They are fooling you. The words on the egg cartons don’t mean what you think they do.

“Vegetarian-fed”, “cage-free”, “omega-3 enriched”, “free-range”, “organic”, “humanely-raised”, and “pasture-raised” all seem like healthy choices, but they don’t accurately reflect how healthy the eggs are.

The egg aisle of a grocery store is like a political primary debate. Every egg carton is saying what you what to hear to get your vote. But they are just words.

Words that are used with the intent to make you buy the eggs, but they don’t provide you with the answer to the question:

Which eggs are the healthiest?

To find the healthiest eggs, you must find the healthiest hens — hens that eat what they are biologically designed to eat.

Chickens are Not Vegetarians

Among the dozens of different egg cartons, you think you’ve found the holy grail. Eggs from 100% vegetarian-fed chickens. Vegetables are healthy, so these must be the healthiest, right?

The only problem is that the healthiest chickens eat omnivorous diets. Chickens love to munch on green plants, wild seeds, earthworms, and insects. In fact, many chickens prefer insects over plants.

Every time I see “vegetarian-fed” on a carton of eggs, I am reminded of the time I held a big juicy worm four feet above a group of chickens. They jumped with vigor — flapping their wings, doing anything to get the worm before their hen friends.

Surely, they’d do the same for any kind of food. They are probably just hungry. But when I tried the same with sunflower seeds and fresh organic vegetables, they turned away and continued scraping the ground with their claws to find bugs and worms.

Related: Animal vs. Plant Protein – What’s Better?

The Truth About Vegetarian-fed Chickens

“Vegetarian-fed”, however, does not mean the chickens are roaming around an organic vegetable garden oasis. In most cases, the egg companies didn’t change anything, but how they label their eggs.

For example, an egg carton that is labeled 100% vegetarian-fed and cage-free indicates that the chickens were raised indoors in a confined space with hundreds of other chickens.

To give you some perspective, imagine you are in a subway car during rush hour. Packed so many people that you almost kissed the guy next to you. Now imagine living your life in that subway car — no one gets out unless they die. (But at least you are not in cages, and you get free food!)

The chickens are, however, provided with food that is scientifically designed to cover their needs. Here’s an example of a typical “vegetarian” diet reported by Mother Earth News:

Here’s the ingredients list from “16 percent Layer Crumbles,” a feed designed for hens raised in confinement: “Grain Products, Plant Protein Products, Processed Grain Byproducts, Roughage Products, Forage Products, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Vitamin E Supplement, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Niacin Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Choline Chloride, Folic Acid, Manadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex, Methionine Supplement, Calcium Carbonate, Salt, Manganous Oxide, Ferrous Sulfate, Copper Chloride, Zinc Oxide, Ethylenediamine Dihydriodide, Sodium Selenite.”

This feed may seem like it is covering all of the nutritional needs of the chicken, but studies show that vegetarian-fed chickens that live in confinement lay eggs that have:

• 1/3 more cholesterol
• 1/4 more saturated fat
• 2/3 less vitamin A
• 2 times less omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times less vitamin E
• 7 times less beta carotene
• 50 percent less folic acid
• 70 percent less vitamin B12
• 50-112% less Vitamin D

But what are they comparing these eggs too? Eggs from chickens that are free to roam the outdoors and eat all types of plants and insects — the healthiest eggs. Words like “pastured”, “pasture-raised”, and “free-range” on egg cartons seem to reflect this healthy lifestyle, but they do not guarantee that the chickens were raised in this way. In fact,  “pastured”, “pasture-raised”, and “free-range” eggs just mean that the chickens had some access to the outdoors — regardless if it is a lifeless mud pit or a luscious green pasture.

But does it really matter if the chickens are outdoors? If we feed them a wide variety of seeds, plants, and insects, then they’ll be healthy, right?

Not so fast. Like humans, chickens don’t solely rely on diet for health. Sun exposure matters as much to chickens as it does to us.

Chickens Sun Bathe Too

If we don’t get any sun, our vitamin D levels drop, followed by less energy and depression. When we are chronically vitamin D deficient, our bones can become brittle and break easily. The same happens to chickens who have little access to the outdoors. (That’s right, they synthesize vitamin D from the sun just like us.)

Vitamin D deficient chickens will also lay brittle eggs that provide us with less nutrition. But the vegeterian feed has vitamin D in it — shouldn’t that cover their vitamin D needs?

Two animal researchers, Heuser and Norris, showed that 11 to 45 minutes of sunshine daily were sufficient to prevent rickets in growing chickens, but no improvements were obtained with vitamin D supplementation. This suggests that chickens are much better at using sunlight to synthesize vitamin D than using supplemental vitamin D.

Related: Vitamin D – The #1 Vitamin You Need: From Treating Depression to Preventing Cancer

What About “Omega-3 Enriched” Eggs?

Don’t fall for the hype. Although they do have higher omega-3s, these eggs are just as bad as conventional eggs.

Omega-3 enriched eggs usually come from chickens that are fed omega-3 supplements like krill oil, flaxseed oil, and algae oil on top of their unhealthy vegetarian diet. These oils are most likely rancid and unhealthy for the chickens.

The healthiest way to enrich eggs with omega-3s is by letting the chickens eat what they are designed to eat. Chickens that naturally feed on pasture have significantly increased amounts of omega-3s in their eggs compared to conventional eggs.

Related: Everything You Should Know About Fat

The Healthiest Egg

Now, we are beginning to put it all together. Chickens are omnivores that need access to the outdoors whenever they choose. Eggs that come from chickens who live the way that they are supposed to live are the healthiest.

This contention is even backed up by research that Mother Earth News conducted. They tested the nutrient content of eggs from chickens who lived under natural conditions. The editor-in-chief of Mother Earth News, Cheryl Long, commented that:

“Our test results reveal that the unnatural and inhumane conditions of factory farms are giving us substandard food. Consumers will get more nutritious eggs if they pay a premium for true free-range eggs from birds raised on pasture.”

How to Know if You Have The Healthiest Eggs

It doesn’t matter how many catchy words an egg carton throws at you. It could say “pasture-raised”, “non-GMO”, “humanely raised”, “organic”, or “I swear to God these are healthy — please trust me,” but that doesn’t mean they are the best eggs you can get.

This is because claims like “pastured” “pasture-raise” “cage-free” and “free-range” don’t mean what you think they do. Labeling laws allow egg products to display these terms even if the egg-laying chickens spend little or no time outdoors in a pasture setting.

Non-GMO and organic eggs are also promising, but organic and non-GMO eggs may still be fed a vegetarian diet with little access to the outdoors. Bummer. So what can you do?

The only way to find the healthiest possible eggs is to connect with the farmer of the chickens that made them. Visit or reach out to the farm/company that produces the eggs that you normally buy and find out how they raise their hens. I’ve personally done this for Handsome Brook Farm’s pasture-raised eggs and found out that they were making false claims on their packaging. Their eggs are no better than cheaper “cage-free” eggs.

To find the healthiest eggs, it is best to stay local and get to know the farmer. Do a quick search on localharvest.org and eatwild.com to find a farmer that has quality eggs.

The Quickest Way to Know if You Have High-Quality Eggs

If you are not sure that you can trust the eggs you are having now, you can test them in two ways.

The Egg Shell Crack Test:

If the egg shell is very brittle and has little to no membrane on the inside, then it came from a chicken that is vitamin D deficient (and probably deficient in other vitamins and minerals as well). This indicates that the chickens didn’t have much access to the sun.

The Egg Yolk Color Test:

Egg yolks with a deep orange color are higher in vitamin A and beta-carotene. This deep color indicates that the chicken has access to a diverse array of different plants. A pale, yellow yolk tells you that the chicken ate a diet consisting of mostly white corn and other nutrient-depleted grains that aren’t as healthy for the chicken.

Does Your Egg Pass The Test?

If the egg shell is resilient, and the yolk is a dense orange color then you have some healthy eggs. Conversely, if the shell shatters easily and has a pale yolk then it most likely came from an unhealthy chicken.

The Best Way to Prepare Eggs

If you have high-quality eggs, it is best to eat the yolk raw and cook the egg whites.

Eggs yolks should be eaten raw because cooking them will oxidize their cholesterol (rendering it unhealthy), and denature many of the vitamins (rendering them useless). If you don’t like the taste of raw eggs, then put a couple yolks into your morning smoothies with some lemon juice. This way you won’t taste the raw egg, and the lemon juice will prevent some of the nutrients from denaturing.

But before you eat the yolk, make sure you separate it from the egg white. The egg white has proteins in it that bind to the b-vitamins, making them useless. If you want to get the extra protein that the whites provide, then you can cook them until they turn white (but not brown). Cooking the egg white will deactivate the proteins binding to the b-vitamins, so you can get all of the vitamins out of the raw yolk and all of the protein from the whites at the same time.

The Takeaway

The healthiest eggs come from the healthiest hens.

Don’t blindly trust the words on the egg carton. The only way to know if you have healthy eggs is by finding out how the chickens are raised. Do your research, and get to know your egg farmer.

