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L. Gasseri BNR17 Lactobacillus gasseri BNR17 is one of the bacteria we use over at Dr. Davis's Inner Circle. It's part of the SIBO yogurt because it creates seven bacteriocins (bacteria killers); it's also been shown to reduce waist size. So instead of making more yogurt with it, I fermented it with apples, carrots and spices (recipe here ). It's delicious, and it got rid of a lot of gas and bloating. My belly feels a little smaller too--always a good thing. I fermented it in my redneck yogurt maker with the heating pad set on high for three days. The bacteria digest the carbohydrate (greatly reducing the carb count) and it gives the apples and carrots a tart taste.  You can get L. gasseri BNR17 from Dr. Mercola's web site--it's in a product called BioThin . Once you ferment something with it, you can use the fermented food as a starter for the next batch; you don't have to keep buying supplements.  * * * * * Supplies Food choices are getting worse. I had t...

Most of us know the challenge of avoiding wheat, dairy, grains, potatoes, and high-carb foods in general, and a lot of people find it tough, especially at the beginning. But to avoid all added sugar in food--I hadn't guessed how hard it would be until I started reading A Year of No Sugar by Eve O. Schaub. Specifically, Schaub and her husband and two young daughters avoided all added fructose and most artificial sweeteners (fruit was OK), making a few exceptions: one dessert with added sugar per month, one personal exception with a bit of sweetener (such as ketchup or diet soda), and for the kids, they could choose for themselves whether to indulge at school, parties, etc. I can relate to the difficult transition to a non-whatever diet. Back in the 90s, I found out that almost everything contains wheat--not just bread and noodles, but almost anything in a box or a can. Same for sugar--salad dressing, most sausage, bacon, yogurt, cereal, pasta sauce--it's in there. Put on a...

Dr. Briffa recently blogged that Coca-Cola misrepresented how many teaspoons of sugar are in a can of Coke. A Coca-Cola executive said there were six; Dr. Briffa calculates that there are 8.66 teaspoons: 35 grams of sugar divided by 4.5 grams per teaspoon equals 8.66 teaspoons. But by my calculations, 35/4.5 = 7.78. I posted a comment to Dr. Briffa's blog, but it wasn't published and is no longer awaiting moderation. All of us can't be right. ETA: Dr. Briffa published my comment.

I just found this from the Vitamin D Council: Also, readers should be aware (if they are not already) that vitamin D does not prevent all viral respiratory infections. As we noted in correspondence to our first influenza paper, rhinoviruses, the most common cause of the common cold, are not seasonal; that is, they are just as common in the summer as in the winter, and they do not have a lipoprotein coat for antimicrobial peptides to destroy....If you are already taking 5,000 IU a day and you get a cold, chances are that more vitamin D will not help much. No one should take large doses for more than a few days and then only if the infection is severe(1) However, vitamin D levels are inversely associated with upper respiratory tract infections .(2) If you haven't been taking any vitamin D, a moderate dose might help. Nevertheless, I have (mostly) gotten over my cold faster than some acquaintances, who came down with colds before I did and are still sick. (One coworker ...

Have you seen the trailer for That Sugar Film ? It's funny and smart, and I'm glad the film is being made, but it talks up reducing or eliminating added sugars. If you're going to try this at home, how do you know how much added sugar a product contains--unless it doesn't contain any? For example, the almond butter I buy lists as ingredients dry roasted almonds, honey powder (sugar, honey), palm oil, sea salt. My 80% dark chocolate is made of organic chocolate liquor, organic raw cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic ground vanilla beans. They both list total carbohydrate and fiber content, but how in the world are you supposed to distinguish how many carbs came from the sugar and how many came from the other ingredients? Without knowing the amounts of all the ingredients, you can't. By the way, at nine grams net carb per half a chocolate bar and five grams net carb per two tablespoons of almond butter, these products with sugar added come in at a fraction of...

CNBC laments the decline of cereal for breakfast. (Click here for video.) Cereal killers at the breakfast table Thu 22 Aug 13 | 11:56 AM ET The following transcript has not been checked for accuracy. cuckoo for cocoa puffs anymore. how are cereal companies handling a decline? the good news, fewer people are skipping breakfast. the bad news, more of skipping cereal. where is mikey when you need it. he will try it. he eats everything. he likes it sm. in the game of life cereal, tastes change. consumers are swimming to yogurt or foods you can eat on the go. so-called cold cereal unit sales have cold 10% in the last three years. they'reinnovating, coming up with protein shakes, breakfast bars, however cereal remains the number one choice for breakfast in america. but not all consumer choose a bowl of cereal and milk. it's also impacting milk sales. also declining as people switch to other beverages. dean food says it's going to be a tough quarter. there...

