can eat in small amounts with careful monitoring—I cover those in just a moment.) The less fruit you eat, particularly when you first start following MMT, the easier it will be for you to transition to burning fat.
Here are the veggies and fruits that are part of MMT.
MMT-Friendly Vegetables
After you are fat adapted, you can add back limited amounts of these foods:
MMT-Friendly Fruits
The reason these vegetables and fruits make the list is that they are low in carbs and high in fiber. However, fiber is such an important component of health that I recommend you go beyond food sources and take it as a supplement.
Fiber is a crucial component of MMT for four primary reasons:
I’ve been interested in the health benefits of fiber for a long time—so much so that my classmates nicknamed me “Dr. Fiber” when I was in medical school in the ’70s. Today, I still hold firm to my belief in the benefits of dietary fiber as long as most of it is coming from high-quality (preferably organic) vegetables and low-net-carb grains. (Fortunately, I lost the nickname Dr. Fiber.)
Fiber undoubtedly contributes to overall good health and longevity, and can have a positive impact on lowering your risk of disease by feeding and promoting the proliferation of healthy gut bacteria. In recent years it’s become crystal clear that in order to be truly healthy, you need a healthy gut.
When your beneficial gut bacteria are fueled by plenty of fiber, they produce compounds that help regulate your immune function and even improve brain health. For starters, these compounds help increase the number of regulatory T cells—specialized immune system cells that help prevent autoimmune responses and more. Regulatory T cells are also involved in the formation of other specialized blood cells in your body via a process called hematopoiesis.
When fiber is lacking, these beneficial bacteria starve, which can send your health into a downward spiral. This has a negative impact not only on your immune system and the development of autoimmune diseases, but also in your gut. There, it causes the breakdown of the protective gut barrier, which can lead to leaky gut syndrome. People with this disorder often suffer from widespread inflammation and inflammatory diseases.
Researchers have also found that a diet high in fiber is associated with a lower risk of premature death from any cause, likely because it helps reduce your risk of a number of life-threatening chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
Studies have also linked a high-fiber diet to beneficial reductions in cholesterol and blood pressure, improved insulin sensitivity, and reduced inflammation—all of which can influence your mortality risk. There are two types of fiber:
Many whole foods, especially vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, naturally contain both soluble and insoluble fiber. I recommend consuming a minimum of 35 grams of fiber and ideally 50 grams or more from whole foods a day, but you could easily double or even triple that amount. My personal consumption is about two and half times that, 75 grams per day.
If you fall short of the recommended 35 grams, or meet that total but want to consume greater amounts so you can experience more of its benefits, I recommend supplementing with organic psyllium seeds (there is more information about how to do this in Appendix B). This is a relatively inexpensive and easy way to add more soluble fiber. I personally take one tablespoon three times a day. Just make sure that the psyllium is organic. Avoid nonorganic psyllium like the plague as it is loaded with pesticides. Taking organic psyllium powder is also helpful in counteracting the loose stools that many experience when taking MCT oil (which I cover in the next section). For additional fiber I also take two to three tablespoons of chia seeds daily. Additionally I soak one tablespoon of flax seeds overnight and blend those into my smoothie. It is important to note that if your gut is not used to these amounts of fiber, you will want to gradually increase to those levels, as they can cause gas and bloating and even constipation until your microbiome readjusts.
THREE OF THE SAFEST SUGAR ALTERNATIVES
Turning down the volume on your sweet tooth and avoiding nearly all sugars—natural and artificial—is a crucial piece of your success on MMT. I know how daunting a task like this can be. But there’s good news: Once you have made the switch to fat burning, your cravings for sugar will almost magically disappear. You will no longer feel that “need” for dessert after every meal, nor will you be driven to have a sugary snack in the mid-afternoon to ward off an energy crash.
Erythritol is by far the darling of the keto world, replacing xylitol in most recipes. It’s the most tolerable and, unlike xylitol, there’s no fermentation in the gut and I haven’t seen any evidence—yet—of disruption in the microbiome. However, I strongly suggest that you limit its use so you do not become dependent on it.