If you are looking to get the most nutrition out of your high-quality eggs, it is best to have the egg yolks raw and the egg whites cooked.

Recommended Reading:

• Homemade Calcium and Magnesium
• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• The Benefits of Backyard Chickens
• Pasture-Raised Eggs Are a Nutritional Powerhouse

Sources:

• Egg Labels: What To Look For — 100 Days of Real Food (Image Credit)
• Raising Backyard Chickens Part 3 – Pastured Eggs vs. Store Bought — The Dabblist (Image credit)
• Meet Real Free-Range Eggs — Mother Earth News
• Eggs, pasture-raised — The World’s Healthiest Foods
• Beware of Misleading Omega-3 Claims — Mercola
• Vitamin D — DSM
• Important Update on Eating Raw Eggs — Mercola
• Vitamin B12 bioavailability from egg yolk and egg white: relationship to binding proteins. — NCBI
• Free-Range Eggs Contain More Vitamin D According to Mother Earth News Study — Organic Consumers Association
• False Egg Labeling Case Against Handsome Brook Farm Can Proceed, Court Rules — Animal Legal Defense Fund

Few foods can induce a craving like chocolate. From its aroma to how it melts in your mouth to what it does for your body — the whole experience is heavenly. The effects of chocolate are experienced by everyone, not just chocolate lovers.

In fact, studies have found that the unique smell of chocolate changes our brain activity and makes us more alert. Once the chocolate is consumed, its flavonoids work as prebiotics and improve digestive health. The flavonoids that make it into the blood stream help improve your insulin sensitivity, lower blood pressure, and prevent plaque from building up in your arteries.

Chocolate contains a unique combination of caffeine and theobromine as well. These two work together to protect brain function and improve mood without causing the sleep disturbances or other side effects caused by caffeine consumption.

After reading about all of the good that chocolate can do for us, you may be tempted to head to your corner store and buy some right now. But before you do, it is important to know and understand that most chocolate bars are terrible for your health.

Most Chocolate Bars are Unhealthy

The most popular form of chocolate is milk chocolate. Most milk chocolate bars only contain about 11% cacao with the remaining ~90% of the bar consisting of milk, sugar, and other unhealthy ingredients. If these chocolate bars were named honestly, they’d be called “Chocolate Flavored Sugar-Milk Bars”.

Not so attractive now, huh?

On top of that, the milk binds to cacao antioxidants (including the flavonoids we talked about earlier) and renders them inactive. So when the sugar in the milk chocolate bar spikes your blood sugar and increases inflammation, the flavonoids can’t save you because the milk ingredients made them inactive.

Isn’t Dark Chocolate Healthy?

Most dark chocolate bars are only 60-70% dark chocolate, which means that that the rest of it is made up of processed sugar and other dubious ingredients like soy lecithin and milk solids. Even the 85% or higher dark chocolate bars shouldn’t be considered healthy. They are highly processed and still contain some milk products, sugar, and other additives in an effort to make the chocolate less bitter and more palatable.

If you come across a chocolate bar produced with minimal, unrefined sugar and simple ingredients like cacao and vanilla beans, then at least the chocolate likely has some health benefits — but it will cost you.

These bars are expensive! Plus the processing that they went through before becoming pretty little bars will render some of the antioxidants in the cacao inactive.

After learning all of this, we are left only one good option — to make our own chocolate.

How To Make Your Own Chocolate

That’s right, you can make your own chocolate!

The best part is you won’t need any fancy machinery, and it won’t take up to seven days to make it (like it does in most chocolate factories).

All you need is cacao powder and coconut oil. Look for raw, organic cacao powder for your health, and make sure it’s fair trade for the health of others.

Step 1 — Melt and Mix

Melt the coconut oil in a pan at the low heat. Once the coconut oil is completely liquefied, mix in the same amount of cacao powder until you have a homogeneous chocolate mixture. The lower the heat, the more you preserve the health benefits.

Use a 1:1 ratio of cacao powder to coconut oil.

I recommend starting with a smaller amount like a quarter cup of each. Once you develop a delicious recipe, however, all restrictions are off — make as much chocolate as you want.

Step 2 — Experiment and Solidify

Now that you have your chocolate liquid, turn off the heat source and add in whatever you want to be in your chocolate.

You can put in a sweetener, mix in some nuts and seeds for some crunch, or add in some cinnamon and vanilla powder to make it taste even better. Dried fruit— like dried blueberries, cherries, goji berries, and mulberries — is another ingredient option that will add more flavor and health benefits to your chocolate.

Once you finish mixing in your extra ingredients, pour the mixture into a plate, cookie sheet, or container, and put it in the fridge until it solidifies (2-4 hours).

Step 3 — Eat and Enjoy

Go to the refrigerator, break off a piece of your chocolate, and enjoy.

Why Homemade Chocolate is Much Better Than Store-Bought Chocolate

Although it is easy to make chocolate at home, you may still be tempted to buy the dark chocolate on the grocery store shelves. This homemade variety will not look as “perfect” in that commercial way as store bought chocolate bars. The differing tastes and textures may take some getting used to for some, but it will taste amazing once you get your recipe down, and it will be so much healthier. In fact, if you are a frequent cocoa consumer, you’ll grow to prefer the taste of your homemade chocolate very quickly, and then you will probably despise pretty much everything else out there.

Coconut Oil — One of the Healthiest Sources of Fat

Coconut oil is the perfect fat to use when making chocolate because it solidifies and melts in your mouth like a typical chocolate bar. But this isn’t the only reason why it is part of our chocolate recipe.

Coconut oil has the highest percentage of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) than any other fat source. But MCTs are technically saturated fat, so doesn’t this mean that they are “unhealthy”? This is where some knowledge of biochemistry comes in handy.

There are many different types of saturated fats, and they are processed by the body in different ways. MCTs (fats with 6-12 carbon atoms) are different from the long chain fatty acids (fats with more than 12 carbon atoms). This is because most of the MCTs are transported directly to the liver after digestion rather than flowing throw the lymph system of the body like long chain fatty acids.

Once the MCTs reach the liver they are converted into energy and other metabolites. These metabolites include ketone bodies, which can be used by the brain and heart as an immediate form of energy. The MCTs in coconut oil can also increase your feeling of fullness for a longer period of time.

Related: 35 Things You Could Do With Coconut Oil – From Body Care to Health to Household

Erythritol — The Safest Sugar Alternative?

Erythritol is considered by many to be the safest low-calorie sweetener. It is a sugar alcohol that is less sweet than sugar (70% as sweet as sugar), so it will not stimulate your appetite as much as sweeteners like sucralose (these artificial sweeteners do far more harm than good). There is debate amongst the natural health community, and within this magazine, as to whether or not stevia is a safer choice for most, or if erythritol is a better option. It likely depends on how you use them and your own gut health.

Studies have shown erythritol can cause nausea and stomach discomfort. These side effects were only found in people that consumed 50 grams of erythritol in one sitting.

To give you some context, 50 grams (about 4 tablespoons) of erythritol has the same sweetness as about 40 grams (3 and 1/3 tablespoons) of sugar. This is 16 more grams of sugar than you will find in a typical 1.55 ounce “Sugar Milk Bar with Chocolate Added”. One to two tablespoons of erythritol should be more than enough to make your homemade chocolate more palatable without getting any side effects.

But this doesn’t mean that you should buy any sugar alcohol or any form of erythritol and assume that it will be safe. Other sugar alcohols like xylitol tend to cause more side effects at lower doses than erythritol, and erythritol is commonly made from GMO cornstarch. If you don’t want a dose of negative side effects, GMOs, or pesticides with your sweetener than it is best to use non-GMO erythritol.

I like to use a small amount of erythritol, a tiny bit of stevia, and some raw honey for sweetening. I also like to mix the chocolate with the carob which has a natural sweetness to it. I don’t like it very sweet, and I like to throw in ginger, cayenne, cinnamon, and/or other herbs that can help keep the gut balanced. I like my chocolate to have quite a bit of kick to it, just like my smoothies. Be careful and patient with the honey. It’s even easier to cook the benefits out of honey than it is with chocolate. I don’t think erythritol is particularly good for you, and while raw honey has plenty of health benefits, for good health it should be eaten in very small quantities. I find the mix of the three works well for my tastebuds and my body.” – Michael Edwards

The Importance of Raw Organic Cacao Powder

Even if you don’t like the taste of chocolate, you may want to consume cacao powder as a way to reap all of the benefits that we talked about earlier in the article.

To ensure that you get all of the health benefits of cacao, it is best to buy raw organic cacao powder. Quality cacao powder is important because most cacao powders (and the cacao used to make chocolate) are processed with heat and alkali, which destroys cacao’s health-promoting antioxidants.

But what do you do if you want to keep caffeine and chocolate out of your diet?

The Many Benefits of Carob-based Chocolate

Although this article praises the medicinal properties of cacao, this doesn’t mean that you are missing out if you don’t eat it. In fact, carob powder may have even more health benefits than cacao powder. For example, carob powder is most well-known for its anti-diarrhea effects, but that is not all this delicious powder has to offer.

