Food Combinations - Sugar, Fat

It amazes me, for as brilliant as Ray Peat is in some regards, he doesn't seem to grasp how the human digestive system really works and processes food.

Many of you are failing on this diet. In fact, most of you are. Let's call a spade a spade. Why? Because you're eating highly unusual food combinations, which do not agree with the human digestive system.

I saw a recent video of Ray Peat fanboy Danny Roddy. He was terribly jaundiced in the video. I'm surprised he posted it. He has clear indications of a liver disorder. And it's absolutely due to his diet.

I'm sorry. I don't care how "hypo metabolic" drinking a coke with liver cooked in butter is. It's a horrendous combination that your digestive system cannot handle.

When sugar and fat are in the bloodstream at the same time, it is DISASTROUS. Nothing breaks the body down more quickly, in fact.

Carbohydrates were meant to be eaten alone. And proteins and fats were meant to be eaten together. This is how you digest food and drink properly.

You can get away with such combinations as milk with fruit, but it has to be fat free milk. Ditto goes for coffee with milk and sugar. It's a healthy beverage when it's fat free milk. It's REALLY bad when you use whole milk or even 2%. Fruit and cheese is a bad mixture. Wine and cheese is ok, because alcohol thins the blood and somewhat negates the negative effect of the fat/sugar combo.

Ice cream is not healthy any way you spin it. I'm sorry. It's not, unless fat free or low fat. Some of you may claim better sleep from it, which is great. But it doesn't change the fact that it's an unhealthy combo, which will inevitably lead to fatty liver conditions and stomach disorders.

Coconut oil can be healthy. But in the absence of sugar. It's not as bad with starches because starches take longer to digest. But sugar and coconut oil? Forget it.

Ray Peat seems blind to this pretty common knowledge. I love Ray Peat, don't get me wrong. His work is profound and groundbreaking. He just seems to have no clue how digestion really works.

He knows what foods are best to eat, but not the manner in which they should be eaten.

Saying you should eat protein at every meal is irresponsible. To "balance blood sugar" is the claim. If he had any idea how the digestive system worked, he would realize it's not that cut and dry. Nothing will spike your blood sugar worse, and elevate your liver enzymes more quickly than poorly digested meals.

Eat carbs with fat free sources and low protein.
Eat proteins and fats together.
Starches can be mixed with proteins ok.
Coffee with fat free milk and sugar, great beverage.

Oh, while I'm at it, get off the whole store-bought orange juice thing. Bottled orange juice is HORRIBLE for you. I don't know one person alive who digests it correctly. It's full of toxins, acids, enzyme inhibitors, and digestive irritants. Leave it alone. ONLY drink fresh squeezed orange juice. You're in trouble if you reach for Tropicana. That stuff is poison.

macaroot said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97955/ Many of you are failing on this diet. In fact, most of you are. Let's call a spade a spade. Why? Because you're eating highly unusual food combinations, which do not agree with the human digestive system.

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Stop saying "this diet." There isn't an official Peat diet, but yes, there is a basic Peat template. But that template can be very different things. For example, I'm a high-starch Peat template whereas Such_Saturation is the opposite.

macaroot said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97955/ I'm sorry. I don't care how "hypo metabolic" drinking a coke with liver cooked in butter is. It's a horrendous combination that your digestive system cannot handle.

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You're generalizing too much. People can totally handle that combo. I personally don't eat liver because it disgusts me and forcing myself to eat it probably does more damage from the stress of that than the purported nutrients that I may get from it.

macaroot said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97955/ When sugar and fat are in the bloodstream at the same time, it is DISASTROUS. Nothing breaks the body down more quickly, in fact.

Carbohydrates were meant to be eaten alone. And proteins and fats were meant to be eaten together. This is how you digest food and drink properly.

