Originally published at: https://ketowomanpodcast.com/jennifer-kleiman-part-2-transcript/
This transcript is brought to you thanks to the hard work of Dawn Michelle.
You've spoken a bit before about how Will cooks up all these tasty things. And I'd forgotten actually when you mentioned just now that last year at Ketofest it was just those samples that you were bringing that you hadn't set up the company at that point. I'd completely forgotten that. I was thinking in my head that you already had it then, but how did you come to that? Was that part of the supportive process, him experimenting with making foods for you to have, is that how it all started?
Absolutely. I feel like some people would take the carnivore, purist approach and they're like, well, I can be the healthiest by eating just meat and vegetables. And so, I'm not going to risk anything. Perhaps I'm a little bit of a risk taker in that sense because I know that I have a sweet tooth and I used to have a pretty serious food addiction that I let run my life. So, I don't want to ever go back there. But, if I can have tasty things that I can enjoy and let my sensual pleasures, you know, really, indulgent without going nuts and getting back into food addiction, then doesn't that enrich my life?
Do I need to be a purist in aesthetic and deny myself pleasures for no reason? I don't think I do. So there are some healthy ways that I found to add tasty things back into my life besides not saying that the meat and vegetables is not tasty, but I really like a good Keto ice cream if I can enjoy a good Keto ice cream without messing up my health. So, for instance, Halo Top, you've tried it, right?
I have never tried Halo Top, actually. The only ice cream that I've tried in the states is Rebel ice cream at Ketofest last year. I've never tried Halo Top. I gather it's got some not-so-great ingredients in it.
It does have some not-so-great ingredients in it. Now, the founder of Halo top was actually a Redditor, participant on the Keto sub-Reddit. So, I felt like I personally chatted with him on there. So, I did try it back in 2016 and sure, some of the ingredients were sketchy and the ice cream wasn't a hundred percent great. Now I understand it wasn't like a ton of sugar, a little bit of sugar, but it wasn't awesome.
And so, there were some things that, I was curious about, sweeteners that I felt did not have any sort of negative health impact. Actually, this was a problem because as a part of diabetes and monitoring my blood glucose. I could see that a lot of the supposedly okay sweeteners out there that weren't counting as sugar, were actually terrible for me. These people are lying. Sorbitol, maltitol, mannitol, isomaltitol, isomalto-oligosaccharides, all these things listed under the sugar alcohols category. Most of them, I could see spike my blood glucose. Erythritol was okay, erythritol was fine.
That seems to be one of the universally accepted by most people not to give them digestive issues and things like that as a one that's available to most people. Most people seem to get on okay with erythritol, don't they?
Yeah. Yeah. I think erythritol is okay, and the taste is pretty good. I mean, it's not exactly sugar and it doesn't cook like sugar.
No. That's the problem with it. And a lot of people don't like the cooling effect it has on everything. I find that in some things you make, you don't get that cooling effect. And I actually don't mind it that much, but I know that's a complaint that a lot of people have with it.
Well, it's okay.
Exactly, it's okay.
And then sucralose, Splenda, aspartame, saccharin, all these chemicals, I researched them, and you know, there's nothing saying that they literally cause cancer. Okay, there is a little bit, but not much. But there are plenty of research showing that aspartame is linked to migraines. Sucralose and saccharin are linked to leaky gut, intestinal irritable bowel disease. If you use them on a regular basis, then your chances of developing these conditions seem to go up, or at least, there's lots of research showing that they're linked. And then even petri dish research showing that they do cause the epithelial lining cells to develop gaps, which is literally leaky gut disease. So, I don't want any part of those. I mean occasionally a little bit, whatever, it's not going to kill you, but still not healthy.
That's the thing. It comes down to what you just said is the regular use thing, isn't it?
Yeah. I think no one's going to die from having the occasional bit, but regular use, daily use, definitely have been shown in some research. Not a lot of research, but some research to be problematic. And then I'm not really a big fan of the taste of stevia.
No, me neither.
I like monkfruit. Have you tried that?
I haven't. I've never tried it. No, it's not something I can get here.
Oh dear. Well, I like monk fruit. It's not exactly the taste of sugar, but it has a nice kind of clean sweetness to it, which, I find pleasant. It's not a sugar, you can't cook with it.
That's often the problem isn't it? You actually, for most things you're making, unless you're sweetening something like coffee, for example, you need that bulk. You need the actual mass of sugar, in inverted commas, in whatever you're making. That plays a part every bit as much as the sweet flavor does, doesn't it?
Well, in fact, I mentioned that I was corresponding with the Halo Top founder, Justin Wolverton, on Reddit and I was asking him, why do you put sugar in your Keto ice cream? It seems to defeat the purpose, right? He's like, well, originally, I started with a very Keto purist sort of a recipe. And he's driving around with his little sample pints to different places and trying to find a place that would manufacturer the ice cream for him. And the problem was that his mix would freeze in the lines, which I think as you know, like you try making a Keto ice cream with erythritol or swerve or what have you, and you put it in the freezer, and it freezes solid as a rock. You know, if you have any leftovers after you've made your batch. Sugar alcohols freeze solid. And he said the property of sugar that is essential for the ice cream is that it lowers the freezing point so that it stays soft in the lines of the manufacturing equipment but also then in the freezer. So, you don't want to have to have a pint of ice cream that you pull out of the freezer and have to sit on the counter for 20 minutes.