Like cacao powder, carob powder contains many flavonoids. One of the flavonoids it contains is quercetin, which is known to reduce allergy symptoms, prevent heart disease (like cacao’s flavonoids do), and protect against cancer. Carob powder also contains a compound called gallic acid which is known to scavenge free radicals and kill cancer cells.

If you compare these benefits with cacao powder, carob powder looks like it could be the winner here. After weeks of experimenting with using carob powder in smoothies and other recipes (that I usually put cacao powder in), I completely agree. Healthy dark chocolate tends to over-stimulate me, but when I use carob powder instead, I feel more satiated and energetically balanced.

Recommended Reading:

• The Case for Carob – This Chocolate Alternative Has A Lot to Offer
• One More Reason to Love Chocolate (Recipe Included)
• 35 Things You Could Do With Coconut Oil – From Body Care to Health to Household
• Is Caffeine Making You Fat?

Sources:

• Artificial Sweeteners — Harvard
• Critical review of the current literature on the safety of sucralose — Science Direct
• Toxicology of Rebaudioside A: A Review — UCLA
• Baking and Cooking With Sugar Substitutes — Diabetes Self-Management
• Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) a bio-sweetener: a review. — Europe PMC
• Erythritol – Like Sugar Without The Calories — Authority Nutrition
• Gastrointestinal tolerance of erythritol and xylitol ingested in a liquid — Nature
• Serum glucose and insulin levels and erythritol balance after oral administration of erythritol in healthy subjects. — NCBI
• Digestion and absorption of fats — University of Washington
• The Properties of Lauric Acid and Their Significance in Coconut Oil — Springer Link
• Effects of medium-chain triglycerides on weight loss and body composition: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. — NCBI
• MCT Oil 101 – A Review of Medium-Chain Triglycerides — Authority Nutrition
• Chemistry and Biological Activities of Flavonoids: An Overview — Hindawi
• Health Benefits of Methylxanthines in Cacao and Chocolate — MDPI
• Daily cocoa intake reduces the susceptibility of low-density lipoprotein to oxidation as demonstrated in healthy human volunteers — Taylor & Francis Online
• Impact of alkalization on the antioxidant and flavanol content of commercial cocoa powders. — NCBI
• Isolation and structure elucidation of the major individual polyphenols in carob fibre — Science Direct
• Dark Chocolate — University of Michigan
• Human electroencephalographic (EEG) response to olfactory stimulation: Two experiments using the aroma of food — Science Direct
• Carob Powder: 9 Nutrition Facts and Health Benefits — Healthline
• Quercetin — University of Maryland

Women are the gatekeepers of the next generation. Their bodies handle dietary changes differently than men. For example, women tend to be more sensitive to the stresses of their environment as a way to ensure that a baby isn’t brought into an environment that it cannot live in.

This is why it is important for women to pay attention to their menstrual cycles, especially when they make lifestyle changes like eating less or exercising more.  If the changes a woman makes are too stressful for her body, then menses are likely to shut down. When this happens, the body is focusing on self-preservation rather than diverting resources to maintain fertility. Maintaining fertility and making a baby are extremely energetically expensive for women, and raising children in a stress-filled, food-scarce environment is going to be too risky for the life of the mother and her child.

Much of the research, however, doesn’t consider the differences between men and women, especially the effects that dietary changes have on the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and child rearing. One specific diet that is gaining attention from many health practitioners and researchers is the low-carbohydrate diet. This diet requires you to limit or eliminate all high carbohydrate foods like grains, legumes, fruits, breads, sweets, pastas, and starchy vegetables from the diet. The goal is to stay below 130 grams of carbohydrates per day to shift the body into fat, burning more fat for fuel and reap all of the benefits that come with it, but does this apply to women as well?

The Most Common Causes of Stress that are Under Your Control

We already know that excess stress will cause fertility issues, but where does the stress come from? Stress can come from the environment, the food you eat, the thoughts you think, your relationships, and the things you do, but in this article, we will focus on a few common stressors that we have control over:

• excess exercise
• chronic emotional stress
• not eating enough calories
• restricting carbs

Each one of these factors can cause an unnecessary amount of stress that tells the brain that the environment is not safe to reproduce in. Reproductive function is then shut down, and the menstrual cycle becomes irregular or may even stop completely.

Becoming Regular Again

In American society, it can be difficult to feel at peace with yourself. Emotional triggers are lurking around every corner and the overly-simplistic health advice to exercise more and eat less has led many down a path of hormonal problems and other health issues. This is the unfortunate state of reality for many women, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t be healthy and happy regardless of what comes your way.

The path to taking back your health starts by listening to your body. An irregular or “heavy” menstrual cycle should be taken as a sign that something is off, and if your cycle stops completely, it is time to take note of what has changed in your life that could causing the stress instead of looking for ill-advised health advice.

Here are some simple ways to mitigate the stressors that may be causing fertility issues:

• Make sure you are eating enough so that you are full for at least 3 hours after the meal
• Exercise in a way that energizes you rather than destroys you
• Use meditation, breathing techniques, and cognitive behavioral therapy to relieve emotional stress
• Try stress-relieving herbal remedies

These suggestions, however, do not address one of the most sneaky causes of fertility issues in women — carbohydrate restriction.

The Menstrual Cycle on a Low-Carbohydrate Diet

Low blood sugar — which can be caused by the restriction of carbohydrates — will create a stress response in the body, and women tend to be much more sensitive to these shortages of energy. This is because women’s fertility depends on thyroid function and thyroid function relies on insulin (a blood sugar-lowering hormone) and glycogen (the storage form of sugar that is found in muscles and the liver).

On a low-carbohydrate diet, our insulin and glycogen levels will decline, which will slow down our thyroid hormone production. Impaired thyroid function will cause the hormones that start and maintain the menstrual cycle to decrease as well. If carbohydrates are restricted and thyroid function is poor, it can lead to amenorrhea, which is the term for when a woman has no menstrual cycle for 3 or more months.

Low-carbohydrate diets also cause lower leptin levels. Leptin is a hormone produced by fat cells that regulates appetite in men and women. Studies that were done on women, however, suggest that low levels of leptin can also cause irregular menstruation.

How often low-carbohydrate diets actually cause menstrual problems is unclear. One study, in particular, had 20 teenage girls eat a ketogenic diet (the lowest of low-carbohydrate diets) for 6 months. During this study, 45% of the girls experienced menstrual problems and 6 of them experienced amenorrhea. This suggests that menstrual irregularities may not be so irregular for women on a low-carbohydrate diet.

If your diet is causing menstrual cycle irregularities then it is best to increase carbohydrate intake until the menstrual cycle is back to normal. Experts suggest that women should consume around 75 to 150 grams of carbohydrates per day — an amount that may still be low enough to get all of the benefits of a low-carbohydrate diet.

What About Low-Carbohydrate Diets During Pregnancy?

After understanding how important carbohydrates are in keeping a woman’s menstrual cycle normal, it is reasonable to think that restricting carbohydrates during pregnancy will cause issues as well. Studies suggest that this theory is true.

One study concluded that a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet during late pregnancy may program the child to have higher than normal levels of cortisol throughout his or her life. This can lead to a greater incidence of depression, disease, and obesity. Another important finding from this study is that meat consumption consisting of around one pound of red meat per day during pregnancy can also cause health issues for the child. Other studies that were done on pregnant mice found that the ketogenic diet created many organ irregularities like a smaller brain and larger heart. It is uncertain if this effect will carry over to humans, but it is probably best not to try and find out.

Although the literature is scarce when it comes to the effects of low-carbohydrate diets on pregnancy, it is a good idea for pregnant women to increase their carbohydrate intake during pregnancy. The Institute of Medicine recommends a minimum of 175 grams of carbohydrates per day during pregnancy.

The Take-Away for Women

In general, stress causes menstrual cycle irregularities, which is a sign of infertility. Emotional stress, over-exercising, calorie restriction, and carbohydrate restriction are the common causes of menstrual cycle irregularities that we have the most control over. Eating meals that leave you feeling full and fulfilled for hours, exercising in ways that leave you feeling energized, and mitigating stress with meditation, breathing, cognitive behavioral therapy, and adaptogenic herbs should get your menstrual cycle back on track. If these suggestions don’t work, however, you may find the cure in increasing your carbohydrates. (This not an excuse to eat more processed junk food.)

If carbohydrate consumption is too low then it will cause hormonal changes that lead to menstrual cycle irregularities. This is why it is important for women to eat enough carbohydrates to ensure a normal menstrual cycle (75 to 150 grams of carbohydrate per day). A pregnant woman and her child may benefit from a slightly higher carbohydrate intake than normal. A minimum carbohydrate consumption of 175 grams per day is suggested for healthy child development during pregnancy.