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I agree. But I would say that a small amount of fat won't do much. It's too much fat that causes problems. I'm a big fan of mono-meals.

macaroot said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97955/ Ice cream is not healthy any way you spin it. I'm sorry. It's not, unless fat free or low fat. Some of you may claim better sleep from it, which is great. But it doesn't change the fact that it's an unhealthy combo, which will inevitably lead to fatty liver conditions and stomach disorders.

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A bite or two of a little carrageenan/gum free ice cream is not going to "lead to fatty liver." The over consumption of it is the problem. The problem is people can't control themselves and just eat a bite or two. They eat too much.

I agree with you on too much SAFA causing problems but even for someone like me who is critical of SAFA, I still eat small amounts of it, mainly to help with liver function, not to hurt liver function. And to displace/replace stored PUFA. But I'm patient, and I consume very small amounts of it as I've found that the magic of saturated fat happens when you consume small amounts of it.

macaroot said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97955/ Ray Peat seems blind to this pretty common knowledge. I love Ray Peat, don't get me wrong. His work is profound and groundbreaking. He just seems to have no clue how digestion really works.

He knows what foods are best to eat, but not the manner in which they should be eaten.

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Because he doesn't want to wipe your bum for you, he wants you to figure out a food plan that works for your digestion which highly depends on where you live and what your food budget is.

macaroot said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97955/ Saying you should eat protein at every meal is irresponsible. To "balance blood sugar" is the claim. If he had any idea how the digestive system worked, he would realize it's not that cut and dry. Nothing will spike your blood sugar worse, and elevate your liver enzymes more quickly than poorly digested meals.

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I agree with everything there except the part I put in red. But I also wouldn't call it "irresponsible." People should be smart enough to take their own responibility.

macaroot said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97955/ Oh, while I'm at it, get off the whole store-bought orange juice thing. Bottled orange juice is HORRIBLE for you. I don't know one person alive who digests it correctly. It's full of toxins, acids, enzyme inhibitors, and digestive irritants. Leave it alone. ONLY drink fresh squeezed orange juice. You're in trouble if you reach for Tropicana. That stuff is poison.

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Well, the best options are not always available. I'm sure going to pick the Tropicana over other brands if I'm traveling and I have no other choices.

macaroot said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97955/ I saw a recent video of Ray Peat fanboy Danny Roddy. He was terribly jaundiced in the video. I'm surprised he posted it. He has clear indications of a liver disorder. And it's absolutely due to his diet.

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Danny takes a whole two grains of NDT every day spread throughout the day. I'd say that may have something to do with what you're talking about, if he really has jaundice, or maybe he was just tired that day. He's a healthy 30 year old so I don't know why he takes so much thyroid daily, especially if he has his own healthy functioning thyroid gland and liver, but I guess it works for him. I do think he paints a narrow picture of Peat foods though, which is why I comment on his videos.

But back to your main subject here on your thread, balancing blood sugar and fat. When in doubt, just reference Westside's Guide To Fat:

PUFA (all oils besides coconut, nuts, seeds, soybean, some shellfish and finfish, caviar, pork) - Keep low. No need to eat overt PUFA when you can use refined, tasteless coconut oil if you don't like the taste of virgin, or if virgin is allergenic. Many other foods have a mix of PUFA and other fats but should be noted due to having high enough PUFA by themselves.

MUFA (olive, avocado, macadamia nut, palm oil) - Keep low due to accompanied PUFA and simply fat calories. No reason to gorge on olives, avocado, and macadamia nut.

SAFA (cream, any milk/yogurt above skim, cheese, ruminant meat fat, coconut, cacao) - Protective/anti-stress and the body safely burns it at rest, mainly the heart muscle and other muscles at rest. It's what the majority of our adipose tissue should be made up of because we're warm-blooded animals. We convert dietary carbohydrate into butyric acid, a SAFA, in our gut. Overt SAFA can be used in context but it's over-consumption in a short amount of time can lead to fat gain and problems with FFA's and the Randle Cycle. The only exceptional SAFA in that reguard would be coconut fat due to it's special instant liver energy properties and metabolism.