Although, I have to say this is one of my slight bugbears with people who go on about ice cream freezing solid, which I have to say it is a thing with erythritol. It freezes really solid. But, you can take it out and leave it in the fridge for half an hour and then by the time you come to eat, it softened up a bit. But, people talk about this being completely scoopable from the freezer. Well, my favorite ice cream has always been Haagen-Dazs. That was my Achilles heel. That was the ice cream that I always used to have. Now, that is not scoopable straight out of the freezer. I'm not sure freezer is on a low, or shall we say high, I suppose setting. It comes out solid. You watch the adverts for Haagen-Dazs and even on a lot of the containers they recommend you have to take out and you have to leave it sitting on the counter for five to 10 minutes before it becomes that sort of perfect scoopable texture. So you know, it isn't just a Keto ice cream thing. Although I have to say that I've been making a vanilla chocolate chip ice cream with allulose. You'll be pleased to hear it was the very allulose you brought to Denver for me.
Excellent.
And, I have to say, you're absolutely right. It is perfectly scoopable straight out the freezer and it's very delicious. I have been enjoying it every day since ice cream season.
I think that now that I've gotten into the business, there's just a number of properties of sugar and also allulose that I've come to appreciate. Lower freezing point, crystallizing, are just the tip of the iceberg really. Providing that crystalline structure, for instance. We're trying to make fudge. The consistency of fudge is hugely important. Well, forget trying to do that with erythritol. It'll come out in sort of icy shards.
It crystallizes, doesn't it?
It does. And you know, you're not going to do it with sucralose. That would be disgusting. Or stevia or anything like that. But if we can crack allulose fudge. We're going to trial a couple of things at Ketofest this summer. We have actually started making a nut bars using allulose caramel. And allulose caramel, wow, it's so good. And it provides this nice kind of stickiness that, makes these nut bars just delightful. I haven't quite figured out how to package them to be honest. But, right now we're just using craft paper bags and a little parchment paper and I'm distributing them at our local farmer's market and people are just mad for them.
That sounds delicious. How did you end up at allulose? You started saying there was this progression of different sweeteners that you tried. How did you end up at allulose because it wasn't, and it's become a bit more known now, but presumably, I mean, when you first stumbled across it, you must've almost stumbled across it? How did you find out about it in the first place?
It's sort of my hobby to, become on top of the literature of, sweeteners and their health impacts because I wanted to know for sure. Because I used to drink sweetened diet sodas, instead of water all the time. Diet Coke, Fresca all these different things. And I wanted to know what health impact they had. And a lot of people said, you know, if you follow the science that there is no problem, really. Its people who say these chemicals are bad for you, they're just chemo-phobes but there's no solid science behind it. I'm like, well, you know, I'm not sure.
I tried it actually a couple of years ago, I went on a sweetener moratorium for two weeks. I am dropping all the sweeteners out of my life, zero everything, just coffee, black coffee, water, tea. But nothing that has any sweeteners. And I was checking my blood glucose the whole time and it had a huge impact. I didn't realize, I mean, not huge, maybe five to 10 points on my baseline blood glucose. And it dropped. And I lost weight. So clearly these sweeteners were having impact on me and I didn't realize it. Even though they're supposedly zero calorie and supposedly safe.
It's not all about the calories though. That's where it comes down to, isn't it? Or even sometimes the immediate impact on blood sugar, it just goes to show that all these other things that they can potentially have this ripple effect that could end up causing you to gain weight or not lose weight or whatever it is. That's the issue you're dealing with.
Absolutely. There's a lot of other issues and it's not just blood glucose or insulin. Also, they talk about cephalic phase insulin response. Well, if something just tastes sweet or you're thinking about something sweet, you're going to get that cephalic phase insulin response, for sure.
The other thing I find is that it stimulates appetite too.
Absolutely. After I did this two-week sweetener moratorium, I talked about it on my Facebook page and some of my friends were like, you know, that's very curious. And I'm like, how about you all, do two more weeks with me and I'll go two weeks more. Once I got past the first 10 days, the first 10 days were rough. I was super addicted. Daisy, I was like struggling. I was thinking, oh God, I really want MiO in my water, or I really want Diet Coke. And I was biting my nails. I was gritting my teeth, but it got easier. And after those first two weeks, I was like, I'll go another two weeks.
So, I got a bunch of friends to try it as well, and they were also type two diabetics. So, they gave it a go and two of them couldn't do it. They dropped out right away. They were like, no, I love my Diet Coke, can't give it up. One of them dropped out after three days because she got dehydrated. She realized that without the stimulus of the sweetness driving her to drink, she wasn't drinking, and she got dehydrated and her electrolytes are messed up. So, she had to go back to it. So it wasn't that she was addicted, but it was more of an electro-chemical imbalance that her body had just become adjusted to, I guess. And then the rest of them stuck through the whole two weeks. And what they found, about half of them found, that it did drop their baseline blood glucose by 5-10 points. And half of them found that it had no impact except to deprive their life of the pleasure of diet soda drinks. So, they went right back to it.