But before closing this article and grabbing the nearest starchy snack, it is important to know where you should get your carbohydrates from. If you source your carbohydrates from processed foods like candy, cookies, and potato chips, then you will cause even more stress to your body in another way that will lead to health problems other than infertility. It is important to get your carbohydrates from high-quality whole food sources. For example, your main source of carbohydrates should be from starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes, peas, or squash and (soaked and sprouted) legumes like black beans and lentils. Fruit is also a good source of carbohydrates, but it is best to limit fruit consumption.

This article is meant to serve as a guideline that can point you in the right direction if you are confused. Some women will be able to eat a ketogenic diet without problems, while others can’t go below 15o grams of grams of carbohydrates without having issues with their thyroid gland and menstrual cycle. In general, you will be healthy, fertile, and lose weight if you increase your intake of non-starchy vegetables and herbs, decrease your consumption of high carbohydrate and low fiber foods like fruit juices and sweets, and mitigate other forms of stress by using meditation and breathing techniques.

Recommended Reading:

• Galactagogues Foods, Herbs, and other Ways to Increase Breast Milk Production
• New Study Suggests Women Could, and Maybe Should, Eat While In Labor
• Shaken Baby Syndrome – Child Abuse or Vaccine Injury?
• Considering Home Birth
• SIDS and SUID

Sources:

• Do Very Low-Carb Diets Mess Up Some Women’s Hormones? — Authority Nutrition
• Effects of a ketogenic diet during pregnancy on embryonic growth in the mouse — NCBI
• Dietary Reference Intakes: Macronutrients— National Academies
• Maternal consumption of a high-meat, low-carbohydrate diet in late pregnancy: relation to adult cortisol concentrations in the offspring — NCBI
• Is a Low-Carb Diet Ruining Your Health? — Chris Kresser
• Roles of ghrelin and leptin in the control of reproductive function. — NCBI
• Functional hypothalamic amenorrhea and its influence on women’s health — NCBI
• Hypercortisolemia and Depression — Research Gate
• Effects of Physiological Hypercortisolemia on the Regulation of Lipolysis in Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue — JCEM
• Hypercortisolemia and Infection — Infectious Disease Clinics
• What causes amenorrhea? — NIH

If orange is the new black, then low-carb is the new low-fat. The hysteria about fat and how it “clogs” your arteries has died off and a new fad has taken its place — low-carbohydrate diets. This fad, on the other hand, has sufficient evidence to back it up.

The scientific literature on low-carbohydrate diets is seemingly endless and highly conclusive. Studies comparing low-fat diets to low-carbohydrate diets have even shown that low-carbohydrate diets pose no greater risk to cardiovascular disease than low-fat diets. Low-carbohydrate diets have also been found to be a healthy diet option for most people, especially those who:

• are overweight or obese
• are sedentary
• have epilepsy
• have certain forms of cancer
• have cardiovascular disease
• have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), fibroids or endometriosis
• have been diagnosed with type 1 or type 2 diabetes
• have a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s

A typical low-carbohydrate diet limits the daily intake of carbohydrates to between 60 and 130 grams. This is done by excluding or limiting most grains, legumes, fruits, breads, sweets, pastas and starchy vegetables from the diet and replacing them with meat, poultry, fish, eggs, non-starchy vegetables, nuts, and seeds. When we eat in this way, our bodies begin to change dramatically — especially for those who habitually eat plenty of carbohydrates with each meal.

Why is it so Good for You?

Before you ditch carbohydrates to follow this fad, it is important to consider why so much good can come out of following a low-carbohydrate diet. The most important thing that these diets do is restrict your sugar intake tremendously. The modern diet is inundated with sugar, and many experts agree that this is making us sick more than any other factor. As the national consumption of sugar continues to increase, most consumers have no idea how much sugar they’re getting on a daily basis. For most people, as soon as they start a low-carbohydrate diet their health improves tremendously just by cutting out all the excess sugar.

For example, two pieces of bread on a sandwich will have around 30 grams of refined carbohydrates, that small bag of potato chips has around 15 grams, and if you have a cup of “healthy” fruit juice with that, you will have over 75 grams of processed carbohydrates in one meal. This causes an unhealthy, unnatural spike in blood sugar that stimulates fat gain and inflammation. If you eat processed carbohydrates and starchy foods like this at every meal (most Americans do) then your body will be in a state of chronic inflammation, which leads to more fat gain and disease. On top of all that, excess sugar creates the perfect environment for fungus, parasites, and pathogenic bacteria to thrive and further deteriorate your health.

On the other hand, if you give yourself the simple rule of staying below 130 grams of carbohydrates per day, you will eat less high carbohydrate foods and have a higher chance of eating healthier lower carbohydrate and high fiber foods like leafy greens and other vegetables. To put it simply, the secret behind the success of low-carbohydrate diets is in the shift from eating refined foods to eating more plant foods. This is because vegetables and other plant foods have vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and other components like flavonoids that promote the health of our cells. In fact, vegetables help us deal with higher carbohydrate meals by reducing blood sugar spikes, lowering inflammation, and helping the cells use the excess carbohydrates as fuel. This is why demonizing carbohydrates is short-sighted. It is important to look at why things work rather than just following the propaganda of another diet fad.

Related: Healthy Alternative Sugars and More

What many low-carbohydrate aficionados won’t tell you, however, is that not all of the changes experienced on a low-carbohydrate diet are going to be positive. When carbohydrates are restricted, it is stressful for the body because you are forcing it to find another way to fuel itself. This can cause side effects, like nausea and headaches, that are commonly called the “keto flu”. The lack of carbohydrates will also lead to fluid and mineral loss and hormonal changes that can cause health issues if the diet is not implemented correctly.

Must Read: What Causes Chronic Inflammation, and How To Stop It For Good

Fewer Carbohydrates Means More Stress

When you first start a low-carbohydrate diet, your body will look for more sugar to burn for fuel. Without getting enough carbohydrates from food, your blood sugar levels decrease and your body responds by increasing its cortisol levels.

Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone that is released by your adrenal glands to ensure you have enough energy to survive when food is scarce. When you have low blood sugar levels, your brain sends a signal to your adrenal glands to release cortisol. The cortisol binds to cells throughout your body to stimulate a process called gluconeogenesis, which is what your body uses to convert protein and fat into sugar for fuel.

Eventually, the body will adapt by burning fat for fuel instead of protein — a process called ketosis. The body uses ketosis to preserve muscle mass and glycogen (the body’s sugar stores) during times of carbohydrate and/or protein restriction. It will, however,  take a couple of days for your to body enter ketosis, which will leave you feeling stressed, fatigued, and weak in the mean time.

After learning about this, low-carbohydrate diets start to lose their appeal because of the stressful burden they put on the body. Yet, research doesn’t back up this belief. One specific study found that cortisol increase on a ketogenic diet (the lowest of low-carbohydrate diets) was insignificant when compared to the cortisol levels of people on a moderate and high-carbohydrate diet.

Related: Understanding Stress, Chronic Stress, and Adrenal Fatigue

Another concern with low-carbohydrate diets is that they may cause a buildup of excess ammonia in the body that is caused by burning protein for fuel. Theoretically, this ammonia buildup will lead to kidney and brain damage, however, in case studies done on patients with genetic defects that reduced their ability to process ammonia, the ketogenic diet was well tolerated and still effective. Other studies were done on healthy individuals who were on the ketogenic diet for 6 months or less, and there was no evidence of kidney damage.

It is also important to understand the effects that cortisol has on your mineral levels. When cortisol is released (like it is during carbohydrate restriction), it prevents cells from releasing sodium and increases the rate of potassium excretion. This can lead to constipation, fatigue, and weakness — three of the most common side effects caused by a low-carbohydrate diet (and chronic stress in general). The small increase in cortisol release, however, is not solely responsible for the increased mineral and water needs that people have on a low-carbohydrate diet.

How Low-Carbohydrate Diets Cause Mineral Loss and Fluid Loss

Low-carbohydrate diets act as a diuretic in many ways that are much more potent than the effects that cortisol have on potassium levels. This is why studies address dehydration as the most common early-onset complication of a ketogenic diet. Let’s explore why this is the case by learning about the two powerful mechanisms that give low-carbohydrate diets their diuretic effect.

Insulin and Sodium are Intimately Linked

Insulin is a hormone that lowers our blood sugar when it is too high. Its main job is to get the sugar into cells before it causes problems. Insulin also acts on the kidney to promote sodium reabsorption.

Insulin levels tend to be much lower in people who are on low-carbohydrate diets, which is part of the reason why low-carbohydrate diets are beneficial for people with diabetes and obesity. Unfortunately, this is also the reason why low-carbohydrate diets have a strong diuretic effect. The lower levels of insulin lead to more sodium loss. The sodium will then draw more fluid into the kidney for excretion. This is unlikely to lead to low levels of sodium, especially if you have salt on your food. But if you have symptoms like nausea, headaches, confusion, and fatigue that aren’t going away after restricting carbohydrates, it is best to increase your unrefined salt and water intake.

