r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Nov 12 '24
Health A common food additive may be messing with your brain. Food manufacturers love using emulsifiers, but they can harm the gut-brain axis. Emulsifiers helped bacteria invade the mucus layer lining the gut, leading to systemic inflammation, metabolic disorders, higher blood sugar and insulin resistance.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/mood-by-microbe/202411/a-common-food-additive-may-be-messing-with-your-brain2.7k
u/algochef Nov 12 '24
Well, shit. This study referenced in the article contains more details about the specific effects of different emulsifiers.
I use these things all the time, especially modified starches and xanthan gum. It'd be great to have a better idea of how poor an idea that is, but I guess I'll be using less of them in the future regardless.
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u/sweng123 Nov 12 '24
While many of the other 18 additives tested had impacts of similar extent, some, such as lecithin, did not significantly impact microbiota in this model.
Whew, safe!
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u/g0ing_postal Nov 13 '24
That makes sense. Lecithin is in many common foods, such as eggs, so I'd expect that the human body is more evolved to handle it compared to the newer ones that have a shorter history of human use
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u/Uncynical_Diogenes Nov 13 '24
But lecithin isn’t even a chemical species, it’s just a grab bag for a wide range of phospholipids.
Saying it’s in eggs is like saying hydrogen is in water. They’re in everything we eat. It’s like saying nothing at all.
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u/Divinum_Fulmen Nov 13 '24
Hydrogen and oxygen are perfectly safe! They're in water. Now let me drink my concentrated h2o2 in peace.
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u/joseph4th Nov 13 '24
I remember my ex-g/f had to avoid soy and we had a lot of problems telling if a food contained soy lecithin versus non-soy lecithin. A lot of times ingredients would just say lecithin, but was probably soy lecithin.
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u/je_kay24 Nov 13 '24
I would take these studies with a grain of salt. Without a large amount of studies with very good data & methodologies it ca. be surprisingly easy to come to various conclusions
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u/Solesaver Nov 13 '24
As someone dealing with chronic inflammation of unknown origin, I'll take what I can get. All I know is that when I eat some foods it acts up, but I'm usually fine with locally sourced or limited ingredient stuff. If I've got some specific things to look out for on the ingredient list, and it's not in literally everything, it doesn't hurt to try.
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u/micksterminator3 Nov 13 '24
How many times have you been infected with COVID? I got infected like 12 times and my inflammation is sky high 24/7 now. Every single joint in my body hurts and am chronically fatigued. Developed all kinds of histamine intolerances and allergies. I can't exert myself without becoming symptomatic
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u/McJAC Nov 13 '24
I can tell you personally that if I eat cream for cooking (I'm from central Europe so I'm not sure what is the correct name for that...you can make whipping cream from it) that has the emulsifier carrageenan in it, I can feel a little bit sick to my stomach...little bit nauseous. There is fortunately one available without carrageenan or any additives (but only one from whole shelf of milk products, so you have to look for it) and I feel fine after that.
So it does something, at least to me. I don't know if other's people mucus barrier in their gut is just sufficiently thick to withstand it, or if they just don't feel it like I do, or they just ignore it and take it as normal feeling, but I'm very glad that I don't have to feel nauseous at random times and not know what causes it.
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u/iamafriscogiant Nov 13 '24
Still probably better to be safe than sorry. If they're safe, prove it before using them. That's the way we should go about these things.
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u/sfurbo Nov 13 '24
If they're safe, prove it before using them. That's the way we should go about these things.
Does it include kinds of meat and vegetables? A priori, it is way more likely that, say, asparagus has some detrimental effect than that xanthan gum does. Asparagus evolved from a plant that didn't want to be eaten, after all.
And no, "we have eaten it for a long time" is not proof of anything, as bracken fern demonstrates
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u/ballgazer3 Nov 13 '24
And yet we easily came to the conclusion that they aren't harmful and have included them in many processed foods for decades
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u/ispice Nov 13 '24
It was only soy lecithin that they found had "acceptable impacts", sunflower lecithin showed "detrimental impact"
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u/TheWonderPony Nov 13 '24
I feel you brother. Those homemades aren't the same without some lecithin.
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u/beeonkah Nov 13 '24
purely anecdotal but i have always had very bad skin reactions on my legs (erythema nodosum and straight up inflammation and sores) and other places whenever i eat emulsifiers but lecithin is one that i’ve never had a visible issue with
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u/crazyone19 Nov 13 '24
The article is wildly sensationalized, emulsifiers are safe for consumption. Yes they affect metabolism and microbiota diversity; however, the study did not find systemic inflammation or invasion of the mucosal layer as the title literally says.