So, I think it's very individual. I think some people are going to see a reaction if they cut the sweeteners out. But I think it depends on the sweetener too. So, I started doing more research back to allulose. I'm like, well, obviously there's more to the sweetener thing than I thought. And I started learning about all the different kinds of sweeteners and high intensity sweeteners versus bulk sweeteners, sugar alcohols, different sugars. And, I did find this new sweetener, well not new, allulose. Allulose is a rare sugar. It's been around. It occurs in nature and so they've been doing research on it for decades and interestingly in 2015, they figured out a way to produce it commercially using an enzymatic process. So now it's similar to erythritol. Erythritol is produced from cornstarch. They take cornstarch and they do a series of chemical reactions and you get erythritol.
Sometimes it comes from birch bark as well. Is that right?
If you buy it commercially, do you honestly think that there are giant factories out there stripping birch trees of their bark?
I don't think there are giant factories, no. I have noticed that the occasional product does say it comes from birch as opposed to the usual. The usual is cornstarch, isn't it?
Yes. I don't know if anybody is actually out there stripping birch trees of bark, Daisy.
No, I mean it kind of seems a bit of a laborious and not very helpful for the birch trees.
Cornstarch I think is where 99% of the stuff comes from. And I don't know about the other 1%.
There are some very naked birch trees somewhere. That's the 1%.
The erythritol birch orchards in southern France I hear are beautiful this time of year. So allulose is found naturally in figs and jackfruit and raisins, maple syrup. And I suppose, prior to this discovery, the way they made it was by squeezing figs or jackfruit and then refining from there. But now they have discovered a way to make it from corn syrup. So, using corn syrup in a series of fermentations and refining and whatnot. So now it's commercially available and the research on it, unlike the research on sucralose, the research on sucralose is all about does it really cause intestinal bowel disease, or does it just make the symptoms worse if you already had it? It's all bad, there's nothing good.
But the research on allulose is crazy good. We'll see it being used in a much larger way over the population. Maybe some people will end up having negative reactions. But right now, the research is on people and also dogs, rats, tapeworms, planaria. The research is 100% positive. It increases insulin sensitivity. It decreases postprandial blood glucose response. It helps people lose weight. It helps people with their hepatic fatty liver deposits. It seems to be a health boon in almost every way. It increases GLP-1 secretion, one of the talks at low-carb Denver got into the incretin hormones. And so GLP-1 secretion is good, it's sort of a counter hormone to insulin. The important thing is it tastes just like sugar. I mean almost, its 70% as sweet as sugar. But the chemical properties that it has in terms of crystallization and freezing point and bulk and various other, mouthfeel and and aftertaste are very similar to sugar. The fact that it's less sweet is a problem.
I actually quite like the fact that it's not as sweet as sugar. So this ice cream recipe that I been playing around with over the last few days is actually just an adaptation of a Mary Berry recipe. I've made a few tweaks, but I've pretty well just subbed out the sugar for allulose at the same amount. So that has effectively made it 70% as sweet. It's not as sweet as the original recipe. And actually, less so because I changed some of the quantity ratios so effectively it was even less than that. But that I think is a good thing for most people, especially people who've been on Keto for a little while. Their sensitivity to sweet increases quite a lot.
So actually, having something that's a bit less sweet, 70% is quite a nice sort of drop in sweetness. Isn't it? I think anyway that's what I find. I find the problem with quite a lot of Keto products, especially things like cookies. I found the ones I've tasted anyway are so ridiculously sweet. They're too, too sweet. You want to drop that sweetness down because when things are too sweet, you can't actually taste the flavors of the ice cream or the cookie or whatever it is you're eating. Can you?
Yeah, I agree. I feel like I've just had a mouthful of sugar alcohol and that's pretty good. Yeah, it's interesting. I've been doing a lot of direct sales every weekend. I'm going to the local farmer's market with Will and we're giving away samples and trying different recipes and seeing how people like things. And these are people that are farmer's market patrons, so most of them are not Keto, although I've been very happy to meet some Keto people there that are just delighted to meet other Keto people. We could do the secret Keto handshake. And they buy lots of my stuff and they love it, which is great. But just the general populace, I pitch this as healthy, all natural, mostly organic, vegan and soy free, dairy free, gluten free, etc. So, it appeals to a lot of the general populous there that go to the farmer's market and they are not used to having something that's natural and sugar free. And so, when I say that they're a little suspicious, they're like, so is this going to tastes like crap?
Yeah. Cause that's the usual payoff, isn't it? That's what usually happens. It ticks all these boxes. It's really good for you, it's good for the environment, it's good for all this, but it tastes like pants.
