Ah, ice cream. It’s what summers are made of, melty cones, sticky fingers, and that first sweet bite on a hot day. And sure, ice cream isn’t exactly on my yes food list in general, but I’ve got some good news. Thanks to people getting smarter about creating foods that love you back, there are actually some better for you options out there, and I’ll share what to look for. We’ll also talk about another beloved indulgence, beer. I’ll break down how it affects your gut and immune system and which types might be easier on your body than others. And finally, let’s settle the debate between pickled and fermented foods. If gut health is your goal, and if you’re listening to this podcast, I know it is, understanding the difference is key. Before we dive in, don’t forget to rate and review the Dr. Gundry Podcast on your favorite platform. Your support helps more people discover the truth about how to achieve vibrant health. Let’s get into it.
Now, a regular pint of ice cream is one of the absolute worst things for your health. I’m sorry. It is. Not only are they massive sugar bombs, but most of them contain casein A1 protein, a double whammy for your health. Now, as an example, let’s look at a label for America’s best-selling brand. Ben & Jerry’s. This is the salted caramel almond flavor. Yum, yum, yum, yum. Here’s the ingredients. Cream, skim milk, liquid sugar, as opposed to, I guess, regular sugar. Liquid sugar is sugar dissolved in water. Next is water, then sugar, then almonds, then milk, then egg yolks, coconut oil, corn syrup. That’s another word for sugar. Cocoa processed with alkali. So that’s Dutch chocolate. That means the polyphenols in the cocoa, which would actually be good for you, are all bound up and you can’t use them. Sea salt, pectin, butter, cocoa, guar gum, vanilla extract, soy lecithin, baking soda, vanilla beans, carrageenan, natural flavor. Contains almond, egg, milk, and soy.
Well, let’s look then at the nutrition facts. So there’s supposed to be three servings per container of this ice cream. And come on, are you really going to turn it into three servings? I wouldn’t, but maybe you would. But per serving, again, there’s three servings, there’s 380 calories, 23 grams of fat, most of which is saturated fat. But let’s get to the carbohydrates. That’s the best part. There’s 38 grams of carbohydrates in one serving. Remember, there’s three in a pint. Remember that. There’s two grams of dietary fiber, that believe it or not was the pectin that they threw in there to make you feel better about eating it. So that makes there’s 34 grams of carbohydrates, of which 27 grams are added sugar. So 34 grams of sugar.
Now, you know the rule. There’s four grams of carbohydrates in a teaspoon of sugar. So there’s eight and a half teaspoons of sugar in one serving out of the three in that pint. And if you really like doing the math, if you eat the whole pint, there’s about 25 teaspoons of sugar in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. And don’t kid me, you’re going to eat the whole pint, 25 teaspoons of sugar.
Well, how about a healthy one like Skinny Cow? Now, unlike Ben & Jerry’s, these guys are actually trying to trick you that they are healthy. Let’s look at Skinny Cow vanilla ice cream sandwiches. They say there’s only 150 calories and that they contain no artificial flavors. Well, they must be healthy then, right? Wrong. Here’s the ingredients. Vanilla light ice cream, whatever that means. Skim milk, corn syrup. That’s another word for sugar. Sugar is the third ingredient. Cream, buttermilk, tapioca starch, guar gum, pectin, natural flavor, whatever that means, vitamin A, palmitate, chocolate cookies, bleached wheat flour, sugar, caramel color, dextrose. Another word for sugar. Palm oil, corn flour, another lectin. Cocoa, baking soda, corn syrup. Another word for sugar. Modified cornstarch. Another word for sugar. Mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, salt. Well, that doesn’t sound very natural, does it?
But let’s look at the nutrition facts. Okay, so there’s 150 calories in the bar, and there’s six servings in the container. Saturated fat is way down. It’s down to two grams. But let’s look at the total carbohydrate. Total carbohydrate is 28 grams per bar. There’s zero dietary fiber. That means there are 28 grams of carbohydrates. Let’s do the math. Four grams of carbohydrate in a teaspoon of sugar, 28 grams. There’s seven teaspoons of sugar in that healthy Skinny Cow, almost as much as Ben & Jerry’s, almost. And it’s healthy, and Ben & Jerry’s wasn’t. Don’t be fooled.