One reason sugar alcohols provide fewer calories than sugar is that they’re not completely absorbed into your body. Instead, most sugar alcohols are fermented in the gut. Because of this, eating too many foods containing sugar alcohols can lead to abdominal gas and diarrhea. It’s also worth noting that maltitol, a commonly used sugar alcohol, spikes blood sugar almost as much as a high-net-carb new potato. Xylitol and erythritol, in comparison, do not have a great effect on your blood sugar, so from that perspective may be a better choice in small quantities if you feel the need to sweeten.
In summary, some sugar alcohols are a far superior alternative to highly refined sugar, fructose, or artificial sweeteners if they are consumed in moderation. Of the various sugar alcohols, xylitol and erythritol are two of the best. In their pure state, the potential side effects are minimal, and xylitol actually comes with some benefits such as fighting tooth decay. All in all, I would say that xylitol is reasonably safe, and potentially even a mildly beneficial sweetener. (As a side note, xylitol is toxic to dogs and some other animals, so be sure to keep it out of reach of your family pets.)
FATS
There are no two ways about it: MMT is a high-fat diet. To promote your shift to fat burning, you want to get the majority of your calories from fat. But you must choose your fats wisely.
It’s imperative that you choose healthy fats (which I’ll go over in just a moment) and eliminate all industrially processed fats—including vegetable oils such as canola, peanut, cottonseed, corn, and soy—as well as all trans fats, such as those found in commercial salad dressings, peanut butter, most mayonnaise, and anything processed or packaged. It’s important that you read the ingredients, not just the label: if you see “hydrogenated fat” listed in the ingredients, that food contains trans fats, even if they’re at a level below what needs to be reported on the label.
As I covered in detail in Chapter 1, refined oils are deadly for a wide variety of reasons: they throw your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio out of balance, they are highly susceptible to oxidation (which kicks off a storm of free radical damage within your mitochondria), they carry high levels of pesticides because most vegetable oils are extracted from genetically modified glyphosate-soaked plants, and they become even more volatile and harmful when they are subjected to heat.
If you decide to personally adopt MMT, which I sincerely hope you will do, but you replace your current high-carb calories with calories from industrially processed fats, you will not enjoy any benefits from this diet. Instead, you’ll be creating even more harm to your mitochondria and overall health.
Here are the sources of fat that burn clean and help heal your mitochondria (and since many sources of high-quality fats also come packaged with protein, there are several more—such as grass-fed beef and pastured eggs—listed in the protein section).
Coconut oil has been a dietary and beauty staple for millennia. It fights all kinds of microbes, from viruses to bacteria to protozoa, many of which can be harmful, and is a fabulous source of high-quality fat.
Around 50 percent of the fat in coconut oil is lauric acid, which is rarely found in nature. In fact, coconut oil has a greater proportion of lauric acid than any other food. Your body converts lauric acid into monolaurin, a monoglyceride (a single fat attached to a glycerol molecule, unlike three fats which would be a triglyceride) that can actually destroy many lipid-coated viruses such as HIV, herpes, influenza, measles, gram-negative bacteria, and protozoa such as Giardia lamblia.
For a quick hunger buster or energy boost, you could simply eat a spoonful of coconut oil. You can also add coconut oil to your tea or coffee in lieu of a sweetener. Coconut also helps improve absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, so taking a spoonful of coconut oil along with your daily vitamins may help boost their effectiveness.
If you want to heighten the benefits of MMT, I also recommend adding MCT oil to your daily plan.
MCT oil is coconut oil’s more concentrated cousin. Derived from coconut oil, most commercially-available MCT consists of equal amounts of caprylic acid (C8, a fatty acid with 8 carbon atoms in its molecular structure) and capric acid (C10, a 10-carbon fatty acid).
Normally, when you eat a fatty food, it is broken down in the small intestine primarily through the action of bile salts and lipase, a pancreatic enzyme. But medium-chain triglycerides are able to bypass this process; they diffuse across the intestinal membrane and go directly to your liver via the hepatic portal. Once there, especially if you are in nutritional ketosis, or burning fat for fuel, they are quickly converted into ketones, which are then released back into your bloodstream and are transported throughout your body, including to your brain, to be used as a clean-burning fuel.