The Relationship Between Water, Glycogen, and Ketones

Humans are designed to handle short periods of starvation with some assistance from liver and muscle glycogen — the storage form of sugar in the body. Once we start a low-carbohydrate diet, our body tends to rely on glycogen for energy. For each gram of glycogen used, twice this amount is lost in the water. This is because glycogen (as well as all other carbohydrates) retain and attract water.

Related: Intermittent Fasting: The Best Breakfast May Be Eating Nothing At All

Once the body is in ketosis, it is finally able to spare glycogen, but the water loss still continues. This is because the ketones that are created from burning fat will attract more water to the kidneys for excretion.

When you are on a low-carbohydrate diet, you will have lower insulin and glycogen levels and higher ketone levels. This will cause your body to retain much less water and fewer minerals than it did before. This is why it is essential to maintain adequate fluid and mineral intake, especially in the beginning of a low-carbohydrate diet.

Fluid and mineral loss, however, are not the only things to consider when you restrict carbohydrates. When the body finally adapts to a low-carbohydrate diet, many changes occur that can lead to unexpected side effects.

The Longterm Problems Caused by Low-Carbohydrate Diets: Carbon Dioxide and Thyroid Function

Dehydration and mineral depletion are the main culprits for the short-term side effects that are common with low-carbohydrate diets. With some extra water, salt, mineral supplementation, and vegetable intake, these side effects are likely to disappear. After your body adapts to carbohydrate restriction, however, other changes will arise that may cause issues.

Ketosis and Low Carbon Dioxide Levels

When we burn fat as our primary source of fuel, carbon dioxide levels in the body drop. One study confirms this fact of biochemistry by finding that ketogenic diets led to a significant reduction in carbon dioxide output compared to a Mediterranean diet. The researchers even suggest the ketogenic diet as a potential treatment for respiratory issues like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Yet this doesn’t mean that lowering carbon dioxide levels is a good thing for everyone. Carbon dioxide is essential for maintaining health — it isn’t a waste product.

Carbon dioxide helps us use oxygen more efficiently, dilate blood vessels, and protect cells from damage. It also aids vitamin K in helping us with blood clotting, bone and teeth mineralization, growth, energy utilization, and hormonal health. Does this mean that only people with respiratory issues should be on a low-carbohydrate diet?

After looking through the research, it’s easy to find a clear answer — at least for the short-term. No studies on low-carbohydrate or ketogenic diets reported any complications related to lower carbon dioxide levels. This is due to the fact that the body has a powerful buffer system that keeps your blood pH and carbon dioxide at healthy levels. The long term effect of having slightly lower than normal carbon dioxide levels, however, is not known.

To find out if having lower carbon dioxide levels will cause problems in the long term, we can look to the biochemistry to find clues. Without sufficient carbon dioxide to dilate blood vessels, we rely on nitric oxide, which can inhibit enzymes necessary from energy production. In the long-term, this may contribute to the metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity that low-carbohydrate diets are used to fix. The decrease in carbon dioxide levels may also lead to more inflammation and disease in the long-term, due to the decrease in protection and vitamin K activation.

If having lower levels of carbon dioxide concern you then breathe into a paper bag — seriously. By breathing into a paper bag for one to two minutes you will increase your carbon dioxide levels. This was actually shown to promote blood flow through the tiny blood vessels of the retina, so it is likely to cause positive changes throughout your body as well.

Even if you don’t feel comfortable breathing into a paper bag, your body still has the ability to adapt to having lower carbon dioxide levels especially if you take slow gentle breaths in and out your nose throughout the day. The type of food you eat also can shift your oxygen and carbon dioxide levels slightly. For example, you may notice that you can breathe easier after eating a healthy salad than after eating a burger with fries.

If you do experience negative side effects from restricting carbohydrates, however, it will most likely be caused by dehydration and mineral loss. Occasionally, the side effects can persist due to the impact that low-carbohydrate diets have on thyroid health.

Low-Carbohydrate Diets and Thyroid Health

Carbohydrates, carbon dioxide, and thyroid function are intimately connected. When there are adequate levels of glucose and glycogen in our liver, the production of T3, a thyroid hormone, increases. When T3 is released, it stimulates development, growth, metabolism of almost every cell of the body.

When there are lower levels of glycogen and sugar in the liver, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol are secreted from the adrenal glands to regulate heart rate, body temperature, and mobilize energy instead of thyroid hormone. If this becomes the primary strategy for energy production, it will lead to muscle loss, impaired brain function, and excess organ stress.

To prevent your thyroid from crashing on a low-carbohydrate diet, it is important to consume enough calories from fat and protein. This will give your body enough fuel so that it can spare its glycogen, maintain thyroid function, and save you from unnecessary stress. If you are still feeling sluggish and tired after eating plenty of fat and protein, it is best to increase your carbohydrate intake by having black beans, sweet potatoes, or other starchy whole foods with your dinner.

Must Read: Hypothyroidism – Natural Remedies, Causes, and How To Heal the Thyroid

The Take-Away

In the same way that we have adapted to a diet that has carbohydrates, our bodies have the ability to thrive when carbohydrates are restricted as well. The body can use carbohydrates, proteins, and fat for fuel depending on what is available to it, but it is important to realize that each source of fuel creates different effects in the body. By understanding these effects and what is behind them, you can find a diet that works for you at this particular time in your life.

Low-carbohydrate diets cause you to lose vital minerals and fluids, which can lead to fatigue, weakness, headaches, dehydration, constipation, and diarrhea. This is why it is important to increase your water, salt, and mineral intake when you are on a low-carbohydrate diet.

Long-term side-effects are much rarer, but you may still experience fatigue and weakness that aren’t linked to mineral loss or dehydration. If this is the case then it is important to check your thyroid function, eat more vegetables, and have some starchy plant foods with dinner.

In general, you will experience little to no side effects if you have enough fat, protein, salt, water, fiber, vitamins, and minerals in your diet. The simplest way to do this is by eating plenty of non-starchy vegetables— like leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables, a moderate amount animal products from animals that live a healthy life on an organic pasture, and only raw and minimally processed whole foods. In fact, if you follow these rules, you won’t even have to count carbohydrates.

Recommend Reading:

• Gluten, Candida, Leaky Gut Syndrome, and Autoimmune Diseases
• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• How to Detoxify and Heal the Lymphatic System
• Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones
• How to Cure Lyme Disease and Virtually Any Other Bacterial Infection, Naturally

Sources:

• Dietary Intervention for Overweight and Obese Adults: Comparison of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets. A Meta-Analysis — PLOS
• Low-carb diet: Can it help you lose weight? — Mayo Clinic
• Is a Low-Carb Diet Ruining Your Health? — Chris Kresser
• The Dangers of Fat Metabolism and PUFA: Why You Don’t Want to be a Fat Burner — Journal of Evolution and Health
• Insulin’s impact on renal sodium transport and blood pressure in health, obesity, and diabetes — American Journal of Physiology
• Metabolic characteristics of keto-adapted ultra-endurance runners — Metabolism
• Long-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patients — NCBI
• Long-term effects of ketogenic diet in obese subjects with high cholesterol level. — NCBI
• The Effects of a Ketogenic Diet on Exercise Metabolism and Physical Performance in Off-Road Cyclists — NCBI
• The Ketogenic Diet: An Effective Medical Therapy With Side Effects — Sage Journals
• The Physiology of Stress: Cortisol and the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis — Dartmouth
• The Ketogenic Diet Is Well Tolerated and Can Be Effective in Patients with Argininosuccinate Lyase Deficiency and Refractory Epilepsy — NCBI
• Effects of Dietary Composition on Energy Expenditure During Weight-Loss Maintenance — JAMA
• Low potassium (hypokalemia) — Mayo Clinic
• High fat, low carbohydrate, enteral feeding lowers PaCO2 and reduces the period of ventilation in artificially ventilated patients. — NCBI
• Rebreathing into a bag increases human retinal macular blood velocity. — BMJ
• THE RELATION BETWEEN GLYCOGEN AND WATER STORAGE IN THE LIVER — JBC
• Protection of Acid–Base Balance by pH Regulation of Acid Production — The New England Journal of Medicine
• Effects of Twenty Days of the Ketogenic Diet on Metabolic and Respiratory Parameters in Healthy Subjects — Springer Link
• Effect of Ketosis on Respiratory Sensitivity to Carbon Dioxide in Obesity — The New England Journal of Medicine
• Effects of Twenty Days of the Ketogenic Diet on Metabolic and Respiratory Parameters in Healthy Subjects. — NCBI
• Food for Thought: The Ketogenic Diet and Adverse Effects in Children — NCBI
• The metabolic effects of low-carbohydrate diets and incorporation into a biochemistry course — Wiley Online Library
• Beyond weight loss: a review of the therapeutic uses of very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diets — Nature
• Long-term effects of a very-low-carbohydrate weight-loss diet and an isocaloric low-fat diet on bone health in obese adults — Nutrition
• Weight and Metabolic Outcomes After 2 Years on a Low-Carbohydrate Versus Low-Fat Diet: A Randomized Trial — Annals of Internal Medicine
• The mechanism of anti-osteoporosis effects of 3-hydroxybutyrate and derivatives under simulated microgravity. — NCBI
• Progressive bone mineral content loss in children with intractable epilepsy treated with the ketogenic diet. — NCBI
• HUMAN HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT OF CO2: SURVIVORS OF ACUTE HIGH-LEVEL EXPOSURE AND POPULATIONS SENSITIVE TO PROLONGED LOW-LEVEL EXPOSURE— NETL
• Effect of supplementing a high-fat, low-carbohydrate enteral formula in COPD patients. — NCBI
• The ketogenic diet: adolescents can do it, too. — NCBI
• Mechanisms of Ketogenic Diet Action — NCBI
• Low-Carb Side Effects & How to Cure Them — Diet Doctor
• Mechanism of Action and Physiologic Effects of Thyroid Hormones — Colorado State University
• Roles of ghrelin and leptin in the control of reproductive function. — NCBI
• Functional hypothalamic amenorrhea and its influence on women’s health — NCBI
• Hypercortisolemia and Depression — Research Gate
• Effects of Physiological Hypercortisolemia on the Regulation of Lipolysis in Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue — JCEM
• Hypercortisolemia and Infection — Infectious Disease Clinics
• The effects of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet on the polycystic ovary syndrome: A pilot study — NCBI
• Effect of a low-carbohydrate diet on appetite, blood glucose levels, and insulin resistance in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. — NCBI
• Effects of Low-Carbohydrate vs Low-Fat Diets on Weight Loss and Cardiovascular Risk Factors — JAMA
• Nitric Oxide Can Alter Brain Function — Science Daily
  