Well, how about up next Yasso Greek yogurt bars? Now that sounds great. I mean, Greek yogurt, what could be bad about that? Unfortunately, these aren’t much better. Let’s look at the cookies and cream bar for our example. Nonfat milk, nonfat Greek yogurt. What the heck is a nonfat Greek yogurt? Well, nonfat milk, milk protein concentrate. Sugar is the third ingredient. Cream-filled chocolate cookies, first ingredient, unbleached unenriched, wheat flour. Oops, nasty lectin. Second ingredient, sugar, palm and palm kernel oil, cocoa processed with alkali. That means it’s Dutch. That means the polyphenols aren’t available to you. So that wipes out the benefit of the cocoa. Chocolate liqueur, salt, sodium bicarbonate, soy lecithin, natural flavor, cream, milk protein concentrate, maltodextrin, an emollient, natural flavors, guar gum, locust bean gum. All right, not a lot of healthy sounding things, but let’s go to the label.
So there’s four bars in the container. There’s 90 calories. That sounds pretty impressive. There’s only one gram of saturated fat. But let’s look at the total carbohydrates. 16 grams of carbohydrates, zero fiber. Added sugar is nine grams, 16 grams of carbohydrates per bar. Do the math. Four grams of carbohydrate in a teaspoon of sugar. There’s still four teaspoons of sugar in that bar. So the vast majority of the calories that you’re eating in that healthy bar are sugar calories. Do not be fooled.
Now, this one is worth mentioning because I’m seeing it’s all the rage right now. Cottage cheese ice cream. Yes, people are making ice cream out of cottage cheese. Now, cottage cheese is being hailed as low in calorie and a protein powerhouse. It was big in the Atkins diet in the ’70s, and of course, everything comes back again. So it’s time for the Atkins high protein diet. The problem is casein A1.
Now we make cottage cheese like we make all cheeses, by making curds and whey. So curds are the cottage cheese. The whey is what’s left over. So the two main proteins in milk are casein and whey. The casein that’s used in our cottage cheese is unfortunately casein A1. And casein A1 is a nasty lectin-like protein that a huge number of people react to as a foreign antigen. And I see this all the time in my patients. So just because it is a protein doesn’t mean that it’s a protein that’s good for you.
Also, it has Neu5Gc. Neu5Gc is a sugar molecule that we make antibodies to as a foreign antibody, and we incorporate Neu5Gc into the wall of our gut, into our blood vessels, into our joints, into our blood-brain barrier. And it’s actually one of the major causes of heart disease, leaky brain, joint issues, all because of Neu5Gc. Now, luckily, there are cultured cottage cheeses. And if you culture the cottage cheese, you ferment away the Neu5Gc. And there is some experimental evidence that fermentation of casein by bacteria or yeast will actually break the casein molecule into a less harmful molecule. So please, if you’re going to make cottage cheese ice cream, please buy the cultured cottage cheese. And you can find it.
But just remember, we are actually over-proteinized in this country. The average American who follows the USDA guidance for the amount of protein they should have in their diet gets twice the amount of protein that they need just by eating normally. We are over-proteinized, and the last thing we need is more protein in your diet. Why? We have a storage system for sugar in our diet. It’s called fat, and some glycogen in our liver and our muscles. We do not have a storage system for protein in our body except in our bones and muscles, but that’s only to make bones and muscles. So any extra protein that we ingest, unless we’re actively building muscle, which most of us aren’t, will be converted into sugar, it’s called gluconeogenesis, so that we can store it as fat. That’s the problem with too much protein.
Okay, now if you’re really in a pinch and just have to have some ice cream, I get it. There are a couple of brands that you can have on occasion. First of all, Nick’s vegan ice cream. Now, I have no sponsorship from Nick’s. Don’t know Nick’s, but I do think that they’re on the right track. They have a variety of vegan flavors. Let’s just look at the Swedish mint chip. The ingredient, first ingredient is water. Second is EPG modified plant-based oil. Third is soluble corn fiber. Now you heard the word corn. The good news is the lectins in corn are proteins and soluble corn fiber doesn’t have any lectins. So those of you who heard the word corn, you don’t have to fear it.
It’s got coconut oil, it’s got allulose, my favorite true sugar with no calories. It’s got chocolatey chips with natural cocoa powder. Notice it doesn’t say alkali cocoa powder. That’s the real stuff. Got a little bit of erythritol. It’s got coconut oil, sunflower oil, but it’s down the list. Allulose, salt, cocoa, processed with alkali. That’s the wrong stuff. Natural flavor, stevia leaf, monk fruit extract, non-animal whey protein, natural flavor, acacia gum, almond protein, peppermint extract, guar gum, salt, colored with vegetable juice and turmeric, tarragon, stevia, glycosides, that’s stevia, and carob gum. This has got a lot of interesting friendly ingredients. All right. Is it low-cal? Absolutely not.