And that's what they expect, to taste like pants. And then their eyes light up like, oh, this is really good. Is it really, is it really sugar free? There's gotta be sugar in it. I'm like, no, it's really sugar-free. So, it's great having that feedback. I'll ask them for like their critique, would you change anything? Well actually, I really liked it. It's not as sweet as I was expecting. I was expecting it to be really sweet, but it's not, and I really like that. So, I think even the average American consumer, at least the people that attend the farmer's market are wanting things that assault their taste buds at a lower intensity.
That's true actually. I think, yeah, a lot of it is just a case of that's what's available. I have a friend I cook for quite a lot. One of the things he really likes about the desserts that I make, that they are less sweet. It's something he always comments on. He said, you know, I really enjoy the things you make because they're not overly sweet. I can taste the chocolate, I can taste the coconut, I can taste, the flavors that are in it. And he really likes and comments on the fact that it's not as sweet as something he'd buy it Tesco's or whatever. So, I think you're right. I think actually that most people wouldn't complain about things being less sweet in general.
I think the only problem with allulose from my perspective, well it's expensive. But also, people do have, depending on their gut biome and the amount of allulose they eat, some people do seem to have, I've experienced this myself, just literally explode. Something you mentioned, erythritol is pretty well tolerated. Some people have a reaction to erythritol.
I think that's true, actually. And I think if you haven't had any for a while and you go back to it, that happened to me with the first batch of ice cream that I made. I hadn't really had any sweetener like that for a while. And I don't know whether it was that or whether it was something else I ate, but I didn't feel at all well. Actually, I was sick, and I wasn't well at all, but have been fine with it since.
I'm the kind of person that will push through it when it comes to ice cream, I'm going to test it the next day. I'm not going to believe that that ice cream made me out. I'm gonna try it out the next day. If maybe I'm ill three days in a row after eating the ice cream, then I might decide to drop it, but when it comes to ice cream, I'm going to keep pushing through and it's been fine since you'll be, you'll be pleased to know. In fact, I had it for breakfast this morning. That's the only problem with me when I make things like that, and I can't make them too often because I do tend to overeat them a little bit. But yes, I can certainly attest it that it works very well in ice cream, incredibly well actually, at least in the recipe that I made.
Excellent. I'm really looking forward to Carrie Brown coming out with allulose ice cream recipes. I know she's been experimenting.
Yes, she's right on the brink of, I don't know what it's going to be. I don't know whether it's going to be a general adaptation that you can use in all her existing recipes or whether it'll be a whole new bunch of recipes where it's different for each flavor. I'm not sure yet, but apparently, yes, she's right on the brink of, of having perfected. I know when she first tried just subbing the allulose for the xylitol in it, it didn't work. She said it tasted okay. It was the texture. She said it was kind of crumbly, an odd sort of texture. And you know what a perfectionist is. So, she's not going to put it out there until it's right. But I know she's been working very hard on it because a lot of people don't like using xylitol. So, she's been working very hard on allulose alternatives.
Yay! I can't wait. Will makes allulose ice cream for us and he has sometimes really just hit the money, where it tastes to me just as good as Haagen Dazs. But his flavors are vanilla or chocolate. And, Carrie's are Baskin Robbins, Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry's, all one excellent chef woman.
Incredible range of flavors. I'm very simple with mine as well. I usually start with vanilla, but I did put some chocolate chips in. It's very delicious. I will send you the recipe when I've perfected it. I will share it with everyone. Like I say, it's not really my recipe at all. It's Mary Berry's recipe that I have Ketofied, but it is delicious, and it absolutely stands up to Haagen Dazs, and as Haagen Dazs connoisseur, I think that tells you something. We need to know where to find you and all your delicious candy. And presumably, I know you send your candy out mail order, presumably these other products that you've teased us with are not at that stage yet by the sounds of it.
I invite everybody to hit me up on Facebook either, be my personal Facebook buddy or our company Facebook page is Moons Grove Farms. We're also on Instagram and I have a website, it's moonsgrovefarms.com. We're on Amazon, Etsy, and that's it. Well no, there are a few stores that are stocking us, but nothing nationwide yet, although I have dreams.
What is only been a year, less than a year.
Much less than a year because after Ketofest I got my butt in gear and started putting the company together. But wow, there's a lot of work involved, and it took me awhile to get everything all in order. I don't know if we have time for a story about Amazon.
Well I was just gonna ask you actually, because I know you had some hideous problems with Amazon, didn't you?
I did. Now 50% of all online commerce goes through Amazon. So, I knew that if I'm going to sell anything online, we gotta be on Amazon.
Yeah. You've got to be in bed with them, really haven't you if you want your products out there on a big scale.
So, I went through all the proper steps. I got FDA approval for my products. We have a commercial kitchen, we have packaging and nutrition facts labels and professional photographs, the whole thing. An Amazon representative helped me set up and everything was good. We flipped the switch, we started selling. The first couple of days people love this stuff. We're getting five-star reviews. And then my account's been suspended, and it was right before Thanksgiving. I'm like, but there's people that need my candy for their Christmas presents and stuff.