For this reason, MCT oil is a great way to take in some extra fat, as it is odorless and tasteless and is therefore easy to consume straight off the spoon. Its rapid conversion to energy can help you stay on the MMT plan in those moments where your hunger is high and appropriate food is scarce.
The only hitch is that this efficiency does come with a small cost. Your liver may not be able to process that much fat quickly, and so may dump some of it back into your intestines, where it can cause stomach upset and loose stools. You can consume MCT oil every day, but you must start slowly and build up your dosage over time so you can increase your tolerance to it. (For this reason, MCT oil can help also ease constipation, but don’t overdo it just to get that effect.)
Start with one teaspoon once a day, preferably combined with food, and if you don’t experience loose stools or other GI symptoms, gradually work your way up. Some people use up to a tablespoon or two with each meal, but most only need a tablespoon or two per day. If at any point you develop digestive upset, go back to your previous dose and stay there for a few days. Increasing your fiber intake can also help ward off MCT oil–induced diarrhea and bloating. Aim to eat approximately 25 grams of fiber for every tablespoon of MCT oil.
My personal preference, even though it is more expensive, is straight C8 (caprylic acid), as it converts to ketones far more rapidly and efficiently than do the other versions of MCT oil, most of which contain close to a 50:50 combination of C8 and C10 (capric acid) fats. It may be easier on your digestion as well. Whatever MCT oil you buy, be sure to store it away from sunlight in an opaque bottle that limits light exposure.
Although MCT is not usually used as a cooking oil, you can still use it in some recipes; just avoid heating it over 320 degrees. For example, you can substitute it for part of the oil that you would use to make mayonnaise or a salad dressing, blend it with vegetables to make a sauce, or add it to smoothies or soups. You can also add it to coffee or tea along with another fat like ghee; blend it well and enjoy it for an energy boost.
There’s just one thing to keep in mind: because MCT oil is so readily converted to fuel, and that fuel can be utilized by your brain and heart, if you take it at night you may be too hyperalert to sleep. That said, if you are following the whole MMT program, you will be avoiding all food for a minimum of three hours before sleep (as I will outline in Chapter 10), so this effect should not be an issue.
Caution: Individuals with liver cancer, elevated liver enzymes, extensive liver metastases, or liver disease should not use MCT oil. However, they can still use coconut oil.
Avocados
Avocados are one of the healthiest foods you can eat. Personally, I eat one to three almost every day. They are an excellent source of healthy monounsaturated fat—a type your body can easily burn for energy—and vitamins and antioxidants. These super fruits have numerous other benefits:
About two and a half avocados provide the daily recommended amount of about 4,700 milligrams (mg) of potassium a day. Additionally, an average avocado contains about 40 mg of magnesium, which is about 10 percent of the recommended daily value.
Magnesium is another mineral that is important to balance with calcium. By some estimates, up to 80 percent of Americans are not getting enough magnesium and may be deficient. If you suffer from unexplained fatigue or weakness, abnormal heart rhythms, or even muscle spasms and eye twitches, low levels of magnesium could be to blame.
Better still, avocados are one of few foods that contain significant levels of both vitamins C and E5 and are high in fiber, with about 4.6 grams in half an avocado. So when you eat avocados, you’re really providing your body with a comprehensive package of nutrition.
I even take avocados with me when I travel, making sure to take really hard ones, as they will ripen perfectly during the trip without getting crushed in my bag. You can use any type of rigid container, but I like to transport them in a rigid cardboard tube to prevent them from being squashed in my checked luggage.
Avocados have been rated as one of the safest commercial crops in terms of pesticide application, and their thick skin protects the inner fruit from pesticides. So there’s no real need to spend extra money on organic avocados. I’ve even had my own team test avocados from a variety of growers in different countries, sold in several major grocery stores, and they all tested free and clear of harmful chemicals.