What are you thinking about?

Me? Oh, I’m just thinking about what to write next (and how meta this sentence is). Meanwhile, you are wondering where this article could possibly be going.

Those thoughts happened spontaneously — painting the crowded canvas of our reality with meaning — only to be replaced by another thought in the next moment. But how does this happen and why is it happening?

During this article, we will co-pilot your brain together to explore your cognition and answer the intriguing question — what, how, and why do we think? With a deeper understanding of your cognition — a term we use to describe the range of mental processes relating to the acquisition, storage, manipulation, and retrieval of information — you will be able to make yourself healthier, happier, and wiser.

What Are We Thinking

What we think is easy enough to describe. If I tell you to think of candy, you use your cognitive abilities to retrieve the information related to the term “candy.” You are overcome by thoughts, feelings, and memories that are related to your past experiences with candy (the taste, the feeling, your favorite kind of candy, etc.). This process was made possible by cognitive abilities you used in the past to acquire and store information, and you probably didn’t notice that this process took place until something triggered the memory of that past experience.

Now, as you think about candy, your memories may seem completely accurate, but you are, in reality, manipulating the information in your mind based on many unconscious and conscious factors. You are probably thinking about what it tastes like and looks like, but you are likely to forget about how much it costs, what is written on the package, and the promise you made to yourself about eating “healthy.” This is a perfect example of your cognitive ability to retrieve information and manipulate that information, and it happens every time you remember something.

In the split second after you read the word “candy,” you experienced every facet of cognition unconsciously, but as I took you through your cognitive processes you were able to experience it consciously. By making our cognitive processes conscious and understanding what affects cognition, we can harness its power to relieve suffering and better our lives in every way. But before we do, we must first develop a more intimate relationship with the most powerful tool we have — our brains.

How Are We Thinking

In your brain, you will find about 100 billion nerve cells called neurons. Each neuron consists of a cell body and branch-like projections (one axon and multiple dendrites) that send and receive messages from other neurons.

Neurons send messages by transmitting electrical impulses across tiny gaps called synapses. These messages and the pathways that are formed between neurons are the physical components of your cognition.

In our first three years of life, our brain has up to twice as many synapses (think neural connections) as it will have in adulthood. These synapses help accelerate our learning by forming neural networks so that we can adapt to our environment as quickly as possible. Our genetics provide the basic blueprint for our synaptic connections, but our environment and how we adapt to it ultimately determine the neural connections in the brain. For example, when I mentioned the word “candy,” your neural connections that are related to the term “candy” fired together and created the experience of a past memory, thought, and feeling. But If you have never heard of candy before, your brain will try to find what it means by using contextual clues. For example, you read earlier that candy has a taste, so that must imply that candy is a certain type of food, right? There is no relevant experience of candy stored in your brain, so it tries to construct one from the context it is given. Once you have a candy bar, however, that experience is stored as neural pathway in the brain. That new neural pathway may be triggered to fire the next time someone mentions candy, which provides you with a little taste of the pleasure or pain you experienced the last time you had a piece.

This example explains the “what” behind the formation of our cognitive abilities. Neurons wire together and form intricate connections and fire together to convey a thought, feeling, and/or memory, but why does this happen?

Why Do We Think So Much?

Although the purpose of cognition is a complex topic that is hotly debated, let’s keep it simple. Cognition is necessary for our survival. The ability to acquire, store, manipulate, and retrieve information allows us to adapt to the environment we live in.

Most animals have these cognitive abilities, but consciously manipulating cognition may be an ability unique to humans. This statement, however, may not be true. Some neuroscientists, like Sam Harris, argue that the freewill we think we have over our cognition is just an illusion. Much of what we think, feel, and do is dictated unconsciously by our genetics, our past experiences, and our environment in such a way that it makes us the victim of our brain rather than the victor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmO5uwzFg0M

On the other hand,  a group of researchers conducted four experiments that may provide evidence against Sam Harris’s contention. These researchers found that we can consciously control the way unconscious stimuli affects our behavior. This means that you can completely change your reaction to unconscious stimuli like what happens in your brain when you read the word  “candy.”

We can easily rewire our neural connections to create the feeling of disgust rather than excitement when we think of candy. We can also use the power of intention, along with nutrition and environmental changes, to enhance our cognition.

How to Enhance Your Cognition

Even if we don’t have freewill, we can still use our internal environment, external environment, and self-awareness to enhance our cognition and better our lives.

1. Change Your External Environment

Your environment has much more power over your brain than you think. Your brain is using your senses to pick up information from your environment every 13 milliseconds. This constant flow of information triggers specific thoughts, feelings, and reactions that you don’t notice until you experience the thought, feeling, or reaction. This suggests that one of the most powerful ways to better your cognition is by changing your environment.

When it comes to hacking your environment here’s a simple principle you can follow — make the things that you should do easier than the things you shouldn’t do.

Here’s an example from my life. To make sure that I don’t eat highly refined food, I never buy it. If my family buys refined foods that are tempting to eat, I will make it more difficult for me to eat them and easier to eat healthy food. To do this, I make the food I want to eat easily accessible and put it in places where I will not see any unhealthy options. This removes candy eating triggers from my environment, which reduces the chance that I will eat candy again.

Other ways to hack your environment are to use essential oils like rosemary, listen to music, and experience nature. The smell of rosemary essential oil has been found to increase alertness and quality of memory, so diffusing it in your workplace may help boost your cognitive performance. Music has potent effects on our brain as well. The effect of music is so potent that it is being used in the treatment of cognitive disorders like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers suggest that the positive effects of music include a calming effect due to the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. Binaural auditory beats and apps like brain.fm may also help you improve focus and creativity.

Related: Understanding Essential Oils: A Complete Guide For Beginners

Another potent cognitive enhancer is nature. Studies have shown that simply looking at a picture of nature stimulates the vagus nerve, which improves mood and self-esteem and reduces blood pressure.

But what happens when we can’t change our environment? You’re not at home, you’ve run out of rosemary oil, the only sound you hear is a jackhammer from the construction workers on the street, and the closest tree is miles away. What can you do?

2. Develop Self-awareness

You can use self-awareness to thrive in any environment. Self-awareness is your conscious knowledge of your own character, feelings, motives, and desires. By developing self-awareness, you can become conscious of the feelings, motives, and desires that are stealing your cognition away from things that are more important.

To develop self-awareness, direct your focus with specific questions. Dr. Relly Nadler suggests asking yourself five simple questions:

• What am I thinking?
• What am I feeling?
• What do I want now?
• How am I getting in my way?
• What do I need to do differently now?

These questions will help you shift your focus and find a better way to act now and in the future. You can also use these questions to assess past experiences so that you can plan a new action for the future. Using the questions in this way can help you use your present cognition to enhance your future cognition.

The most popular way of developing self-awareness is through meditation. By simply sitting and focusing on your breath and nothing else for 10-30 minutes every day, you will train your brain to be less reactive, which reduces stress and enhances cognitive function.

Must Read: How To Be Happy

3. Change Your Internal Environment

You cannot out think poor nutrition. No matter how peaceful your brain and environment are, you will always have poor cognitive function if you aren’t healthy.

For example, if you eat candy and other refined foods every day, your body will be in a chronic state of inflammation as it tries to save your cells from oxidative damage due to free radicals and other oxidants found in the refined foods.