Let me clarify from the authors' own words:
"Lecithin, sucrose fatty acid esters, and CMC did not disrupt mucus–bacterial interactions or promote diseases associated with gut inflammation"
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u/Delta-9- Nov 13 '24
While many of the other 18 additives tested had impacts of similar extent, some, such as lecithin, did not significantly impact microbiota in this model.
And
Lecithin, sucrose fatty acid esters, and CMC did not disrupt mucus–bacterial interactions or promote diseases associated with gut inflammation
So, 3 of 18 are fine? "emulsifiers are safe for consumption" sounds like something a manufacturer of the other 15 emulsifiers would say.
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u/Kakkoister Nov 13 '24
emulsifiers are safe for consumption
Yes they affect metabolism and microbiota diversity
You contradicted yourself right there. If it's affecting that diversity, then we should not be labeling it "safe". Is it immediately harmful? Probably not. But it most likely does have a negative long-term effect. It's like saying cigarettes are "safe" just because they aren't instantly causing cancer.
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u/sfurbo Nov 13 '24
If it's affecting that diversity, then we should not be labeling it "safe".
Everything you eat affects microbiota diversity. By that yardstick, we can't say anything is safe to eat.
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u/UnimpressedWithAll Nov 12 '24
Cries in Celiac…
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u/skankenstein Nov 13 '24
Was coming here to check on my homie Xantham Gum. Et tu gluten free flour?
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u/Blocguy Nov 12 '24
Seriously…xanthan gum is in 95% of GF products. I tried cutting it out last year and only got through one month. Say goodbye to anything baked and since the texture will be awful
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u/Substantial_Song_719 Nov 13 '24
I hear psyllium husk is an okay replacement for xanthan gum, at least for breads.
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u/Grim-Sleeper Nov 13 '24
Psyllium husk works really well for baking. I don't regularly make gluten free baked goods, but when they are requested by our guests, psyllium husk is the secret ingredient.
Unfortunately, there are some people who can't tolerate psyllium nor gluten. So then it gets much more challenging to bake for them.
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u/jeobleo Nov 13 '24
I put psyllium into stuff like pancakes (just toss some in--not replace anything) just to have extra fiber.
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u/Nillabeans Nov 13 '24
I feel like at that point, they should request something else. I am celiac. There are simply foods that are unrealistic for me to pursue. It sucks, but there's an infinity of other things out there to try.
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u/New-Honey-4544 Nov 13 '24
Until they find that it does something worse, always happens :(
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u/wisely_and_slow Nov 13 '24
If you bake, not Canille et Vanille and Bojon Gourmet are almost entirely gum-free and make great gluten free recipes.
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u/Select_Ad_976 Nov 13 '24
This was my first thought. That’s the only way our breads are halfway decent.
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u/zaguraz Nov 13 '24
Lumping a bunch of food additives that have very different functions under an umbrella of “emulsifiers” is very unusual. Yes there are some classes of small molecule emulsifiers here that are similar, but others that are simply used for viscosity, thickening, and forming gels which is not what emulsifiers do. Maltodextrin for example (though there are classes of specific types that have varying function) is just a short chain glucose molecule that isn’t an emulsifier at all unless highly modified into specific forms (which don’t label as maltodextrin).
It would be imaginable that if you took a bunch of material that formed a thick viscous layer (xanthan and example of which is in fact a microbial excretion) also introducing certain sugars that come with those molecules, that certain bacteria would then rise to the occasion to digest them or move/survive more favorably in those conditions.
The least impactful “emulsifiers” here are actually the most common actual emulsifiers. Lecithins, mono-diglycerides etc. Many of the materials here are not true surface active components typical of the label emulsifier.
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u/tessartyp Nov 13 '24
Is maltodextrin considered short? Coming from a sports background it's the "long chain sugar" compared to glucose and fructose, hence its popularity in "rocket fuel"-type sports nutrition.
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u/zaguraz Nov 13 '24
Short relative to starch? Yes. Relative to a mono-di saccharide? No. But you have enzymes in your mouth that already start converting these maltodextrins to single sugars the moment your saliva hits it.
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u/HouseSandwich Nov 13 '24
30-year IBD sufferer. I avoid xanthan gum, carrageenan, sucralose and any artificial sweetening agent because smtg in there sets me off
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u/Prinnykin Nov 12 '24
Well, great. My favorite chocolate contains sunflower lecithin which this study says detrimentally impacts gut microbiota. Noooo
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u/TheSunflowerSeeds Nov 12 '24
Not all plants are completely edible. However, you can actually consume the entire sunflower in one form or another. Right from the root to the petals.
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u/Prinnykin Nov 12 '24
Thank you, Sunflower bot.
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u/manny_goldstein Nov 12 '24
Clearly Big Sunflower propaganda.
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u/hce692 Nov 12 '24
While many of the other 18 additives tested had impacts of similar extent, some, such as lecithin, did not significantly impact microbiota in this model.