That is the worst possible quarter, isn't it? That's the quarter that everyone goes on about. That's when you make all your money.
So, they say. And my Amazon representative is like, well, I don't see what's wrong. I'm sure it will be resolved really quickly. I'm like, okay, I love Amazon. You guys are the best. You will fix it. Okay. So, a few days go by and I get no notice. Well, we've permanently suspended your account because of extra high cancellation rates. I'm like, I haven't had any cancellations. So how could it be an extra high cancellation rate because my cancellation rate is zero. And the sales rep said oh, they must've made a mistake. I'm sure they'll clear up.
Another week goes by and nothing. And then he said I'll talk to my boss. And the boss tried talking to the boss, the other department that did the suspensions and the boss was like, I don't know, they won't return my email. So, they went back and forth another couple of weeks and now it's Christmas. Well, this is all messed up. And then the guy he's like, well, I'm sorry, I don't know what to say. So, I hired a lawyer. In fact, I read a story. It was in the New York Times about how Amazon was doing wrong to sellers, which still continues, and how sellers have had to resort to different means to try and get Amazon to treat them right. And one of the people in the story was a lawyer in Atlanta who has fought with Amazon on a number of occasions. So, I contacted him, and he took me on and he happened to have a direct connection to Jeff Bezos. So, he wrote Jeff Bezos, and it took a few weeks to get a response, and we never got a direct response from Jeff B. But I got a call from the Amazon suspension department. They are like, hi, Jeff Bezos asked us to look into your case and you're un-suspended. Good luck selling on Amazon. So, I don't know what I did wrong, if anything.
So, no explanation and it took that kind of wrangling to get switched back on.
Yup. About three months and a lawyer and Jeff Bezos's personal intervention.
And you miss that fourth quarter of sales.
Totally. So, I don't know. But I'm happy to be on Amazon, so, thank you Jeff, I guess.
Thumbs up to Jeff.
It gave me a very deep appreciation of today's economy. They got the power.
Absolutely. Yeah. That is the problem, isn't it? There's nothing much you can do when computer says no. So, you're going to be at Ketofest with your candy. Well, I suppose it would be difficult. It won't be like the local farmer's market. You won't be able to bring fudge.
No, you're wrong about that. I've been talking with, our Ketofest organizers and, the local health department and there won't be a problem. I am definitely bringing some new products to Ketofest. Hopefully we will have the fudge recipe down. We have a fudge recipe down. It's just not shelf-stable. It has to be refrigerated. It's amazingly good. You don't have to worry about eating too much of it because it's so rich, you have like a little square.
That sounds like a challenge. Your candied ginger, what is that supposed to be? Two servings.?
Three actually.
Well a bag easily is just one serving for me, and I can easily do two bags. You're talking to a little bit of a greedy piggy when it comes to things like that. So, I'm not sure one little square with fudge with suffice for me.
By the way, we've changed how we are making the ginger and the orange, number of the peels actually, in response to getting some more experience making it and selling it. So, I think it's much better now. And if you tasted the ginger or the orange before, I'd be really curious to get your reaction this year because I think it is loads better. Will says he is ashamed.
I think there was a difference in some that you very kindly sent me home with a huge amount of candied ginger, which I won't embarrass myself by telling you how quick that can seem to go, but there was a difference. Some of them were a lot sort of thicker cut and juicier, I think that's what you were saying. It's moved more towards that. Yeah, definitely brilliant.
And they also seem to be hotter.
Which is not a problem for me. I was speaking to Karen Ogilvie and I don't think she can eat more than one or two pieces, they're too hot inside now. Love it. I tell you what does really temper it, what I've discovered if you eat, I'm just showing myself out now to be such an absolute pig. But if you eat the candied ginger, and I love it hot, I don't mind that it absolutely sets my mouth on fire. The hotter, the better as far as I'm concerned. But if you eat it with super dark chocolate, the chocolate tempers the heat. I don't know why there's some kind of synergy between the two that it takes the heat out of it.
Nice. I gotta try that.
I can't explain why it tastes very good. I mean, chocolate covered candied ginger is just delicious anyway, but for some reason it takes the heat out.
We're working on that.
Yeah, I remember you saying that.
We're working on incorporating the dark chocolate covered orange rinds and ginger.
Very delicious.
So, I figured out we're going to change the packaging on the ginger. We're going to call it nuclear ginger and put skull and crossbones and flames. So, people really understand we're serious. This is spicy ginger.
And a lot of people like that. They like the challenge as well, don't they, or eating hot? And funnily enough, I'm actually not the kind of person who likes, I like a bit of heat in a curry say, but I don't like the super-hot curries. If it's too hot for me, I can't taste it. But when it comes to your ginger, I just love the heat in it.
I made a small child cry at the farmer's market. We were giving out samples and the mom tastes it. She was like, oh, this is really good. She gives a sample to her kid. The kid starts crying. Oh God.
I hope you didn't video that one.