There are three servings per container, just like Ben & Jerry’s in that pint. That’s about two-thirds of a cup. There’s 280 calories. Total fat is 27 grams. Most of it’s saturated, but it’s mostly from coconut oil, which is loaded with medium-chain triglycerides. But let’s go to the total carbohydrate, 54 grams of total carbohydrate. But before we scream, there’s actually 20 grams of dietary fiber, leaving only one gram of sugar and zero added sugars. So take the 20 grams of fiber from the 54 grams. You’re down to 24 grams of carbohydrate. Do the math, four grams of carbohydrate in a teaspoon of sugar. We’re actually down to six teaspoons of sugar. A whole lot better than we started with others, but you’ve got a lot of dietary fiber.
Next, Killer Creamery. Now, you can find these pints in Whole Foods or even Ralph’s. Let’s look at Chilla in Vanilla. The ingredients are cream, water, egg yolks, erythritol, chicory root fiber, one of my favorites, milk protein concentrate, MCT oil, vegetable glycerin, pure vanilla extract, gum, xanthan, locust bean, guar, vanilla bean, stevia. Okay, there are… half a cup is a serving, 150 calories. Total fat is 21 grams. But here’s the good news, total carbohydrates, nine grams total carbohydrates, three grams of fiber. That gives us six grams total carbohydrate. Do the math. That’s a teaspoon and a half of carbohydrates. Now that’s not a killer, but that’s Killer Creamery.
Okay, but here’s what I really recommend. Make your own. You can get yourself one of those fancy Ninja CREAMi machines, or you can use a plain old everyday ice cream maker. Cuisinart makes a cheap one. Do a hand one. It’s kind of fun. That way, you get to pick the ingredients. Now here’s a vanilla recipe for inspiration. You take 1.5 cups of unsweetened coconut milk. You take five tablespoons of allulose and monk fruit blend. Lakanto makes a good one. Vanilla extract, a half a teaspoon xanthan gum for thickness and texture, a pinch of salt, done. If you want to make it chocolate instead, just add three tablespoons of unsweetened, undutched cocoa powder. Okay, that’s it for today. Buyer beware when you’re looking at ice creams. All natural, organic, good for you, doesn’t pass the test. Make your own. Try it at home.
Humans have been brewing beer since 11,000 BC, the beginning of agriculture. There are a lot of talk among ancestral ecologists that agriculture, the agricultural revolution, had nothing to do with growing grains to make bread, but growing grains to make beer. The argument is, think about it, if you take a bunch of nomadic people living in small groups, moving around, and suddenly force them into much larger communities where quite frankly life is difficult, beer and alcohol would make your life much easier to deal with this misery. So rather than growing grains for bread, there’s very interesting evidence that grains were grown for beer production. Plus grains at that time were infected with an interesting fungus called ergot that is a really good hallucinogen. And it appears that ancient beer was used as not only an alcoholic beverage, but a psychedelic beverage as well. No wonder you started growing a lot of grains.
Now the side effect of that was you could ferment grains also into bread, but it was probably the beer that started it all. So what does beer do to you? Well, unfortunately, beer is rich in amino acids that are called purines because it’s made from yeast. And when these purines break down in our bodies, they form uric acid, which wreaks havoc on your metabolism. Now, uric acid not only causes gout, but uric acid causes high blood pressure, uric acid damages kidneys, uric acid causes insulin resistance. Uric acid increases insulin levels. So you don’t want a lot of uric acid. If you need further proof of the dangers of uric acid, read my good friend Dr. Perlmutter’s Drop Acid book.
But I’ll explain here what high uric acid levels do. Number one, the higher your uric acid, the more you store fat. The higher uric acid levels, you increase your insulin resistance. So instead of burning food for energy, your body takes the food you eat and stores it as fat, especially in your belly. Uric acid slows your metabolism, making it easier to store fat and harder to lose weight. That’s why so many beer drinkers struggle with belly fat. It’s not just the extra calories, it’s literally the uric acid making you store more fat.