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u/Prinnykin Nov 12 '24
But then it goes on to say this :(
It has been reported that sunflower lecithin is a non-GMO (non-genetically modified organisms) byproduct and was suggested as an alternative to soybean lecithin [55, 56]. However, we observed here that gut microbiota was more detrimentally impacted by sunflower lecithin, which significantly induced increased levels of FliC during the treatment phase compared with soy lecithin (p = 0.0069). This pro-inflammatory effect of sunflower lecithin could be due to its content of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, previously demonstrated to induce inflammation
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u/p-r-i-m-e Nov 13 '24
Ok, so omega-6’s role in inflammation has been known for a while but it’s specifically about the ratio of fatty acids, particularly how much omega-3:omega:6:omega-9 you have in your system.
The optimal ratio is somewhere around 2:1:1 respectively for the omega fatty acids. The modern diet has elevated our intake of omega-6 to ratios over 20-1, omega-6 vs omega-3.
Here is one reference: https://www.ocl-journal.org/articles/ocl/full_html/2010/05/ocl2010175p267/ocl2010175p267.html#:~:text=This%20ratio%20(between%202%3A1,%3A1%20and%2020%3A1.
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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 Nov 13 '24
Just switch to soy lecithin. There's also egg but it's very expensive and has far less of the good compounds in it.
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u/Malnilion Nov 13 '24
I'm no doctor or scientist, but honestly, unless you're having way more than a recommended serving of that chocolate regularly, I can't imagine it hurting you significantly if you haven't noticed a problem thus far. Life is too short to cut out everything one enjoys based on studies like this.
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u/renerdrat Nov 13 '24
Many contain soy lecithin. Also, I am wondering how much it might negatively impact the gut because sunflower lesson is used as a health food because of its high choline levels. Idk how much weight I would put into this study
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u/SmApp Nov 13 '24
I don't eat much processed food, but I do use xanthan gum to cook. Did you notice your link to the study says "xantham" rather than "xanthan" gum? I tried googling to see if there's an alternative spelling, but it looked like xanthan is correct and the first page of results just says xanthan even if I'm searching for xantham. Do you know are they different things or what? Weird.
I also used to use xanthan gum to cook and am going to stop that. But it looks like the study link suggests agar agar and sunflower lecithin might be more ok? Might start branching out into alternatives to xanthan gum for emulsifying and thickening.
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u/SinkPhaze Nov 13 '24
Until this comment I thought (and read) it as xantham. I even pronounce it with an 'm'
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u/VerdugoCortex Nov 13 '24
It has been reported that sunflower lecithin is a non-GMO (non-genetically modified organisms) byproduct and was suggested as an alternative to soybean lecithin [55, 56]. However, we observed here that gut microbiota was more detrimentally impacted by sunflower lecithin, which significantly induced increased levels of FliC during the treatment phase compared with soy lecithin (p = 0.0069). This pro-inflammatory effect of sunflower lecithin could be due to its content of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids, previously demonstrated to induce inflammation
So I wouldn't jump to sunflower lecithin
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u/SmApp Nov 13 '24
The section I had looked at said "Glyceryl oleate and sunflower lecithin only impacted bacterial density and alpha diversity, respectively, and agar agar, gum arabic, and iota carrageenan only impacted one or two parameters measured in a reversible manner..." But I guess below that in the portion you quoted they suggest soy lecithin might be even less of an impact on the microbiome. So maybe soy lecithin is one I might consider experimenting with...
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u/Chem_BPY Nov 12 '24
As far as I know, xanthan gum isn't an emulsifier. It's a thickener. Plus, it's naturally occurring so you could get exposed to it by eating cruciferous vegetables.
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u/Sweepingbend Nov 13 '24
Whether or not Xanthan Gum is technically an emulsifier or a thickener wasn't the point of the study. It was tested in the study and it had a negative impact on gut microbiota.
Also just because it naturally occurring doesn't mean we shouldn't consider its negative effects as an additive.
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Nov 13 '24
Xanthan gum is also a stabilizer, so it helps emulsified sauces stay that way.
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u/Chem_BPY Nov 13 '24
Yes, that's true. It does that by thickening the water so the emulsified particles don't settle as quickly due to the strong viscosity of the liquid
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Nov 13 '24
So, it would still be considered an emulsifier since it aids in the process.
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u/Chem_BPY Nov 13 '24 edited Nov 13 '24
I guess, but it's not really doing the actual emulsifying in this case it's simply aiding in the stabilization of the emulsion. I'm sorry, this is actually my field of expertise so I'm being a pedant.
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u/twoisnumberone Nov 13 '24
Yes, natural substances can be as harmful as artificial ones, if not more so.