To preserve the area with the greatest concentration of antioxidants, you basically want to peel the avocado with your hands, as you would a banana:
One note: If you have a latex allergy, you may have a cross-reaction to avocados. Also, if you suffer from seasonal allergies, you may notice a sensitivity to avocados when the pollen count is high. You may want to take periodic breaks from daily avocado consumption so you don’t develop an allergy or sensitivity to them.
Despite all these benefits, avocados do have one serious drawback: They can be expensive, particularly if you don’t live in a state where they are grown. To offset some of their cost, purchase them when they are on sale—choose ones that are green and rock hard. You can keep them in the fridge for up to three weeks; simply take them out two days before you want to eat them to allow them to ripen and soften.
Olives and Olive Oil
Olives are a wonder of nature that are easy to take for granted, yet deserve special attention. One hundred grams (3.5 ounces) of olive oil has nearly 100 grams of fat: monounsaturated (77 grams), polyunsaturated (8.4 grams), and saturated (13.5 grams). Olives are a great, satiating snack, salty and satisfying, and a wonderful addition to salads. They are a healthful way to add more fat to your diet. Olives, olive oil, and the compounds they contain have been linked to the following health benefits:
It’s relatively easy to find high-quality olives (look for those with the pits intact and sold in a jar, not a can), but this isn’t the case for olive oil. According to the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention’s Food Fraud Database,14 olive oil is commonly and deliberately diluted with less expensive and inferior quality oils, including hazelnut, soybean, corn, sunflower, palm, sesame, grape seed, and frequently inferior, non-human-grade olive oils, as they more easily evade fraud detection measures. Deceptively, these other oils will not be listed on the label, nor will most people be able to discern that their olive oil is not pure.
In 2016, 60 Minutes did an exposé on the Italian olive oil industry and exposed that it has been corrupted by the Mafia. They are adding large amounts of cheap omega-6 vegetable oils, typically sunflower oils, and generating over $16 billion in sales a year as a result of the substitution. If at all possible, taste the oil before you buy it. While this won’t necessarily be a guarantee of quality (especially if you’re not skilled at picking out all the potentially subtle taste differences), it can help you to pick out the freshest-tasting oil possible. And if you open a bottle at home and find that it tastes rancid or “bad,” return it to the store for a refund.
When you need an oil to cook with, coconut oil, not olive oil, is the ideal choice, because it is the only one that is stable enough to resist heat-induced damage. Extra virgin olive oil is excellent when used for cold dishes, but cooking with it is virtually guaranteed to damage this sensitive oil, as high temperatures can further degrade its molecular structure and create free radicals. However, it is important to understand that high-heat cooking with any oil, even coconut oil, will damage it. I personally use an induction burner to fry foods that allows me to cook foods as low as 100 degrees Fahrenheit, although I typically cook at 140 to 150.
Apart from its large amount of unsaturated fats that make it very prone to oxidative damage, extra virgin olive oil has a significant drawback even when used cold: it’s still extremely perishable. It contains chlorophyll, which accelerates decomposition and makes the oil go rancid quite quickly.
PROTEIN
In nature, nearly all animal protein sources are also sources of a significant amount of fat. In order to help you meet your daily fat allotment without exceeding your daily protein totals, avoid any low-fat dairy products or “lean” meats. Instead, seek to make the majority of your sources of protein high-fat options—chicken thighs with the skin on versus skinless chicken breast, for example.
As I outline in Chapter 9, you want to keep your protein intake at any given meal to 12 to 15 grams for women and 15 to 20 grams for men (assuming three meals per day). However, if you are immune compromised or recovering from surgery/illness or have higher physical activity demands, you will need about 25 percent more.
When I first learned of therapeutic high-fat diets, I simply didn’t understand that anyone could fulfill their daily protein needs without overreliance on animal products—most of which have come from animals that have been raised on feedlots, which are degrading to the environment, the animals’ quality of life, and the nutrient content of the meat they produce. (To be clear, I advocate eating certain animal products, but only those from pasture-raised animals that have no added hormones or antibiotics—look for the “American Grassfed” certification from the American Grassfed Association [AGA], which was just announced at the time of this writing.) Now I know better. Nuts and seeds are excellent sources of protein, with an average of 4 to 8 grams per ¼ cup, and most vegetables contain 1 to 2 grams of protein per ounce. With a target of 45 to 55 grams of protein in a day, plant sources can easily meet your protein needs.