Eating more fruits and vegetables can increase cognitive function, especially cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and kale. When we chew cruciferous vegetables, a compound called sulforaphane is created. This compound is designed to protect the plant from small predators. In humans, it sets off a cascade of processes in the body that detoxify and protect the cells from oxidative damage. After the damage is healed, you can use Lion’s Mane mushroom extract to prevent the loss of cognitive function, while inducing nerve growth factor — a neuropeptide that maintains a healthy brain and grows nerve cells.

Related: Sulforaphane – Why Your Cells Need Cruciferous Vegetables

Supplementing with vitamin B1 and coconut oil also help boost cognitive function by ensuring that your neurons have sufficient energy. Coconut oil contains medium chain triglycerides, which provide an alternative fuel source for brain cells and may prevent neural cell death. Vitamin B1 helps your neurons use energy sources, like sugar, more efficiently. To prevent cognitive loss — especially if you have Alzheimer’s disease — it may be best to supplement with vitamin B3 and curcumin from turmeric. All of the other B vitamins also play an essential role in preventing the loss of cognitive function while improving general health as well, and for we recommend taking a B vitamin complex that has all of the Bs as opposed to just one or two B vitamins, which can throw your body out of balance.

But before you start adding these supplements to your shopping cart, it is important to note that the most effective methods of improving cognition are free.

Increasing your physical activity can improve brain volume and reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by up to 50% and learning a new skill forms new synaptic connections and prevents the loss of synaptic connections and brain volume as we age.

Related: How to Improve Brain Health and Reduce the Risk of Alzheimer’s

To take advantage of both of these benefits at once, go to a movement class, practice a sport, play a new sport, take up yoga. Your brain will thank you by being sharper and more efficient than it ever was before.

If you experience a rapid change in your behavior and/or notice no effect from making the changes suggested in this article, you may have something else going on. So it is important to consult your doctor and get the proper referral.

Putting It All Together

By changing your environment, developing self-awareness, and nourishing your inner environment with brain-boosting foods, you can enhance your cognition and live a life that consistently makes you happier, healthier, and wiser.

Related Reading:

• How to Increase your IQ with the Right Foods, Herbs, Vitamins
• How to breathe
• Mental Health, Physical Health & B Vitamins – Nature’s Valium
• The Fascinating Bacteria in our Gut, and How it Affects Our Whole Lives

Brain Supplements:

• Shillington’s Brain Tonic
• B Complex – Thorne Research
• Shillington’s Cayenne Tincture
• Krill Oil
• Omega-3 w/CoQ10 – Thorne Research

Sources:

• Neurons — Pub Med Health
  Baby’s Brain Begins Now: Conception to Age 3 — The Urban Child Institute:
  How Do We Think — Wonderpolis
• Conscious control over the content of unconscious cognition — Science Direct
  Music Therapy Enhancing Cognition — Alzheimer’s Association
  Man In Nursing Home Reacts To Hearing Music From His Era — Music & Memory
• The effects of views of nature on autonomic control. — NCBI
• What Was I Thinking? — Dr. Relly Nadler
•  COCONUT OIL: NON-ALTERNATIVE DRUG TREATMENT AGAINST ALZHEIMER´S DISEASE — Europe PMC
• B Vitamins and the Brain: Mechanisms, Dose and Efficacy—A Review — NCBI
• PILLAR 3: EXERCISE & BRAIN AEROBICS — ARPF
• Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation — Psychosomatic Medicine
• Binaural Auditory Beats Affect Vigilance Performance and Mood — Science Direct
• Music for the Brain — Brain.fm
• Compounds for dementia from Hericium erinaceum — Journals on the Web
• In the blink of an eye — MIT News

Activated charcoal is expanding into a whole new market. It’s used in water filtration, as poison control, and in herbal medicine regularly, but it’s increasingly showing up in health and beauty care products. So what is activated charcoal, and why are people suddenly rubbing it all over their teeth?

How is Activated Charcoal Different than Actual Charcoal?

Let’s get the biggest issue out of the way. Activated charcoal (also known as activated carbon) is almost but not quite the same thing as actual charcoal (the stuff used for summer grilling). The bulk material used to produce activated charcoal is some combination of bone char, coconut shells, peat, petroleum coke, coal, olive pits, and/or sawdust, while actual charcoal can include all of that plus agricultural waste and other dry biomass.

To create activated charcoal, carbon is heated to temperatures of 1,700 to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit with steam or air in an oxygen-free environment, although wood-based activated charcoals frequently endure a chemical process that includes heat and phosphoric acid as well. The high heat “activates” the charcoal, removing the carbon’s volatile compounds and enlarging its internal pores. These enlarged internal pores allow the now activated charcoal to chemically attract and bind contaminants like chlorine, PCBs, industrial solvents, and pesticides, among others.

Related: How to Eliminate IBS, IBD, Leaky Gut

How It Works

When it’s activated, charcoal acquires a positive charge. This is how the activated charcoal captures nasty stuff in our bodies and the water supply. Chlorine, for example, is being replaced in the water disinfection process by chloramine, a chemical that can form trihalomethanes, which in turn can cause cancer. Since that chemical is negatively charged, positively charged activated charcoal is a cost-effective and safe way to improve the quality of the water we use every day. But people also ingest it.

Here’s What to Take Activated Charcoal For

Activated charcoal is recommended for accidental poisonings and certain drug overdoses. It’s also effective in pulling out harmful mercury and aluminum preservatives found in dental amalgams or vaccines and arsenic from rice and other foods. It’s been associated with lower cholesterol, anti-aging properties, better kidney and liver function, and helps relieve gas and bloating by attracting disruptive digestive byproducts.

In personal care products, activated charcoal attracts many of the dirt and oils that can irritate and increase the likelihood of acne, eczema, dry skin, and other topical infections. Bad breath or body odor often occurs when toxins are exiting the body, and activated charcoal can help quickly remove those toxins.

Related: Diatomaceous Earth – Mother Nature’s Secret Weapon: What Is It, How to Use It, Where to Find It

The Forms of Activated Charcoal

Adding activated charcoal to your diet is not a pleasant undertaking. You’re eating ashes and it tastes about as appetizing as you’d imagine. Due to this, most activated charcoal supplements come in pill form. But activated charcoal is also invading other areas. Activated charcoal can now be found in:

• Shampoo
• Facial sponges and towelettes
• Lattes
• Toothpaste, tooth powders, and toothbrushes
• Soap
• Ice cream
• Skin cleansers

Hoax or Harmless?

Activated charcoal is considered harmless, but there are a few things to consider if you’re interested in trying it. Don’t take activated charcoal with prescription medications and constipation, as the charcoal will exacerbate the issue. It can also cause black stools. The type of raw material used to make your activated charcoal also matters, with charcoal derived from coconut shells generally labeled the highest quality.

The Bottom Line

If we continue to treat the planet as we have been, the amounts of heavy metals, pesticides, and chemicals in our bodies will continue to rise through environmental exposure. Activated charcoal makes the case that we have a solution to at least one aspect of that. If exposure cannot be prevented, then regularly cleansing the body of heavy metals can prevent the kind of buildup that leads to scarier and more serious health concerns.

Related Reading:

• Diatomaceous Earth – Mother Nature’s Secret Weapon: What Is It, How to Use It, Where to Find It
• Detox Cheap and Easy Without Fasting – Recipes Included
• How To Detoxify and Heal From Vaccinations – For Adults and Children
• Mercury Fillings, Root Canals, Cavitations – What You Need to Know

Related Products:

• Activated Charcoal • 100c – Integrative Therapeutics
• Shillington’s Total Draw Poultice Powder
• Shillington’s Intestinal Detox

Sources:

• How to Make Activated Charcoal at Home – buyactivatedcharcoal.com
• Frequently Asked Questions – generalcarbon.com
• The Difference Between Activated Charcoal & Charcoal Briquettes – leaf.tv
• What is Activated Charcoal and Why is it Used in Filters? – How Stuff Works
• Filtration: Sediment, Activated Carbon and Mixed Media – North Dakota State University

Healthy animals mean a healthy environment, right? What about concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs)? These “factory farms” must be cancerous to the environment.

This all seems like common sense, but our common sense can sometimes lead us in the wrong direction.

Gassy Cows and Global Warming

Many studies point to the fact that the production of beef pollutes the atmosphere with more greenhouse gases than the production of any other food. This is because cows are ruminants — a type of animal that acquires nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting their food in a specialized stomach. Because of this fermentation process, cows burp, fart, pee, and poop persistently throughout the day, which adds more greenhouse gases — like methane gas and nitrous oxide — to the environment.

Although fluorinated gases that are commonly used as refrigerants and aerosol propellants are the most potent and longest lasting greenhouse gasses, methane gas and nitrous oxide still have a 25 and 300 times greater impact respectively on global warming than carbon dioxide. Cows and other ruminants also eat plenty of oxygen-producing, carbon-dioxide-absorbing plants.

The Case Against Raising Healthy and Happy Cows

At this point, you may be thinking that cows that live long and healthy lives on pasture are bad for the environment, and you are not alone. Dr. Bill Ripple is a prominent ecologist known for his work researching the roles of large carnivores in ecological systems around the world, and he agrees with you.