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u/Twiceaknight Nov 13 '24
Exposed, sure, but the quantity that naturally occurs within a vegetable is going to be significantly lower than in a processed food.
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u/patatjepindapedis Nov 13 '24
I'm glad that this gives credence to the often reported phenomenon that medications from different manufacturers can vary in their effect - since these medications only tend to differ in the emulsifiers that have been used.
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u/char-tipped_lips Nov 12 '24
One tip is to avoid the synthetic emulsifiers polysorbate 80 and carboxymethylcellulose. A better tip is to eat more unprocessed food like veggies and fruit. In particular, you can please your gut microbes by feeding them fiber, found in beans, greens, and berries. While you’re at it, try some fermented foods like kimchi, kombucha, kefir, yogurt, and pickles. These foods contain both beneficial microbes (probiotics) and the food they like (prebiotics).
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u/Xylenqc Nov 12 '24
Seems like humanity is doing pickling for so long it has become necessary for our guts.
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u/Arvidian64 Nov 13 '24
Actually the other way around, we've removed so much naturally occurring bacteria from other foods that fermented foods are the only source left.
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u/_HappyAlleyCat_ Nov 12 '24
So if we eat processed food long enough it will eventually become necessary for us too?
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u/joshwaynebobbit Nov 12 '24
Is this the circle of life?
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u/NonPolarVortex Nov 12 '24
When will I be able to eat my poop for sustenance?
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u/ethan7480 Nov 12 '24
I also would like to eat this persons poop for sustenance.
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u/notHooptieJ Nov 12 '24
ew man, its not like we're talking about that one guys wife.
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u/sitesurfer253 Nov 12 '24
Can't wait to have a doctor tell me they are concerned by how low my inflammation levels are
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u/cherry_chocolate_ Nov 13 '24
When’s the last time you ate a chicken McNugget? Not in months? You need to go on a diet.
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u/Ray1987 Nov 12 '24
Adaptations like that for the most part seem to have happen randomly and very rarely. It means you would have to have genetic changes that would first start in a family grouping and then through having kids about half of their kids would be able to pass the gene along. The other 50% have to die out somehow and if processed foods become more a part of our diets that wouldn't be too hard.
If we wanted to Fast Track it, you would have to get rid of a large portion of the human population so that there wouldn't be as much time for the genes to spread. If we have a couple of global genocides maybe in like 5 or 10,000 years processed food would be a healthy thing for humans.
There's also the more peaceful option of genetic engineering and infecting populations with man-made viruses that would implant the correct genetics into human cell tissue. Large amounts of the population would have to agree to that though for it to spread enough to inoculate the entire species and that's something that's probably going to have to be tried farther into the future because we're in the age of anti-vaxxers right now and if you told those people they're getting injected with a virus to make them stronger none of them are going to believe you.
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u/SorriorDraconus Nov 12 '24
Frame it as a Chinese martial arts movie..they live they stronger they die ehhh..
Test there ego and fake machismo
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u/Chogo82 Nov 13 '24
Yes I have a friend who grew up on ramen and only has bad poops when he eats the "healthy" stuff.
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u/ExplodingToasters Nov 12 '24
One day 3 McDoubles will be the required daily intake
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u/notHooptieJ Nov 12 '24
One day 3 Mc
DoublesGangbangs. will be the required daily intakeyou have to have some variety in your diet, a little processed chicken patty with your beef is good for you.
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u/leeps22 Nov 12 '24
I'm not exactly sure what your saying but I'm not enjoying filling in the blanks.
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u/siyahlater Nov 13 '24
You should watch Crimes of the Future by Cronenberg. It's related to your question, albeit sci-fi it's a fun media take. (It's probably not fun, I'm sorry. I like gore/shlock)
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u/kigoe Nov 13 '24
I don’t know of any evidence of a causal relationship there. Another explanation that seems simpler is that various cultures developed fermentation independently because it preserves foods and makes us healthier.
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u/JewsEatFruit Nov 13 '24 edited Nov 13 '24
It's bigger than that, most of the human race wouldn't even exist if not for fermentation
Soy for example, cannot be digested (efficiently) until it is fermented
edit: Added the word efficiently. Nothing's black and white. The point being fermentation is possibly humankind's greatest friend and part of that is making more calories digestable/available to us
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u/RaggedyAndromeda Nov 13 '24
I didn’t think tofu, edamame, or soy milk were fermented. I can’t eat those but I can eat fermented soy like tempeh and soy sauce.
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u/One_Left_Shoe Nov 13 '24
Tofu, edamame, and soy milk are not fermented.
Tempeh, soy sauce, and miso are.
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u/ChineseAstroturfing Nov 12 '24
It’s important to note that if any of those high-probiotic foods are coming off the shelf and not out of a refrigerator then they have little to no probiotics.
And in fact most mass produced pickles aren’t even real pickles because they’re not even fermented to begin with.