Seafood
Seafood is the ideal source of the omega-3 fats EPA and DHA, but especially DHA, which is the single most important fat for your biological health. It is the only major fat that is not burned for fuel but integrated directly into your cellular and mitochondrial membranes.
As levels of pollutants in the water (including mercury) have increased, you have to be very choosy about which types of seafood you decide to eat. Among the least contaminated fish, and the highest in healthy omega-3 fat, are Alaskan and sockeye salmon. Neither is allowed to be farmed and they are therefore always wild caught. The risk of sockeye accumulating high amounts of mercury and other toxins is minimal given its short life span. Additionally, bioaccumulation of toxins is reduced because neither of these species of salmon feeds on smaller, highly contaminated fish.
The closer a fish is to the bottom of the food chain, the less contamination it will likely have accumulated in its lifetime, so other safe choices include small fish like sardines, anchovies, mackerel, and herring. Sardines are one of the most concentrated sources of omega-3 fats, with one serving containing more than 50 percent of your recommended daily value, making them one of the best dietary sources of animal-based omega-3s.15 Just be sure to get your sardines in water, not olive oil, as nearly all the olive oil used to pack this fish is not fit for human consumption.
Avoid Farmed Fish
Although farmed salmon is more plentiful and cheaper than wild Alaskan salmon, I strongly discourage consumption of farmed salmon due to its inferior nutritional profile, environmental drawbacks, added dyes, and other potential health hazards.
Most important, it is almost 5 times higher in omega-6 fat, and the typical American already gets 10 to 20 times more omega-6 oils than they need. Overall, farmed salmon can contain anywhere from 14.5 to 34 percent fat, whereas wild salmon contains only 5 to 7 percent fat. Because many toxins accumulate most readily in fat, farmed salmon contains far more toxins than wild.
Farmed fish are also subject to many of the same issues as concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) beef and pork: namely, high antibiotic and pesticide use and GMO feed. Unfortunately, recent investigations by Oceana—an international organization focused on protecting our oceans created by a group of foundations including the Pew Charitable Trusts—have shown that as much as 80 percent of the fish marked as “wild” may actually be farmed, and that includes salmon. In restaurants, 90 to 95 percent of salmon is farmed, yet is often listed on the menu as “wild.”16
Given these inaccurate representations, how can you tell whether your salmon fillet is wild or farmed? For one thing, the flesh of the salmon will give you a clue. Wild sockeye salmon is bright red, courtesy of its natural accumulation of astaxanthin, a powerful antioxidant. Sockeye salmon actually has one of the highest concentrations of natural astaxanthin found in any food.
Wild salmon is also very lean, so the fat marks—those white stripes you see in the meat—are quite thin. If a fish is pale pink (or dyed red) with wide fat marks, the salmon is likely farmed. Avoid Atlantic salmon, as these fish are almost always farmed.
Get Savvy about “Fake” Seafood
The seafood industry is rife with fraud. As Larry Olmsted points out in his excellent—if alarming—book Real Food/Fake Food, the vast majority of seafood sold in America isn’t what it claims to be. As I mentioned, fish that is labeled wild is actually farmed. Or Chinese shrimp—which has consistently tested as being contaminated with harmful chemicals and is typically raised by what are essentially slave laborers—is passed off as coming from a different country. And restaurants often pass one fish off as another. For instance, red snapper is almost never actual red snapper: it’ll be an inexpensive farmed fish like tilapia, probably imported from Southeast Asia, and probably farmed under dubious conditions.
“You could go out for a week and order red snapper every day and there’s a good chance you’re never going to get it,” Olmsted told me when I interviewed him for my website.