So if one is avoiding PUFA and not gorging on MUFA olives and avocados and chicken, then the problem with fat comes in with SAFA. Gorging on high amounts of the easiest to consume, most tasty SAFA is cream, which is any milk/yogurt above skim, cheese and butter, and ice cream, which is iced cream. The only fat that one would add to a meal is cream, so I'd agree that can be a problem if the amount is too high. No one here adds PUFA or MUFA to a meal.

How do you explain the good metabolism and digestion of breastfed babies despite (whole) breast milk being very high in both fats and carbs? I'm not arguing for any particular carb/fat ratio here, but I can think of a few reasons why eating both at the same time is not a bad thing. In your entire post you didn't explain why digesting carbs and fats together is worse than separately.

Peat references a study done that examined the absorption of vitamins and minerals from a portion of intestine. They found that the intestine allowed maximal amount of nutrients to be absorbed when they came from food in a mixture of all three macronutrients i.e. a mix of fats, carbs and protein.

It's also physiologically satisfying to eat a meal of fats, carbs and protein.

macaroot said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/94686/ This post was my parting shot, as I will never log onto this board ever again.

In health,
Macaroot

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Fairwell, Macaroot! Find fulfillment in some Hay diet or paleo forum, and don't come back!

In all seriousness, does anybody have any experience following macaroots suggestion? Has it aided your digestion by splitting meals and macronutrients in this manner?

My understanding is that balancing macronutrient fairly equally per meal stablises blood sugar. But if this can compromise digestion I would be interested to know.

Are you ******* kidding me?

At what point is consuming fat AND sugar bad for you regarding digestion? Do you even know what digestion really means? It is the process of breaking down foreign energy into familiar energy. That's the fundamental nature of digestion.

The macronutrients are comprised of three components of foreign energy that the body needs to translate into familiar energy. I say this without using scientific terminology to illustrate its simplicity.

You can't eat carbohydrates on their own because all carbs a compounded with the other macros no matter how small. Saying that sugar and fat contradict and are impossible to digest proves a more important truth that Peat understands and you don't;

IT'S PARADOXICAL.

That is the fabric of truth in everything. Sugar and fat seem paradoxical but only in the sense of linear thinking. When you think lateral (i.e. The Middle Way in Buddhism etc), you begin to see that the answers are always paradoxical.

Goodbye macaroot.

jaywills said:

https://raypeatforum.com/forums/posts/97979/ In all seriousness, does anybody have any experience following macaroots suggestion? Has it aided your digestion by splitting meals and macronutrients in this manner?

My understanding is that balancing macronutrient fairly equally per meal stablises blood sugar. But if this can compromise digestion I would be interested to know.

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Not exactly, your blood sugar will as expected rise when you eat glucose whether there is fat or not even if it's not at the same speed. And conversely, fructose, many proteins and fats have no or little effect on blood sugar even when/if they affect other parameters like insulin. A balanced food like milk can also affect both blood sugar (due to lactose) and insulin (lactose but also proteins from milk specifically), even if it may not spike as much as after a rich carb meal. You can experiment yourself at home with a simple glucose test strips device (usually used by diabetics). But those are only post-meal considerations (within 2 hours after a meal when the body is working to regulate blood sugar/fatty acids to stable levels), not the net effect over a day, between meals or when you sleep.

macaroot said:

It amazes me, for as brilliant as Ray Peat is in some regards, he doesn't seem to grasp how the human digestive system really works and processes food.

Many of you are failing on this diet. In fact, most of you are. Let's call a spade a spade. Why? Because you're eating highly unusual food combinations, which do not agree with the human digestive system.

I saw a recent video of Ray Peat fanboy Danny Roddy. He was terribly jaundiced in the video. I'm surprised he posted it. He has clear indications of a liver disorder. And it's absolutely due to his diet.

I'm sorry. I don't care how "hypo metabolic" drinking a coke with liver cooked in butter is. It's a horrendous combination that your digestive system cannot handle.

When sugar and fat are in the bloodstream at the same time, it is DISASTROUS. Nothing breaks the body down more quickly, in fact.