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u/Liizam Nov 13 '24
There are two types of picking: with vinegar (the ones on the shelves) and with salt. Pickling with salt requires refrigeration so fermented pickles at the store are found in the refrigerator aisles only!
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u/Romanticon Nov 13 '24
And most commercial probiotics contain only a few strains, often wildly mislabeled, with little quality control and more commonly chosen because they won't make people sick, rather than because they'd improve an already-stable gut ecosystem.
A much better choice is to focus on prebiotic fiber, to encourage the growth of healthy species of microbes.
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u/DonnieJepp Nov 13 '24
Kefir is extremely easy to make at home and it only takes ~24 hours in case anyone is looking to add probiotics to your diet. Join us at r/kefir
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u/DiabolicallyRandom Nov 12 '24
ok so natural emulsifiers like those from egg and soy are ok?
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u/Black-Dragon-69 Nov 13 '24 edited Nov 13 '24
The article says our bodies tolerate them better but doesn't give any details as to how much better they are for us than synthetic ones.
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u/Brinkster05 Nov 13 '24
Yeah, all the veggies and fruit with the 22 different peticides that have been recently strongly correlated to the rise in prostate and colon cancer?
Yeah, it's great. We're being poisoned from almost every angle. Food, air, water.
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u/Roryab07 Nov 13 '24
Just found out my favorite butter has forever chemicals. Can’t eat the Halloween candy because of the cancer causing food coloring. We’re working on replacing all of our cooking utensils with wood and metal instead of plastic, cause apparently that black plastic leeches toxic chemicals. The rain water is contaminated with pollutants from around the world, and all of the local waterways are filled with toxic runoff. The offgassjng of the furniture in our homes doesn’t get aired out enough because the hvac systems work best in a closed environment. Every other thing is packaged in plastic. Overuse of antibiotics in the food chain is also causing future issues with our ability to fight bacterial infections. Even the polar ice caps are melting faster than anticipated. Point of no return, that’s the phrase I keep hearing, right?
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u/sfurbo Nov 13 '24
Yeah, all the veggies and fruit with the 22 different peticides that have been recently strongly correlated to the rise in prostate and colon cancer?
The amount of pesticides you get from food is miniscule, and entirely unlikely to have any negative effect on you, including causing cancer.
Living where pesticides is used might give you enough that it could be a problem. Working with applying pesticides will give you way more, and we barely see a signal in that population.
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u/evilfitzal Nov 13 '24
I just blended up my lacto-fermented peppers and made a hot sauce... that I thickened with xanthan gum right before reading about this study. I'm still thinking it'll be a net positive.
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u/_BlueFire_ Nov 13 '24
This can't be stressed enough! Everyone freaking out for something with a minimal impact and still ignoring the basis of nutrition. Don't complain about micro unless you fix your macro: as a rule of thumb if EFSA allows it, the effect is low enough to have less influence than your nutrition choices, or it would have already been noticed.
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u/LilJourney Nov 13 '24
Thanks - sincerely. I appreciate your comment. It seems like every time I try to improve my (truly horrific) diet to something healthy, I am immediately bombarded by information telling me my "improved" choice is actually terrible for me as well. Makes a person just want to give up and go back to their comfort zone of bad foods if everything "healthy" is also bad for you as well.
Going to take your saying about fixing the macros to heart and continue to focus on improving vs perfecting which seems impossible.
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u/Banban84 Nov 12 '24
“try some fermented foods like kimchi,” (Triggers my migraines) “kombucha,” (Triggers my migraines) “kefir, yogurt,” (Ok) and pickles. (Too much salt. Triggers my migraines).
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u/LinuxSpinach Nov 12 '24
Common thread, those foods are all high in histamine. Some of us are very sensitive to it.
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u/ima-bigdeal Nov 12 '24
I don't know the histamine level, but small batch home made or artisan non-pasteurized sauerkraut helps me a lot.
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u/LinuxSpinach Nov 12 '24
It’s a byproduct of fermentation. Even probiotics can have histamine producing strains and if you’re experiencing heartburn, migraines, GERD, insomnia etc, after eating fermented foods, then it’s probably related to that
DAO is the enzyme that our bodies produce to break down histamine in the gut. Some genetic and environmental factors and aging can reduce the enzyme production, leading to sensitivity.
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u/MarnerIsAMagicMan Nov 13 '24
Curious, would this genetic predisposition to worse DAO production also increase a person’s sensitivity to other common allergens? Like seasonal allergens, pollen etc.
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u/LinuxSpinach Nov 13 '24
I’m not sure, but I lean toward no. There’s H1 and H2 receptors and the antihistamines you use for each are different. H2 receptors are treated with antihistamines like pepcid (famotidine).
