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As you’ve probably noticed in the last couple of years, probiotics are all the rage as one of THE most important factors that helps control your immune system (an estimated 70% of your immune system resides in your gut), as well as your digestive system health.

Most people “think” they get enough health-boosting probiotics from yogurt (the average person eats yogurt almost daily).  Unfortunately, there are some problems with yogurt that you need to be aware of…

1.  First problem with yogurt:

Some brands of yogurt actually contain live cultures and some do not.  Almost all yogurts found in the US start with pasteurized milk… that’s not such a problem because once the live cultures are added and the milk fermented, you once again have a live and active food that’s easier to digest than regular milk and has a reduced lactose content due to the consumption of lactose by the microbes.

Sadly, some brands pasteurize the yogurt AFTER it’s been fermented (cultured) which kills the beneficial probiotics.  On the other hand, most good brands of yogurt do NOT pasteurize after fermenting, so the probiotics are still alive for your benefit.

The amount of probiotics in yogurt varies widely based on the brand and type, but I’ve seen estimates anywhere from 1 Billion to 5 Billion CFUs per cup.  This is decent, but low compared to some other probiotic sources we’ll discuss in a bit.

The KEY is that you need to look for “live and active cultures” on the label, or another labeling that indicates the probiotics are still active.

2.  Second problem with yogurt:

Most yogurts in the US are sadly adulterated with way too many sweeteners, whether sugar, corn syrup, or artificial sweeteners.

Remember that sucralose kills probiotics, so any yogurt that’s been sweetened with sucralose (aka, splenda) will most likely have a greatly reduced probiotic content or possibly even be fully dead.

And most other yogurts are produced to appease the overly aggressive sweet taste buds of American consumers, so they simply contain too much sugar to be considered healthy.

I also personally choose FULL-fat yogurt and not all of this silly skim 0% yogurt that’s out there these days.  Remember that the extra fat in full-fat yogurt satisfies your appetite and cravings so that you eat less calories later in the day.  If you eat these 0% fat yogurts, you’ll end up hungrier in an hour or two.  Also, if you can find yogurt from grass-fed cows, the fat portion of the yogurt is VERY healthy and contains powerful vitamin K2 (shown to reduce heart disease risk) as well as CLA (found to reduce cancer risk and help to reduce body fat), and also omega-3 fats, which you also know are vital to your health.

3.  Third problem with yogurt:

The last problem with yogurt that I wanted to bring to your attention today is that yogurt is not necessarily the best source of probiotics, both in terms of quantity and also variety of strains.

Variety is KEY when it comes to the overall power of probiotics for your immunity and digestion.

Most yogurts only contain 3-4 strains of probiotics.  On the other hand, Kefir is a fermented dairy drink that contains anywhere from 10-20 strains of probiotics depending on the brand and type.  In addition, Lassi is an Indian style fermented dairy drink that also contains a much wider variety of strains than yogurt does.

In terms of quantity of probiotics, yogurts generally contain between 1 Billion to 5 Billion CFU’s per cup, whereas most Kefir or Lassi contains anywhere from 7 Billion to 50 Billion active CFU’s per cup depending on the brand and type.  Most yogurts are only cultured for 2-3 hours, whereas kefir is generally cultured for 12-16 hours, increasing it’s probiotic content and making it easier for digestion.

Also, most Kefir is 99% lactose free and is by far the easiest to digest type of dairy on the market due to the “predigestion” that the active cultures perform on the kefir before you drink it.

Kefir is a GREAT addition to any smoothies that you make instead of using water or almond milk because you get the immune system and digestive system benefits of the probiotics in Kefir, which you can’t get in almond milk.

Again, I personally choose FULL-FAT (for the reasons I described above with full-fat yogurt as well) when I look for a good kefir and I try to find grass-fed as well.  If I don’t use kefir in smoothies, one way I like it is just simply to add a small touch of real maple syrup, vanilla, and chia seeds to a cup of kefir — amazingly delicious snack for anytime!

Interestingly, I recently found out from their website that Lifeway brand kefir is made from grass-fed milk in ALL of their products (even though they don’t include that on the labels), so the fat content in Lifeway kefir will also contain those ever so important nutrients of vitamin K2 for heart health, CLA for cancer protection and body fat reduction, and omega 3 fats for overall health.  The full-fat greek kefir by Lifeway is my favorite and I use it almost every day!

With all of this said about yogurt and kefir, please note that I do NOT drink regular commercial milk that’s been pasteurized and homogenized.  It’s a dead food that has harmful microscopic fat particles due to the homogenization.  On the other hand, yogurts and kefirs generally start with pasteurized milk, (but NOT homogenized), and are made alive and easier to digest again through the fermentation process.

For this reason, I choose to NEVER use commercial milk, but I use yogurt several times a week, and I use Kefir DAILY because of it’s health benefits and great taste.

