Help putting together a 5 minute presentation on keto

#1

Has anyone done a short presentation on the benefits of keto before or just has publicly speaking experience?
I need to come up with a 5 minute presentation to explain the ketogenic diet.

thanks!

(Michelle) #2

this has some good stuff you can use: www.dietdoctor.com

#3

ah that’s true, hadn’t thought about it - even though I’m a member :slight_smile:

(Richard Morris) #4

Carl does them regularly and we built this booklet for him to hand out

booklet.2keto.com

#5

thanks, looks like a great resource

(Nick) #6

Hi @richard - It’s a good book, but I wonder whether you’d still stand by this:

Saccharine causes cancer and Aspartame is linked to all kinds of neurological
disorders

As far as I can tell, the evidence for saccharine’s carcinogenicity was discredited some time ago, and, ironically, it is being researched as a help in our fight against cancer (see link below); and whilst I can’t stand the flavour of aspartame, I can’t really understand how tiny amounts of two amino acids we get in our diets as normal - which is all that aspartame is - would suddenly cause neurological disorders (save in those who already have phenylketonuria, who have to avoid many forms of protein in any case). Some have argued that it’s the decomposition product of methanol. But then apples would be driving people crazy, as you get much more methanol from ingesting fruit than from aspartame Again, the only evidence I’ve ever seen for aspartame’s general harm is anecdotal or non-blinded. Happy to be contradicted with evidence :slight_smile:

Link to article on saccharine vs cancer

(Richard Morris) #7

Yep. Good call. I didn’t agree with that then … one of our guests mentioned it and it snuck into the booklet. I’ll talk to the editor. I’m just glad the comment about Sucralose and shrunken rat thymus’ didn’t make it into that booklet.

Aspartame does break down into Aspartic acid which as you say is a normal breakdown product of many proteins. The concern I have in a ketogenic context is it can be used in an anapleurotic reaction to replete oxaloacetate which would decouple ketone production from new glucose creation. Anything that inhibits ketones available to a keto-adapted brain can drive the production of more glucose 3-4 fold.

But as you say it’s a very small amount. You are likely to have more citrate (which can also be used to replete the OAA pool)

Saccharin does apparently have an effect on basal hypersecretion of insulin from pancreatic islet cells in in vitro, and basal hypersecretion is my new personal target of attack. It also suppresses glucose stimulated secretion and drives production of reactive oxygen species ( http://www.fasebj.org/content/25/1_Supplement/530.1 ) again in isolated rat pancreatic cells.

Personally I’m choosing to restrict saccharine just in case I have a rat pancreas, but if I develop any of those fast growing cancers I reserve the right to change my mind :slight_smile:

(Nick) #8

@richard - another good reason to avoid saccharine is because it tastes of all the world’s woes rolled into an evil little tablet :wink: And kudos to you for agreeing that its inclusion in the booklet is counterproductive. I think we’re all trying to convince people with rational, clear-headed science, so scare-mongering or outlandish claims may put off folk who are already predisposed to be sceptical about keto as “just another webby cult diet”.

As for aspartame: I do agree that in theory, aspartic acid could lead to problems with ketosis; however, we really do have to remember the tiny amounts of aspartame actually used in sweeteners. It’s so many orders of magnitude sweeter than sugar that we sometimes forget the minute amounts that are involved. We’re talking pinhead volumes. I think you’d need to be more worried about the aspartic acid from - well - asparagus than from aspartame as a ketoer :slight_smile:

But, again, there is a perfectly good reason not to eat aspartame. It tastes disgusting! Not quite as bad as saccharine or, dare I say it, the Devil’s Licorice (stevia), but it’s pretty soapily horrible.

Thank heavens for xylitol and erythritol!

By the way, there’s something interesting about xylitol, when compared with erythritol. It can provide energy to your body, but it does not require insulin in its metabolism. Some of the xylitol you ingest creeps into the Krebs Cycle through the back-door, so to speak, in the normal endogenous pentose pathway. Indeed, our own bodies produce a surprising amount of xylitol internally every day. So for those wondering why xylitol is listed as having calories, but is not particularly insulinogenic, now you know why :slight_smile:

Erythritol, on the other hand? It’s a tiny molecule which basically gets absorbed by the kidneys before it gets to go anywhere else, and you urinate the great majority of it out, unaltered. I leave it to others to discuss recycling opportunities of this costly sweetener!

(Richard Morris) #9

That is very interesting

I have the genetic anomaly that makes any amount of cilantro leaf in a meal overwhelm my palate with a soapy taste (but not corriander root or seed strangely). Stevia has the exact same effect on me. But if I have it blended with erythritol - no soap.

I tend to use pure sucralose because I need a powder to sweeten chocolates.

Xylitol we don’t have in the house because we have a :dog2: But I agree it probably has the best taste.

(Nick) #10

Indeed. It’s the “Xylose Reductase-Xylitol Dehydrogenase” pathway, or XR-XDH to its friends.

The xylitol is eventually transformed into D-xylulose-5-phosphate, which enters the pentose phosphate pathway.

(eat more) #11

omg i told my friend yesterday that my mouth felt like i had been chewing on a piece of licorice wood dipped in some chemical after having some stevia

what’s the trick? my every attempt has resulted in sand on the bottom of my melted chocolate. grind it? pure sucralose versus splenda?

(Richard Morris) #12

yeah pure sucralose is 600x sweeter than sucrose so you need really small spoons.

Splenda is sucralose sprayed on dextrose flakes (ie: pure glucose) or compressed in a pill with fillers.