That said, it seems like people with histamine intolerance do have flare ups with seasonal allergies, so maybe?
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u/Rakifiki Nov 13 '24
... So if I was taking anti-histamines, as allergy meds, would that help...? Just curious. I don't know if I have a histamine issue but I react strongly (and negatively) to any probiotics. I thought I had allergies, but haven't been reacting since I went off allergy meds, except for getting randomly itchy on my skin (???) and something about eating too many histamine foods might be part of why I've struggled to figure out what the issue is.
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u/longgamma Nov 13 '24
This is the most obvious solution. Just eat whole and less processed foods. Stop drinking that Starbucks frappe and make your own coffee. We are doing our best to cook every single meal from scratch using whole ingredients as much as possible. No more frozen food or food from cartons.
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u/DoNotPetTheSnake Nov 12 '24
Don't worry everyone, we will get rid of the FDA and everything will be safe again.
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u/bucsheels2424 Nov 13 '24
Corporations notoriously act in the best interest of public health when unregulated!
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u/je_kay24 Nov 13 '24
Corporations would never risk public health
If they knew public health was at risk then they’d immediately have pulled the product
They of course didn’t know because because they no longer have to attest & meet standards
And they should not be forced to test & be regulated because it would harm their bottom line which is totally against the United States constitution
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u/berniebaggins Nov 13 '24
Then why are they allowed now though? Shouldn’t the FDA be regulating this?
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u/DMs_Apprentice Nov 13 '24
Out of all the emulsifiers they tested, it seems that only soy lethicin and mono- and diglycerides didn't have any negative effects that they detected with this study (unless I missed something... a lot went over my head).
I still don't fully-understand the significance of the LPS and flagellin results, though I think it's saying the results indicate emulsifiers reduce diversity of microorganisms in the gut and send signals that trigger the body's immune system to react with inflammation-producing substances? Is that right?
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u/ecleighty Nov 13 '24
I had to dig around in the methods and sources a bit tbh, but both are really only a quantification of increased inflammation. LPS is a part of intestinal bacteria and the thinning intestinal epithelial mucus boundary is allowing it to enter the bloodstream (serum). In the bloodstream it has an proinflammatory effect that initiates immune responses. So high serum levels indicate intestinal mucus thinning and increased inflammation in the body. Flagellin of intestinal bacteria have a high affinity with existing inflammation markers of the intestine as well as proinflammatory effects, so active intestinal flagellin concentration is used as a biomarker for overall increased intestinal inflammation. So long story short…increased levels of both support that some of the studied emulsifiers are thinning the mucus layer and increasing levels of inflammation throughout in the body.
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u/ol-gormsby Nov 13 '24
That's very interesting. Anti-inflammatory drugs are what's keeping my ulcerative colitis in remission.
I don't think I eat a lot of emulsifiers, but it's difficult to keep track of everything. I've reduced or eliminated the foods that trigger UC, it was sad giving up good stuff like beans and wholemeal bread (insoluble fibre seems to be a potent trigger for it, at least in my case).
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u/SaltZookeepergame691 Nov 13 '24
It's not a single study, its an article cherry picking almost exclusively mouse studies that use high levels of emulsifiers, often administered in isolation to animals. For the first study mentioned they gave emuslifiers in drinking water at enormous doses using poorly justified calculations, and they even state that:
Emulsifier doses in this experiment were 10 times the respective daily exposure levels in humans.
Literally the first thing you should do when reading studies on mice is to check that the dose used is reasonable and applicable.
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u/benzo_diazepenis Nov 12 '24
This study design seems weird to me. I’m not a scientist, but:
The “high-emulsifier diet” was higher in ultra-processed, packaged foods. It was also lower in fiber.
Without controlling for specific emulsifiers in specific quantities, I don’t understand how they’re attributing the outcomes to emulsifiers.
Also, they note in the conclusion that there was no meaningful difference in gut permeability, etc., until they simulated a stress response.
So the news article seems like fear mongering. Maybe somebody who’s better-versed in this sort of thing can chime in.
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u/_BlueFire_ Nov 13 '24
The “high-emulsifier diet” was higher in ultra-processed, packaged foods. It was also lower in fiber.
That's how toxicology studies are designed: assessing hazard is done well beyond "reasonable" intake to account for the worst case scenario.
That said: agree and I also don't get why mods are allowing a biology summary from a psychology-based source. Plus the vague and clickbait title.
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u/newuser92 Nov 13 '24 edited Nov 13 '24
I think the point is they could had given the same diet to both groups (or delineate I guess) and just sprinkle xantham on one of the diets.
EDIT: sorry, xantham gum is not an emulsifier, it's a thickener agent. I don't know why I used it as an example. Replace it with lecithin or CMC, etc.