Lastly, if you’re one of those folks that thinks that all dairy is bad for you because you’ve fallen for certain anti-animal food propaganda that floats around out there on the internet, here’s one last fact to consider that might make some vegans want to switch to vegetarians…

It’s well known that in the Caucasus Mountains and other areas of eastern Europe, that natives to that area drink kefir daily throughout their lives and routinely live to over 100 years old.  And in India, fermented dairy in the form of Lassi is routinely consumed with daily meals, and they display much better health than the average American.

Clearly, if “dairy was bad for you” as many so-called “experts” seem to like to claim, these natives in the Caucasus Mountains that drink fermented dairy every day of their lives wouldn’t be living to 100 years old!  Just shows you to beware of who you trust for your health information.

I was on a weekend trip with some friends recently and one of my friends was cooking breakfast for the whole group. I went over to see what he was cooking and saw he was getting ready to make a big batch of eggs.

Well, to my shock and horror, I noticed that he was cracking the eggs open and screening the egg whites into a bowl and throwing out the egg yolks. I asked him why the heck he was throwing out the egg yolks, and he replied something like this…

“because I thought the egg yolks were terrible for you…that’s where all the nasty fat and cholesterol is”.

And I replied something along the lines of… “you mean that’s where all of the nutrition is!”

This is a perfect example of how confused most people are about nutrition. In a world full of misinformation about nutrition, somehow most people now mistakenly think that the egg yolk is the worst part of the egg, when in fact, the YOLK IS THE HEALTHIEST PART OF THE EGG!  It’s a shame at how many restaurants you can walk into these days and see that the “healthy” breakfast menu always has egg white items instead of whole eggs.  Are we really still in the “fat-phobic” 80’s?

By throwing out the yolk and only eating egg whites, you’re essentially throwing out the most nutrient dense, antioxidant-rich, vitamin and mineral loaded portion of the egg. The yolks contain so many B-vitamins, trace minerals, vitamin A, folate, choline, lutein, and other powerful nutrients… it’s not even worth trying to list them all.

In fact, the egg whites are almost devoid of nutrition compared to the yolks.

Even the protein in egg whites isn’t as powerful without the yolks to balance out the amino acid profile and make the protein more bio-available. Not to even mention that the egg yolks from free range chickens are loaded with healthy omega-3 fatty acids.

Yolks contain more than 90% of the calcium, iron, phosphorus, zinc, thiamin, B6, folate, and B12, and panthothenic acid of the egg. In addition, the yolks contain ALL of the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K in the egg, as well as ALL of the essential fatty acids (EFAs).

And now the common objection I get all the time when I say that the yolks are the most nutritious part of the egg…

“But I heard that whole eggs will skyrocket my cholesterol through the roof”

No, this is FALSE!

First of all, when you eat a food that contains a high amount of dietary cholesterol such as eggs, your body down-regulates it’s internal production of cholesterol to balance things out.

On the other hand, if you don’t eat enough cholesterol, your body simply produces more since cholesterol has dozens of important vital functions in the body.

And here’s where it gets even more interesting…

There have been plenty of studies lately that indicate that eating whole eggs actually raises your good HDL cholesterol to a higher degree than LDL cholesterol, thereby improving your overall cholesterol ratio and blood chemistry.

And 3rd… high cholesterol is NOT a disease!  Heart disease is a disease…but high cholesterol is NOT.  Cholesterol is actually a VERY important substance in your body and has vitally important functions… it is DEAD WRONG to try to “lower your cholesterol” just because of pharmaceutical companies propaganda that everyone on the planet should be on statin drugs.

If you’re interested in this topic of cholesterol specifically, I have another article listed at the bottom of this page about why trying to attack cholesterol is a mistake, and what the REAL deadly risk factors actually are.

In addition, the yolks contain the antioxidant lutein as well as other antioxidants which can help protect you from inflammation within your body (the REAL culprit in heart disease, not dietary cholesterol!), giving yet another reason why the yolks are actually GOOD for you, and not detrimental.

To help bring even more proof that whole eggs are better for you than egg whites, I recently read a University of Connecticut study that showed that a group of men in the study that ate 3 eggs per day for 12 weeks while on a reduced carb, higher fat diet increased their HDL good cholesterol by 20%, while their LDL bad cholesterol stayed the same during the study.  However, the group that ate egg substitutes (egg whites) saw no change in either and did not see the improvement in good cholesterol (remember that higher HDL levels are associated with lower risk of heart disease) that the whole egg eaters did.

So I hope we’ve established that whole eggs are not some evil food that will wreck your body… instead whole eggs are FAR superior to egg whites.

But what about the extra calories in the yolks?

