Dec 27, 20185 min read

Gabor Erdosi on Food Processing, Hunger Signaling, and the Gut

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Gabor is a food scientist with a master's in molecular biology. He lives in Hungary and is one of these engineers slash scientists who I love talking to who look at nutrition differently. He has a very unique perspective because he works for a big food manufacturer that makes sugary syrups that he believes are harmful. It’s rare point of view.

He spends almost all of his free time researching this stuff to help people understand how bad these processed foods actually are. He has a large community on Facebook where he shares and discusses this information. He also has some great presentations he’s done you can find online.

We recorded past midnight and I was losing steam at the end and didn’t continue the conversation much. He was talking about a really interesting topic though - the adipose centric model of diabetes. For a long time, many people have been talking about the insulin-carbohydrate model of diabetes. There’s a lot to this subject and we’ll get more into it in the coming weeks. I have already recorded an episode covering more of this that will come out next week. It’s basically flipping our thoughts of insulin resistance around. The problems occur when you eat more than your personal fat threshold can take - whether it be carbs, fat, or protein. So the problem is your adipose tissue can’t properly store all the lipids. People start becoming insulin resistant because of their obesity (or overstuffed and inflamed fat cells), instead of becoming obese from insulin resistance. This may be super boring and esoteric to some, but for others, it will be super interesting. I personally am very into it.

There are a couple of weeks left to support the Food Lies film on Indiegogo. Thanks so much - we couldn’t do it without you. Listener and crowd support is the only thing powering this film and podcast right now, so I really appreciate it. Now please listen to the wise words of Gabor Erdosi.

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Show Notes

Gabor is a food scientist with a masters in molecular biology calling in from Hungary
He works for a big food manufacturer making sugary syrups
Asked to give a presentation on food processing and the short term metabolic effects
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rcfvRGZsDs
Long term negative effects would have included seed oils but they only gave him 35 minutes
People says processed carbs are bad but nobody asks why or how
He doesn’t trust textbooks so he goes to original sources and studies
He studied the digestive system, physiology, and mechanisms of how food is digested and the hormone responses
If we eat evolutionary appropriate foods like meat, tubers, and berries, for example, the sensors in our small intestine and resulting hormone signaling is fine
If we eat flour and ground starches it's very different and not fine
But humans have been processing food for all of history? Looks at this with cooking of food vs. raw food, pre-digesting proteins
Studies looking at eating a whole apple and a blended apple with all it’s pulp (not just the juice which would be different) - more glucose and insulin response to blended apple
THings aren't the same once you break down the structure of the plant
Questioning nutrition labels because of this
After this surge of glucose, insulin dips below baseline a couple hours later and you become hypoglycemic. And then hungry.
Studies show this is also when self-reported satiety kicks in
As well as ghrelin surge (which is the hunger signaling hormone)
Glycemic index and glycemic load can be thought of proxies for how processed something is or “lacking plant structure”
This is why we get inconsistent studies when we use observational data using glycemic index or load as a proxy
Fiber is a better indicator because usually these people aren't adding back in fiber - it means they are eating whole foods
Also if you destroy the plant structure by processing then add fiber back in it’s not as good - you already destroyed the structure
But some fiber is good that swell when you add them back because they increase the volume and slow the gastric emptying
Simple message is it’s better to just eat plant foods in their whole form
He also says it's safer to just eat animal foods - protein and fat - that don’t have these problems when processed
Better to eat carbs at the end of the meal
Better to eat slowly
Rodent studies show they get more obese when they grind the normal chow
Rodent studies are poorly done in general because the chow they use is highly processed with no real food ingredients
Their synthetic diet also causes dysbiosis in their large intestine
Gut permeability and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), etc. in humans
Sometimes the body needs a small and purposeful inflammation
In inflammatory disease it’s a chronic inflammation, not acute
He does almost all animal foods plus some fruit because of his condition
People don’t need to cut out all carbs, but it would be smart to do an elimination diet and add foods back in gradually to see what might be causing problems
Not everyone needs to do low carb, some report doing very low fat helps type 2 diabetes
This greatly reduces the need for insulin which is a partitioning fuel so you can still be pretty healthy even if you’re taking in a lot of carbs
Needs to be really low though - less than 10% - so very few people can actually pull this off
He can’t subsist on leaves and flowers and stalks, no thanks
Killer combo of fat plus carbohydrate - what’s the mechanism?
Fat and protein together take longer to digest, don’t cause the same big jump in hormonal release, and stimulate the receptors in the lower intestine as well - much more balanced
GIP and GLP-1 are incretins - they stimulate your pancreas to release hormones
You create an insulin and glucagon imbalance if you stimulate these hormones in an unbalanced way
Fasted and fed state and metabolic regulation
Sweet spot is to eat 1-3 meals per day
Total insulin response lower with bigger meals
Studies say best to limit your eating window to max 10 hours
Autophagy and letting your body rest
Microbiome - all the rage these days
Study on mostly plant based diet and carnivore diet and microbiota
We still don’t know how the microbiome works - just that your diet greatly affects it
Rat studies aren’t conclusive for humans
Problems with how we treat diabetes today - just the symptom, not underlying problem
Type 2 diabetes is actually an adipose problem - can’t store lipids correctly
More gut permeability and inflammation from refined foods
The beer belly and visceral fat
Tying together mechanisms of fatty liver from alcoholics and non-alcoholic sources
Caveman check for foods: animals, berries, tubers, etc., not a wheat field
Out of season fruit study with rats - not good to eat out of season it seems
The answer to health is to reject the modern processed foods - both vegetarian/pecatarian and carnivore/keto/paleo people are doing that
He’s going to be doing some more work with organizations soon to spread his learnings
He has a closed Facebook group that is really active and interesting called Lower Insulin https://www.facebook.com/groups/198981013851366/