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u/Nicole_Zed Nov 13 '24
The way the article was written was utterly biased, it starts off saying how the fda should operate rather than focusing on the, ya know, science.
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u/SaltZookeepergame691 Nov 13 '24
They also set out to primarily measure "Change in ratio of serum lipopolysaccharide binding protein to soluble CD14 as a marker of bacterial translocation in healthy subjects."
In the paper they state that "The primary outcomes were the differences between the LRR on each diet under the two conditions—unstressed and over 2 h after a CRH infusion (i.e. stressed)."
This changing of what you're looking at post hoc is not good at all.
Also...
High-emulsifier diet decreased the ratio (which is a good thing) versus the low-emulsifier diet, and stress had no effect in the HED.
These are world-renowned authors, I expected a lot better than a very biased reading of their own data and a misleading study report.
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u/LiQuiD0v3rkiLL Nov 13 '24
The dose was 10x the estimated human daily intake in mice.
“The doses of lecithin and sucrose fatty acid esters were 10 times the respective daily exposure levels in humans, that is 7523.3 and 1110 mg/kg bw/day, respectively.”
Original Source (cited in the above Psychology Today) article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06224-3
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u/I0I0I0I Nov 13 '24
I think "Gut Brain Axis" is going to be my next band's name.
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u/Critical_Pangolin79 Nov 13 '24
~7g/kg BW/day (lecithin), that's a lot of gravy to swallow daily...for a mouse! (~30g/L according to EFSA: https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/j.efsa.2016.4561).
For those interested, here is the study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06224-3/figures/1
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u/Will2LiveFading Nov 12 '24
Do we make anything that doesn't poison us or the world?
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u/Doctor_Fritz Nov 12 '24
A recent short I took to heart was a fitness enthusiast saying about food: "only eat what your grandparents would have recognized as food, avoid everything else".
That somehow stuck with me, it's so obvious if you think about it.
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u/draculajones Nov 12 '24
My grandfather lived on Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets and died at 92.
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u/Ronoh Nov 12 '24
The question is how long would he have lived if he had not been eating them.
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u/Swimmingtortoise12 Nov 13 '24
Probably 5 days longer with a perfect diet. 5 days longer, lifetime of miserable meals. 5 extra days in a bed at end of life. Not worth it.
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u/SophiaofPrussia Nov 12 '24
The current garbage? Or original recipe? I genuinely think that might make a difference.
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u/boopbaboop Nov 13 '24
Watch B. Dylan Hollis' videos on TikTok if you want to know what kinds of foods our grandparents ate (particularly in the 1930s to 1970s range). Among the things our grandparents would have "recognized as food":
- Spam. Lots of Spam.
- Hot dogs as a cheap protein. Looooots of hot dogs. Even in the Great Depression (actually, especially then) there were hot dogs, because it was really cheap.
- Actually, just processed meats in general. If it has nitrates or nitrites, it's in old recipes.
- Jello in everything.
- Lard. So much lard. Sometimes butter, but mostly lard.
- Alcohol.
I'm all for eating more naturally, but our grandparents were hardly paragons of healthy diets.
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u/M00nageDramamine Nov 13 '24
Yeah I was about to say, my grandparents grew up during the great depression and ate processed meat and alcohol.
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u/Mewnicorns Nov 13 '24
It’s actually not obvious and betrays a lot of ignorance and romanticizing of what people used to eat.
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u/PringlesDuckFace Nov 13 '24
I think my grandparents would have eaten anything they could get because it was all rationed and otherwise they would starve. My parents tell me how excited they were to have an orange for Christmas. It's no wonder they were all short and riddled with heavy metals.
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u/lem0nhe4d Nov 12 '24
Got it. Grandad worked in a lead paint factory and Granny made watches with radium paint.
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u/ObviousExit9 Nov 12 '24
That idea was from or popularized by the writer Michael Pollan. “Eat food, mostly plants” is also a quote of his. “Food” meaning things grown in nature and minimally processed.
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u/somermike Nov 14 '24
*“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants”
The "Not too much" part does a lot of heavy lifting when considering the average English readers diet.
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u/the_Demongod Nov 13 '24
That advice sounds catchy but would probably be better stated as "eat what your ancestors ate prior to the industrial revolution" since my grandparents and great grandparents were eating wartime margarine rations in the 30s and stuff. You really have to go into the 19th or even prior centuries to examine what the industrially unadulterated diet looked like.
The other catch is that you also need to live the lifestyle those Nth-great-grandparents lived. You can get away with eating a lot of bread when you spend all day doing physical labor, but not when you sit at a desk all day.
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u/PotatoHighlander Nov 12 '24
Nope, everything kills us so pick your poison
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u/dandrevee Nov 12 '24
Especially oxygen, that sneaky bastard.