I'm like, I'm so sorry. The four-year-old won't come back and buy any candy from me anyways. So that's fine. And I laugh about it now, but yeah, we're gonna re-label that nuclear ginger. And the lime, if we continue making the lime, we're going to call it lime jerky because we can't make those lime peels soft and chewy. There's just no way. We've tried different things. It just doesn't work. So, it's hard jerky-like candied lime peels. I don't know. Some people may love the flavor. So, when I proposed that we stop making it, they're like, "No!". But a lot of people aren't expecting it to be so tough and it's really, super hard. So, I don't know. But the nut bars are incredible, and I can't wait to bring them to Ketofest and let people sample them there.
Oh, I cannot wait to sample them. I shall let everyone know what they taste like.
Excellent. It'll take a while for me to wrap up and get FDA approval and do the nutrition facts labels and the packaging and get them on the website, but I'm happy to be able to take them to Ketofest and distribute them in person.
Yeah. Well something for us, Ketofesters to look forward to.
Among other things. I can't wait. Bacon bar!
All the things.
All the things.
Yeah. Hog roast. The plaza square on the Saturday is just going to be full of all sorts of delicious things to eat.
And demos. I'm actually doing a cooking demo with Karen Ogilvie.
You are? And what have you finalized on? You're doing muffins, aren't you?
We're doing muffins. Actually cupcakes. I'm not sure of the technical difference between muffins and cupcakes.
I'm not sure, icing maybe.
Icing, that's it. So, we have muffins where we're going to be including diced candied orange peels from Moon's Grove Farms. Of course, if people want to make it without that, that's fine. But then we have this lovely dark chocolate allulose fudge icing that we're going to be swirling on top of those things. And also, we're still tinkering with the recipe for either a sour cream lemon or sour cream lime cake with a cream cheese icing on top. Frosting, buttercream, cream cheese, something like that. Anyway, we're playing with it right now. When I say we, I mean Will is playing with the recipe right now. And we are really excited, Karen and I, to do this cooking demo. It is going to be a lot of fun. Karen and I are actually, in theory, starting a podcast. We keep trying to make time for it. It'd be Keto book bookclub and if we can get that launched before Ketofest, I will be thrilled to, pleased as punch to hope that people have a chance to listen to it. I think a Keto book club is something whose time has come.
I do, I'm very excited about it. We've been talking about it, haven't we behind the scenes for a while. You told me about it quite a while ago. And yes, I think it will be a great format. Like you say, it's not something that's out there already. It would be a great new podcast I think for the Keto universe.
I'm excited about it. And now that Karen's schedule is freed up a little bit, with her son not being in school, she has less errands and running around and PTA business to do, so we're gonna hit it pretty hard, in theory.
Perfect. I can't wait for that. That sounds like you've laid down the gauntlet there. That will be nice to be telling everyone at Ketofest that it's launching.
That's right, Karen. Karen and I are both psyched and we both have busy lives so it's hard to fit it in. I have no idea how you do it, Daisy. You are a super woman.
I was just going to say, yeah, obviously I know what it's like in it seems like a huge challenge and it is very daunting when you're starting because there's so much to organize to launch it in the first place. That's the thing. And there's this other element that holds you back a little bit because you know that once you've started, you've got that commitment. If you're doing a weekly podcast, as soon as you put the first one out, that means you've got to be putting one out every single week. And yes, it is a big commitment. I mean now that I do every part of it myself, I've worked out that each episode takes a minimum of a day and a half, probably closer to two days really, to produce the hours episode that you listened to, and all the things that go with it. So, all the social media and the show notes, everything that goes into producing and promoting that episode. Yeah, and it's the best part of two days’ work. You're taking on quite a lot. I mean it's good when there are two of you, obviously you can share the load a bit and as everyone knows by now, I think, I'm a bit of a bit of a perfectionist nut job when it comes to editing. So, it probably does take me a lot longer than it does for other people.
Maybe. I've certainly heard some podcasts out there that clearly have not had professional editing of any sort. So, maybe a certain amount of sloppiness is acceptable.
It's finding the balance. Yes. It's that whole don't let perfection be the enemy of good thing. It's the finding the balance between the two. And I'm getting there, I'm getting to the point where I'll leave in a lot more of the things that I used to just get so super-involved in taking out.
I don't think I've ever heard bad sound on your podcast, at least to the extent that like I've been like irritated by it or anything.
I should hope not. I had good training. I was brought up in the Carl Franklin and Brandon Wen school of podcast editing, so very good training. Absolutely.
Very cool. I'm just delighted if we can get this podcast launched and I say if, because both Karen and I do lead busy lives and have obviously other irons in the fire. I think that terrific fun and I love reading books about Keto, as does Karen. So why not help other people?
And as does the community, I think. It will be very needed. I not sure if needed is the right word. Do we ever need anything? I think it's a podcast that people will be very interested in and will also enjoy being involved in as well. That's the thing with the book club, isn't it? That the listeners can become involved in it and be part of it.
And we can have discussions about what does this part mean? Did you try this recipe from this Keto book? Is this Keto author insane? That kind of thing. It'll be fun.