A report by the ocean conservation group Oceana revealed that over 30 percent of shrimp products sold in U.S. grocery stores and restaurants are misrepresented.17, 18 Fifteen percent were mislabeled in regard to production method (farm raised or wild caught) or species.
The ramifications of this frequent misrepresentation and mislabeling can be more serious than simply overpaying for an inferior product. In an earlier test published in 2013, Oceana discovered that 84 percent of white tuna sampled from U.S. retail outlets was actually escolar—a fish that can cause severe digestive problems (earning it the nickname “Ex-Lax fish”).19
So how can you make sure you’re actually getting what you’re paying for? Here are a few strategies for buying seafood that is actually what it is purported to be:
If you are a seafood lover and eating more types of fish and shellfish is important to you, use this list, compiled by the Natural Resources Defense Council, to select the least contaminated types.22
Least Mercury (Recommended)
Moderate (Consume Moderately)
High Mercury (Avoid)
Highest Mercury (Never Eat)
Finally, no matter what type of fish you’re considering, look for varieties that have received the Marine Stewardship Council certification, which assures that every component of the manufacturing process—from how the raw materials are harvested to how the product is manufactured—has been scrutinized by MSC and independently audited to ensure it meets sustainable standards.
DAIRY
Dairy can be classified as either high fat or high protein or a combination of both—while on MMT, you want to stick to the high-fat options. Some dairy products, such as milk and cottage cheese, are high in lactose (milk sugar), which is made up of a molecule of glucose bonded to a molecule of galactose. Once it’s digested, the glucose will raise blood glucose levels. So limit your dairy consumption to the forms that are on the “high-fat dairy” list just below. And just as with your meat and eggs, you want to choose dairy that comes from grass-fed and organically raised cows—as with beef, look for the brand-new “American Grassfed” certification from the AGA. When available, raw dairy is preferable to pasteurized dairy. Even high-fat dairy contains some protein, so be sure to count those grams in your daily protein totals.
High-Fat Dairy (Okay in Moderation)
High-Protein Dairy (Avoid)
Note: High-fat dairy contains estrogen metabolites that may play a role in hormone-sensitive cancers, such as breast, uterine, ovarian, and prostate. Use dairy sparingly, if at all, if you have this type of cancer. Unless it is organic, it is likely contaminated with Roundup, hormones, antibiotics, and even worse, antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Despite the bad rap they’ve gotten from public health organizations and most mainstream media in the last decades, eggs are one of the healthiest foods you can eat, offering fantastic nutritional bang for your buck.
Many people, unfortunately, have been scared away from this healthy food source because eggs contain cholesterol, but it’s becoming common knowledge that dietary cholesterol from natural sources poses no threat to your health (and may actually be beneficial). In 2015 the U.S. Dietary Guidelines removed the dietary cholesterol limit and added egg yolks to the list of suggested sources of protein. The long-overdue change came at the advice of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which finally acknowledged what the science shows: that “cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.”23
Eggs provide the eight essential amino acids that your body requires to synthesize protein and that must be obtained through your diet because your body can’t manufacture these amino acids on its own. Choose only true free-range organic eggs, also referred to as pasture raised, which come from hens that roam freely outdoors on an organic pasture where they can forage for their natural diet of seeds, worms, insects, and green plants.
It’s important to remember that eggs have seven grams of protein, so you need to carefully integrate them into your diet to avoid consuming an excessive amount of protein that will in turn stimulate mTOR.
Tests have confirmed that pasture-raised eggs contain superior nutrients. Compared to eggs from CAFO chickens, they have:
For a wide variety of reasons many people are very sensitive to chicken eggs but do very well on duck, quail, or goose eggs. If you’re going to consume eggs regularly, it would be wise to broaden your variety and not just rely on chicken eggs. Also, be aware that raw eggs contain high levels of avidin, a protein that binds to the B vitamin biotin, and can lower biotin availability. So if you eat a lot of raw eggs, you may need to take a biotin supplement.
How you prepare your eggs also matters. Ideally, eat them raw or as close to raw as possible in order to keep the nutrients intact. Your risk of getting salmonella from eggs is always exceedingly slim. It may be slimmer still with pasture raised.