Now, here’s the other big problem I have with beer. It’s a huge source of gluten, and most of my patients have antibodies to it, which contributes to leaky gut. Now, when you hear antibodies, you think of vaccines and well, don’t I want antibodies to tetanus? Well, yes you do. But antibodies are formed by our white blood cells when they see something foreign that isn’t supposed to be there. And gluten is in so many of my patients a big cause of forming antibodies.
So antibodies actually cause inflammation in your gut and there’s a war going on in your. And what happens in a war? Well, we have to supply our troops, and we have to stockpile food and armaments for our troops. And guess where that war is happening? In your belly. And guess where we store the supply for our troops? In our belly. Okay, so that’s not a good thing, and it’s amazing. I do not have a beer drinker who does not have leaky gut and who does not have antibodies to gluten. So what happens when you quit beer? The good news, when you stop drinking beer, your body starts to heal fast. Your uric acid levels drop and your body stops holding onto fat. It’s amazing. Weight loss happens naturally. Your metabolism finally works properly again. Cholesterol levels improve. Many people see their cholesterol numbers dramatically improve after quitting beer. Their gut health starts to improve.
Well, what about hoppy beer? Is it better? Well, some people think hoppy beer is healthier because hops contain a flavonoid that reduces levels of pro-inflammatory microbes, which is true. Hops also carry LPSs, lipopolysaccharides, which if you’ve read my books, are actual little pieces of you know what. I talk a lot more about this in my new book, the Gut-Brain Paradox. But that’s not an excuse to use it for that purpose. You can buy hops capsules. You can buy the active ingredients in hops as a capsule. So in general, beer is not good for you, and it’s a lectin bomb that destroys good gut bacteria.
Well, how about healthier beer alternatives? Now, many people think switching to gluten-free beer cider or sorghum beer is a better choice. So let’s discuss. Cider or any alcoholic beverage is usually packed with sugar. Even dry cider has actually got pretty high levels of fructose, which can also spike uric acid. Now, most gluten-free beers are made with corn or rice, both of which are lectins, which contribute to inflammation and insulin resistance.
How about Bard’s sorghum beer? Still got a lot of carbohydrates. And remember, we use alcohol, ethanol, preferably over any other carbohydrate as a fuel source. And so if you drink a beer, even a safe beer, your cells will use that alcohol first as a fuel. And then when you eat something else, your cells are already fine, they don’t need any more energy. But you don’t waste that food. You store it as fat.
So what should you drink instead? Well, studies in humans are actually very clear that having the equivalent amount of calories of grape juice, red wine, or gin, only red wine showed positive benefits in terms of a better microbiome and less inflammation. Grape juice was indifferent. Unfortunately, gin made everything worse. Worse microbiome, worse inflammation. So if you must drink alcohol, a little red wine in moderation is a much better choice. You’ll benefit from the polyphenols that actually support your gut and overall health. Remember, when we’re going to consume a potentially dangerous food, alcohol, you better get a benefit from the danger of drinking alcohol. We see a lot of this on the news, but in fact, you’ll actually get a benefit from red wine and you won’t get that benefit from beer no matter how healthy it is.
Pickles are healthy, right? Well, that depends. Let’s dive into pickling versus fermentation so that you’re empowered to buy the most health charged items the next time you’re at the grocery store. Before I dive in, make sure you follow the podcast on whatever podcast you get your podcasts at. And if you’re listening to this, and if you’re watching this, make sure to hit the button on the YouTube. Both are free. Come on, it takes two seconds.
All right, pickling, what the heck is pickling? Pickling is preservation through acidity. So it involves immersing foods in an acidic solution, typically vinegar, but it’s also combined with salt, sugar, and spices. This method inhibits microbial growth, extending the food’s shelf life. That’s a good thing. So pickling is not fermentation for the most part. On the other hand, fermentation is the transformation of that product through microbial activity. So organisms like bacteria or yeast or mold convert organic compounds such as sugars and starches into alcohol or acids.
Now, this not only preserves the food, but it also enhances the nutritional profile. So the process involves, for instance, in foods like yogurt or kimchi or sauerkraut or lactic acid aged sausage, beneficial bacteria, usually of the lactobacillus species, ferment sugars to produce lactic acid, which acts as a natural preservative and imparts a tangy flavor. The other interesting thing about this is that because the sugar molecules have been eaten by bacteria or molds or fungi, there’s no more sugar to be eaten to cause spoilage, and that’s actually how these foods are preserved. There’s a fascinating way that foods are preserved predominantly in Asia, and that is mold fermentation. So a very popular mold fermented rice product, koji, is done by mold fermentation rather than yeast or bacteria.