Carbohydrates were meant to be eaten alone. And proteins and fats were meant to be eaten together. This is how you digest food and drink properly.

You can get away with such combinations as milk with fruit, but it has to be fat free milk. Ditto goes for coffee with milk and sugar. It's a healthy beverage when it's fat free milk. It's REALLY bad when you use whole milk or even 2%. Fruit and cheese is a bad mixture. Wine and cheese is ok, because alcohol thins the blood and somewhat negates the negative effect of the fat/sugar combo.

Ice cream is not healthy any way you spin it. I'm sorry. It's not, unless fat free or low fat. Some of you may claim better sleep from it, which is great. But it doesn't change the fact that it's an unhealthy combo, which will inevitably lead to fatty liver conditions and stomach disorders.

Coconut oil can be healthy. But in the absence of sugar. It's not as bad with starches because starches take longer to digest. But sugar and coconut oil? Forget it.

Ray Peat seems blind to this pretty common knowledge. I love Ray Peat, don't get me wrong. His work is profound and groundbreaking. He just seems to have no clue how digestion really works.

He knows what foods are best to eat, but not the manner in which they should be eaten.

Saying you should eat protein at every meal is irresponsible. To "balance blood sugar" is the claim. If he had any idea how the digestive system worked, he would realize it's not that cut and dry. Nothing will spike your blood sugar worse, and elevate your liver enzymes more quickly than poorly digested meals.

Eat carbs with fat free sources and low protein.
Eat proteins and fats together.
Starches can be mixed with proteins ok.
Coffee with fat free milk and sugar, great beverage.

Oh, while I'm at it, get off the whole store-bought orange juice thing. Bottled orange juice is HORRIBLE for you. I don't know one person alive who digests it correctly. It's full of toxins, acids, enzyme inhibitors, and digestive irritants. Leave it alone. ONLY drink fresh squeezed orange juice. You're in trouble if you reach for Tropicana. That stuff is poison.

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Thank you so much sir. luckily I was able to read this before really implementing my new diet.

Polo Saad said:

Thank you so much sir. luckily I was able to read this before really implementing my new diet.

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lol

cyclops said:

lol

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I mean look I know a lot of people disagree with him here .I have read mostly all the comments ,But I really followed his tips mentioned above because it's better to be safe than sorry after

That was like the crazy woman yelling at herself down at the supermarket.

Protein should actually be eaten with carbs. There was a study posted some time ago on these forums that show that carbs alone may increase serotonin but this effect is blunted with sufficient protein alongside the carb source. It doesn't take that much protein though, I can't recall the amount though, maybe something like 1:5 protein:carb.

Also I think the healthier someone is, the more fats they can handle alongside carbs, but someone who is metabolically unhealthy is gonna need to opt for mostly protein/carb meals with relatively low fat in the form of SFA.

The og argument can’t hold because if fat and sugar didn’t digest well then there wouldn’t be a single healthy toddler or mammal alive, since this is the exact combination found in mammal milk.

That being said, I have noticed that digestion is very important, and eating that anything your stomach can’t digest is grounds for poor health.

I’m on a fruit and veggie fast right now...we’ll see how long this lasts lol.

EDIT: the animal fast lasted 24 hrs. I fell to my craving of porterhouse steak

Runenight201 said:

The og argument can’t hold because if fat and sugar didn’t digest well then there wouldn’t be a single healthy toddler or mammal alive, since this is the exact combination found in mammal milk.

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Not sure if you ever had a child but babies do actually get morbidly obese from breast milk. The speed at which they gain all the fat is literally measured and compared to charts. And anything below that is a sign of problems.

So yes, milk is a proven and guaranteed way to induce a massive fat gain.

Bumping this thread for no indigestion

Of course this is not truth. Stomach creates acidity juices which is like disinfiction so no matter what you combine it should be digested well.
The problem could be if:
1) drinking too much liquid (more than 300ml?) right before or after meals.
2) difficult to digest meals for example too much fat in main meal, also big portion of protein in main meal as well as too much proteins all day long, etc..