If you cannot eat them raw, poaching or soft-boiling (drizzling with MCT oil) is the next best option. Scrambled or fried eggs are the worst because the high heat oxidizes the cholesterol in the eggs, and could pose a problem if you are struggling with high cholesterol levels. Heating eggs also alters the chemical composition of the egg protein, which can then lead to allergic reactions or sensitivities. Eggs do contain a small amount of carbs, which should be counted in your daily carb totals.
NUTS AND SEEDS
Nuts and seeds are to the plant world what eggs are to the animal world, and are some of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet. It’s important to choose nuts that are organic, raw, and not irradiated, roasted in toxic oil, pasteurized, or coated in sugar or flavorings. Organic varieties are also free of antimicrobials and pesticides. Make sure they smell fresh and not musty, spoiled, stale, or rancid. These problems can also indicate the presence of fungal mycotoxins that are known to be damaging to your liver.
You should limit your overall intake of nuts to a few ounces a day and seeds to a few tablespoons per day to avoid overdosing on omega-6 fats. The best choices of nuts in your MMT plan are raw, organic macadamia nuts and pecans because they have the lowest amounts of carbs and protein and the highest amounts of fat. If you want to include other nuts, please confirm that they will not create an imbalance in your omega-6-to-omega-3 ratio.
Roasted nuts are tasty, but high heat is known to damage nutrients in nuts, including decreasing the availability of beneficial fats and amino acids.24
If you prefer to eat nuts and seeds roasted, roast them yourself so you can control temperature and time. For instance, raw pumpkin seeds can be sprinkled with Himalayan or other natural salt and then roasted on a low-heat setting in your oven for about 15 to 20 minutes—no more than 170 degrees Fahrenheit. This should minimize any heat-related damage.
A note of caution: Although nuts and seeds are excellent sources of nutrients and deserve a place in your MMT protocol, it is vital that you don’t overeat them because they are also rich natural sources of omega-6 fats.
Omega-6 fats are essential to humans, but the reality is that you need very little of them in your diet. A major problem with processed oils high in omega-6 fats is that the oils are degraded during the refining process, so even naturally occurring omega-6 fats such as those that are in most nuts and seeds are unhealthy when consumed in excess because of their potential to be pro-inflammatory.
For example, when you eat too much of the most common omega-6 fatty acid, linoleic acid, unstable fatty acids get integrated into and disrupt your cardiolipin—a major lipid component of mitochondrial membranes. When mitochondrial cell membranes are compromised, mitochondrial metabolism and energy production is seriously impaired.25 And please don’t confuse linoleic with linolenic, as the latter is actually exactly what cardiolipin needs.
Thankfully, you can reduce the amount of linoleic acid that is integrated into your cardiolipin by substituting foods high in linoleic acid with omega-3 fats and the monounsaturated omega-9 fat oleic acid found in olive oil and many nuts, especially macadamia nuts, which are quite low in omega-6 fatty acids.
Linoleic acid’s pro-inflammatory effect is not limited to mitochondrial membranes. In a 2013 study, excess linoleic acid appeared to exert a pro-inflammatory effect on cartilage. In patients with osteoarthritis, the presence of linoleic acid in the cartilage stimulated an inflammatory response, while oleic acid (monounsaturated) and palmitic acid (saturated) appeared to protect against cartilage destruction. This suggests that there may be a link between consuming high levels of linoleic acid and cartilage damage that leads to osteoarthritis.26 For this and other reasons, take care not to exceed the recommended daily serving size of the seeds and nuts listed in this section.
The nuts and seeds I recommend for MMT include:
For more information about these choices, including their nutrition and how to eat them, refer to Appendix B.
All other nuts not on this list are simply too high in protein for me to recommend using them. This is why they are not listed and should not be eaten on a regular basis.
It’s important to look for nuts that are organic and raw, not irradiated, pasteurized, or coated in sugar. To avoid nuts that have been treated with antimicrobials and pesticides, choose organic varieties.