So what’s the difference? The difference is in the health benefits. First of all, there is prebiotic richness. Fermented foods are in general full of live beneficial bacteria that support gut health by enhancing the diversity and balance of the gut microbe. But hold on, like I’ve written about before, dead men tell no tales, but dead bacteria do. So the idea that you have to have live probiotic cultures is a myth. Dead bacteria, even in pasteurized, for instance, sauerkraut, work just fine in communicating information to your other gut bacteria. And that’s one of the most exciting things we found in the most recent years is that it’s the postbiotics like dead bacteria and the products of fermentation like short chain fatty acids that are the real benefit of fermentation versus pickling.
The other great thing is that fermentation can increase the availability of nutrients, making them easier to absorb. For instance, cucumbers as pickles with the skin on, if they’re actually fermented rather than pickled, you’ll be able to destroy a lot of the lectins in cucumbers. You get immune support. The postbiotics in these fermented foods have been linked to improved immune function and reduced inflammation, all of which supports your health. Digestive health. We now know that these postbiotics, these short chain fatty acids, these dead bacteria actually are essential for good microbiome health.
All right, so I want you to look for fermented foods. How do you spot them in the grocery store? First of all, in the United States there’s a refrigeration requirement. In the United States, fermented foods containing live cultures must be refrigerated during transportation and storage to maintain their probiotic content. But there are shelf-stable products found on unrefrigerated shelves have typically undergone pasteurization and sterilization, but again, they’re still great for you because of the postbiotics. The process eliminates the live cultures, but that’s okay. They’re also really good for you. So don’t fret that you can’t find live sauerkraut or live kimchi. Go find a can or glass jar of sauerkraut and you’ll be just fine. Or a glass jar of kimchi.
Pickled foods are usually canned or in jars. They’re shelf-stable, meaning that they don’t require refrigeration. But remember, pickling in general doesn’t mean fermentation. It’s a totally different process of preservation. So what do I mean? You got to read the labels carefully. The presence of vinegar as a primary ingredient usually indicates a pickled product, whereas terms like live cultures or probiotic suggest fermentation. Storage instructions like keep refrigerated are usually associated with fermented products containing live cultures. So understanding the difference between pickling and fermentation is really crucial for making informed dietary choices. While both methods do preserve foods, fermentation offers much more benefits because of the increased nutrient availability and because of all the postbiotics. And let’s be clear, many foods that are pickled have nothing to do with destroying the lectin content of those foods. Whereas the good news about fermentation is in general fermentation destroys the lectins in food. So for individuals seeking out the benefits of fermented foods, don’t be confused between pickled and fermented. Try to find the fermented version. They’re out there. Just be a wise label reader.
Now it’s time for the question of the week. The question of the week comes from @ark on YouTube. “Can foods be fermented first, then pickled? What happens to the bacteria and histamine levels?” Well, sure, you can absolutely do that. It really doesn’t matter, as I’ve written, if bacteria are living or dead, when you swallow them. They still contain valuable information that are actually read by your gut microbiome. So if you want to ferment and then pickle, that’s fine with me and your gut.
Now it’s time for the review of the week from @EdgeOfTheContinent on YouTube. “Hello, Dr. Gundry. Thanks for all you do in reporting on health and nutrition. I am currently reading your newest book and I’m also going to Marjorie Luke in August. I did notice in the study referenced in this episode that it says foods prepared from vegetables by fermentation like kimchi lack proper clinical and translational experimental studies. So if this is based on the effectiveness over centuries, do scientists have such data? Thank you again from Southern Cal.” Now, I’m curious if you’re asking about my PBS talk, then I’ll tell you what, I’m going to be there, obviously, and I hope you’ll be in the audience. That’s what I assume you’re talking about with Marjorie Luke in August. That’s a theater, by the way, folks.
In answer to your question, it’s true that fermented foods have been around for centuries, at least nine centuries that we know of. And cultures have traditionally used the fermentation to make foods more digestible, better for you. And while the experimental evidence is just beginning, we know for a fact in human trials with the Sonnenbergs at Stanford that the addition of fermented foods to prebiotic fiber makes all the difference in the world. So we’re getting those answers. But thanks for the question and hope to see you in August.
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