Maybe we have also differences on size of stomach, so individuality matters.

macaroot said:

When sugar and fat are in the bloodstream at the same time, it is DISASTROUS. Nothing breaks the body down more quickly, in fact.

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Westside PUFAs said:

I agree. But I would say that a small amount of fat won't do much. It's too much fat that causes problems. I'm a big fan of mono-meals.
.

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haidut said:

This is a recent study that confirms another controversial one I posted on the forum more than a year ago.
Low Protein / High Carb Diet - Healthier Than Caloric Restriction

The newer study also had some unexpected findings. For example, increasing protein level in the diet did NOT increase satiety, and did not lead to weight loss. In fact, when dietary fat was higher than 20% of calories increasing protein levels led to increased weight. Some of that weight was lean mass but a lot of it was adipose tissue as well. At fat levels below 20%, varying protein levels up to 30% of calories had no effect on weight.
The good news is that varying dietary sucrose also did NOT lead to weight gain - neither fat nor lean tissue. Even more interestingly, unlike protein, combining sugar with fat did NOT lead to weight gain even though the fat level was quite high - 41.7% of calories. Unfortunately, the study only looked at diets of up to 30% sucrose, which may be well-below the level of sucrose consumed by Peatarians or the general public for that matter. It would have been nice to see results from up to 60% sucrose. Still, the study is quite clear that official guidelines are mistaken in suggesting that sugar is leading to the obesity epidemic currently observed. It is all about the fat, they say. The study has a nice infographic at the beginning, which I am posting here because I think it illustrates quite nicely the results.

https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(18)30392-9
View attachment 10016

New study finds that fat consumption is the only cause of weight gain | News | The University of Aberdeen
"...Professor John Speakman, who led the study, said: “The result of this enormous study was unequivocal – the only thing that made the mice get fat was eating more fat in their diets. “Carbohydrates including up to 30% of calories coming from sugar had no effect. Combining sugar with fat had no more impact than fat alone. There was no evidence that low protein (down to 5%) stimulated greater intake, suggesting there is no protein target. These effects of dietary fat seemed to be because uniquely fat in the diet stimulated the reward centres in the brain, stimulating greater intake. “A clear limitation of this study is that it is based on mice rather than humans. However, mice have lots of similarities to humans in their physiology and metabolism, and we are never going to do studies where the diets of humans are controlled in the same way for such long periods. So the evidence it provides is a good clue to what the effects of different diets are likely to be in humans.”

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if this is true,
why high fat + high sugar together works for these 5 people then?
- @Hans: My Starch Free And Zero Fiber Experiment
- @kreeese & @CLASH & @theLaw: PROGRESS REPORT FASTEST FAT LOSS EVER THANKS TO RAYYY
- @Zachs: What i have done to cure hypo and stay lean.

@Hgreen56 Just to be clear, you won't be getting a reply from WestSide or OP, neither have been active for quite some time.

As for food combining, I do think there's probably something to it. I notice substantial differences in my state when I sort of follow the natural Randle Cycle theory. I essentially have really low fat breakfasts and lunches, and my highest fat meal is dinner. There's something to be said about starting the day off with a really low fat meal. I think, for me anyways, it tends to push my body towards glucose oxidation for the rest of the day.

Also, when push comes to shove, I think having lots of dietary fat in one single meal, towards the end of the day, is a lot better on the metabolism then eating high amounts of fat throughout the day. So I don't really think the amount of fat is really in question per se, I think the timing of when you eat the fat is far more important (although my total fat intake tends to be low as well).

The whole randle cycle thing is extremely complicated to be such a simple cycle, so it's obvious the same thing may not work broadly across many people. Different people will respond better to different things. And this partly can be explained by people's exposure to enviromental toxins, like bacterial endotoxin for example. People who seem to have a high degree of metabolic flexibility will be able to combine high amounts of sugar and fat with less concern.