Ripple took his expertise to climate change and found that pastured cattle contributed two to four times more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than cows raised in CAFOs.

This isn’t even the worst of it. Cattle have also been found to destroy ecosystems with their grazing. In 1990, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service banished grazing cattle from a 278,000-acre refuge called Hart Mountain to try to restore the ecosystem that was presumably destroyed by grazing cattle. After two decades, trees, shrubs, and flowers flourished providing a beautiful environment for birds, antelopes, and other species to thrive.

This suggests that healthy and happy cows destroy the environment in multiple ways. They produce potent greenhouses gases with their inefficient digestive system and make it hard for ecosystems to thrive. But what do you do if you want to have a big juicy steak and stop global warming?

Bill Ripple’s findings suggest that you should get that steak from a sick and diseased cow that is confined to a jail cell and has a shorter lifespan. Or just give up steak all together and become a vegetarian or vegan. Problem solved!

Hold on, what about all of the cattle? Even if we don’t eat them they will still be grazing, burping, and farting. Should we — dare I say — kill them?

The Bigger Picture: Joel Salatin and Sustainable Farming Practices

The amount of methane emitted by fermentation is the same whether it occurs in the cow or outside.” – Joel Salatin

That’s a brief excerpt from Joel’s rebuttal to the assertion that sustainable grass-fed beef is bad for the environment.

Joel Salatin is the owner of Polyface Farms in Virginia — a farm that produces pasture-raised, beyond organic beef, pork, poultry, eggs, and rabbits.

In his rebuttal, Joel continues by explaining that “…wetlands emit some 95% of all methane in the world.” If you were to fact-check his statement you’d find it to be true, which suggests that if you are going to blame happy and healthy livestock for global warming, you should blame nature as well. Better yet, blame your trash, too — it should know by now not to produce methane gas.

But still, according to Dr. Ripples, findings at Hart Mountain, Salatin’s farm should be struggling to maintain lush green pastures. Although this may be true for other farms that Salatin claims are under “neanderthal management”, Polyface farms uses many different methods like rotational grazing to get the most out of the land while keeping it lush and fertile.

Regardless of what Joel Salatin says, CAFOs are still known to be a much more efficient use of land, and the animals they produce add much less greenhouse gas to the atmosphere due to their shorter lifespans.

Should we just give up on raising happy and healthy livestock?

CAFOs are a NONO

It is a fact that CAFO beef produces less greenhouse gas emissions than grass-fed beef, but this reductionist approach to climate change leaves out many other factors.

For example, animals raised in CAFOs are usually fed GMO soybean, GMO corn, and GMO grain feed. GMOs themselves may not be an issue for the animal (which is debatable), but these GMO crops are covered in pesticides. These pesticides contaminate the meat, the soil, and the water, while the synthetic fertilizers that are used contribute a substantial amount of nitrous oxide — the second most potent greenhouse gas — to the atmosphere.

These growing practices deplete the soil of its nutrients and mycorrhiza ( soil probiotics), which causes us to use more pesticides and fertilizers to yield the same amount of food. These poor farming practices contribute 75% of all the nitrous oxide found in the atmosphere.

The way that animal waste is handled in CAFOs is also a problem that contributes excess nitrous oxide and methane gas to the atmosphere. The manure and urine often accumulate into a “poo lagoon” that contaminates the soil and water with pesticide and antibiotic residues, methane, and nitrous oxide.

When we consider all of the evidence, both Bill Ripple and Joel Salatin are right. Pasture-raised cattle — without a doubt — produce more greenhouse gases than any other animal. But — at the same time — livestock can be raised in a way that is much better for the environment (as a whole) than CAFO-raised livestock.

The beyond organic farming practices that farms like Polyface and White Oak Pastures use are making it possible for this to happen — making it possible to have healthy meat, healthy humans, and a healthy environment at the same time.

Must Read: Understanding and Detoxifying Genetically Modified Foods

The Future of Food Production

Joel Salatin is ahead of his time when it comes to farming. He uses ingenious methods that work together with nature to create healthy meat and a healthy ecosystem.

For example, instead of letting the manure and urine sit in “poo lagoons” and contaminate the water, it is used as a natural soil fertilizer. The bugs and pests that are attracted to the manure and urine are then eaten by the chickens, who act as natural “pesticides”. This helps maintain the health of the soil and foliage while reducing the amount of methane gas and nitrous oxide that is released into the atmosphere. Joel also moves the animals to different pastures so they do not overgraze specific plots of land. By doing things in this way, he maximizes efficiency and maintains a healthy ecosystem.

As Joel Salatin’s methods — and the methods of many other farmers like Will Harris at White Oak Pastures — continue to evolve, we will be able to ensure a happy and healthy life for us, the animals, and the environment without the need for CAFOs and mono-cropping.

But we still didn’t figure out how to stop global warming, and the solution is not to keep cows from burping, farting, pooping, and peeing.

Related: Permaculture Agriculture – The Transition to a Sustainable Future

The Real Cause of Global Warming

Although this article focuses heavily on the effects that meat production has on the environment — here’s the punchline — agriculture (including livestock) only contributes 9% to the total greenhouse gas emissions.

This is why you can’t blame the cow for burping and farting so much — the problem is us.

We dug out fossil fuels that weren’t a part of the environment anymore and added them back to the atmosphere at such rapid rates that we are causing the planet to change just as rapidly. Even 7.5 billion cows burping and farting at the same time couldn’t do that.

The solution to global warming doesn’t solely rely on our meat consumption. Saving our planet requires a multi-faceted approach.

How To Stop Global Warming

It all starts with using less electricity and gas and using more energy from renewable resources. Rather than driving to the gym to get your exercise, combine exercise with other activities you will do anyway. To conserve electricity, use natural light or lights that are powered by a hand crank or the sun.

When it comes to food, buy the highest quality food that is as local as possible. High-quality, bio-dynamic, or beyond-organic foods are much better for your health and the health of the environment, and eating local ensures that less gas will be used to get the food to your house. But what about meat?

When it comes to eating meat, moderation is key. Meat — without a doubt — is packed with nutrition, but most of us consume much more meat than is necessary.

An NPR article from 2012 found that the United States had the second highest meat consumption in the world — consuming 270.7 pounds per person every year. This works out to 3/4 of a pound of meat per day. But how do we know how much meat is enough?

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations — “…to effectively combat malnutrition and under-nourishment…” — they suggest consuming 20g of animal protein per person per day.

This means that eating around 1/4 pound of lean meat or fish or 3 eggs a day is just enough to prevent some vitamin and mineral deficiencies. It would be even better for the environment, however, to limit your consumption of beef and replace it with other animal proteins that have the lowest environmental impact like eggs, mussels, and oysters.

A Better Lifestyle for You and the Environment

Let’s make the complex topic of climate change simple. Here are some practical steps you can use to build a life that is healthy for you and the environment:

• Source all of your foods from local organic farms
• Combine your daily exercise with practical tasks to cut down on gas and electricity
• Get all of your fruits and vegetables from beyond organic and/or bio-dynamic farms
• Get all of your animal products from sustainable farms like Polyface or White Oak Pastures
• Limit your animal protein servings to a quarter pound of meat a day
• Eat most of your animal proteins from animals that have the lowest environmental impact like eggs, mussels, and oysters.
• Reuse, repurpose, and recycle as many food scraps as possible to limit the amount of methane produced by landfills. To find out how, read our article on how to reduce food waste.
• Limit your use of air conditioners (especially in cars) and aerosol sprays to reduce the amount of fluorinated gas that accumulates in the atmosphere.
• When cooking your food, follow the suggestions here, Does Meat Cause Cancer? Yes and No…

By making as many of these adjustments as we can, we will improve our health, animal health, and environmental health — so that we can clean up the mess that we created.

Recommended Reading:

• Is Wheat Poison? What’s Behind the Rise of Celiac Disease and Gluten Intolerance
• How to Cure Lyme Disease and Virtually Any Other Bacterial Infection, Naturally
• Textile Industry’s Health and Environmental Impacts – What Are You Wearing?
• Can Progressive, Cutting-edge Organic Agriculture Feed Everyone?
• My Journey into Organic Farming

Sources:

• Joel Salatin responds to New York Times’ ‘Myth of Sustainable Meat’ — Grist
• No, Grass-Fed Beef is Not Better for the Planet — Forks Over Knives
• Why Go Organic, Grass-Fed and Pasture-Raised? — EWG
• Meat Consumption — FAO
• Understanding Global Warming Potentials — EPA
• Overview of Greenhouse Gases — EPA
• Ruminants, climate change and climate policy — Climate & Clean Air Coalition
• A Nation Of Meat Eaters: See How It All Adds Up — NPR
• Meatifest destiny: How Big Meat is taking over the Midwest — Grist
• How much does animal agriculture and eating meat contribute to global warming? — Skeptical Science
• Main sources of fluorinated gas emissions — What’s Your Impact