This is actually a non-issue and here’s why… even though egg yolks contain more calories than just eating the egg whites, the yolks have such a high micro-nutrient density in those calories, that it increases your overall nutrient density per calorie you consume.  Essentially, what this does is help to regulate your appetite for the remainder of the day, so you end up eating less calories overall.  In addition, the healthy fats in the egg yolks help to maintain a good level of fat-burning hormones in your body.

Overall, this means that the extra fats (healthy fats) and calories from the yolk are so nutrient-dense that they actually HELP you to burn off body fat!

Also, your normal supermarket eggs coming from mass factory farming just don’t compare nutritionally with organic free range eggs from healthy chickens that are allowed to roam freely and eat a more natural diet.  Your typical cheap grocery store eggs will have lower nutrient levels and a higher omega-6 level and lower omega-3 level.  On the other hand, the cage-free organic eggs from healthier chickens allowed to eat more natural feed and roam freely will have much higher vitamin and mineral levels and a more balanced healthier omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio.

I recently compared eggs I bought at the grocery store with a batch of eggs I got at a farm stand where the chickens were free roaming and healthy.

Most people don’t realize that there’s a major difference because they’ve never bought real eggs from healthy chickens… The eggs from the grocery store had pale yellow yolks and thin weak shells. On the other hand, the healthier free range eggs from the local farm had strong thick shells and deep orange colored yolks indicating much higher nutrition levels and carotenoids… and just a healthier egg in general.

This is due to the fact that a free-roaming hen allowed to roam on plenty of land will eat a variety of greens, insects, worms, etc transferring MUCH higher levels of nutrients to the eggs compared to an unhealthy hen that is trapped inside a dark factory farm hen house in horrible conditions and fed nothing but piles of corn and soy.  It’s a DRASTIC difference in the nutrition that you get from the egg.

So next time a health or fitness professional tells you that egg whites are superior (because of their “fat-phobic” mentality towards dietary fats), you can quietly ignore their advice knowing that you now understand the REAL deal about egg yolks.

And can we all please STOP with this sillyness about eating an omelete with 4-5 egg whites and only 1 egg yolk… If you want real taste and real health benefits, we’d all be better off eating ALL of our eggs with the delicious nutrient-dense yolks.

After all, do you REALLY think that our ancestors thousands of years ago threw out the yolks and only ate the egg whites?  NOT A CHANCE!  They intuitively knew that all of the nutrition was found in the yolks.  But our modern society has been brainwashed with misinformation about fats and cholesterol.

Another interesting study about eggs…

I read a study recently that compared groups of people that ate egg breakfasts vs groups of people that ate cereal or bagel-based breakfasts.  The results of the study showed that the egg eaters lost or maintained a healthier bodyweight, while the cereal/bagel eaters gained weight.

It was hypothesized that the egg eaters actually ate less calories during the remainder of the day because their appetite was more satisfied compared to the cereal/bagel eaters who would have been more prone to wild blood sugar swings and food cravings.

Oh, one last thing I almost forgot… I personally eat 4 whole eggs almost every day with breakfast, and I maintain single-digit bodyfat most of the year.

Enjoy your eggs and get a leaner body!

Splenda®, also known as sucralose, is an artificial, chemical sweetener.  You might eat lots of it without knowing in certain “light” foods, “reduced sugar”, or other diet foods.

Despite advertisements stating “Made from Sugar, so it Tastes like Sugar”, which attempt to confuse consumers, Splenda® is not natural and contains no elements of natural sugar.

You may also be surprised to learn that Splenda® contains chlorine. Yes, the same chlorine that goes in swimming pools. And here’s the worst side effect:

Just like chlorine kills off micro-organisms in swimming pools, Splenda® and sucralose kill off healthy bacteria that lives in your gut — healthy bacteria that is VITALLY important to virtually every aspect of your health.

Recently, a study at the University of Duke confirmed this very finding. Not only is sucralose a heavily-processed, chemical artificial sweetener, but it’s also damaging to your gut health, which goes on to affect every other aspect of your health.

Here’s a direct quote from that study:

“Splenda® suppresses beneficial bacteria and directly affects the expression of the transporter P-gp and cytochrome P-450 isozymes that are known to interfere with the bioavailability of nutrients. Furthermore, these effects occur at Splenda® doses that contain sucralose levels that are approved by the FDA for use in the food supply.”

Did you know that 70-80% of your immune system finds it’s home in your gut? In fact, there are more than 100 TRILLION living bacteria in your gut that control many aspects of your health, and due to things like the ingestion of artificial sweeteners like Splenda®, most folks have created a massive bacterial imbalance in their body.

But, it doesn’t just stop with the use of Splenda® or other artificial sweeteners.  There are MANY other factors that are contributing to the bacterial imbalances that MILLIONS of folks are silently suffering from all around the world… one of those other aspects is drinking chlorinated water from the tap.  It’s best to use a filter to filter out chlorine so you’re not harming your gut flora.