I think it's a fantastic idea. And you know, good for the authors as well. It works in all different angles, isn't it? Promoting their books to the community, getting feedback from the community. Everyone wins. Can't wait for the Keto book club podcast.
Yeah. I'm psyched. Did you hear that, Karen? Let's do it.
She's gonna love you for this.
We're going to have a great time together, Karen and I.
You are, absolutely. Obviously, I do my podcast on my own, but I do like the dual presenter podcasts. It's interesting. Obviously, they have their guests on, but it's interesting seeing that synergy between between the two hosts and often that's entertaining in itself.
Well, I think Karen and I have different perspectives on things. So, we can inform and engage each other and hopefully our listeners.
Absolutely, can't wait. So, we're at that point in the show where I ask you to leave us with a top tip.
Okay, my top tip is if you have not tried intermittent fasting, try it. Trying to get more in touch with my body's signals for when I'm actually hungry and when I actually want to eat has been an incredible change in my health and my approach to food. Divorcing myself from eating because it was expected and there's food available. It's time to listen to my body and say, I think that I don't need to eat because I'm not actually hungry, and then not doing it. It has been so empowering. So, if somebody is looking to take their Keto practice to the next level, they should try it. It is almost as hard as just starting Keto in the first place, to take control. Not really change how much food I eat, but just listening to my body about when I eat it and saying this is what hunger is, this is just emotional, I want something in my mouth. It has been a real game changer for me.
Yes, I do think it does really help dial in those signals. I found the same. I'm definitely a bit of a grazer, especially when I'm at home and I know the difference, because I can be out gardening on a job all afternoon and I don't feel the need to be eating all the time, yet when I'm at home and the fridge is there and just, oh, I'm hungry. But I'm not hungry, I know I'm not hungry, I know it's just I want to pick, because I know there's some cheese in the fridge or there's some ice cream in the freezer or whatever it is. Yes, to actually go for period of time without food and to really get properly hungry. It does really help I think if you're one of these people that struggles with head hunger versus real hunger.
You know what it is for me? I realized eating something feels vaguely productive. Like I have done something, I've accumulated resources for my body. So, at a kind of emotional intuitive level, it lowers my stress level a little bit because I have packed on some more resources. So, I'm not going to starve. Nothing to do with physical hunger, just emotional satisfaction because I'm not going to starve today and it has to do with maybe food insecurity or something, but it doesn't have anything to do with physical hunger. So being able to tell myself I'm going to direct that need to do something productive into a different thing that is also satisfying. Maybe doing a little house cleaning, maybe, buying something on Amazon, doing some gardening that also satisfies that.
It's weird how you have so much time on your hands when you don't eat as well, don't you? I mean, I found that a bit when I was doing my carnivore experiment. How much more time there was, and I can remember when a friend came out to eat, he obviously wasn't eating carnivore, so I had to prepare some vegetables and things for him and it was like, blimey, this all takes so much time. My rack of lamb ribs or something, it was just a case of taking it out of the fridge, putting it in the oven, taking it out the oven, eating it. The extras that I had to do for him. But obviously it's a whole new level when you're fasting, you're not eating at all. And I know that whenever I do fast, I'm not very good. I need to get a fasting routine. It's those days when you're not eating, it's like, oh, this extra time on your hands when usually you're either preparing, cooking or sitting down and eating that food. It actually takes up quite a chunk of your day, doesn't it?
Yeah, absolutely. Or I'll be out on a business trip with colleagues who obviously are not Keto or fasting. And it's a good third of the day that's spent sitting, eating, getting food, going into a restaurant, whatever it is. Even more than a third of the day. And if I say, you know, guys, I have to make up an excuse, so it doesn't sound weird but I'm not eating with you. I'm just going to go back to my hotel room and get some work done. That gives me back so much time and I need it. Because I've got a lot going on in my life, Daisy. Woo. So, it works out pretty well.
Yeah. Busy women just as you were saying, you're just going to try adding a podcast to that. Good luck finding the time.
Better time management. Of course, I cannot neglect my partners or my family or the garden or the pets or anything. So, it's a matter of priorities.
Yeah, I have the advantage there. I just have my dogs and cats really. I don't have to think about entertaining other humans. Now I do keep forgetting to ask people, so I will just throw it in at the end here. What your Keto looks like on an average day when you're not fasting, obviously.
Definitely. Black coffee or sometimes with a little bit of heavy whipping cream. And about the coffee, I'm serious about coffee. I'm nuts about it. We have our own home roasting machine. We import beans from either Costa Rica or Tanzania. We got some lovely Tanzanian peaberry right now. So, we roast our own beans, grind them. We have an espresso machine.
Because the roasting is important, isn't it? Sort of the temperature of the roasting and how long you roast it all really affects the flavor, doesn't it?
Absolutely. So, you have different roasting profiles that change the temperature of the roast throughout the roast cycles. Fresh roasted is totally different than stuff that was roasted a week ago. If you're buying stuff in the stores in little bags, it might've been roasted a month ago and wow, that's very different. So, the fresh roasted beans changed my life. I'm fully caffeinated now, Daisy.