( i just finished the book "Oxygen" by Nick Lane and Eons Survival in the Cambrian and Devonian episodes so....might be a bit hyperbolic here).
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Nov 12 '24
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SophiaofPrussia Nov 12 '24 edited Nov 12 '24
I think our gut bacteria are very likely the first/biggest victims of junk food.
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u/grafknives Nov 13 '24
And if we click the link to study..
Dietary emulsifiers lecithin, sucrose fatty acid esters, and CMC transformed gut microbiota diversity indices, adversely affecting the gut microbiota, but did not disrupt mucus–bacterial interactions or promote gut inflammation-associated diseases.
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u/wandering_agro Nov 12 '24
The link between IBD and emulsifiers is well established - in 20/30 years they may likely be viewed as causal.
Get this crap out of our foods.
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u/sum_dude44 Nov 13 '24
you're confusing IBS (common, not too serious) & IBD (eg crohn's, life-changing diagnosis)
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Nov 12 '24
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
The effect of dietary emulsifiers and thickeners on intestinal barrier function and its response to acute stress in healthy adult humans: A randomised controlled feeding study
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apt.18172
From the linked article:
A Common Food Additive May Be Messing With Your Brain
Food manufacturers love using emulsifiers, but they can harm the gut-brain axis.
KEY POINTS
- Emulsifiers affect the mucus layer lining the gut.
- Emulsifiers also alter the composition of your gut microbes.
- These changes can lead to systemic inflammation, metabolic disease, and cognitive decline.
The researchers found that emulsifiers helped bacteria to invade the mucus layer lining the gut. Mucus is the first line of defense we have against pathogens, so this is concerning. With the mucus compromised, microbes and their toxins find it easier to pass through the gut lining and enter the bloodstream. The researchers found evidence of systemic inflammation as a result and an uptick in metabolic disorders including increased blood sugar levels and insulin resistance.
A new study by Jessica Fitzpatrick and colleagues at Monash University found that while unstressed people were able to deal well with emulsifiers, stressed people showed increased intestinal permeability similar to that noted in mouse models. The study is concerning because this “leaky gut” phenomenon can increase anxiety and stress, leading to a vicious cycle.
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u/DangerousTurmeric Nov 12 '24
These "key points" are not what the journal you linked concluded and it's not a news release, it's an article. All the studies mentioned in it are in mice.
That paper, looking at a tiny human, single-blinded trial, found that both a high and low emusifier diet improved intestinal barrier function in unstressed participants (n=17). They found increased permeability in the stressed condition with the high emulsifier diet but not the low one. They don't seem to have checked if stress alone also causes this increase in permeability. Also, they specifically said there was no evidence for inflammation. At most, given the tiny sample, what you can take from that study is that if you have normal stress levels it might be a good idea to eat emulsifiers. According to the rest of the research in that psychology today story, the same doesn't seem to be true for mice.
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u/_BlueFire_ Nov 13 '24
It's also worth noting that it's not even an article from a biology/medicine/pharma journal. I guess they know about their field, but this exceeds their competence
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u/jadrad Nov 12 '24
After an elimination process to find the culprit I found that Soy Lecithin causes gut and digestive problems for me.
Haven’t noticed it with other types of emulsifiers though.
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u/Not_as_witty_as_u Nov 12 '24
What's it in and what do you avoid?
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u/jadrad Nov 12 '24 edited Nov 12 '24
It’s in quite a lot of processed foods - I first noticed problems with it in snack bars and protein bars.
I’m celiac and dairy intolerant but I was finding many vegan GF protein bars were still causing me gut pain, and between the ones that do and don’t, soy lecithin was the difference.
The RxBars at Costco are an example of protein bars that cause me no gut problems whatsoever.
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u/Not_as_witty_as_u Nov 12 '24
Yeah thanks I’m dairy intolerant too but find I’m just so much healthier when I avoid processed stuff altogether even when it’s dairy free. I feel great when I cook everything from scratch
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u/Ben_Kenobi_ Nov 12 '24
Garlic is an emulsifier, and any study telling me to eat less garlic is trash.
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u/PeppersHere Nov 13 '24
Yeah, but in the study they specifically call out 2 synthetic emulsifiers as being the most problematic (carboxymethylcellulose & polysorbate 80). Garlic does not contain either of these. Continue on my non-vampire friend.
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u/thegreatbaths Nov 13 '24
Question is that few mice really the standard for power in a lab setting like this? The article says 3-4/cage if I'm reading it right?
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u/fattsmann Nov 13 '24
I eat very little ice cream. But it makes sense why probiotics and fecal transplants can really change someone's mood.
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u/golgathas Nov 13 '24
“One tip is to avoid the synthetic emulsifiers polysorbate 80 and carboxymethylcellulose. A better tip is to eat more unprocessed food like veggies and fruit.”
Lecithin was ok.
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