Unlike the gut-damaging sucralose mentioned above, let’s look at 10 foods that help to restore a healthy bacterial balance in your belly by killing off the bad bacteria while at the same time giving you loads more of the vitally important, beneficial bacteria that is so critical to both your health and fat loss goals.

by Mike Geary

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been researching quite a bit lately about all of the various functions of our gut flora (good bugs and bad bugs in our guts), and all of the dramatic effects to our health, including our weight, skin conditions, brain health, asthma, allergies, digestion issues, and frequent sickness.

Today, I found a few more nuggets that I wanted to share with you that are really interesting… It’s a couple more excerpts from the super-interesting new book I’ve been reading by Michael Pollan called Cooked, and it tells a lot about the importance of our “microbiome” in our guts:

First, Pollan talks about how the diversity and health of our gut flora starts all the way back to birth… He talks about how natural child birth exposes the baby to it’s first blast of beneficial bacteria that immediately begin to colonize the baby’s body (an important part of building their immune system from day 1) …
He continues, “Children born by Cesarian Section, a far more hygienic process, take much longer to populate their intestinal tract, and never acquire quite the same assortment of bugs. Some researchers believe this could help explain the higher rates of allergies, asthma, and obesity observed in children born by Cesarian“.

He then goes on to explain the results of a study of 15,000 children in 5 European countries, which basically concluded that children who grew up on farms and were exposed to more microorganisms from dirt, livestock, etc had more robust immune systems and had lower rates of allergic diseases.  The study also mentioned that children in Waldorf schools who ate more fermented vegetables and received fewer antibiotics and fever-reducing drugs also had better immune systems and lower rates of disease.

And it gets even MORE interesting, as Pollan continues:

“The average child in the developed world has also received between ten and twenty courses of antiobiotics before his or her 18th birthday, an assault on the microflora the implications of which researchers are just beginning to reckon.

Consider the saga of the once-common stomach bacteria Helicobacter pylori.  Long considered the pathogen responsible for causing peptic ulcers, the bacterium was routinely attacked with antibiotics, and as a result has become rare — today, less than 10% of American children test positive for H. pylori.  Only recently have researchers discovered it also plays a positive role in our health:  H. pylori helps regulate both stomach acid and ghrelin, one of the key hormones involved in appetite.  People who have been treated with antibiotics to eradicate the bacterium gain weight, possibly because the H. pylori is not acting to regulate their appetite.”

Once again, this is yet more evidence that our health is being harmed by our overly sanitized modern world with hand sanitizers every where you look, a constant “war on bacteria” and a sterilized food supply that lacks the natural microbes food was meant to contain, and over-prescription of antibiotics by just about every single doctor for common colds and many other minor sicknesses that don’t need antibiotics.

And as you can see, the dramatic reduction or eradication of H pylori in the guts of most people in the developed world these days is now being shown to be disrupting the hormones that regulate our appetite!

by Mike Geary

If you’ve been reading my newsletters for a while, then you know one of the biggest things I talk about is the importance of all those trillions of little “critters” in your gut (your probiotics, and the balance between good and bad bugs in your gut) that regulate so many important aspects of your health, including your immune system, digestion, your weight, and even brain health according to some recent studies.

After all, as you may have heard, we have 10x the amount of microbes in our body compared to the number of our own human cells in our body.  Clearly, those 100 trillion “bugs” in your body control a LOT about your health considering they outnumber our own cells 10 to 1.

Well, recently I’ve been reading the thought-provoking new book by Michael Pollan called Cooked, and I ran across this excerpt, which is important and fascinating:

“Indeed, the microbiota may play an important role in regulating our weight. It has long been known that feeding antibiotics to livestock makes them gain more weight on the same amount of feed, and though the mechanism has not been identified, intriguing new clues are emerging.  A group of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis discovered that the types of bacteria dominant in the gut of obese individuals (in both mice and humans) are very different from those found in slender people, and that the different species of gut bacteria metabolize food more or less efficiently.

This suggests that the amount of energy we obtain from a given amount of food may vary depending on the kinds of microbes living in your gut.  So might changing the composition of our gut bacteria in turn change our weight?  Possibly: The researchers found that when they transferred bacteria from the gut of fat mice into germ-free mice, the germ-free mice gained nearly twice as much weight as when they received gut bacteria from skinny mice.  Other research has found that specific gut microbes, such as Helicobacter pylori (which are killed by antibiotics), play a role in regulating the hormones that control appetite.”

As you can see, the irresponsible use of antibiotics in livestock in the last 50 years and also the over-prescription of antibiotics in humans for every little minor sickness has been devastating the guts of humans and possibly making us fat just like livestock fatten up with the use of antibiotics.

This excerpt also raises intriguing points about the importance of our gut probiotics in regulating our weight considering the information about different gut microbes in obese vs slender people.