So, when you say its worlds apart flavor-wise, but what is that difference?
Well, it actually changes if you have coffee that's been roasted within the past 24 hours. The notes of the coffee are more floral, more bright, has this dimension to it that goes away. A lot of the essential oils evaporate within that first 24 hours. A lot of out-gassing so, it's less acidic after 24 hours. It's different. The chemical composition is different.
So just like wine then really, it's the difference between having a Beaujolais Nouveau to having something that's been aged for however long.
That's it. Exactly. And some people will say, some Beaujolais are too young, or they don't have that depth of character. So, it's not always the case that fresh roasted is better. It's different and sometimes I really love it, but sometimes letting the roast sit for at least 24 hours to out-gas and mature a little bit. Then that first 24 hours to a week period. I think that's where you have the richest flavor and then maybe after a week a lot more of the oils have started to either mature or evaporate a little bit. So, the flavor is less intense.
Anyway, that's how my day starts. Cup of fresh roasted coffee and water, tea. I have 20 different kinds of herbal teas that I love. I don't do soft drinks with any of those nasty sweeteners. We have seltzer often; I love seltzer or other kinds of naturally sweetened things. Not naturally sweetened, naturally flavored, like little bits of lemon juice or lime juice or whatnot. And then food wise, a little left over from last night maybe for lunch if I feel like it. Or we have chickens, so eggs are pretty common for a meal, either hard-boiled or scrambled. Or I'll make a quick frittata.
And then dinner, Will has usually cooked some large piece of meat that we'll slice. He just roasted a smoked brisket, nice chunk of beef brisket on hickory wood, also a rack of ribs. So, he'll come up with something and sometimes he gets super creative and comes up with some crazy dish. He did Indian butter chicken last night with cauliflower rice and a salad and a Keto coleslaw sweetened with allulose. But some days it's just burger, patty of ground beef with cheese and bacon, then the salad. And honestly that's the best.
It sounds pretty handy having a live-in chef.
It really is. I highly recommend it.
So, I mean overall, as we mentioned earlier. Fairly simple really, it sounds like you're a two meal a day as well, that that seems to be the most common pattern. I think two meals a day.
Generally. Yes. Sometimes one, sometimes none, but generally two.
And so, when you fast, do you have a regular fasting routine? You talk about intermittent fasting and for how long do you fast?
Generally, I will do food-less Mondays. Where I just hate Mondays. So, I don't want to sully Mondays by doing anything pleasant like eating. I just want to have full, pure hatred for Mondays. So, that's it. No food Mondays and then, generally I'll eat, either breakfast or lunch, but not both. And then dinner. That's it. Nothing fancy.
One of the things that is quite often leveled against fasting is that, you know, I've heard the argument that people just make up for it. They compensate on the days they're eating and eat twice as much. But I found the absolute opposite actually the day after. If I fast, I tend to fast for either 24 or 36 hours. And certainly at least the first meal I have is probably half the normal size. I tend to find that I eat less on the day after I've fasted, not more.
I think that it kind of re-calibrates my appetite and stomach to not eating. And so, you can't really just go right back in and have a huge meal. I've done five-day fasts on a number of occasions. I think for health purposes it's great to really get that deep into autophagy. So, I think maybe once a quarter to do that, but not for weight loss purposes. Because I did find that, after five days of fasting that in the weeks afterwards that I did have a heightened appetite. So, I don't think those longer fasts, for me anyway, helped me lose weight. But a short fast, food-less Mondays, skipping breakfast or even skipping breakfast and lunch sometimes. That doesn't seem to move the dial for me one way or the other, it just helps. I think it keeps my system more insulin sensitive to do it occasionally. Sort of like exercising, which I should do more of. I have a treadmill desk. I work from home; I use the treadmill desk every day. And I love it. I highly recommend it. That's my other top tip. Intermittent fasting and get a treadmill desk if you work from home.
I've never heard of treadmill desks. I've heard of standing desks, but I have not heard of treadmill desks.
Standing desks actually don't do that much good for you because you're just standing still. You're just standing. I mean, it's maybe a little better than sitting, but maybe not. Because you're still just standing there, still. It's not natural. It's not natural for people to be sitting or standing in a still position for long periods of time every day. Walking is natural. So, I have a treadmill and I have a hutch that goes over the treadmill and my laptop sits on top of the hutch. I don't do super concentrating work there. So, if I'm working on software and coding or writing, no, I have to sit down cause you need to concentrate. But for surfing, answering email, doing Facebook, the treadmill desk is perfect.
Interesting. I'm going to be imagining whenever I read one of your Facebook posts, while she was watching this, she was walking on her treadmill desk.
Very frequently.
Well, it's been wonderful catching up with you and finding out a bit more about you. Thank you very much for sharing your time with me.
Oh, I thank you for sharing your time. It's delightful, you're one of my heroes and, I've just been squeeing inside this whole time. I love what you do, Daisy.
Thank you very much. And I look forward to that hug at Ketofest.
Me Too. Me Too.
See you soon.
See you soon.