Did I just wake up in another city? Three years ago, people here in Denver looked at me like I had two heads when I told them I limited carbohydrates. When I was a kid, my parents' fussy neighbors complained about the roosters crowing, even though they moved into a house adjacent to an agricultural lot. But maybe in a city that loves meat and attracts health and fitness buffs, it had to happen: more people want real food and real solutions to their health problems. I just spent the morning at a chicken exchange, where people also had goats, ducks, rabbits and turkeys for sale. The exchange was in an urban neighborhood of Denver between Broadway and the tracks, five minutes from downtown.  Chicken Swap . Image from http://www.denverchickencooptour.com/ From there, I went to Vitamin Cottage, a health food grocery store, where some of the vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free books and magazines have been replaced by paleo, anti-sugar and pro-cholesterol books. T...

There's a lot of conflicting dietary advice around, but conventional wisdom contradicts itself on diet for a healthy heart v. diet for healthy teeth. The commonly recommended heart-healthy diet is low-fat, little meat, lots of whole grains, and fruits and vegetables. That doesn't quite square with "Foods and Drinks Best for Your Teeth" from that pillar of medical dogma, WebMD.com: The best food choices for the health of your mouth include cheeses, chicken or other meats, nuts, and milk. These foods are thought to protect tooth enamel by providing the calcium and phosphorus needed to remineralize teeth (a natural process by which minerals are redeposited in tooth enamel after being removed by acids). Other food choices include firm/crunchy fruits (for example, apples and pears) and vegetables. These foods have a high water content, which dilutes the effects of the sugars they contain, and stimulate the flow of saliva (which helps protect against deca...

There's a hungry kind of feelin' And every day it grows There's so much more of you Than anybody knows In the ADA, we eat more sugar before 9:00 am than some people eat all day.* Eat all the carbs we say 'Cause we need you in the ADA.** In the American Diabetes Association, you'll be eating pancakes, fruit smoothies, oatmeal, cereal, peanut butter, toast, vegetable juice, eggs, and lean Canadian bacon for breakfast --and you'll be eating again before lunch! (I can tell you from long experience that the protein won't quell hunger from falling blood sugar.) Just look at all the sugar you'll get to eat: Three pancakes from Hardee's: 12g sugar (53g net carb) Banana berry 16-size smoothie from Jamba Juice: 73g sugar (80g net carb) One packet of prepared Quaker instant oats, apple & cinnamon: 12g sugar (23g net carb) Two tablespoons of smooth peanut butter on a slice of toasted wheat bread: 5g sugar (16g net carb) One cup of V-8 vege...

What if one or two little tweaks could transform your life? Instead of spending years in therapy, hours a week on the treadmill, gagging down whole grains every day, or tearing your hair out over a positive test for an illness, it's possible that making a few little changes could change everything. I've added a list of posts that could do this for a lot of people (see the list below my profile). Don't worry, there's nothing to buy. You might need to check out a library book and do some N=1 experiments on yourself. Overall, these should save you time and decrease your aggravation. Cardio: A Waste of Valuable Dance Time. Actually, there's a school of thought that cardio is a waste of any kind of time (unless you enjoy it). Sure, you burn calories, but you move less later and get hungrier. Studies have shown that it's not effective for losing weight. I don't do cardio (I lift weights instead) and don't need to lose weight. That wasn't the case when...

Sweetened tea is good for you? Handouts for dental patients that don't mention restricting sugar? Controlling diabetes by eating less fat? None of these recommendations from the Center for Disease Control, Prevention's National Diabetes Education Program and a health guru & author made any sense to Denver dentist Cristen Kearns Couzens. But instead of drinking the Kool-Aid, she researched how nonsense became policy. After quitting her job to do her research full time, Couzens uncovered evidence documenting specious industry-sponsored studies and boards staffed with members friendly to (that is, paid by) the sugar industry. Last year, she contacted Gary Taubes at a lecture in Denver , and the two have written an article for Mother Jones magazine. Need some humor? Check out vintage ads touting sugar as a weight loss tool. Slideshow: "Enjoy an Ice Cream Cone Shortly before Lunch " Articles in Morther Jones magazine: Big Sugar's Sweet Little Lies How...